Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. The cards used are copyrighted by Lynn Gordon/ A Spark! production and published by Chronicle Books.

No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Note: When we were on one of our shopping spree's in Amsterdam, we ran into several card decks…. This story sprang forth from the '52 Ways to find your true love' card deck. The idea is that we each take a POV and write alternating chapters, as you will see when the story develops. – Veer and Nat –

Thank you to our betas Tip and Keikokin!

Chapter 4

After Draco's father had been sent to Azkaban, his mother had made sure not to venture out of doors too much. It was simply too much of a strain on her nerves. Therefore, she hadn't accompanied her willowy, blond son to the train station. She did say something to him though, something that kept him thinking all the way to the train station. She had kissed his cheek, as she always did when she said goodbye to him.

As he had received her kiss, Narcissa had looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Have a wonderful year, Draco. If you follow your heart, everything will turn out right. I'm sure you'll do great." As she walked to the door she said in a very quiet voice, but loud enough for Draco to overhear "And for Merlin's sake, TELL him!!!!"

Had she known? He'd owl her the minute he got the chance.

At Platform 9 ¾ he was steadily ignored by most of the Slytherins. He did receive some nods and "hellos" from people from the other Houses. They had started doing that ever since it had become known that his father had been caught by the Ministry and that he had refused to receive the Dark Mark. He nodded back at them.

"Draco!" a familiar voice shouted.

His two remaining friends, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, came walking towards him.

"Hey Dray," Blaise said as he punched him affectionately on his shoulder.

"Hey Blaise," Draco answered him.

"Hello Draco," Pansy said.

"Hey guys. How was your summer?" he asked them.

They looked at each other rather nervously, and then looked back at him and Draco began to get suspicious. He hadn't heard an awful lot from either of both of them, but he had figured that that had been because of their parents.

"What's going on with you two?" he asked in a cautious voice.

"Oh, bloody hell, let's just tell him okay?" Blaise said to Pansy.

She nodded, "You see Draco," she started, "Blaise and I have been corresponding a lot over the summer…."

"I thought so, since I didn't receive as many owls as usual." Draco put in, glaring at them with the patented Malfoy glare.

"Yes, well," Blaise took over, trying in vain not to be bothered by his glaring friend, "We've been writing a lot and then we started to see each other more often. We don't live that far away from each other, as you know. And then…the thing is..."

Draco looked on in awe. Was Blaise blushing? He should remember – and exploit it.

"The thing is, Draco, we're dating." Pansy finished the sentence.

They both looked at him expectingly.

Draco was taken aback. He hadn't seen that one coming! He did have to admit that he had been rather busy with his own problems and had therefore not taken as much interest in his friends as he should have.

A smile crept on to his face.

"Congratulations, you guys!" he said, hugging them both.

"What about you?" Pansy asked.

"Yes, Dray, ready to tell him finally?" Blaise asked with a small smile.

Draco stood, gaping at them. How much did they know? How did they know? Had his mother told them? Oh, the horror of that thought! Should he be worried about a conspiracy?

Blaise smiled at Pansy. "Let's get him inside, okay? Come on Dray, we've already secured a private compartment."

As they turned to walk towards the train, they passed Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who were talking with Neville Longbottom.

"Weasley, Granger," Draco said.

He completely ignored Neville, who gave a sigh of relief over that. With significant effort he managed to use the same tone of voice that he used with Blaise and Pansy. Weasley nodded in acknowledgement. Granger actually smiled at him and said, "Hello Malfoy," in her polite voice.

He could feel Blaise and Pansy staring at him so hard that their gazes could have bored holes in his head. They climbed on board, helped Draco put his trunk away and went to the compartment where Blaise and Pansy had already put the rest of their things. They cast silencing charms around it and then said, almost at the same time:

"Ok Dray, time to explain that little interaction with Weasley and Granger."

He had to swallow before finding his voice.

"What did you mean by what you said on the platform?" he had to ask them first.

"Well, Dray," Blaise began while Pansy snuggled against him, "You've been staring at him almost since the beginning of 6th year and I am pretty sure that you've been doing that the years before too. I would say that it's pretty obvious. Have you told Potter that you're in love with him?"

Having said his piece, Blaise leaned back against the seat of the train, pulling Pansy closer. They both looked at him, waiting expectantly.

"No. But I told Weasley and Granger." Draco answered.

"WHAT?!" If their eyes had grown any larger, Draco might have mistaken them for the plates they would soon see at the feast.

"I figured I owed them an apology for the past. I was going to do that anyway, with me not becoming a Death Eater and all," he explained.

Blaise and Pansy nodded. He'd been talking to them about apologizing after coming to his senses when his father was arrested and imprisoned in Azkaban.

"So," he continued, "I owled them and apologized. I told them that I hoped we could at least be civil. And then I ended with a last sentence admitting that I'm madly in love with Potter, and that I'd be wooing him this school year." He couldn't help but smile.

"You really did that? How'd they react?"

"Weasley demanded proof. The suspicious oaf didn't believe me. He thought it some kind of sick joke. I told him that it wasn't and now he's waiting to see if I'm serious. Apparently Granger also noticed me looking at him a lot. She put two and two together and wasn't surprised. She also demanded proof, so I told her what I told Weasley. By the way it went before we boarded, I'd say that being civil to each other is a definite possibility. I think I'll find them later to say "hi" and probably apologize to them again, in front of Potter."

"Still calling him Potter, are you?" Blaise asked looking at him.

"Yeah. Harry is…too much right now. If all goes according to plan, I can always call him that. Potter is an improvement to, "Scar Head," anyway. Besides I call Weasley and Granger by their last names too."

"But, when are you going to tell HIM?" Pansy wanted to know.

"Not just yet. I figured I'd just apologise and then I'd just be friendlier to him, Weasley and Granger. Maybe start up an actual conversation and take it from there." He looked at them. "But I'll take advice if you've got it!"

Blaise had been thinking while Draco had been talking.

"Dray, you know that neither Pansy or I took the Dark Mark."

Draco nodded.

"We could use some friends to see us through this last year at Hogwarts too. How about we come with you and apologize too? Maybe we can then have a bit of a life outside of Slytherin, seeing as we probably won't be as popular as we were before."

Draco thought about it.

"Well, that would be great, but only if you want to."

"I have another question for you. What made you owl Granger and Weasley?"

A small smile crept up his face. "Have you guys heard of this new magazine " i Wizards in Muggle Land /i ?" The surprised looks of his fellow Slytherins told him enough.

After explaining it to them and even showing them the issues he had kept (the ones with the tips in it) they decided to go and meet the three Gryffindors. That meant walking through the train and being stared, sneered and hissed at or simply ignored. Not necessarily in that order. Finally, they came upon the compartment where the three Gryffindors were catching up just like the three Slytherins had been doing. Draco took a deep breath, put his Malfoy Mask on and opened the door.

Potter, Weasley and Granger looked up almost simultaneously. Their reactions were a bit different though. Weasley scowled and seemed to bite his lip to make sure that he didn't say anything. Granger just looked at him with an eyebrow raised in a silent question. Potter was looking at him, apprehension in his eyes, as though he were waiting for Draco to do something.

"Well, if it isn't the Perfect Trio," Draco sneered, just like he always did.

Granger had a bit of a disappointed look about her. He heard Pansy gasp softly behind him.

Weasley proved to be a bit smarter than Draco had given him credit for. "What do you want Malfoy?"

Draco couldn't help but smile softly as Granger's look changed immediately and she seemed to catch on.

"Yes Malfoy," she asked in rather bored tone of voice, "do you have anything interesting to tell us, or are you going to say what you've been saying for almost seven years now?"

That was his cue.

"Actually I do," he said, stepping into the compartment, followed by Blaise and Pansy.

When they were all inside, the Slytherins closed the doors, murmured locking and silencing charms and sat down.

"This is interesting," Granger said, clearly taking the lead on the Gryffindor side. "Now what's going on?"

"Well, Potter, you obviously know about my father being in Azkaban, seeing as you helped to put him there," Draco glared at Potter. "What you also might know is that I refused to take the Dark Mark last year."

They nodded. Draco wasn't very surprised that they knew, as not much got past them.

He continued: "Blaise and Pansy declined the Dark Mark as well."

Draco had to smile at the surprised looks on their faces.

"Our refusal of the Dark Mark had some consequences. The one I am ready to tell you is that we are personae non grata in Slytherin now. Personally, I don't really care, as it's our last year and I made my choice fully aware of what would happen. Since I started thinking for myself, I decided that there were a few things I still had to do. One was refusing the Dark Mark. Second was seeing what friends I had left. Now you can see them too. And third, I wanted to end our rivalry, Potter. It started because of what my father told me, and as you know, back then I believed everything he told me -but no more. I'd like to offer, from my side anyway, a truce: a chance to get to start over again. Who knows? Maybe we can be friends. If not, I hope we can at least be civil to each other. This of course, also counts for you, Weasley, and you, Granger."

Hermione was smiling at Draco, giving him a funny look. He suddenly questioned whether or not he had done the right thing.

"Uhm," said Blaise, suddenly finding five pair of eyes focused on him: "Pansy and I have been talking about this too and we would like to say that we feel the same way, don't we Pansy?"

She nodded her agreement and smiled.

"Well, as peachy as all of this sounds," Weasley actually managed sarcasm, a plus, Draco had to admit, "How do we know this just isn't one big hoax?"

Draco, Blaise and Pansy looked at each other. Finally, Draco sighed. He pulled up the sleeve of his uniform shirt and showed them his arm. It was unmarked. Blaise and Pansy did the same, and they also had unmarked arms.

Draco was now beginning to get a bit nervous. It was nice that Weasley and Granger were playing along, but what he really wanted to know was Potter's reaction. He finally dared himself to look at the messy, raven-haired boy. He found green eyes on him. He couldn't exactly read them, but he could tell that Potter was thinking hard.

"Look," Blaise said to get them past the silence, "I don't expect you to immediately embrace us as your new best friends. We all know that that would be…well…awkward, now wouldn't it? But we'd appreciate it if you would think about it at least. It's our last year at Hogwarts and I would rather end it knowing I have new friends than I would end it with enemies based on facts that are no longer accurate."

"You're right," Potter finally spoke. There was an edge to his voice Draco hadn't heard before. Ok, so they'd usually only sneered at each other and thrown insults and thus he didn't really know what Potter's voice sounded like. But there was definitely an edge to it.

"We can't just embrace you as our newest, best friends. But I also see the point you're making about ending old feuds. This does come out of the blue, though, so we need to think about it. But there is one thing: If you want this friends-thing to have an honest chance, you're going to have to stop using the names you called Ron and his family and Hermione. If you can do that, maybe we'll talk later."

Wow, Draco thought, Potter knows how to make a point. He'd been looking straight at Draco while he gave his little speech and hadn't moved a muscle. His voice, however, did all the talking. Literally. It was low and calm but with an undertone that said that this was un-negotiable.

Draco nodded. What else could he do? He'd come asking for their friendship and thus had little leverage with which to bargain. Oh wait, he did have something to put in:

"Fine, but in that case I would like it if you and your friends would not use the f-word when talking about or to me, ok?"

Someone snorted. It was a muffled snort, but it was there. And suddenly the old Malfoy glare was back in action, sweeping over the three Gryffindors. Why was Potter suddenly so interested in what was happening outside? When he turned his head back, Draco could see his lips slightly twitching and there was a laugh in his eyes.

Draco opened his mouth to tell him off, but at that moment the speaker on the train announced that they had only 30 minutes until arrival at Hogwarts and that all students were required to return to their compartments to change into school robes.

"We'll talk later," Draco managed to get out before he left. When he looked back to close the door, he saw the three Gryffindors looking at him with a contemplative look on their faces.

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Thanks for reading! – Veer & Nat –