These Things
By: Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: not mine, not profiting, 'nuff said
Warnings: bit o' language, pre-slash
A/N: Yes! I've finally written chapter three. Yay for me! Anyway, I'm so busy . . . it's stressful and I'm trying so hard not to think about it. I'd rather not have to kill myself because I've got so much to do and not nearly enough time. .; I actually like how this turned out and am looking forward to the next two or three chapters. I'm still not positively sure where I'm going with this though. While I figure that out, though, please read, enjoy, and review. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. If things go well, by the end of the weekend.

Draco couldn't say he knew the dungeons like the back of his hand. He was, however extremely comfortable with them. Unlike Pansy and Blaise who often got lost if they wandered off, he could always find his way back to the Slytherin Common Room or to the Great Hall, no matter how far into the castle he'd wandered. Unfortunately, everything had happened too fast for him to get a proper grip on where in the dungeons he and Potter currently were. He recognized a few classrooms and was pretty sure that they were headed toward an exit that would open up somewhere near Hagrid's hut, but he wasn't positive and the way his luck was currently going he wouldn't be surprised if they'd gone full-circle and he inadvertantly delivered them both to You-Know-Who and all his followers.

"You sure you know where we're going?" Potter panted from somewhere behind him.

"I never said I knew where we were going," Draco said with an eyeroll. "I only said I hope that this isn't a dead-end corridor."

"Oh."

Draco frowned and slowed his step a little. He'd rather expected some kind of retort from the other boy. Something scathing or something stupid (with Potter you never knew when you'd get wit and when you'd get some random, half-arsed insult directed at his hair or something). Instead he'd gotten 'oh'. And not just 'oh'. He'd gotten a soft, acquiescent, completely without rancor 'oh'.

"Oi, Potter, are you feeling okay?" Draco asked because, honestly, the boy couldn't be feeling himself.

"Not really, no," was the honest answer.

The blonde stopped and turned to see Potter was much farther back then he'd originally thought. One hand was clutching his stomach, the other his forehead, and he looked like he could pass out again at any moment. Which was not acceptable. There was no way in the seven hells that Draco was carrying his dead-weight arse again. Not twice in a night and hopefully not ever.

"Well, what is it?" he asked, walking toward him. "Because if you faint again you're on your own."

"My scar," Potter breathed. "It . . . Voldemort's . . ." He stopped in the middle of a sentence he'd probably never planned on finishing anyway and took two very shallow, wheezing breaths.

Draco had seen more than his fair share of panic attacks. Back when it was all about OWLs, Pansy and Millicent had each had at least one a week, not to mention Vincent and Greg who were convinced that they were going to fail and be kicked out of the school for being stupid and moronic. Only Blaise, Theodore, and Draco had kept it together in public, though they confided one night that they'd each had a few moments of anxiety when they were alone and particularly stressed out. Potter had all the symptoms; he looked dizzy, the light of Draco's wand showed that he was pale and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and he couldn't breathe properly.

There were only a few things to do when one had a panic attack, or so Draco had learned. You could always let them sit it out and hope they didn't hyperventilate, pass out, throw up, or die on you. You could be calm and patient and loving (when he'd been younger and prone to panic attacks, his mother and father had used that method). Or, you could slap the person and hope that it knocked them out of it. He was leaning toward the latter because he wasn't going to just sit around and wait for You-Know-Who to find them and he definitely wasn't going to whisper sweet nothings until the prat calmed the fuck down. But then Potter had fallen to his knees and started whispering, almost inaudibly, "Not again, not again, please." And then a bit more forcefully, "Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking."

Occlumency, Draco realized. Snape had taught him a little when he was younger. He said that someday it might be the difference between life and death, whether or not he learned to master it. He'd never been too good at it. His attention span had been too short when he was little, and even though he practiced faithfully, there was always too much to think about to properly empty his mind. Mostly it was Potter or Quidditch or his mother or his father or his classes. It was just too much of a stretch to be able to stop thinking period. The question now, was not, however, why the hell had Draco never learned it properly, but rather, why the hell was Harry trying it? And who'd taught him?

There were only a few Wizards out there who were accomplished at Occlumency. As far as Draco knew, Snape, Dumbledore, and You-Know-Who were three of the best. Everyone else could only hope to be as good at it.

Potter was still kneeling on the cold, dungeon floor, head bowed and both hands now clutching his forehead. He kept on taking in deep breaths through clenched teeth and then letting them out on a hiss. It was almost as funny as it was frightening, but Draco decided it wouldn't be a good time to laugh. Instead he knelt next to him and put his hands on the side of Potter's head.

"Hey, calm down, all right? It'll never work if you keep on like this."

"You try having Voldemort in your head, showing you your best friends dead and rotting, and then you calm down."

Okay, point taken.

"Look, I'm only trying to help. This corridor'll lead us out of the castle." I hope, he added silently. "But we have to hurry. It'll help if you calm down and empty your mind of all thought. Don't worry about anyone else. They're safe." I hope, he added again. If only because he couldn't stand the thought of what would happen should news get out that Death Eaters and You-Know-
Who had invaded Hogwarts and killed a bunch of kids. No more Hogwarts, probably. No more safe-haven. Never a good thing.

Draco kept his hands where they were, noted that Potter's knuckles were white and his nails were close to breaking the skin of his forehead. He was still taking in shallow breaths. Definitely not calming down at all. The blonde sighed and leaned down.

"Take deep breaths, okay?" he ordered. "Breathe with me."

He took in easy, measured breaths of air and let them out slowly, willing Potter to follow his example. Slowly he massaged the other boy's temples, felt him start to relax bit by bit. A memory flashed in Draco's mind of Snape doing this for him when he was a boy. He could still remember it very clearly.

He'd been seven and well on his way to learning everything his tutors had hoped he would. His parents were proud and his father promised him special lessons with Severus Snape. Draco remembered how much he'd like Snape back then. He'd painted an imposing figure at all times, even though he was thin and a bit odd looking. He was always so dark compared to his father and mother and looked strangely out of place in Malfoy Manor, but he felt safe somehow. Because Lucius Malfoy trusted him like he didn't trust anyone else. So Draco trusted him, loved him even, without knowing him.

They'd been in his father's study one day, his parents off to the side looking on anxiously while Snape had looked down at him with dark eyes and told him how important it was that he mastered this skill. Then he'd told Draco to empty his mind and muttered Legilimens and it was all fuzzy, the memories that had been dredged up. But it wasn't fuzzy how kind Snape had been and how he'd taught him to focus.

It had been years since Draco had needed anyone to help him, but it was apparent that Potter had never even known this method existed; it was a simple focus, using someone else's body to help calm your own. The most base of natural spells and the most innate method of natural healing. And the wonderful thing was, you didn't even have to like the person.

A few moments later Potter was calm enough to drop his hands from his forehead.

"Okay," he breathed. "I'm fine now."

"Then let's go," Draco said, standing up and pulling Potter behind him. "It shouldn't be that much further."

The dark-haired boy nodded, still looking a bit peaky, eyes weary behind his glasses. They made their way through the dungeons, Draco slowing his pace slightly to make sure that Potter kept up. They turned left, right, right, went straight and then they were there. The corridor stopped abruptly and Draco realized he'd never been here before. And it looked like his luck wasn't changing. There was nothing but a wall and an elaborate carving of an elegant serpent.

The blonde was just about ready to give up when he and Potter looked at each other at the same moment.

"D'you think-"

"Could you -"

They smirked and nodded.

"Go for it."

"All right then."

Potter stared intently at the serpent and then he was speaking in a language that Draco desperately wanted to understand. But what sounded like nothing but a series of hisses that rolled off of Potter's tongue in an obscenely sensual manner must have made sense to the carving because the serpent flicked it's tongue three times and then the wall was shifting just enough to allow them through. Potter muttered something else and then he grabbed Draco's wrist and tugged him forward.

"Come on, the sooner we get out of here the better. I think Voldemort's close."

Draco didn't really know what to say to that, and anything he might have come up with got caught in his throat at the sight of the cloaked man standing before them, frowning and looking fit to kill. The wall closed with a resounding thud and there was no escape. And just when he thought his run of bad luck was gone . . .