Ron, Hermione and Ginny returned shortly after New Year's, packed with bags, gifts, and inhumane amounts of leftovers and candy, courtesy of Mrs Weasley's kitchen and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Harry had briefly considered waiting for them at the train station, but ultimately decided against it. When, in the evening, the Gryffindor dorm began to fill up again, Harry lay on his bed, putting the finishing touches on the essay Professor Slughorn had tasked them with over Christmas. Draco and him hadn't studied during the holidays, but Draco had allowed him to take a look at his essay, and Harry hoped that he'd understood enough to get the rest right by himself.

'There he is!'

Hermione's voice made him halt and briefly look up to see her and Ron striding towards his bed from where the entrance to the dorm was, before continuing to scribble onto the parchment. He had spent the last few hours on the six feet–long text, and now, with a quiet sigh of relief, he wrote the last few words before putting away the quilt and lazily waving his wand for the scroll to roll itself together and levitate towards his other school utensils.

'What, are we not worthy of the great scholar's attention?' Ron scoffed, and Harry finally turned around to meet his friends' eyes.

'It's great to see you too, Ron', he coldly remarked, then getting up and allowing Hermione to embrace him. 'Welcome back.'

'Oh not again', Hermione threw her hands up, 'you haven't been in the same room for five minutes and you're already fighting again. Shut it, both of you.'

'How was Christmas?' Harry tried to change the subject. Her face lit up.

'Oh, it was great! Everyone was disappointed that you weren't there, of course', he smiled apologetically but thankfully, she didn't comment further on it. 'What about your holidays?'

'Calm', he answered. 'Christmas… wasn't really the same without', he swallowed drily, 'without Dumbledore.'

Hermione nodded. Even almost two years later, the old headmaster's absence was felt throughout the castle.

'We ran into Malfoy on the way here', Ron suddenly said. 'I didn't know the bloody ferret stayed over for Christmas.'

'Ron', Hermione warned him.

'You know', he continued, paying her irritated glare no mind, 'I thought he'd go home. Spend the family fortune on champagne and torture a few house-elves for good measure, like his daddy.'

'Ron.'

'I doubt there's much money left', Harry answered without thinking. 'I think Kingsley said they seized most of it for reparations and compensation. And I can't imagine he'd enjoy the empty house much.'

'Oh, because you know everything that goes on in his head, eh?' Ron was visibly getting riled up now. 'What are you, the twat's counsellor? Did he tell you the tragic story of his life over biscuits and tea? Pour his heart out to you while you were making love over his Potions homework?'

'RON!' Hermione seemed close to just hexing Ron's mouth shut, but the redhead wasn't done yet.

'You ever wonder about it?' He shrugged. 'If Malfoy's a poof, I mean. Sure looks the pa—'

He didn't finish the sentence because Harry lunged at him. A brief struggle ensued, with Ron all too willing to pay back Harry's blows in kind, before Hermione whipped out her wand and forcefully separated them.

'Harry Potter! Have you gone completely nuts? And you!' she turned towards Ron, 'that goes for you as well! I told you to drop it!'

She put away the wand and began pulling a reluctant Ron towards the door, muttering something about 'men' and 'thinking with their stupid fists' and whatnot. Panting, Harry wiped his hair out of his face and, upon noticing a bleeding scratch on his knuckle, quickly cast a healing charm on it.

Ron. He hadn't wanted anyone to know about Draco's and his reconciliation at first, Ron in particular, and the other Gryffindor seemed dead set on proving that he had been absolutely right in keeping things from him. And his badmouthing the Slytherin—it was absurd, right? Why would he even say something like that? Harry hadn't forgotten the way his then-nemesis had visibly enjoyed having a certain Pansy Parkinson all over him, back in sixth year, and even if—what was it to Ron? It wasn't any of his business whom Draco preferred to snog, nor Harry's, not that it mattered. They weren't that kind of close, no matter what Ron had insinuated.

He had to keep himself from punching the wall in frustration. He missed the old Ron, the one who would have his back, who used to talk to him, laugh with him, wipe the floor with him at chess. He briefly considered asking Hermione to talk some sense into Ron, but he was sure if she wanted to, she would already have tried, and she wasn't particularly pleased about his faith in Draco either, albeit in a far more civil way.

When he finally felt like he could face the rest of his friends without looking like he'd just downed an entire bag of sour lemon drops, he made his way towards the common room. Fortunately, Ron was nowhere to be seen, but Hermione and Ginny were there, together with the rest of their year and a handful of other Gryffindors. Currently, all eyes were on Seamus, and Harry quietly slid onto a couch next to Neville as he listened to the Irishman's story.

'…and me mum, ye gotta know, she hadn't seen Dean since years ago, and she was all over himself, what he was goin't work as, how his grades was, ye should have seen it. Never left ourselves alone, ye would think him was me lover!'

The room erupted into laughter, even more so as Seamus turned to where Dean was seated and knelt down in an exaggerated caricature of a marriage proposal, complete with a chocolate frog box in lieu of a ring.

'Yeah, she was really quite a handful', Dean confirmed, blushing. 'I mean, parents, right?'

More laughter followed and the group soon turned its attention to another topic. The cushions next to Harry dipped and he turned his head to see Ginny taking Neville's place as the latter vacated the couch.

'So… Dean and Seamus, huh?'

'Hm?'

She giggled. 'You're telling me you haven't seen the way Dean looks at Seamus? I don't think Seamus has, either.'

'Uh…'

'Oh you can't be that daft!' She rolled her eyes.

'But… you mean… they are…?'

'By Godric you are hopeless.' She grinned. 'You see, if two people like each other very, very much…'

— x —

Draco wasn't sure why he had dragged himself out of the common room to see the Quidditch match. It wasn't like he had any fucks to give over whether his house won, nor was he particularly interested in seeing Gryffindor wipe the floor with his fellow Slytherins, and the match had barely been going on for ten minutes when he already wished he had stayed in bed. The team's new seeker was awful and watching made his finger itch, yearning for the feeling of a broomstick between his hands.

'Robins catches the quaffel from Piper, Compton attempts to hit her with a bludger and misses, Robins passes to Weasley, who ducks under Avery and aims for the Slytherin goal posts. Avery tries to shove her, what do you expect from a Slytherin, really? She's gotten away now and Peakes aims a bludger at Avery, good man, that one…'

The new announcer was at better than that ridiculous brat Jordan, at least, he mused. This one actually commented on the game, rather than abusing the megaphone to hit on the teams' ladies. Unsurprisingly however, he was every bit as biased against Slytherin as the rest of the school. Not that Draco could blame him, but he couldn't help the anger that took hold of him nevertheless.

'…and it seems Galloway has spotted the snitch! Oh never mind, he hasn't. Schwartz and Avery got the quaffel now and are making a dash for the Gryffindor goal posts, Gryffindor's Danny Maverick whacks a bludger their way, misses, can I just say, he's nowhere as good as Coote was, Schwartz attempts, pathetic, really, and of course Gryffindor's keeper dodges effortlessly! Ginny Weasley catches the quaffel and passes to Robins…'

Draco let his eyes wander, away from the crowded ranks and up to the sky, where the two seekers were loitering above the goal posts, scanning downwards for the snitch. All four teams had been forced to recruit new blood, and many fan-beloved players had not returned, displaced during the war or dead.

'Pentridge intercepts a pass from Piper to Robins, dodges two bludgers from Thorne and Peakes, and he's headed for Gryffindor's goals, Weasley is expecting him, Pentridge throws, Weasley dives, and misses! Weasley misses the quaffel and Slytherin scores their seventh goal! Slytherin scores, 120 to 70 for Gryffindor at the moment, Gryffindor's lead is getting smaller! Keeper Weasley looks quite embarrassed, he throws the quaffel back into the game now and towards Robins.'

Gryffindor's seeker, a scrawny fourth-year named Galloway, caught Draco's eye as he suddenly shot downwards, and Draco swore under his breath as his Slytherin counterpart wasted valuable moments before catching on and shadowing the Gryffindor.

'Robins passes to Weasley, passes back to Robins, she avoids a bludger, closer—SCORE! Gryffindor is now leading with 130 to 70 points against Slytherin! Take that! And Galloway is chasing something, Carpenter following suit! Slytherin's beater Ivyleaf tries to fire a bludger their way, what kind of sportsmanship do you call that, gets reprimanded by team captain Schwartz for it, Schwartz tries to pass to Avery, Gryffindor's chaser intercepts, and she throws and SCORE AGAIN Gryffindor's chaser Piper scores the 140 to 70 against Slytherin!'

The cheers erupted loudly across the arena and the victorious chaser flew a little loop above the Gryffindor's ranks before returning to the pitch. Draco's eyes were on the seekers again. Carpenter tried to shove the Gryffindor seeker and almost crashed into a pillar and Draco thought he could see something shiny and golden inches from the Gryffindor's outstretched hand—

'Whoa everybody Galloway has found the snitch! The two seekers race for the opportunity to end the game, Carpenter is catching up now, almost there GALLOWAY CATCHES THE SNITCH! ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR! GRYFFINDOR BEATS SLYTHERIN WITH TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY TO SEVENTY POINTS! GRYFFINDOR, EVERYBODY!'

This time, the applause threatened to tear the arena apart. Compton, the other Slytherin beater, angrily sent a bludger flying towards the pitch, leaving a hole in the grass, and Schwartz angrily motioned for his team to land as Madam Hooch whistled, signalling the match's end. That obnoxious Weasley—the female one, not Potter's goon—high-fived her team, the seeker still clutching the snitch to their chest. It wasn't entirely unlikely, Draco thought, that it was the first one they'd ever caught outside practice.

The crowd slowly began to pour out of the stadium now, many in a less-than-civil manner, as always, and within moments from getting up, Draco had been pushed and shoved around half a dozen times—although not always by accident (he suspected the elbow in his ribs had been Nott's). There was, without a doubt, going to be a party in the Gryffindor tower, and equally certain, brooding in the Slytherin dungeons. Looking at it from that angle, Draco was glad he wasn't part of the team anymore.

He still had a Transfiguration essay to research, and that sounded infinitely better than being yelled at for losing to a team full of blood traitors. He'd heard Schwartz had a shorter temper than was becoming of a team captain.

— x —

Hogsmeade. The relationship between the village and the school, Draco mused, was mutually beneficial: for the villagers, a never-ending stream of customers every few weeks; for the students and teachers, a place to relax from the stressful everyday life inside the school. He had used to love these visits, parading Crabbe and Goyle around the shops, enjoying the jealous looks he got whenever he bought anything expensive, even if he knew he'd end up throwing it away out of boredom, or because it wasn't tasty. Looking back now, it all seemed very hollow and pointless to him now. Even with most of the Malfoy accounts frozen or empty, he still had more than enough galleons—he'd bought himself a box of Janssens Bitterzoete Lekkernijen on the way through the village, a chocolate treat from the continent, probably worth more than some of his professors' salaries—and over the past few months, for the first time in his life, as he had come to know the uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation of loneliness, he had caught himself more than once wishing the money to hell if it would mean relief from isolation.

He wasn't sure what made him walk up to the Shrieking Shack. The place had lost its appeal to him long ago, but then again, the village was full of his classmates, some of the most certainly drunk by now, the adults no longer subject to many of Hogwarts' regulations, so maybe the Shack wasn't the worst place to hide at. He'd only chosen to visit the village in the first place to get out of the common room—Pansy had been barred from visiting after an incident in class the week before and with Theo Nott keeping her company, two people he very much didn't want to be alone with were quite the motivation to leave the castle.

'Draco?'

Of course Potter was there. Wherever Draco went these days, the twat already seemed to be there. Two years ago, Draco would have either started a fight or hoped for Potter to start one, but by now, he wasn't even annoyed by his presence anymore. His initial suspicion and then hostility at the Gryffindor's odd attempts at friendship had passed, too, for the most part, at least, and as much as he pretended it didn't, a hint of a warm feeling spread in his body at the sight of the familiar black hair and crooked glasses.

'Potter', he nodded, taking in the scenery in front of him. 'Looking for a place to rent? Just when I thought you couldn't sink any lower.'

They both knew it was a joke. He'd said something similar, years back, and for a moment, he pictured the fit his father would throw if he were to see him right know, playfully bantering with his sworn enemy.

'Oh, you know', Potter shrugged, keeping a straight face, 'quaint view, shops nearby, guaranteed haunting every month, educational opportunities in walking distance? Makes you wonder nobody's snatched it up yet.'

Against his will, Draco snorted. 'Yeah, sure. Haunted, my arse. Not since that bea—'

He stopped himself just in time. Not since that beast, he had almost said, and he was sure Potter was aware of it. It was better to avoid the subject. Sure, the man—Lupin, that had been his name—had been all but sane and well-mannered in comparison to most of his kind (he shuddered at the thought of Greyback), but he was hardly going to admit that to Potter. And fact remained that Dumbledore, the old nutjob, had let a dangerous creature into the school, knowingly.

Potter seemed to sense what he was thinking, because he fell silent and remained so until Draco eventually suggested relocating to the Three Broomsticks. By now, anyone who intended to get pissed would have moved on to other, more shady pubs.

When Draco returned to the Slytherin common room later that day, he found Nott and Parkinson suspiciously absent. But someone had spread his books and parchments all over his bed while he'd been gone, and every scroll had 'traitor' written on it in red ink.

— x —

He wasn't sure where he was. Sitting, apparently? There was a warm, comforting presence nearby. He felt it. Someone was banging on the door. Screams. A hand on his shoulder, an unspoken assurance that everything was going to be fine—

Harry's head slid off his folded arms and unto the table. His eyes flew open. He was in the Gryffindor common room, slouched in one of the comfy chairs, his head and arms rested on the table next to it. He tried to remember what he'd dreamt about, but already the memory was fading.

Across the room, Ginny and Ron were crowded together, hunched over a miniature Quidditch pitch. Neville had fallen asleep in front of the fireplace, Hermione, unsurprisingly, had buried herself in an ungodly amount of books, and Seamus and Dean were curled up on one of the sofas. Some other students from the years below were present, but Harry paid them no mind. He didn't know most of the new faces anyway. Curious, he sauntered over to the two Weasleys.

'…their seeker will be a problem, but that's for Riles to deal with', Ginny was saying. 'What you need to look out for is Evans. You saw him against Ravenclaw, he basically scored half the goals on his own. Hi Harry.'

Harry nodded in greeting.

'Now', Ginny resumed, 'I'll tell Peakes and Thorne to keep him away from our goal posts, but keep an eye out, and don't let him bluff you.'

'Talking about the match?' Harry inquired. The week before, Ravenclaw had beat Hufflepuff, after a fairly tough match, and Ginny had been worried all day about the upcoming Gryffindor v. Hufflepuff match.

'We were just going over strategy', Ron answered in her stead. 'You saw them, what do you say?' Their previous fighting seemed forgotten.

'Pavington isn't all that good a keeper', Harry answered after a short contemplation. 'They're gonna need the beaters…'

'Brooke and Quendridge', Ginny supplied.

'…Brooke and Quendridge, thank you, they're gonna need them to keep your chasers away from their goals. Might give you a bit of an upper hand if you can have Peakes and Thorne play offence. And tell Galloway to be careful with their seeker, he seems to think he's Viktor Krum or something, almost got Wright hospitalised with his Wronski stunt when they played Ravenclaw.'

Next to them, Hermione closed her book, a notable bit louder than required, and stuffed the rest of her portable library into her bag.

'Since you can't keep quiet', she announced, 'I'm going to the library.'

Ron and Ginny at least tried to look somewhat guilty, but Harry could picture them rolling their eyes. Both of them still failed to comprehend Hermione's utter lack of interest in Quidditch.

'I'm coming with you', Harry quickly said. 'I still have to, erm, still write that paper for Charms, just let me fetch my books real quick.'

Hermione raised her eyebrows, but didn't protest. He quickly hurried back into the dorm and threw a fresh scroll of parchment and some quills into his bag before returning. Hermione waited until they were a safe distance from the common room before speaking up.

'Why did you lie?'

Harry spluttered and was about to protest, but she didn't let him speak.

'You lent your Charms textbook to Neville yesterday, and I happen to know that you've already written that essay. So?'

He sighed. 'I… just didn't want to hang around Ron too much. Figured I'd leave before he picks a fight.'

He was grateful for her silence. He didn't need yet another lecture. They parted as they reached the library, her venturing towards the Arithmancy aisle, leaving him at entrance. It wasn't until he received a disapproving glare from Madam Pince—maybe standing around without a book or something to do offended her sense of order—that he decided to walk towards Draco and his usual spot. He might as well sit down and stare at the wall there.

He turned the corner to where the two of them often sat down, and—found one of the chairs occupied by none other than Draco. The Slytherin had heard him and lowered the magazine he'd been reading to questioningly raise his eyebrows at Harry.

'I can't recall us scheduling to study today, Potter.'

'No, I just… needed a quiet getaway place', Harry explained. 'Don't ask.'

'Oh. Well, suit yourself, then.' Draco gestured at the empty chair opposite him and disappeared behind his paper again.

This was something he could get used to, Harry thought as he sank into the cushions of the chair. The library was silent, and aside from Draco's breathing and the occasional turning of a page, nothing disturbed his peace.

A/N: Let there be Quidditch! I put way more thought into it than I can justify, probably, complete with a schedule of which match happens when, who wins by how many points, and names for all the players who aren't established characters. It was quite a pleasant way of procrastinating, really. Also, I know jack shit about Quidditch, so I guess my descriptions of it are 100% wrong, but who cares.