Author's Note: Wow. Long time, I know. Sorry about that, with school, work, Forever, and my own laziness, this fic kind of took a back seat. I will try to update more frequently, and everyone whose been reading Forever, expect to see a few similarities. I didn't intend them to parallel each other, but in the next few chapters . . . well, it will make sense then. Thank you all for reviewing, without them I would have given up a long time ago.

And now on to the fic . . .

Draco sat in his rooms, not wanting to deal with the chatter in the Slytherin common room tonight.

He'd been thinking about Harry, which led to thoughts of Voldemort, and Lucius. Millicent's words from that morning echoed hauntingly. The Dark didn't want him and the Light wouldn't take him.

It would be nice if the words were true, but he knew they weren't. Voldemort would accept him if he chose to follow his father's path, and he was powerful enough that Dumbledore wouldn't turn him away.

In this war, and it was war, whether or not the Ministry would admit it, there was no neutral. Idealistically, what he'd told Harry was true. He never wanted to be a slave, to anyone. But if he sided with the Phoenixes, and they lost…he'd heard tales, and seen his father come home half dead on more than one occasion, hell, his father had been killed. He did not want to be prisoner to a man who tortured and murdered his own allies. Merlin only knew what he did to those he considered traitor.

Draco's dark thought were interrupted as Blaise and Pansy walked in, both wearing serious expressions. The four fire lizards hissed happily, ignored by the humans.

"I don't know why you've taken this strange interest in Potter," Blaise began, "but something's happened."

"He's in the hospital wing now," Pansy continued, voice softer.

"What?"

"He was acting strange in the hall, started speaking in Parseltongue, and then he just…collapsed."

Draco stood, and was just as quickly shoved back down by Blaise. "Sorry, mate, but not all of us are Phoenixes, and some of the Death-Eaters-in-training are getting suspicious. You can't run out there just because the Golden Boy fainted in the hall."

Pansy nodded in reluctant agreement. "If you're not with the Dark Lord, you're against him, and you know as well as I that we're outnumbered in Slytherin."

Anger. Draco was furious, with his housemates for being so blind, with Dumbledore for splitting the school into Houses that hated each other, with Voldemort for existing, with the world that seemed so set against him. "Bloody hell!"

Standing again he pushed Blaise aside, pacing back and forth. The air around him seemed coiled with the tension obvious in his body.

Pansy gave Blaise a worried look. Draco was never this out of control.

"Draco," Blaise began. His voice was quiet, but caught the blonde's attention nonetheless. "What's going on between you and Potter?"

Reading the look in his friend's eyes, the tone of voice, Draco gave a short, humorless chuckle. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all."

Pansy looked at him her face telling him as clearly as if she'd said it out loud. She didn't believe him. "Then why do you care?"

On the white cotton sheets of the hospital wing bed, Harry Potter writhed in silent pain. The blanket they'd thrown over him when he started shivering had long since been kicked to the floor, and the sheets were crumpled where his hands clutched at them, knuckles going white. He was still unconscious.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked again. The question had been repeated many times in the last hour, asked of Madame Pomfrey, of McGonagall, of Dumbledore.

Silence was her only reply. No one knew. The Headmaster was gone, having been told of Bulstrode's part in all of this. McGonagall too had left, to find books that no one actually believed would help.

"Please." Ron looked to Madame Pomfrey, the third member in their quiet vigil. "Please help him. At least make him stop hurting."

She looked back at them, her eyes shiny with tears she refused to shed. "There's nothing I can do without the risk of making it worse."

And on the bed, face tight, jaw clenched, Harry stayed lost in nightmares and agony, no end in sight.

Ideas, suggestions, constructive criticism always welcome. Please review!