Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

This is being posted early, because there will be no chapter tomorrow. There is also no cliffhanger on this chapter, yay. It was a hard one to write, so...enjoy.

Introducing Draco's introduction to reality.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Julia Malfoy

Draco nodded decisively, and stood. One hand fingered the vials of dark potion in his pocket, but he quickly pulled it away and folded it casually across his chest, in case anyone should notice. Then he worried that either Blaise or Vince would notice that, and settled for a casual-sounding cough.

"It's no good," he announced. The lie he'd prepared didn't roll off his lips as smoothly as he thought it should, after he'd practiced it in his head most of the day, but that was all right. Blaise gave him only a faintly interested glance, and Vince, bent over his own Charms homework, grunted. "I can't find the information I'll need in our textbook. I have to go the library."

Vince grunted again. Blaise cocked his head. "For what subject?" he asked.

"I—what?" Somehow, Draco hadn't got as far as planning that part out. His lie was designed to get him alone so that he could take the potion, not to stand up under close scrutiny.

"What subject are you looking for?" Blaise had caught the stuttering hesitation in his words, and was studying him curiously now, one finger poised between the pages of his book. Even Vince was looking up, blinking as if it took a lot of effort to recall his mind from the depths of his study. "I'm behind on Transfiguration. Maybe I could go with you and find some books, too."

Draco managed to give a shaky snort. He hoped Blaise wouldn't pick up on the fact that it was shaky, but knew that was a little too much to expect. Blaise had been Sorted into Slytherin for a reason. "It's not Transfiguration," he said, rather than make up a subject.

Silence. Blaise raised his eyebrows, and when Draco said nothing, he smiled. "Well? What subject is it, then?"

Draco scowled at him. "Herbology, if you must know."

That cured the problem. Blaise had no use for Herbology, and had got his last three detentions for mimicking Professor Sprout behind her back. He shrugged and turned back to his book. Draco huffed and made for the door.

"Draco?"

Wondering when in the name of sanity his roommates had started paying so much attention to his business, Draco summoned a sickly smile and turned around to look at Vince. "Yes?"

"Are you all right?" Vince asked.

Draco sighed as he eyed the other boy. Vince was being more perceptive this year, now that he didn't have Greg around to absorb most of his attention. Draco just wished he would be perceptive at someone else. "I am," he said. "I just don't like being behind in Herbology, of all subjects, and I wish that the professors wouldn't assign us homework on bloody Halloween."

Vince, apparently reassured, nodded at him and then tackled Charms again with a heavily furrowed brow. Greg would have helped him if he were here, Draco knew. Greg was marginally better in Charms, and the two had been close enough friends to help each other in every subject.

But Draco had something more important to do than help anyone with random homework assignments or feel random pangs of guilt, so he slipped out of the room and through the common room. To his delight, Pansy wasn't among the Slytherin students sprawled lazily on couches and practicing spells or writing essays or discussing professional Quidditch. She was the only other one who'd been watching him closely enough this year that she'd probably notice Draco's distraction.

Odd, how I notice that, now, Draco thought, as he ducked out of the dungeons. I didn't really think about Pansy that much for the last few weeks.

Well, the potion was made.

Draco wondered if it was odd that his attention had managed to turn so effectually to other things when that potion was finished, and then shrugged. In a few hours, he'd have far different concerns. He was confident that he could summon Julia and gain the power from her that he'd need to be equal to Harry.

And then, Harry wouldn't need to look anywhere else ever again for comfort and love, the way that he did now with those stupid lessons and the hours he spent chatting with people Draco didn't like and knew were beneath him, like that prat Smith. He wouldn't feel that Draco was unworthy of him in any way. And Draco wouldn't feel like he had to cringe in Harry's shadow, either. Things could finally be the way they were meant to be, as a relationship of equals.

He patted the potion vials in his pocket and quickened his pace. He knew the perfect place to summon a Malfoy spirit. The research in the library had provided him with more information than just the clues to making the potion and which ancestor he should choose for his calling.

Draco took a final look around the hidden room, and then nodded. Yes, he was right, and the books had been right. No one had disturbed this place since the last time a Malfoy had been here, his great-grandfather. He let the door fall shut with a little snick, and stepped forward into the center of the place.

Superficially, this was only one of Hogwarts' many abandoned rooms. To a Malfoy's eyes, though, it was far more. Even as Draco watched, soft wards and sigils lit up on the walls, streaming power in brilliant flames of blue-gray, the color of their old crest, the color of the stone the Manor was built of. They whispered welcome to him in a voice that purred down his spine.

One of the few things that he would never envy Harry, Draco thought as he extracted the vials from his pocket, was his blood family. They didn't care anything for him, or they did but were extremely remiss about showing it. Draco had never had to doubt that his parents loved him, and that he came from one of the most important wizarding families in Great Britain.

I'll make that family proud tonight, he thought, as his gaze locked on the center of the floor. There was no circle visible there, but he could feel the pressure of power, building almost to pain, that said there had once been. His great-grandfather would have conducted experiments on prisoners for Grindelwald there, though so secretly that no one had ever figured out the identity of Grindelwald's prime torturer. Draco had only been able to put it together because of family stories combined with the hints and tinges of fancy in the books.

He drew his wand from his robe pocket opposite to the one where he'd put the vials, and held it out in front of him. "Circino!"

See, Harry, I do so listen, he thought smugly as the spell blazed a circle into the stones, shining the same blue-gray color as the wards. If one wasn't going to be a necromancer and make the sacrifices—like not speaking more than twice a year—that Pansy's father had, then they had to draw a circle to contain the summoned spirit. Draco had read the books, and listened when Harry lectured him about it. He wasn't going to be careless. He knew that Julia's power would raise him in many people's eyes, and lead to enough risks of its own after he had it. He certainly wouldn't just snatch it sloppily as he went about getting it.

That's the thing Harry doesn't understand, he thought sadly as he drew out the silver goblets he'd written home for and begged his mother prettily to send him. He doesn't know what having that much magic really means. He doesn't see the way people half-bow to him even when he's standing still and not looking in their direction. Well, I know it, and once I have that power, I can defend him and let him do what he wants with his own magic.

That was so agreeable to Draco that he spent a moment daydreaming about it before he uncorked the first vial, the one that held the thicker version of the potion, and filled one of the silver goblets with it. Then he filled the second goblet with the lighter, thinner portion. It steamed as he poured it, and a thin tendril of silver smoke curled up over the lip of the goblet towards him.

Patience, patience, Draco thought at it, shaking his head, and then closed his eyes and made an effort to calm himself down. It was difficult, when he knew the culmination of his dreams for the last several months waited just a few inches away.

Annoyingly, when he cleared his mind, the voices he heard were his mother's and Harry's, not exclaiming in wonder over his newfound magic, but encouraging him to wait, to promise that he wouldn't drink the potion.

Draco snorted and opened his eyes. He had kept his promise to Harry. Harry had asked him to wait when he made the potion. Draco had waited, and hadn't used it on Halloween morning. But it was Halloween night now, and he had to drink it in just a few minutes if he wanted to be able to summon Julia Malfoy's ghost and negotiate her power out of her before the night ended.

His mother…Draco winced. Well. He was still breaking his promise to her, and using the potion on this night of all nights. But she was pureblood. She would understand when he emerged from this and explained the full implications of what he'd done. She had always wanted his happiness and his calm, clear, secure future. Draco was only taking a few extra steps to claim that future for himself. She would understand once she saw how he had become a Malfoy magical heir and made himself a worthy partner for Harry in one go.

He stepped forward, careful not to touch and therefore smudge the glowing blue-gray line of the circle, and set the goblet with the lighter portion of the potion inside it. Then he lifted his goblet and saluted the circle.

"Julia Malfoy," he said, invoking the spirit he wanted by name. "I am your descendant, Draco Malfoy, and I ask your compliance and attendance." He swallowed the thick potion all at once.

The potion gushed down his throat, seeming to move faster than he could possibly have swallowed it. Draco expected to gag, but he didn't. What happened was that his stomach surged and then fell still, and his sight began to shimmer along the edges. Suddenly the blue-gray light seemed much more present and clear than he remembered it, and the stone became less solid. It felt as if he were dreaming.

He saw the goblet inside the circle tilt, and the lighter half of the potion ran out into an invisible mouth.

Draco hissed under his breath. This was it, then. He had reached out, and it had been up to his ancestress to respond. Obviously, she'd wanted to. He smiled, and a flash of buoyant confidence passed through him. He sat down calmly outside the circle and waited for her to show up.

Trails of silver smoke like the one that had circled the rim of the second goblet rose and began to twine around each other. Draco watched in fascination as they mingled and nuzzled each other like serpents mating, and then linked together so thickly that he could not make out the space that had been between them just a moment before. Then he realized that the snakes, together, formed a woman's slender, pale arm.

Draco swallowed. The taste of the potion still lingered on his tongue, heavy and thick.

Other trails of smoke formed other body parts, all floating independently of each other: another arm, an ankle, a hand, several fingers, a nose. Draco found himself looking down, not wanting to see what would happen if Julia materialized naked. But he snapped his head up quickly enough when the silver images all collided, and then the specter of a woman floated there, just barely colored in.

Draco caught his breath. Julia Malfoy was smaller than he had thought she would be, but then, people tended to be smaller back then, weren't they? What mattered was that she stood proud and slender, her chin lifted, and her blue eyes fixed on him with full understanding. Down her back cascaded a wave of silvery hair with a subtle, unnatural shimmer to it. She wore an old-fashioned silvery gown, or maybe that was only the way the smoke made it seem. She didn't look much like him, or Lucius, but his father would have approved anyway. She was very Malfoyish.

Draco licked his lips and hoped the spell had worked as it should, letting Julia understand his language. He knew she had spoken a different variety of English then, and he wouldn't trust his Latin with a woman who probably spoke it natively. "I—hello. I'm Draco Malfoy. You know who I am?"

For a moment, Julia stood motionless, her head tilted as though she were listening to a distant echo instead of his voice. But then her eyes fixed on his face, and she nodded rapidly, the motion almost heron-like in its fluidity.

"You are my many-times-distant-son," she said, her voice as ethereal as her hair was. "Or you could not have summoned me. We must be bound by direct ties of blood."

Draco smiled. He'd been a little overawed by her at first, but that was changing as he saw how firmly she stayed within the circle. In fact, its sides flared with blue-grayish power when Julia drifted towards them, and chased her back into the middle. He was obviously in control here, and the necromantic magic had worked just fine, damn Harry and his objections. "Yes," he said. "I'm a descendant of your son Octavius." That just made Julia raise her eyebrows at him, and Draco was reminded of Professor McGonagall. He pushed the thought away. It wasn't a comfortable one to have when he was supposed to be becoming an adult. "I used a potion that would make me a magical heir of someone in my family, since I can't be my father's, and I turned up your spirit as being in sympathy-song with mine. So I called you."

Julia regarded him in silence again for a long time. Now, Draco was rather reminded of Harry. He forced himself not to fidget, though. He hadn't had his childhood training for nothing.

"You want my magic," she said.

"To be your magical heir, yes," said Draco, and nodded. Then he stopped nodding. He was sure that too many wild, uncontrolled motions of his head on his neck were making him look like an idiot. "I knew you were a Lady, or powerful enough to be a Lady. I'd like to be the heir of someone powerful."

"Why do you want this strength?" Julia asked softly.

"I'm in love with someone who's going to be a Lord," said Draco. "Or, well, he could be a Lord, but he doesn't want to. Right now, anyway." He would have to see if he could get Harry to change his mind about that. Lords had traditionally taken paths that were above politics most of the time. Harry was too blindly noble to do so, but he would have to listen to Draco once he had the same kind of magic Harry did. "I want to make sure that I can protect and support him as an equal. It would kill him to love someone who wasn't an equal partner to him. Kill us both, really."

Once again, Julia scrutinized him. Draco wondered what was taking her so long. She could easily enough have said yes or no by now. Of course, she would have to say yes, so why was she taking so bloody long to make up her mind?

"Binding this person to you would improve the fortunes of our family?" Julia asked.

What—Oh. I should have known she would care about that. This was, after all, the woman who had seduced her own brother to keep the Malfoy line going forward and to spare her brother from the shame of having an illegitimate child or a cast-off wife. "Yes," said Draco. "Yes, it would. There are two other Lords alive right now, but they're blinded by each other, locked in this stupid struggle of Light and Dark. Harry has the power to break the deadlock. He'll change the world. And I think the Malfoys should stand with him. I'm his best friend. I'm going to be his lover, in time. I promise you, I'm doing this for my own advantage, but it's not going to hurt our family." He smiled at Julia, and tried to make his tone coaxing. "And we've had a magical heir in the direct descent for the last thirteen generations."

"Perhaps that has been long enough," said Julia softly.

Draco blinked at her. "Why would you say that?" he protested. "Don't you want the honor and glory of the Malfoys to go on?"

"Not at the price of dishonor," said Julia. "Tell me, child, why did you choose me in particular? Was it because of a true sympathy between your soul and mine, or because of the power that I wielded?"

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You sounded similar to me. I know that you were subtle and cunning and careful about how you used your power. I would be, too. I want it mostly to protect Harry and to assure the fortunes of our family. I promise."

"Tell me, child," said Julia, "why do you think I never declared myself a Lady?"

"Well," said Draco, "because you could get more done working behind the scenes. And besides, I thought Lords and Ladies at that time who declared themselves got wound up in all sorts of petty battles." Sort of like the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. Maybe I don't want Harry to declare himself a Lord after all, if that stupidity would overtake him. "You did things with cunning, like the way that you seduced your brother. A Dark Lady would be too open for that."

Julia's eyes narrowed, and her lips pinched. It took Draco a moment to realize she was smiling. She was one of the few people he had ever met who didn't smile by showing her teeth. "So I would have declared myself a Dark Lady, but for my need to convince others I was harmless," she said.

Draco nodded. "I can do the same thing. I don't need to be a Dark Lord to be happy. I just need Harry, and to be equal to Harry, and to know that he respects and loves me as much as I do him."

Julia closed her eyes. "Child," she breathed, "you have badly misjudged my character."

Draco stared at her. No. That isn't possible. "If you weren't in sympathy with me," he said aloud, "you wouldn't have responded. So I got that part right."

Julia pinned him with a fathomless stare. "Child—"

"Don't call me that."

"You are worthy of no other title," said Julia, with maddening calm. "Child, this is Halloween, the night when spirits are strongest. I was able to cross the barriers because I chose to answer your call. I was curious, and I thought that one of my own blood who would call me out of my long rest must have a compelling reason to do so." She narrowed her eyes. "Imagine my displeasure when I find out that that is not the case."

Draco sprang to his feet and watched as she floated towards the edge of the circle. "But I made the circle," he whispered.

Julia broke the blue-gray light with a wave of her hand. At once, Draco fell to his knees, clutching his head. He could sense the magic around her, buzzing, singing swarms of power. The circle had dimmed it before, but it was abundantly clear now that Julia had only been staying in those confines because she had wanted to.

And she had most definitely been a Lady in life, declared or not. Draco had no doubt that this power was the strength of someone who could destroy him with another wave of her hand, if she chose. Dumbledore's power was familiar, Harry's comforting. This was like being locked in a room with a wild panther, a beast that already had iron claws fastened around his temples.

He could feel his heart beating fast in his ears, his breath coming noisy in his lungs, with terror.

"Understand," Julia whispered. "If I had declared myself Lady of anything, it would have been of the Light."

Draco rolled on his back and stared up at her. He didn't know when he'd dropped to the floor, but there he was, and there Julia was, hovering over him, the air around her flaring with fire.

"Oh," said Julia, "not that I particularly wanted to, or that that was where my first inclinations lay. But it was a matter of necessity. Before any of my other magic awoke but the most minor accidental mishaps, there was one particular gift, at the foundation of it all. That gift wouldn't let me choose any other set of ideals but the Light. I would have destroyed myself if I tried."

She smiled at Draco. "I don't particularly want to go rampaging around Hogwarts," she said. "Lords and children who should not have developed their power so young, faugh. I will return to my rest. On the other hand, I have no wish to let you go without granting you a gift, Draco. That was what you wished for, wasn't it? To be my magical heir?"

Draco watched, beyond fear now, as Julia dipped a hand into the pocket of her silvery gown and drew out something like a swarm of silver singing bees.

"You need to learn manners," she said. "And patience, and consideration for the feelings of others. I would not have it said that my heir was without any of those qualities. I think your lover will appreciate it, too. This is not Lord-level power, but it did teach me more than any other ability I possessed about moving in the world."

She blew on her hand, and the swarm of bees soared across the air and towards him like a puff of dandelion down, falling on and curling around his shoulders.

"Enjoy the gift, Draco," she said. "Make me proud, my heir." Then she vanished, and the blue-gray light went with her.

Draco lay there in the darkness for a moment, breathing—

And then claws dug into his brain, sculpting it, twitching and twisting it into new pathways, and bees stung his skin, and swords scraped along his spine, and unfamiliar fluff pressed close on his arms, and he screamed, and screamed, and fainted for a moment, caught in the overwhelming pain.

"Hush, Draco. It's all right. Wake up. I'm here now."

Draco forced his eyes open slowly, sobbing, and found Harry there. Harry held him close, and his magic flooded the room, chasing away the lingering pain of Julia's. Draco felt it swarm him, drape him, hold him close.

The pain ceased at once. Draco let his head fall back with a grateful gasp. He breathed around the tears, and managed to whisper, "What was that? What did she give me?"

"She?" Harry's hands went tight on his body. "Draco—you summoned Julia, didn't you? You bloody idiot. I told you to wait!"

"I waited," Draco protested. He winced, and touched his head. It was throbbing, and not with the pain of suddenly released magic. What gift did she give me? "I waited until I knew you were in the meeting, and then I summoned her. I didn't know that she was going to do that."

"What did she do?" Harry shifted Draco so that he sat with his head on one of Harry's shoulders, Harry's arm wrapped tightly around his upper back. Harry was still smaller than Draco was, but the presence of his magic served to make him effectively larger. "I felt your pain through that spell I've been using to keep track of when you need me, but you don't have any physical wounds."

"Mental," Draco whispered. "Something mental. It has to be." He felt a growing irritation against his ancestress, and he concentrated on it to distract himself from his fear, and the chant in the back of his mind that told him he'd done a very, very, very stupid thing.

Harry gently gripped and lifted his chin, locking his eyes with Draco's. "You trust me to use Legilimency?"

Draco swallowed and nodded. He didn't think it could hurt worse than the pain Julia had inflicted on him.

Harry murmured the spell, and his eyes went wide and dreamy. Draco watched his face while he stared in silence. Harry looked as if he'd suffered some massive shock, and, sweet Merlin, had the circles around his eyes always been that pronounced? It didn't look as though he'd been getting any sleep.

That's nonsense, the last time I looked at him he—

Draco caught his breath. And when was the last time I really looked at him? When was the last time I really touched him, except to yank him around? When was the last time we talked about anything other than the blasted potion?

For the first time, he could see the last two months as they were, without a veil over them. What he saw appalled him. He'd demanded Harry's company and interest in the potion, and everything he'd wanted, he got. But Harry wasn't normally the type to be that compliant with anyone.

Of course he's not. But he's exactly the type to figure out what you want and give it to you, while concealing his other actions. He risked his own life first year to defend his brother like the Muggle wanted. And who knows what he's been doing this time? I haven't exactly been paying enough attention to him to notice.

Oh, Merlin, I'm such an idiot.

Draco shuddered once and brought his own arms up to wrap fiercely around Harry. Shit. Oh, shit. He could have died, and I was too wrapped up in that potion and that bloody book to notice.

Harry let out a surprised little grunt, but didn't break his tranced gaze into Draco's eyes. A moment later, he leaned back from him, stared him in the face, and sighed.

"What?" Draco demanded. "What is it?"

"You're not going to like this," said Harry reluctantly. "Not if that's what I think it is. Look—focus on me for a moment."

Not a hard task, Draco thought, and did what he should have been doing all along.

Harry narrowed his eyes, and then Draco jumped as a quick wave of heat seemed to assault his face, like a sudden wash of sunburn. He held up a hand in front of him, but the air didn't feel hot. It was just—heat, on his cheeks and his forehead and his eyebrows.

Then the heat went away. Harry rubbed his face with one hand.

"What?" Draco demanded again.

"You felt that because I was feeling angry," said Harry quietly. "I let a bit of my anger out from behind my Occlumency shields. She's made you into an empath, Draco, the kind who senses emotions as physical sensations on your skin." He shook his head. "How do you manage to do these things to yourself?"

"So says the master of changing his life around," said Draco, but it was empty sarcasm. His mind was reeling. This couldn't be true. He'd heard about empaths. They were—they were soggy. They were people who felt it when some little girl lost her kitten, or when some soppy witch broke up with her boyfriend, or when a first-year cried because she was away from home for the first time and scared. And while they could block out the emotions, they couldn't forget they'd felt them. They usually turned out to be disgustingly kind and helpful to the people who'd been hurting, even if it was just to cure the pain so they wouldn't feel it anymore, or to spread joy and happiness so that they could bask in that instead.

He remembered what Julia had said only too well, though.

You need to learn manners. And patience, and consideration for the feelings of others.

"She did," Draco moaned, and put his head in his hands. "I'm fucked."

"What's more," said Harry, his voice going dry, "you can feel emotional impressions left behind on objects, if they're strong enough. I think you must have been feeling the echoes of pain once practiced in this room. It was a torture chamber, wasn't it?"

Draco shuddered. "Does that mean that I'm going to start feeling them again the moment you and your magic move away from me?"

"No," said Harry. "I can teach you how to shield, or weave temporary shields for you myself. But it's quite a strong gift, Draco. I suspect Julia was an empath who was never quite able to escape the feelings she received from the people around her."

No wonder she couldn't declare herself a Dark Lady, Draco thought in misery. And I—

"Harry, will you ever respect me?" he whispered. "I wanted to be your equal so that you would respect me, but now I'm going to be wet, and I'm going to hurt when other people hurt, and it's ridiculous, and I can't believe she did this to me—"

Heat blasted his arms. Harry yanked himself away abruptly and stood, pacing around the room and waving his hands. Draco winced and put his hands up in front of his face, which, of course, did not stop the feeling that his eyebrows were being cooked.

But Harry could shield his rage behind Occlumency shields.

Unless he was really, really angry with me.

Draco swallowed.

"You were so bloody stupid," said Harry, in a growl that was building towards a roar. "I asked you not to do this. Your mother asked you not to do this. I trusted you not to do this, Draco." He turned and glared at him. Draco cowered.

"And now you did it," said Harry, "and it's changed the rest of your life. It's always going to be there. And I have to take care of you, and, Merlin, how am I gong to do that on top of the million other things I have to do? I have half a mind to just leave you to stew in the emotions you're receiving, and burst into tears every time you pass someone who just failed an exam. It would be what you deserve, for doing this to yourself, and to me, and to other people." He blew out a hard enough breath to make his fringe shiver and show his scar. Draco blinked and touched the center of his forehead. A faint pain was there.

"Harry," he said.

His voice must have been soft enough to get Harry's attention through the tirade, because Harry glared at him. "Yes?"

"Have you been having nightmares about the Dark Lord again?" Draco asked. And how in the world didn't I notice? Guilt was gnawing out a comfortable hole for itself in his stomach.

Harry's face was wiped clear of emotion in a second, and the hot, prickly sensation on Draco's arms and face faded. What replaced it was a slick, slimy coolness that Draco was pretty sure was fear. Harry took a step back from Draco, watching him closely.

"Do you know what you have done to yourself?" he whispered.

"About what he deserves, I would say, Harry."

Draco jumped and looked over Harry's shoulder. A plain witch was coming through the door, shaking her head and clucking her tongue at nothing in particular. Her looks were nothing to owl home about, but her gaze was piercing, and Draco felt uncomfortable underneath it.

"Empathy," said the stranger. "Yes, and Merlin knows, he needs it. About time that cramped little soul opened up to other people's experiences. He's been selfish for too long." Draco wondered, indignantly, whose soul she was calling cramped.

"I have to shield him—" Harry began.

"Teach him how to shield," said the stranger. "Then set him to researching empaths. Let him learn how to use that gift, since he's not about to get rid of it. My name is Vera, and I'm a Seer," she added, on catching Draco's blank expression. "And I would snatch you both away to our Sanctuary and show you how to shield and teach Harry how to rest, if I didn't think it would do you more good to be here, and that Harry won't leave without you."

"I don't need to be taught how to rest." Harry was radiating prickly heat all down Draco's arms and face again.

But to Draco, what mattered the most was another part of her little speech. He looked at Harry, who was glaring at the witch with his arms folded. That didn't conceal the deep exhaustion around his eyes, or the way he hunched in on himself as if he would roll up into a ball like a hedgehog any moment. Not anymore.

Draco bit his lip. Both his mother and father had taught him about what to do when he was in the wrong. Apologize only if he really must. Apologies didn't mean anything.

Atonement does.

After his father had been caught acting as a Death Eater, he couldn't just say that he was sorry and get on with things. He'd had to show that he was an upstanding member of the wizarding community: get involved with Hogwarts, influence the Ministry in acceptably subtle ways, donate money to St. Mungo's and similar. He'd had to actually change the way he acted.

And if Harry wouldn't leave and go to this Sanctuary place without him, then the least Draco could do was change the way he acted.

"I'll take care of him," he said quietly to the Seer. Vera glanced at him again, and Draco still didn't like her gaze, but he did like the way she nodded to him.

"Don't be an idiot, Draco," said Harry. "I'm taking care of you. I need to shield you, and it's obvious you can't be trusted to keep yourself out of trouble for one red-hot second—"

"We'll take care of each other, then," said Draco, and thought he could stand now. He focused on Harry, and supposed that the wash of cool air coming over him was surprise. He smiled. He thought he could get to like it.

He decided to speak as if the Seer wasn't in the room. For what he wanted to say to Harry, it didn't matter if they had an audience or not.

"I wanted a Lord's power so that I could have a partnership with you that was absolutely equal, Harry," Draco told him. "And so that I could protect you and take care of you. But Julia didn't give that to me. And I made stupid mistakes in trying to acquire it, so I won't try any more."

Although if another way comes along…

Draco pushed the thought out of his head. Change, remember? "I have this empathy instead," he said, staring into Harry's eyes. "I know that you don't feel you can trust me right now." Distrust was another uncomfortable feeling, like stepping on sticks with his bare feet. "But I promise you, you can always trust me to protect you and defend you and be your friend. And if I ever feel anything from you that says I haven't done that, now I can correct myself right away."

"But—" Harry started to protest.

"If it's about not wanting to impose on me, stuff it," said Draco. "Everyone's going to be imposing on me equally, at least until I can learn to control this damn ability. I did this to myself, and I'll have to learn to live with it.

"If it's about not wanting me to care for you, I don't want to hear that, either. I've always cared for you, Harry, except for these last two months, and I really am sorry about that." There. Now the cool feeling of surprise was back—well, more like an icy gale on his face, really. That would be shock, then. "I was a prat, a git, a brat, whatever other names you'd like to call me.

"I don't expect you to spend all your time teaching me. I'm going to teach myself a lot of it." If only so I can be sure that Harry isn't overworking himself using some shield technique that drains him. "I wanted to be a magical heir to someone in my family, and I am. I wanted to be more powerful, and I am. I can't really complain. I got what I wanted." He smiled, and knew it was faint, but these next words were so important, and it hurt to say them. "I—I'm not your absolute equal in power, but I hope that you'll still consent to regard me as your friend."

Harry stared at him intently. His eyes cut more deeply than the Seer's did. Draco met him gaze for gaze. He meant what he said. He would invite Harry to use Legilimency on him if he wanted to be absolutely sure.

Harry whispered, "I need to enter your mind and show you how to shield."

"Of course," said Draco, and dropped his barriers, meeting Harry's eyes as he whispered Legilimens again.

Harry was in his mind in a moment, delicately spinning shields out of images of quicksilver, showing Draco how he overlaid them on certain aspects of his mind so that his magic was contained but not frozen; a solid container was bad. Harry would drape the pools on their targets for right now. It would cost him no effort to maintain them. It would be up to Draco, after this, to study and figure out how to do it for himself, and how to let the barriers part so that he could use his gift when he wanted.

If, of course, Draco was going to do that.

Draco took the opportunity to marshal his own emotions, and keep them patiently back until Harry was done with the shields. Then he sprang them on Harry, so that Harry could not doubt what he felt.

Patience. Trust. True repentance, and the promise to do better. Friendship. Love. Agony that he hadn't seen what was happening to Harry earlier. Anger against the stupidity of his concern with the potion. Pleading, because Draco couldn't stifle that, and because he didn't want Harry to break off their friendship—but neither did he want Harry to forgive him just because this was Harry and Harry forgave everybody. He wanted to know how low he had fallen in his friend's eyes, and how far he would have to climb to work himself back up.

It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was fine, because he was doing this in his mind, and Harry was the only one who could see it, and Draco did not mind, at least in this moment, about Harry seeing everything.

He felt Harry's wonder, and his shock, and then he drew back. Draco opened his eyes, blinked, and looked steadily at his friend.

Harry had his head cocked on one side, like that phoenix of his, studying Draco as if he'd never seen him before. Then he slowly, slowly nodded. "All right," he whispered. "I—it might take some time before I can trust that you're not going to annihilate yourself, Draco, but I'll have to trust you, because I've got too many other things to do. I can't follow you around all the time to make sure you keep your promises."

Draco nodded, and refused to blurt out his disappointment at that verdict. He couldn't. It wouldn't be fair. If he was ever to come to matter to Harry more than, and not just as much as, all his other duties and obligations, then it would have to be by his own efforts.

His brother redeemed himself in Harry's eyes. I'm not going to say that that bloody prat can do anything better than I can.

"Better results than I expected when I followed you here." Vera broke quietly in again. "I must ask you, Harry, if you won't reconsider coming to the Sanctuary. A month alone would do you wonders."

Harry looked at her and shook his head.

"May I ask why?" Vera's voice was soft enough to sound like floating dandelion fluff, and Draco saw tears edging her eyes.

"I do have things to do here," said Harry. "But that's only part of the reason. The other part is that I don't want to constantly be around people who can see me all the time, in a way that I can't see them. I've spent long enough with people who could control me, who had some advantage over me that I couldn't counter. Not ever again."

"Draco will be able to see part of you that no one else does, now," said Vera. Draco wondered, for a moment furious, why she'd brought that up—to try and coax Harry along with her, or just because it was true?

Harry blinked. "But he's Draco," he said. "And I trust him."

Draco had to turn his head away, or he was going to have an impossibly improper and soppy expression on his face. He furtively wiped at his eyes, and wondered if Harry would ever know how much those words had meant to him.

"I see," said Vera. "Well. I will not convince you to come along against your will, Harry."

"You seemed pretty damn determined to try, earlier." Harry said that in a snarl.

"My apologies, there," said Vera. "I simply assumed that once you heard about what your soul looked like and what the Sanctuary was, you would of course want to come." She sighed, a light sound. "Please remember that the Sanctuary is always open to you. For the school holidays, or the summer."

"I have a guardian," said Harry, in a hedgehog-voice.

Vera said nothing else that Draco could hear. The door opened and shut behind her, though.

"Draco?" Harry said a moment later.

Draco turned and faced his friend, and saw that his eyes had deepened with such intensity as to almost change their color. "Yes?" he asked. He couldn't not have, with that look coming at him.

"I have to know that you mean it," said Harry. "That you're really going to work at learning empathy and shielding. If you backslide on me now, I won't be able to trust you again."

Draco lifted his hand and held it up in front of him, palm presented to Harry. "I swear it," he said. "On my honor as a Malfoy, by Merlin and my magic." He paused, searching Harry's face, and found what he needed there. "On my honor as your friend."

Then he stretched out his hand in front of him, in the simple sort of gesture he and Harry hadn't shared in so long, and waited.

Harry sidled close to him, still looking like a wild, bruised thing, and then clasped his hand.

And then he actually moved even closer and hugged Draco, his body going totally relaxed for a moment. Draco held him close, exulting, well aware of how fragile this was and what might happen to shatter it, as Harry whispered, "I missed you."

Thank you, he thought fervently, to Harry and perhaps even to Julia. Thank you for giving me a second chance. I promise, I won't screw this one up.

"I missed you, too," he whispered.