Later in the week, their Defense Against the Dark Arts class was gathered outside. In the previous meeting, Professor Malfoy had shown them how to cast Confringo, which Harry and Hermione had made use of the year before. To almost everyone else, though, it was new and mildly terrifying. With good reason, they were not allowed to use it on any classmates; it was an even more powerful exploding spell than Expulso, which could blast people apart if used with enough malice.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin seventh-years were gathered on the farthest edge of the grounds, where Lucius rose one life-size stone statue for each student. Keeping them at a safe distance, he demonstrated the small whipping motion needed to cast the spell, and when a blast of blue-green light hit a statue it bust into thousands of tiny pieces. The statues had been enchanted to reassemble themselves when damaged, and it quickly returned to its original position. The rest of the hour had been dedicated to practicing the new piece of dark magic.

Hermione looked apprehensive about the lesson, as the time she used the spell in Godric's Hollow she had broken Harry's wand. Harry knew what she was thinking, and gave her a reassuring smile. He had managed to fix his wand in the end, not to mention that it had gotten them away from Voldemort alive, and didn't hold it against her at all. After a few minutes, both she and Harry had remembered how to cast it and were exploding their stone statues nicely. Harry, however, had forgotten to stay aware of his surroundings and was stunned momentarily by their professor. A few people had laughed, and when Harry was released from the spell he almost did, too.

The only other person to pick it up quickly was Draco, who had been let out of bed the day before, though Neville was close behind. Ron and a few Slytherin students were fairly competent by halfway through the class as well. People shot the blond boy a few suspicious looks, as if they wondered why it seemed so easy for him to pick up dark magic. Harry noticed, though, that nobody had questioned why he and Hermione had known it already. As Harry watched the Slytherin boy cast his spells at the statues, he thought he noticed that once in every five or ten attempts the result would be significantly weaker. Nothing seemed to be changing in his method, though, and Harry couldn't figure out why it would be happening.

As he continued to watch, he noticed that on one of Draco's attempts, the blue light of the correct spell seemed to be thrown slightly off by a small burst of red sparks that left the tip of the wand simultaneously. It was almost as if Malfoy's wand wanted to perform the spell correctly, but was being held back by something. Suddenly, Harry gasped as realization finally sunk in.

By the end of the lesson, Ron was excitedly imagining potential uses for the spell and trying to guess which of their Slytherin classmates would be terrible enough to use it on a human one day.

"D'you reckon Malfoy blew someone up with it during the war?" he asked Harry and Hermione eagerly as they headed back into the castle. "I mean, it looked like he already knew how to."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but someone behind them loudly interjected.

"Yeah, you wouldn't believe the number of people I've blown up," the familiar and angry voice replied.

Harry's stomach dropped and Ron froze mid-step as Draco Malfoy walked past them, only bothering to give the three Gryffindors a glare, and moved ahead into the hall.

x

At potions later that day, Harry noticed that Malfoy wasn't looking at anyone or anything, silently refusing to work in a pair and simply reading the instructions in his book without discussion. His expression was perfectly blank, a skill Harry had always known Draco's father to have mastered, though he did have an air of anger around him. It was for that reason that nobody bothered to try and make him interact with the class, particularly after Professor Slughorn's first- and only- attempt was met with an equally blank stare and silent rage. It was unnerving, but Harry knew there was nothing he could do about it.

Ron was clearly confused by today's task, and Harry had to keep reiterating the book's instructions on how to brew Veritaserum. The pair had been quite pleased to know they were going to be attempting to perfect the potion over the coming few weeks, as Slughorn knew that they both intended to become Aurors after their final year of courses and insisted it would be one of the most important tools they could acquire from the course. Things had been going well enough, despite a slight black tint to their mixture which shouldn't have been there, when Harry noticed Draco put a bottle of his completed Veritaserum on the front desk and gather his books. As the blond boy passed the pair working at the back of the room, Harry could have sworn he saw Malfoy's hand twitch slightly under his robes.

Sure enough, as the Slytherin walked out of the doors to the classroom, the contents of Harry and Ron's cauldron exploded into the air. The pair found themselves, and their books, soaked in the mildly-slimy transparent liquid. The majority of the class laughed and gasped, and Slughorn began spouting positive reassurances at them.

"Never mind," he said haughtily. "You know, it does happen to the best of us. Certainly, certainly…"

Harry, with a far more instinctive knack for self-defense, had the good sense to wipe his face and mouth off with a clean part of his robe and spit a few times to make sure none had gotten in his mouth. Ron, however, seemed to have managed to swallow a little of their half-complete truth potion. As they were casting vanishing and drying spells, he suddenly shouted a few rather personal bits of information.

"I'm afraid my mum won't be able to love us as much now Fred's gone," he first announced.

Harry and Hermione had exchanged shocked and worried looks as they realized what was happening, and as the Slytherins sniggered amongst themselves and the Gryffindors politely pretended not to have heard, Ron turned red and looked quite upset. Slughorn rushed over to suggest that Ron leave class early and wait somewhere more private until the effects wore off.

"I can't stop thinking about –", their red-haired friend started, but was saved when Hermione cast a silencing spell on him.

"I'll take him," she said quickly, grabbing him by the arm.

Harry nodded in agreement and finished cleaning up his workstation. Accepting that he wouldn't have anything to show for the day's lesson, he waved to his professor and quickly left the room. He was about halfway back to the common room when the effects of having been completely drenched in a somewhat inaccurate Veritaserum started to develop.

You haven't forgotten it's your fault, have you?

The Gryffindor almost stumbled as the thought forcefully ripped through his head. Rubbing his temples to force the thought away, he continued to the staircase.

People are dead because of you, and here you are living a cozy little life at Hogwarts. Disgusting.

The uneasy feeling he was so used to carrying around in his stomach grew more and more notable, and began creeping up into his chest.

But you've always been selfish, haven't you? You thought you knew better than Sirius, and didn't opened the last gift he gave you.

Harry's breath caught as the thought of his godfather crept into his mind.

You assumed it would be something ridiculous, something that would get him in trouble, didn't you? Well, you were wrong, of course.

He stopped walking, frozen in place by the weight of his screaming thoughts.

You never used that mirror, stupid boy. It's all you would have needed to do, but you thought you knew best- even better than all your friends. And now he's dead.

A tightness constricted his chest, and the pain brought a stinging to his eyes.

Your friends could've died, too. Fred did, eventually.

He heard a few students passing by ask him if he was ok, but could barely focus on them as his head spun.

Lupin did. Tonks, Snape, and Mad-Eye did. Even Colin Creevy, your silly little fan, did. Dumbledore did.

Quickly moving to lean his forehead against the wall, he closed his eyes and ground his teeth, trying to control his breathing as he felt like his body was collapsing in on itself.

Anyone could have hunted Horcruxes. You're not special. All along, all you needed to do was die.

He had to get away. To be alone. Somewhere quiet. Nobody should see him like this. Not even Ron or Hermione. Turning, he forced himself to run down flight after flight of stairs; as he tore through the corridors of the basement, thoughts relentlessly echoed through his mind.

You should have died. You should be dead.

As he found the familiar lantern hanging on the wall, a sob forced its way through Harry's lips. Feeling his eyes sting even more, he tried to hold back tears as he pressed his finger along the crack in the cement floor. The door to the secret room which had shown up on the Map for the first time this past summer appeared in the wall.

Coward.

Useless.

Weak.

Tears fell from his eyes as he pushed on the door, and his breath came in heavy gasps. Throwing the door open, he rushed inside and slammed it shut immediately behind him. He closed his eyes and pressed his back to the door, and found his legs suddenly too weak to support him. Allowing himself to slide down the door, Harry sunk to the ground and held his head in his hands as the weight of the truth suffocated him. For a few moments he wept uncontrollably, his thoughts overlapping and jumbling incoherently together, still overwhelming him with guilt.

Then he heard a sniffle come from the small couch in the back of the dimly lit room.