AN: Lightening up a bit today. Enjoy!

The double doors to the hospital wing flung themselves open. Everyone inside turned to look: Madam Pomfrey, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger - even a very groggy Ron twitched and blinked and struggled to sit up to have a better look.

It was worth the strain. Through the doors came Professor Snape and a tall student with what looked like dark blond hair, his head lolling forward, hiding his face. Both of them were soaking wet and the boy's white shirt was splotched with broad rusty stains the girls recognized immediately as water-logged blood.

Madam Pomfrey ran at them, "My stars, Severus, what is it now?"

All he said to her as she threw the boy's dangling arm over her shoulder was, "Privacy."

With his weight supported between two people, the boy's head lolled back instead of forward, his face tipping into view. At first, his classmates didn't recognize him, distracted as they were by a jagged red mark slashed from his left ear to his chin. It was the colour of blood, but not bleeding, flesh healed magically, and very recently, newly closed over the angles of the boy's pale, sharp cheekbones and jawlines.

Hermione gasped, her hand clamping claw-like around Ron's arm.

"Malfoy," was Ron's weak exclamation.

As far away from Ron as they could get, Pomfrey and Snape were lowering Malfoy onto a bed. Pomfrey was reaching for her wand. "Hold him up a moment, Severus. The wet shirt will ruin the bedding."

"Leave it," Snape said as he whisked the curtains closed around the bed.

The moment she lost sight of Draco, Hermione seemed to panic, hopping to her feet and trotting across the floor after him. She was just about to slip between the curtains when Snape's face reappeared. "Granger. Good. Come."

Ron swallowed through a raspy throat, trying to clear away the lingering sense of having a bezoar lodged in it so he could speak. "Gin, I need something from you," he said. "Go see if you can find out what Harry's up to."

She left and Ron lay back on his pillows, straining to hear what was happening behind the curtain. Malfoy was panting and moaning, Hermione was murmuring sweetly but sadly to him. It was similar to the tones she'd been using to speak to Ron moments before - but not quite. It took a moment for Ron to discern the difference. When she was comforting him, it was with the voice of someone who was concerned that someone else was hurt. When she spoke to Malfoy, she sounded like she was hurt herself.

Above these small, intimate sounds, was Snape's voice, trying to dismiss Pomfrey. "Dittany, is what's needed," he was saying. "Mr. Malfoy's injuries were such that I had no choice but to administer the appropriate counter-curses on the spot."

Pomfrey responded with the weary, knowing questions of someone accustomed to but not happy about having her medical authority circumvented. "And which counter-curses were those?" she asked.

He named one Ron did not recognize.

There was a pause. "This must have been very Dark magic," Pomfrey said. "You're sure someone used that here in the castle, in broad daylight, against a student?"

"Positive."

"Who could have done it?" she pressed. "He hasn't done it to himself, has he?"

There were four distinct clicks, as Snape stepped closer to her. "Dittany - if - you please." His voice grew lighter as Pomfrey huffed and parted the curtains to fetch the medicine. "Thank you, Poppy. Granger and I will see to cleaning him up."

Madam Pomfrey crossed the floor, pacing through Ron's view, shaking her head and muttering.

Ron closed his eyes as she moved about, not wanting to add embarrassment to her aggravation. But he was only human - a freshly poisoned human - and not long after he closed his eyes, he had fallen back to sleep.

Snape stood over Draco's bed, his wand flicking through the simple spells needed to clean and dry Draco's clothing. "There," he said. "Now open his shirt and expose him to the shoulders. Leave his arms covered. The wounds are entirely on his face and chest so Madam Pomfrey will have no need to disrobe him. No need. I cannot stress this enough."

"I understand, sir," Hermione said. Her hands shook, her fingers fumbling with the buttons on Draco's now clean and dry shirt. His hair was still wet and dark, his skin blueish with the damp cold.

"No need to be so ginger," Snape sneered from behind her. "The wounds are closed. They're no worse than the mark on his face. You will find them red but not bleeding."

"Do they still hurt?" She was asking Draco.

He shook his head, his breath was still shallow, his teeth gritted. "Not like they did at first. It aches like I've been hit with a beater's bat. I think I'm mostly in shock."

"Maybe don't look then," she said, pushing his shirt open with both of her hands. In every dimension, the wound was larger than she imagined, as if it had been made with a broadsword. Just as Snape said, the skin was closed but blood-red, somehow ragged.

Madam Pomfrey came back with the dittany, just as Snape was preparing to leave. "Abandoning your charge so soon?" she needled him.

"Yes, Poppy, as you can well imagine, I now have some disciplinary matters to attend to," he eased the vial of dittany out of her hands. "Truly, your skills are wasted dabbing dittany on already healing wounds. Allow Granger, if you please. She is quite keen to learn about healing."

This was not untrue.

Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes. "Please your great kind self, Severus." She bustled away in a swish of starched white skirts.

"Sir!" Hermione called as Snape handed her the vial and prepared to leave. "What are you going to do to him?"

Snape folded his arms. "Him?"

"Yes, him." She knew Draco's injury was Harry's mistake - of course she did.

"I will do," Snape hissed, "what you, Miss Granger, ought to have done hours ago, what the headmaster should have - " He bit back his words. "I will tell him what he needs to know."

Harry was still standing ankle-deep in the water flooding the sixth floor bathroom, in the din of spraying pipes and Moaning Myrtle's cries of "murder," when Snape sailed back into the room. With a single word, he sent Myrtle away, and with a wave of his hand the pipes ran dry.

In the dripping quiet, he began in an icy voice. "Where - did you learn - that spell?"

Harry's mouth worked without a sound.

"Where," Snape said, his voice quieter than ever, "did the Chosen One himself, learn to use such Dark magic?"

Harry stammered something about a library book as Snape inched closer, crossing the watery stone floor.

"You are lying."

"Then why bother asking?" Harry snapped. "Just assault me with legilimency. Take whatever you want, like always."

"Do you know," Snape called over him, loudly at first, lowering his voice when Harry's fell silent, "why you could not marshal your storied magical talent to learn occulmency, particularly, occulmency against me?"

Harry sneered. "Because I'm an arrogant fraud?"

"Because you hate me," Snape replied. "Hasn't the headmaster told you, and recently, that your power over the Dark Lord has always lay in your ability to love and to receive love?" His face contorted as if the words were a bitter but necessary medicine in his mouth. "It's not a maudlin platitude. And here is proof."

Snape stooped to look Harry in the eyes. "When it comes to magical confrontations between you and me, Potter, the greatest engine of your power is missing. Each time you attempted occulmency, you did so not from your high ground of love, but from a low place of hate for me. And from this place, you can only fail."

Snape straightened his posture. "This is why it had to be me to teach you to resist the Dark Lord, the murderer of your parents, whom you also hate. We reasoned that, if you could learn occulmency against me, in spite of your hate for me, there might have been a chance of you learning it against the Dark Lord as well. But as we learned, it cannot be done, not by you, not as you are."

The was a paused as Snaped walked in a circle around Harry. As for Harry, he stood in the receding water, waiting, not knowing what to expect next of this interview now that they were talking about Voldemort instead of punishment.

As if he could hear Harry's thoughts, Snape asked, "What did you think your discipline would be, Potter? You used Dark magic to attack a classmate with a curse which would have been fatal without swift attention from someone who happened to know its obscure and difficult countercurse - "

"I didn't know what the spell would do - "

" - which makes you more culpable, not less," Snape said.

"How do you reckon that?"

"Now, I ask you," Snape continued, ignoring Harry's objections, "what kind of discipline do your actions warrant? A talk with your head of house, complete with alarming but empty threats of expulsion? And then what - detention? Even weeks and weeks of Saturday detentions, sabotaging your sports schedule, and me taunting you about it, as if your childish games matter in the least?"

Harry couldn't answer, too tense to even shrug.

"No, Potter. The situation is much more grave than lectures and detention and lost trophies. Well beyond schoolhouse remedies."

Harry hung his head. "Are you going to turn me over to the Aurors?"

Snape sniffed. "No, but you are extremely fortunate that Malfoy's parents are indisposed at present, or else they would be clamouring for exactly that."

Harry blinked. What was wrong with Malfoy's mother? She looked well enough at Madam Malkin's this fall.

But Snape had no more to say about her. "Tell me, Potter, when you cursed Mr. Malfoy, how did you feel? Where was your heart? WHO was your heart?"

Who - was that the question? Harry stood on the same floor where he'd fallen to his knees beside Malfoy's bleeding, speechless body, and contemplated the events that lead up to that moment. He swayed in his soggy shoes, feeling himself growing sick, as he returned to his memory of the fight - revisiting the sensations and emotions - the bloodlust that had engulfed him as he made his final, devastating attack.

Snape watched the transformation, finally breaking the silence. "Your connection to the Dark Lord is the kind that ought to have corrupted you, brought you to his side. You have not been tempted because you have managed to react to him mostly out of a desire to love and protect others. But when you react to me or," he paused, "to Draco Malfoy, without a shred of tenderness or affection, you no longer have that protection. Your hate for us is your weakness, a hold the Dark Lord has over your heart."

"But that's not true. There was love involved when I confronted Malfoy, just not for him. Sir, he brought that poisoned mead into the castle where my best friend, the one held as my treasure from the bottom of the Black Lake - "

"That may have begun as your motivation for seeking out Malfoy," Snape interrupted. "But as you fought, curse upon curse, the circumstances ceased to matter. You came to fight him purely from a place of hate - from the basic, filthy roots of your connection to the Dark Lord."

Harry opened his mouth to argue. Snape was wrong. He was the Chosen One. His side was the right one - the very fact that he was on it made it the right one.

The egotism of the thought shook him. The new wave of sickness crashed over him. Harry sank to sit on the dirty, wet floor. Malfoy's blood had been rinsed away, down the drains, but Harry remembered the look of it, swirling on the surface of the cold water. He felt exposed, used, vulnerable to darkness that had washed over him so many times before, but which had never succeeded in seeping inside him, until today.

He choked out a dry sob. "Sir, I had a dream last night," he confessed from the floor.

Snape spun in a circle, his black eyes wide. "Yes?"

Harry swallowed back his shame. "It was like the one I had the night Arthur Weasley was attacked by the snake in the Ministry. I was seeing through Voldemort's eyes again - he was attacking a blond boy, using his wand in the wrong hand. And then when I was here, with Malfoy, I saw through those eyes again. Only I was me, in this room, and I was awake where I could hurt him. So I did."

Snape opened his mouth, baring his teeth to let out a long breath.

"Professor Snape," Harry said, looking up from the floor. "Help me."

Snape bent to seize Harry by his cold, wet, bloodied shirt, lifting him to his feet. "The time has come for you to work with, rather than against Draco Malfoy. Miss Granger's participation will be vital in this. As you recall, she has much to tell you. You must not take any more action until you have spoken to her. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now when you hear her account, you will be tempted to react in anger, but you must not succumb to that temptation. The angrier you become, the closer the Dark Lord draws to your mind and he must not see what I, Malfoy, and yes, Granger too, have been working on. Calm, Potter. Do you hear me? You cannot succeed in your mission alone - "

"I'm not alone," Harry interrupted, not defiantly but desperately. "I'm with Dumbledore."

Snape winced, as if wounded. "The headmaster," he said, "will not be with you forever, Potter. He is old, battle weary. To prepare for the time when he is gone, you need all the allegiances you can get, including Draco Malfoy's, especially as it pertains to Miss Granger."

Harry shook his head. "Sir, I don't understand."

"No, but you will." Snape let go of Harry's shirt. "The pair of them are in the hospital wing. Clean yourself up and go speak with them. Let them help you. Control your anger, and your hate. They are the ways and means of the Dark Lord. If you do not resist them you will be lost, and many, many others with you."

Hermione sat in a chair pushed as close to Draco's bed as it could go. Exhausted from the shock, he lay asleep, his hair now dry, light and wildly out of order, his shirt still open but most of his torso tucked under a sheet except for where he'd pulled Hermione's arm inside the covers with him, pressing her palm against his stomach. She sat feeling his abdomen rising and falling, alive and healing, until she drifted off to sleep herself.

It was a difficult position in which to rest, and she was soon awake again, sliding her hand out of his, smoothing the sheet, bending over his sleeping face to examine his wound. The dittany had improved the look of it while they'd slept. Would it scar? Draco would still be beautiful even if it did, but she hoped, mostly for Harry's sake, that it wouldn't.

Gently, slowly, she lifted the sheet from his chest. The wound there was worse. What kind of spell would do this? It must have come from a book she didn't have that Harry did. And there was only one book that matched that description, the Half-blood Prince's copy of "Advanced Potions."

"Harry Potter, I TOLD you…" she muttered.

"Don't call me Harry Potter," Draco said, his eyes still closed.

She leaned toward his face, pressing a barely-there kiss on his unslashed cheek. "You're awake. How are you now?"

He hummed. "I feel - less terrible."

"Good," she said. "Snape wants you to check out of here as soon as possible. It's better for your - privacy." She held his left forearm, pulsing her grip around it.

He nodded miserably. "Right."

She was looking down at him as he opened his eyes. He smirked back at her. "Stop with the sad faces. It's not that tragic, is it?" he said. "Maybe if Snape hadn't been right there… I don't know why he was. Maybe because of that vow?"

Hermione nodded. "I hope he comes back soon. I'm dying, not knowing what he's done with Harry."

"He will still have classes to teach today, won't he? Looks like he may be gone for hours," Malfoy said, patting the mattress beside himself. "Have a lie down. Come on, Granger. It's not like we haven't cuddled up in the hospital before."

She scoffed. "In the middle of the school day, with you half-undressed?"

He tugged at her hand. "Please, Hermione. Do it for medical reasons. I'm still cold. I need warmth, and you can't leave me alone, and that must mean not even to get another blanket. Snape's orders, remember?"

She sighed but slid herself onto the bed beside him.

"That's not how you warm someone up. We both need to be underneath the covers."

"Don't press your luck, Malfoy." She grinned against his arm. With caution so slow it was almost comical, she draped her arm over his waist, on top of the sheet, where she wouldn't disturb his wounds. He turned his face to settle his uninjured cheek against her forehead.

"It was different, you know," he said. "This fight with Potter - it was different than every other time we've fought each other. I mean, he's always mad at me, but he's never been - cruel. I've been an arse to more people than I can remember in my time, but there is only one other person to ever look at me as hatefully as Potter did when he cursed me this morning."

She nestled closer against his side. "You mean this Christmas, at the manor, when you were called before - "

"Yes, him. When he couldn't get me to reveal the name of the witch who cast my charm."

She moaned softly against his arm, turned her face up to his, and he kissed her lips as ardently as his injuries would allow.

All at once, there was shouting from outside the curtains.

Hermione sat up. "That's Ron."

She sprang to her feet and opened the curtain. Pansy Parkinson was standing in the centre of the ward. She had her back to Hermione, yelling at Ron.

"I am not here to see you," she was saying. "I came for Draco."

Ron was calling back to her through his abraded throat, his voice hoarse and pained. "Please, Pansy. I hardly know Romilda Vane. I don't care about her at all. Even under the influence of her potion, I didn't touch her. I didn't even see her."

She tossed her bobbed hair. "Enough, Ronald. That's two potions, two girls, two betrayals in as many months. It's too many!"

She was spinning around to march into Draco's enclosed space when Ron hefted himself out of bed. Still too weak to walk more than a few steps, he staggered toward her, falling across the floor, snagging the back of her robes. He didn't mean to drag her to the ground, but found himself lying in a heap on the floor with her all the same.

Pansy screeched in surprise. "Get off me, Weasley. What're you playing at? Going to kiss my feet again?"

"If you like," he said, his voice quiet, a wheeze. "Come on, Pansy. You heard Harry this morning. Who drinks a love potion on purpose? Of course it was an accident. It wasn't even meant for me. I'm collateral damage. Please, Pan-zee-eh…"

His voice trailed off, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Pansy screeched again, taking Ron's head in her hands. "Madam Pomfrey! Somebody! Help us!" She was patting his freckled cheeks, calling his name.

Madam Pomfrey came trotting out of her office. "Mr. Weasley, what are you doing out of bed so soon?"

Ron was coming around again, murmuring, turning his face into the front of Pansy's robes.

"Over here, Mr. Weasley," Madam Pomfrey said, "Let's see your pupils - yes, he's fine now, just woozy. Back in bed."

Pansy helped Madam Pomfrey raise Ron from the floor, shuffling with him toward his cot. Long-armed and agile even when injured, he managed not to lose contact with Pansy's body as they laid him on his back and tucked him beneath the covers. When Madam Pomfrey left them, striding away shaking her head yet again, he wrapped both his arms around Pansy and pulled her torso on top of his.

She batted weakly at his chest. "You are ridiculous, Ron Weasley."

"Yes, now you're getting it. I'm sorry, but this is what my life with the Chosen One has been like, all this time. Look at this," he said, raising his bare arm to where she would have to look at it. "Have you noticed these? They're my disembodied brain tentacle scars."

"Your wot?"

"Dead sexy, right?"

She laughed at him, lightly slapping his chest again.

"Listen," he said, his forefinger under her chin, tipping her head so she'd look up at him. "I want you to stay with me. But it's high time I just came out and warned you that, if you do, it will be ridiculous sometimes, and a bit dangerous, at least until Harry vanquishes You-know-who and we all live happily ever after. So knowing that, can you do it? Can you stay? Please stay, love."

She reached across his body, tracing a swirling scar down the length of his arm. "I can stay."