A/N: Two things have come to my attention. One, I realized that I've sort of strayed from the whole horcrux thing. That's coming back in this chapter, though. Two, I've also realized that I don't take this very seriously, which would probably explain these author notes. I thought you should know in case you...I don't even know what I thought, actually. Sorry. Also I really, really like the word traipse, and sorry if my British spellings offend anybody, with me not being British and all. Beta'd by the lovely Maddy (magnumzero), Courtney (deppingthought) and Liz (lizterine).

Chapter 6

There had been a time when it had seemed to Harry as though Draco was everywhere around him.

But just like that, he seemed to be gone.

More and more, Draco seemed to be absent from lessons. At first, it wasn't that noticeable, at least not to anybody but Harry and Blaise, but as the weeks past, he was missed. Frequently, in lessons, in corridors and at mealtimes, Professor Snape or Professor Dumbledore took Draco away with them. The boy was growing alarmingly pale, even by his usual standard. His skin was taking on a grayish, diseased-looking tinge. He was becoming more and more emaciated as the days past, and he rarely spoke or looked at anybody, least of all Harry.

Once, Harry might have attributed this lack of contact to the awkward aftermath of a secret rendezvous in an abandoned classroom, a broom cupboard or under the Quidditch stands. But he didn't think so now, somehow. Harry hadn't been in very much contact with Draco in what seemed like months. Draco looked truly ill, and as though he hadn't slept properly in weeks.

Which, Harry reflected sadly, he probably hadn't.

One rainy Thursday afternoon, Harry entered a Defence Against the Dark Arts class only to be sent back out the door by an exhausted-looking Snape.

"The headmaster would like to see you, Potter," he said pointedly, before directing Harry out of the classroom.

Harry, perplexed and not a little worried, traipsed up to Dumbledore's office. He arrived at the gargoyle, then realized with a pang of annoyance at Snape that he hadn't been told the password. He stood there stupidly, wondering what to do next, and was just about to fall back on his time-honored tradition of shouting random candies at the statue when Dumbledore came striding wearily around the corner—where the Hospital Wing was, Harry noted.

Dumbledore smiled in a rather forced way. "Ah, Harry. I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. Please—"

He gave the password—ice mice—and Harry followed him up the spiral staircase.

"Do sit down, Harry."

Harry sat, feeling definitely anxious now. Dumbledore, just like Snape and slightly less than Draco, was looking tired and unusually grave.

Harry swallowed. "Professor," he said nervously before the headmaster could speak, "does this have anything, er, anything to do with Dra—er, Malfoy?"

Dumbledore smiled sadly. "I'm afraid so, Harry."

"Afraid, sir?" asked Harry with some trepidation.

"In the interim between our realization of Draco's Horcrux and now, Professor Snape and I have been taking certain, ah, measures to discover how we might rid Draco of it safely and easily."

"And?" asked Harry, perhaps a little too eagerly. He was desperate to hear Dumbledore say something, anything, which might ease the terrible guilt he had felt about Draco's potential fate since the two of them had begun their sordid affair.

"Harry...I'm so sorry, Harry, I truly am. I know that you must feel somewhat responsible, both for Draco's condition and its possible consequences—"

And here, Harry had a fleeting thought that Dumbledore knew. He put it hastily out of his mind, dreading what he might hear next.

"—but the conclusion at which Professor Snape and I have arrived is not something that you will likely be happy to hear."

Harry's insides went cold.

"We think that Draco's horcrux will, by the sheer concentration of its evil power, begin to dominate Draco entirely. Not only in nightmares, dreams and voices in his head, but in his very own soul and even aspects of his physical appearance. Draco will, in time, cease to truly be the Draco we all know and love—" Harry gave a tiny, involuntary shiver—"and will become something like Voldemort himself. He will certainly carry the voice, the personality, the cunning, perhaps even the visage."

Dumbledore paused here, looking concerned, but Harry had lost his voice. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He felt as though something was speeding towards him, some awful, inescapable fate.

"And...it is then that we will be able to destroy the Horcrux."

"How, sir?" rasped Harry, although he did not even remotely want to hear the answer.

"The only way is to kill he who carries the soul which has become dominant. To kill...Draco."

Harry was falling. His field of vision was narrowing. He was tumbling into cold darkness. He was dying—

—and then all was clear.

"So when Voldemort's soul becomes dominant over Draco's, killing Draco will kill that soul. The Horcrux."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore, looking anxiously at Harry, who realized he must be very pale.

"I see, sir. So, we just wait for Draco to start acting...off...then...I kill him."

"Simply put, yes."

"Alright, sir." Harry was numb, his voice and face emotionless.

"Well, Harry, I suppose you had better be getting back to Professor Snape's class. I will be in contact as events warrant."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Harry got up and left the office, feeling Dumbledore's eyes on his back as he closed the door. But he didn't go back to Snape's class. On a hunch, he wandered up to the Hospital Wing, from whence he suspected Dumbledore had come.

Draco was there, as Harry had known he would be, lying near the window in a bed with the curtains half-shut. Harry, grateful for the apparent absence of Madame Pomfrey, pulled a chair up to Draco's bedside and studied his face in greater detail.

He looked terrible. He was pale as death, and his eyes were purple with exhaustion, closed but moving rapidly beneath their thin lids. He was thin and spotted with faint bruises, where he had thrashed around in his sleep.

Harry sat by the bed until the dinner bell rang, but Draco did not wake up or indeed do anything except for emitting a few low, almost indiscernible murmurs. Although Harry couldn't make out what was actually being said, he realized that Draco was speaking in Parseltongue, and that it sounded ominously triumphant.

Harry got up to go to dinner, not for the sake of food but because he knew he would be missed in such troubled times. He glanced back at Draco, and reached out reflexively to smooth his hair off his pallid forehead.

As Harry's hand neared his face, Draco's face contorted. With a harsh hiss, his hand shot out, fingers curled like claws. Harry, startled, snatched his own hand back just before Draco seized his wrist. Shaken and unduly hurt, he hurried away.

Draco was dreaming in red.

He saw out of eyes like a cat's, and the world was stained scarlet. His movements were smooth and silent. He stalked through what had once been a bustling city square, and was now a desecrated wasteland.

He surveyed, from those red-tinted cat eyes, clear evidence of a battle. His lips twisted into an evil smile, more a ghostly leer than anything resembling happiness. Words of victory snaked out from between his lips in barely audible hisses as he saw the bodies of Aurors and countless Muggles, innocent men, women and children who had been out for a stroll in the park when his Death Eaters had struck. Now, with nothing left but bodies and a scorched stretch of lawn and pavement that the Ministry had not yet had time to clear, Voldemort was free to walk and enjoy the carnage his strike had created.

From somewhere else, somewhere above, he felt an unexpected presence, an intruder. It radiated a fierce, desperate emotion that burned his skin. His eyes narrowed and his face twisted into a snarl. He thrust his hand upward with a cruel Parseltongue cry, trying to seize the offender.

But there was nothing but an empty space where his hand groped.

Denied but unshaken, Voldemort let his hand drop stepped forward between the bodies of a small Muggle girl and a Ministry wizard. For a brief instant, everything went pitch black—

—and then Draco sat up, sweating and shaking, in a bed miles from the battleground he had just departed in his dream.

Draco sat frozen with fear, trembling, his eyes wide open. He didn't want to close them again, for fear of seeing something else out of those bloody slits.

He retched dryly into a basin next to his bed, then sat suddenly back against his damp pillows, pressing his hands to his face, sobbing uncontrollably.

The Dark Lord. Voldemort. I was laughing—Those people—they were dead, they were all dead—I was Voldemort—

Dizzy with shock and terror, he looked around wildly. There was nothing there but an empty chair.

Draco knew, without knowing how or why he knew it, that Harry had just been sitting in it, and that it had been Harry's strange invisible presence whose concern and emotion had seared his skin. And, he thought with most uncharacteristic fear, if he—if I had grabbed his wrist just then—

But he didn't want to finish the thought. He didn't even know what would have happened. He didn't want to think about it.

He stared at his hands, so pale and clammy, and tried not to imagine them as the long, spidery monstrosities they had just been. He was still gazing unseeingly at them, trembling, when Madame Pomfrey came hurrying apologetically out of her office with a tray full of foul-looking Potions.

She didn't look him in the eye while she poured the proper doses out for him, afraid of the scarlet she had sometimes glimpsed glaring incongruously back at her.

A/N: So this one was a lot darker...maybe I'm getting back out of the fluffier funny style. Why don't I just make up my god damn mind? Ah well. Reviews please! I'm interested to see what y'all think of this compared to all the other ones...it's pretty inconsistent, I know. And also Draco is somewhat OOC, sorry about that too. Kthxbye.