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The characters and universe in this work are property of J.K Rowling.

Only days after his last encounter with Gregory, Draco was trying immensely hard to push down the madness in his life in favour of his schoolwork. Homework was getting heavier, classes were becoming more and more difficult, and every waking moment that Draco wasn't in the classroom, he was studying. Before, he could coast through life riding on his father's coattails if school ended up not working out, but now that his reality had crashed down around him, Draco was feeling the pressure more than ever. He was a good student, he knew that, but the fear of failure with his entire future on the line was daunting. It wouldn't do to simply be good. Now Draco had to be excellent – the best, even. It was driving him closer and closer to the point of hair-gripping insanity, but Draco hid his racked nerves well under a mask of composure. Still, he was both relieved and annoyed to find that they were going to be reviewing the Cure for Boils as he walked into Potions that day.

Time flew quickly, Draco's practiced hands knowing where his ingredients were in his neat kit. He could brew this potion in his sleep, having learned it from Severus before attending Hogwarts, and though he no longer had to look at the potion's book for the recipe, habit had him glancing at the words for a mere moment before he went back to the task at hand. However, something unprecedented happened in that Potions lesson, something that had never happened to Draco before.

When Draco had finished brewing his Cure for Boils, he was quite surprised to find that, rather than letting off a light pink vapor, the potion was instead bubbling violently and sending off acrid black smoke in waves. He was even more surprised when his cauldron began melting, and the potion spilled onto his lap and arms. Though he tried not to panic, Harry and Neville were already shouting and scrambling away from him, and as large painful boils erupted across his skin, Draco could not stop the scream that tore from his throat. The boils spread aggressively across the skin the potion had touched and it was soon seeping into his clothes to reach the skin hidden there too. The rest of his peers erupted into chaos, some screaming, others rushing foolhardily to clean him off.

"Stop!" Harry was shouting, pushing them away. "If you touch the potion, you'll make it worse!"

"Out of the way, out of the way!"

That was Slughorn. Draco knew he should be getting up, or at least trying to push some of the potion off his lap, but shock kept him rigidly in his seat. The next thing he knew, he was doused from head to toe in blue potion, and his boils began receding almost immediately. The pain did not fade nearly as quickly, and even after the angry pustules had disappeared, Draco was shaking. Slughorn was standing over him, breathing heavily and looking as though he would drop to the floor with exhaustion at any moment.

"Mr. Potter, do you think you could escort Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital Wing?" Slughorn asked through his panting.

Harry nodded wordlessly and scooped up his bag as well as Draco's. Wrapping his arm under Draco's to help support him, Harry only had a little trouble getting Draco to his feet and out the door. Draco leaned heavily against him all the way there, thanking whoever was looking out for him that there weren't many eyes in the halls to bear witness to his weakness. Knees still shaking, Madam Pomfrey whisked him away from Harry the moment he crossed the threshold and forced a Calming Draught into his hands. He tipped it back without complaint, and even as the cool liquid fell down his throat, Draco's shaking began to slow down and his arms fell still at his side. Only a moment later, Draco found himself capable of focusing on the worried faces of both Madam Pomfrey and Harry. The former was off again in a flash, mentioning something about new clothes for him, and as she disappeared, Draco turned his eyes back up to Harry.

"What happened back there?" Harry asked, and Draco loathed the fact that he had no answer. "You're excellent at Potions. I've never seen you mess anything up, let alone that badly."

"I don't know. The only thing I can think of that would cause that sort of reaction is Bulbadox powder. It completely spoils the potion, and makes it erupt like that. But we don't carry that in the standard kit, there's no potion we brew that calls for it. Come to think of it, I can't recall a potion that does. It's mostly used for-"

"For?"

"Nothing," Draco answered with a shrug. "Nothing I can think of."

The lie rolled off his tongue more easily than breathing, though Draco knew exactly what Bulbadox powder was for. Pranks, mostly, but Draco had the rising suspicion that this was no mere prank. If Slughorn hadn't doused him in the Cure for Boils when he did, Draco could have been permanently scarred, or, more terribly, killed by a further reaction. He forced himself to think hard throughout the remainder of the day, and even late into the night. Who had gotten hold of his cauldron long enough to coat it in Bulbadox powder? Or else, who had slipped it in when he wasn't looking? As much as he longed to narrow it down to those in Slughorn's class, Draco had to admit he had not been careful with his possessions. He left his cauldron on the shelf in the back of the Potions room where any student in Slughorn's classes would have had access to it. It didn't have his name on it, but anyone who knew Draco well enough would know it was his. Anyone who had made it their business to make his life miserable would certainly know. Draco was more lost in this mystery than ever, and for the first time, fear was truly beginning to sink into his heart.

...

Draco, though physically fine, was still shaken by these thoughts well into the next afternoon. He jumped at every unexpected noise, and constantly looked over his shoulder when walking down the corridor, occurrences that did not escape the attention of his friends. Harry was the first to suggest they play some Quidditch after lunch, an idea Draco adamantly refused.

"Well, why not?" Hermione had asked, tossing a covert look at Harry and Weasley.

"Because Gregory and I have studying to do," Draco had answered coolly, making it clear that this would not be a discussion.

"We can study later, Draco, it's not like my textbooks are going to grow legs and wander off."

Draco threw him a mutinous glare, but his further excuses fell on deaf ears, and Draco was soon being escorted down to the empty Quidditch pitch with his broom and his army of idiots. Draco didn't have time to play games, he had to get to the bottom of this mess. Then there was the topic of exams, which, blackmailer or no, he truly did need to study for. Didn't they see there were more important things to be doing than playing a game just for the purpose of playing it? There was something childish about the notion that made Draco's stomach twist, but he mounted his broom and pushed off the ground like the good sport he was not known to be.

As Weasley knocked the quaffle from his hands for the third time in a row, the strangest thing was that it was actually beginning to work. He could see Harry's reasoning behind this kidnapping as a laugh bubbled from his lips and he soared higher into the air. Swooping over his friends, the wind blowing through his hair and rustling his sweater, Draco understood it all. He had been far too moody and paranoid lately; perhaps the cauldron was simply old? Or perhaps he did brew the potion wrong. He was not so arrogant as Harry, to think his skills were infallible, and it was every bit possible that he had simply messed up a step. Up there in the air, hundreds of meters off the ground, Draco found the world coming into a clearer focus.

Hermione was laughing despite her awkward seating (she had never flown well) and trying to keep the quaffle from Weasley, who was flying rings around her. Draco saw Harry watching from the side, waving his arms and calling for her to pass the ball to him while Gregory seemed content to sit on his broom and wait for them. Draco was leaning down to rejoin them when his broom gave a jerk. A gasp falling from his lips, he gripped the broomstick more firmly and tried once more to steer it downwards when it gave another, more vigorous, jerk that nearly threw him from his seat.

If Draco had not been the skilled flyer that he was, he would have gone tumbling to the ground below as his broom began bucking and shaking beneath him. His cry of alarm alerted his friends below, but before any one of them could assist him, his broom gave one last mighty jolt and wrenched itself from his grasp, sending him falling, falling, falling through the cloudless sky. Draco could not see the ground he was hurtling toward as he was falling backwards, his face toward the sun and his arms and legs kept outstretched uselessly before him by the air ripping by him. He tried twisting back to grab his wand from his back pocket, but as the wind tore past his hands, it became an impossible task.

Draco could only just hear Hermione screaming over the wind whistling in his ears, but as he plummeted past his friends, Draco's panic evaporated in the wake of something softer, although it scared him no less. He was going to die, Draco had accepted that, but he hated to go like this. Something so terrible shouldn't be viewed by his friends, but he knew he could do nothing to shield their gaze. He was just beginning to make peace with that as well when he slammed into the ground far sooner than he expected. It was softer than he thought it'd be, and more-

Wait, he thought. Why aren't I dead?...Is this what death looks like?

That was when the ground let out a low moan of pain, and Draco turned his head to find himself not splattered against the grasss, but hovering twenty feet above it in the steady arms of Harry Potter. They were still descending, Harry slowly lowering them more and more until they collapsed on the ground, Draco still neatly collected in Harry's arms. Shock kept them both frozen there in that moment, Harry's hands holding onto him so tightly it hurt, and as the rest of Draco's friends landed and ran over to them, their panicked voices loud and overwhelming, Draco felt the tears shock had previously held back begin to spill from his eyes. They fell faster and faster until he was sobbing with reckless abandon, Harry pulling him into his chest and Draco holding onto him just as tightly.

"What were you thinking?" Harry demanded over and over, and Draco thought he might have been crying too.

Later, when they were all back in the common room in front of the fire, Draco tried to explain to them what had happened.

"It was like I had no control of my broomstick," Draco said, leaning lightly against Gregory on the couch.

Harry was sitting on his other side, Hermione and Weasley in the chairs beside the couch, and all of them were listening closely and slowly nodding along.

"I was coming down to rejoin you, but it was almost like my broom had a mind of its own. It began bucking and pulling, and I couldn't hold on anymore. I tried to reach for my wand, but I was falling so fast that I couldn't move my arms properly. Thank you," he said, for what was likely the thousandth time, as he turned to Harry. "Really, truly, thank you. You saved my life."

"Yeah, no problem," Harry answered, as he had every time before that, with red cheeks and a small smile.

"That has me thinking," began Hermione as she tucked her bushy hair behind an ear. "Remember, first year? When Quirrell was jinxing Harry's broomstick? It looked really similar to me."

"I remember that, but I thought you were just a poor flier. That was Professor Quirrell?" Draco asked, raising his eyebrows at the thought of just how much had happened that he had no idea of.

"But there was no one else around, 'Mione," Weasley answered, ignoring Draco's question. "It was just the five of us, and none of us jinxed him. Are you sure you didn't just fall off your broom, mate?"

Draco tried not to bristle at the question, and the dangerous look Hermione threw at Weasley appeased some of his ire.

"I'm quite certain I 'didn't just fall off my broom'. I've been riding a broomstick since I could walk. It wasn't just my father's money that got me on the Slytherin team, you know," Draco said lightly, a hint of a joke in his tone. "The Seeker's position was absolutely my father's money, but I would have been an excellent Chaser."

"We know you're a good flyer, Draco, Ron was just saying what had to be said to move past it, right?" Harry tossed out the line, and Weasley snatched it up with grace.

"Right, yeah. Just wanted to be sure we covered all of our bases. Now that we have, what do we have left to go on?"

"Well, we don't remember there being anyone else there, and Draco didn't fall off because he's a bad flyer, but what about the wind?" Hermione offered. "It was blowing hard up there, right?"

"I mean, I suppose?" Draco answered with a small shrug. "It's possible they were just strong gusts of wind."

Even after another hour of speculation, during which Gregory offered little in the way of words, but much in the way of holding Draco's hand, they could not come up with a better explanation. Draco had fallen because of the wind, that must have been it. There wasn't anyone else there, after all, and as much as he could see Weasley pulling that sort of stunt in September, Draco liked to think that they had at least progressed past the point of sheer hatred. Draco was forced to go to bed that night with no better explanation than that, regardless of the eerie feeling that settled in the pit of his stomach.

…

When Draco woke for breakfast the next morning, he was quite surprised, and a bit put out, to find that the dormitory was empty. Gregory typically waited for him before going down to the Great Hall, but Draco cast his injured feelings to the side with an attempt at gruff indifference and dressed quickly, stuffing his feet into his shoes and slinging his bag over his shoulder before tromping down the stairs into the common room. There he found his roommates, along with Hermione, all with their heads bent close together and whispering furiously to each other.

"Are you sure, Harry?" Gregory asked gruffly, a deep frown creasing his face. "Did you all just leave it somewhere and forgot where it was?"

What was Gregory doing in the middle of this? Harry and his friends whispered together all the time, Draco was used to that, but when was Gregory included in their secrets? To that matter, why was Gregory keeping secrets from him in the first place? Draco opted to linger in that space between hearing and not, trying to catch another snip of their conversation without being discovered.

"It's gone, I'm sure. I've had the damn thing for seven years, I know better than to just leave it lying around. Someone must have nicked it."

"But who, Harry?" Came Hermione's voice of reason. "No one in the castle but us knows you have one. At least, not someone who would go so low as to steal it from you. Maybe Gregory's right? Where was the last place you remember having it?"

Draco stiffened as Weasley's eyes fell on him and launched himself forward, pretending as though he hadn't been listening at the stairwell while Weasley coughed rather obviously. The group broke apart guiltily, tossing Draco unsure smiles and fidgeting too much with their clothing.

"Well, good morning, you lot. Thought you'd all left me behind for a moment," Draco sniffed indignantly on his way to the door. He paused there, hand on the door knob, and turned back to them. "Aren't any of you hungry? Let's go already."

Whatever those four thought they were hiding from him, Draco would get to the bottom of it.

…

As Draco strode into Herbology that afternoon, his last class of the day, his spirits were bolstered after a day with no further incidents. The new cauldron his mother sent him didn't explode, his friends were behaving quite normally at lunch, and Professor Sprout had put up some coverings over the glass roof above the tables to filter out most of the light fighting to shine through. Pots of Flitterbloom the size of Draco's head stood at the stations before them, and Draco gravitated to his usual spot beside Harry to listen as Professor Sprout gave them instructions. They would only be trimming the dead leaves from their Flitterbloom plants, and after her reminder to be gentle with them, she began wandering from student to student to watch their progress.

As Draco leaned over his Flitterbloom plant, his shadow concealed it completely. Reaching down with his sheers to begin pruning, Draco was surprised to find the tendrils of the green plant circling his fingers. He reached down to stroke the tentacle-like leaves, but found that when he tried to pull away, the plant didn't release him. Pulling at it with his free hand, Draco realized that the long tendrils had taken hold of his wrist, wrapping more and more tightly around the appendage until he was sure it would pop off. It had wound its way around Draco's other hand before he had realized it, and as he struggled to free himself, the plant wrapped itself more quickly around his arms until Draco was elbow deep into the plant.

"Merlin!" Draco cried, thrashing uselessly at the plant that was steadily dragging his head closer and closer to its body.

"Professor!" Harry shouted as he looked over toward Draco.

Longbottom looked up from his station in surprise, his wand out only moments after he'd spotted the danger. He was pointing it at Draco, who almost ducked, and shouting "Lumos solem!" A blinding light came from the tip of his wand and drove away the invading scourge. Draco stumbled back from the pot as soon as the plant had released him, large red welts forming on his arms from where he had been restrained. Why was this happening to him? Who would do something like that? He didn't have to be a Herbologist to know that that was not Flitterbloom, but something far more sinister.

It really wasn't fair. When things like this happen, one is supposed to be able to ask "Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? Who could do something like this to me?", but Draco couldn't ask this, not with a clear conscience. He knew what he'd done to deserve this, and worse, and practically every person in the castle had a reason to take their anger out on him in such a way. The thought brought frustrated tears to his eyes, and Draco was only barely conscious of Professor Sprout asking him if he were okay. At the shake of a head, she allowed him to gather up his bag and flee the greenhouse with what little was left of his dignity. When he was sure he was out of sight, Draco ran until his lungs burned and his legs ached, and even beyond then, until he reached the doors of the castle and headed toward Madam Pomfrey once more.

When Harry came to visit him after class, Draco had had another Calming Draught, and was feeling much better. He listened with resignation as Harry told him that someone had swapped his Flitterbloom for Devil's Snare and kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. Broderick Bode had been murdered the exact same way when Draco was fifteen, and he could remember in great detail how his father described the plan to his mother when he thought Draco wasn't listening at the door. That had been the day after Christmas, and Draco had done nothing to help that man. He hadn't alerted anyone to the danger waiting for him, because Draco didn't care. Who was Broderick Bode to him? What did it matter if he died a slow, painful death so long as it kept Draco's life progressing normally? He had been a fool and a coward, and now he was suffering for it.

He and Harry sat in silence for a few moments before Harry gave his shoulder an awkward pat and left him to his silence. Madam Pomfrey kept him longer after Harry had left.

"Mr. Malfoy, I'm growing worried about you." Her concerned voice rang in Draco's ears for long after he had left the Hospital Wing.

"Madam Pomfrey, let me assure you that I'm fine. I've just run into a series of unfortunate events these last two days."

"It's not just that," she answered sternly. "You were top of my class, and now your work is slipping. The only place you excel anymore is when we're in the field with Apparition. You're pale, and you look like you haven't been eating or sleeping properly."

"Madam Pomfrey, please-"

"I'm not quite done, Mr. Malfoy. You don't have to tell me what's going on, I can tell you're going to lie to me if I push you any further. However, I would like you to report to me every morning after breakfast. I will alert your first professor of the day that you will be late. You're putting too much stress on your body and your mind, and I want you to begin taking half a Calming Draught every day. There will be no room for argument, young man."

Draco nodded slowly, processing her request and eventually turning his eyes toward the ground.

"I'm sorry for being so much trouble, Madam Pomfrey. I think I've been in here more than any other student this semester."

"Almost, Mr. Malfoy, but not quite," she answered as her tight, thin-lipped smile returned to her face. "Though it may not always feel like it, there are people here who care for you. We are behind you, and we want nothing more than for you to succeed, Mr. Malfoy. So, if something is bothering you, please, I hope you feel like you can tell me about it."

Draco tried to give her a smile in return, and only just managed it.

"Right, then, be on your way. You're just in time for dinner. Make sure you aren't late tomorrow morning, Mr. Malfoy!" She called after him as Draco hopped off the bed and made his way quickly toward the door.

Heading up to bed earlier than usual that night, Draco tossed and turned in his bed as he attempted to narrow down the list of people that could be behind these strange coincidences until sleep carried him off to fretful dreams.