Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. As always, check out author's notes at the end for what I changed. In this chapter, close to everything.

Rule number nineteen: Sometimes friendships are a good thing.

Draco woke up late Thursday evening and found himself lying in the infirmary. He didn't remember getting there. His eyes slipped shut before he could ponder the mystery further.

He woke again to the sun streaming through the windows, suggesting a mid-morning hour. Someone was muttering to left of him. He turned his head and spotted Ginny Weasley just a few beds down from him. She was dressed in the usual infirmary pajamas, but she had a knitted jumper over top. Her bed was made up beneath her and she had her schoolbooks laid out in front of her. Her face was scrunched in confusion. She was mouthing the words as she read the book, but sometimes sound escaped.

There was no one else in the infirmary.

And Draco wasn't supposed to be here. He remembered thinking that it would be bad to end up in the infirmary. He remembered deciding to wait the illness out. What had happened between then and now? He couldn't remember. His thoughts were thick; his head ached. His whole body hurt with a dull, sickly sort of pain. Even his ears hurt, and the muttering only made it worse.

"Stop talking, Weasley," he said. His voice came out cracked and raspy.

"You can't even hear me," Ginny said, not even bothering to look over.

"Can too," he retorted, his brain to limp to come up with anything wittier.

"Then what am I saying?" she challenged.

He had no idea, but the book she was reading was a potions textbook. He forced his exhausted brain to replay last year's potions curriculum and a wave of cold sweat crashed over him, making him shiver. Exception antidotes. That's what it had been. And it had confused the majority of the class.

"Exception antidotes," he told her. His voice wasn't just raspy; his whole throat was raw, and it burned when he talked.

She jerked around, her face betraying her surprise.

"Told you," he muttered, and then grimaced at the pain.

"Do you know the exception antidotes?"

He didn't want to talk anymore. He gave a loose wave of agreement. He was surprised when she scurried out of her bed to sit on the one right next to him.

"How does the Hangtooth antidote work?" she asked. "It doesn't make sense."

Draco blinked slowly. "Yes, it does."

"No. It doesn't. Because antidotes require a bit of the poison in them. But this one doesn't have it."

"Yes, it does."

"Merlin's beard, Malfoy. I will throttle you if you don't explain it to me."

There was a lot wrong with this interaction, Draco was sure of it. It was like he was a child again, looking at the 'spot the difference' pictures in the silly board-books he'd received as gifts for holidays when he was young. It was always easy for him to spot the changes. Even the smallest detail didn't go unnoticed. He'd tap each one in the matter of seconds, and then the picture would rearrange itself again, ready for another round. Draco had exhausted the books a week after he'd received them, and the characters in the pictures had refused to move for him anymore, completely worn out and defeated.

The most obvious error in this interaction was that, as a Weasley, she shouldn't be talking to him. She should refuse to acknowledge his presence.

Second, she shouldn't be asking him for help because she shouldn't trust him.

Third…

His head throbbed and he hissed in a quick breath.

"Hey, Malfoy," she snapped her fingers in front of his face, startling him out of his thoughts. "Why does the potion work?"

"You should be nice to me," Draco realized. That was the third thing wrong. Weasleys were supposed to be nice to people when they were sick, even when they were enemies. It had to do with their sense of morality. "You're not…," he waved a hand again, "playing by your rules."

"What rules?"

"The code," Draco said. Wasn't it obvious?

Another wave of cold sweat rolled over him, and it left him shivering. He rolled onto his side and did his best to curl up under the blankets.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ginny said. "But the Hangtooth antidote. How does it work? It's driving me insane."

That was the fourth thing wrong with this conversation. She was too casual with him, like she wasn't scared of him. But she'd been injured in the Dark Mark fire, and everyone suspected a Death Eater had set it. And everyone knew his father was a Death Eater, and assumed that he was well on his way to becoming one himself. She should be scared of him. But she wasn't acting scared.

"I'm not an idiot," she told him. "I have very good grades. It's just potions. I don't understand it. Do you know what that's like? To be a smart person in general, but to be very dumb at something in particular?"

"Yes," he said. It was happening right now.

She looked surprised that he had agreed. "Oh, well, then you know how frustrating it is."

"Yes."

"And it makes you feel like an idiot."

"An absolute idiot."

She looked at him. Her eyebrows scrunched suspiciously. "You're way nicer when you're ill, which is strange. Usually people don't get nicer when they feel like crap."

She was tipping to the side as she talked. Or maybe Draco was tipping to the side. Whoever was moving, it was making him dizzy. He shut his eyes.

"You're supposed to be nice all the time," he reminded her.

"Well that's a load of bollocks."

There was something like a laugh in her voice that made his eyes open, but the world was still tipping, and it was worse than before.

He heard another voice call out. "Ginny!"

That was Bill. He was supposed to avoid Bill, wasn't he?

"Ginny, he's sick. Don't bother him."

"I'm not bothering him. He's being a prick and refusing to help with my potions!"

"Because he's clearly about to pass out," Bill said.

There was a hand on his forehead which startled him. He hadn't seen Bill approach. Had his eyes been closed? He forced them to open now, but it was hard to get his eyes to focus when the world was drifting.

Bill sucked in a sympathetic breath. "Yeah, we'll get Pomfrey. Ginny, back to bed."

"Why are you defending him?" Ginny protested. "He's Malfoy."

"We're supposed to be nice," Bill said.

The expression on Ginny's face made him smirk. "Told you," he said, words slurring together.

"Oh, bugger off."

Bill knelt down next to him. "Hey, Draco. How are you feeling?"

Spot the difference. Bill was nice; Bill was mean. Which one was he?

He didn't know. Draco's stomach churned and he curled up even further, starting to gag.

"Poppy," Bill called, and his voice was too loud. It split through Draco's head with a flash.

He threw up. There was nothing in his stomach but potions and they came back up now, burning and mixed with bile. Draco would have hurled all over himself and the bed if Bill hadn't gotten an empty bowl in front of him in time.

That was nice, wasn't it?

"Ugh, gross," Ginny said.

"You have no room to talk," Bill told her. "I changed your nappies when you were young."

"Bill!"

And then Pomfrey was beside him, forcing a potion down his throat when he'd just thrown them up, and he didn't want it, but he couldn't find the strength to refuse.

And then he was back to sleep.

He woke up Friday sometime in the middle of the night. The curtains were pulled tight around his bed and someone was sitting beside him. There was a soft light and the sound of a turning page. Draco turned his head.

Bill was sitting beside him. He was doing some grading by the look of it, but he put the papers down when he saw Draco was awake.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

Spot the difference. Bill was a friend; Bill was an enemy. Which one was this one?

Draco stared, but he couldn't tell them apart. But they were different. They had to be. There had to be a way to tell what Bill was safe right now. Draco felt something like panic crawl at him.

"Here, you'll like this," Bill said. "It's a third-year's attempt at translating the bitter fox fable from the seventh Roman dialect." He began reading off the page, a truly bungled and confused narration about a fox, who was sometimes a wolf, who wanted raisins, but there were only grapes, and eventually he concluded that he would eat the farmer who had planted them.

The story was funny, and Bill's voice was soothing. Draco closed his eyes and slept.

He woke up Saturday morning, still feverish but far more clear-headed. He remembered falling ill and collapsing in Transfiguration. He remembered a few strange dreams about his old picture books that he couldn't quite make sense of.

The curtain was pulled around his bed, ostensibly to give Ginny some privacy because she was having her breathing measured, but there was a gap in the fabric. He watched as Pomfrey had her breathe into a balloon, and then run-in place for several minutes for another measurement. She got winded earlier than Draco expected, and her skin went blotchy with effort. This time she couldn't fill the balloon all the way, and there was a faint wheeze in her exhale.

Pomfrey gave her a potion to ease her breathing. "I'll release you tomorrow, on schedule, but you'll need to take that potion for another month."

It wasn't what Ginny wanted. Draco could see it in the way her mouth tightened, but she nodded and crawled back into bed. And then she saw him watching through the gap in the curtain. Her eyes went dark.

"Enjoying the show?" she snapped.

Draco saw the way her cheeks flushed. She was angry, yes, but she was also embarrassed. She was defensive of her vulnerability, and that was only reasonable. Draco wasn't sure what to say in response though. His thoughts were still muddled.

She heaved a sigh in the ensuing silence. "I know, I'm supposed to be nice."

His memory triggered. The conversation they'd had; the school work that had frustrated her.

"Stabilizers," Draco said, pleased when his voice didn't crack.

"What?"

"The Hangtooth Poison. Most of that potion is made up of stabilizers to keep the ingredients from curdling. The actual poison is just three ingredients. The antidote doesn't need the actual poison because –,"

"Because the ingredients are added separately to the antidote while it's being brewed, creating the poison in conjunction with the antidote," Ginny finished, her expression clearing with realization. She grinned in triumph, a wide, startling pretty smile, and grabbed her homework. "You're a life-saver, Malfoy."

Draco frowned at her. This was another interaction that didn't make sense to him. He closed his eyes and slept.

He woke up that afternoon, cold and clammy, the fever finally broken, but somehow he felt worse than he had that morning.

"Only natural," Pomfrey said, whisking several cleaning charms over him. They pulled the old sweat off his body, but left his skin feeling like it'd been scrubbed with sand. "Now that you're alert, you're aware of feeling poorly. But it's nothing a spot of tea can't help with."

She pulled his curtain back, even though he'd much rather have it closed, but Pomfrey was never one for letting students sulk in solitude while they were ill.

It could have been worse, he supposed. It could have been an infirmary full of people, not just the littlest Weasley. And she wasn't so awful. She was just confusing. He scowled in her direction and she caught his gaze.

"You look like you're feeling better," she said. "Will you revert to your usual arrogant, insufferable self?"

"It's not arrogance if I'm naturally superior."

She laughed, which irritated him. It meant she thought he was joking, and he was, just a bit, but she wasn't supposed to realize that. He did his best to ignore her for the rest of the day, but it was boring in the infirmary and for the first time since he collapsed, he was wide awake. And there was nothing to do. He told Pomfrey his head hurt, which wasn't a lie, but the potion he wanted was more for his mood than his pain. She gave it to him, and he felt his body relax, but his mind still raced. He stared at the ceiling, wondering how long it took for someone to go mad. And then a book hit his shoulder.

He looked over. Ginny had retrieved a book from the small library shelf in the front of the infirmary and tossed it at him.

"What's this?"

"So you don't go crazy," she said. "We've got one mad, dark wizard running about and mucking things up. We certainly don't need another."

She was making a joke about Voldemort. That was bold, even for a Gryffindor. He stared at her for a moment, wondering what was wrong with her, but she simply turned back to her schoolwork. He picked up the book. It was an action-thriller, one he hadn't cared to read before because the author was notorious for unrealistic uses of magic and gaping plot holes. But he didn't think he was recovered enough to handle anything more cohesive. He got halfway through the book before he drifted off again.

He woke in the middle of the night to the same light beside the bed. Bill sat beside him, and Draco remembered the snatches of fever-memory more clearly now. Bill had visited him, sat with him, helped him, just like a friend would.

Bill noticed he was awake and tucked his papers away. "You had me worried for a bit there. You were pretty sick."

Draco didn't have a fever anymore, but that didn't mean the confusion had abated. How was he supposed to respond to Bill? He didn't know, so he'd been avoiding the professor, but he was stuck in bed now. He rolled over, facing away from him, trying to get some distance. He noted the faint, shiny veneer of a privacy charm around them. He couldn't even shout for Pomfrey. Not that he'd want to. It'd raise too many questions.

He heard Bill get up and drag his chair around the bed. The professor stepped into his field of vision and dropped into his chair.

Draco rolled over again. He didn't want to talk. He wanted the professor to leave him alone.

Bill moved back around. "I can do this all night. I figure you're going to get tired first."

He was right, Draco knew. His fever had broken, yes, but that didn't mean he was recovered. His body still felt heavy and awkward to move. He glared at Bill, hoping that the professor would get the hint and leave.

"You look like shit," Bill said, studying his face.

The level of scrutiny was discomfiting. Draco rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling and gave into the urge to cover his face with his hands. Anything to hide. Anything to avoid this conversation.

"I missed you in class on Thursday," Bill said. "It was boring working on the runes all alone."

Draco clenched his jaw. There was a pang of disappointment at the thought of that loss. Never working on the runes again. Never solving the mystery. Never –

Draco shut the thoughts down. He wasn't going to be manipulated into friendship. Not again.

Bill let out a sigh. "I came here to apologize."

Draco pulled his hands from his face, but stayed silent. Maybe Bill would just say his piece and leave.

"And," said Bill, a little bit slower this time, "I also came to get an apology from you."

"What?" Draco burst out, before he could stop himself. Shock and outrage had completely overridden his plan to stay silent. He immediately clamped his mouth shut, kicking himself for failing to stay quiet. Bill gave a small smile, like he'd said those exact words to elicit a reaction. Draco narrowed his eyes. That move was almost Slytherin.

"Since I have more experience apologizing, I'll go first," Bill said, the smile slipping from his face. "There's some things you should know about apologizing, since I doubt it's covered in Pureblood high society."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He pulled in a breath and braced himself for whatever bullshit Bill was going to say.

"The first thing to know," Bill said, "is that you don't have to forgive me."

He paused, like he was expecting Draco to have some grand reaction to that.

"I wasn't planning on it anyway," Draco spat.

He took vicious pleasure in the way that Bill winced at his words, but Bill didn't fight back. He just took in a deep breath and continued, his voice just as even and gentle as before.

"I thought you should know that rule. Anyone who demands that you forgive them, just because they apologized, isn't interested in forgiveness; they're interested in themselves. Apologies are a meant as a way for the wrong-doer to acknowledge the pain they've caused and hold themselves accountable for their behavior."

Draco mulled over that piece of information. It wasn't what he'd thought apologies were. Apologies had always seemed so focused on forgiveness that he'd considered the two actions linked. Bill was explaining them as separate entities.

"The second thing to know is that there are levels to apologies," Bill said. "We apologize when we make mistakes and when we bump into someone on accident. Those are small apologies and usually ease to give. Big apologies are needed when we act outside of our value system. Those are usually harder, because it can be difficult to admit when we are wrong."

That… was also interesting. After all, Draco was creating a code to follow. There ought to be rules of etiquette for breaking the code.

"Thirdly, apologies should be done in person. And lastly, they should contain the apology itself, context for the conflict, and a stated change."

"Context," Draco said, unable to keep the derision from his voice. "You mean an excuse."

"No," said Bill, shaking his head. "Never an excuse. But context is important because it guides the changes that the wrong-doer is going to take."

Draco scoffed. He didn't really see the difference.

"I'd like to apologize to you now," said Bill, oddly formal.

Draco shrugged. He didn't care. He didn't. But his fingers still twisted in his blankets and he had to remind himself to breathe. Bill had sounded sincere so far. What if he was genuinely sorry about saying those things? What if… what if Draco believed him?

The silence stretched between them. Draco glanced over.

Bill seemed to be waiting for that because he took in a breath. "I apologize for saying terrible things to you. I threatened you, betrayed your trust, and insulted you. I might have also insulted your family. I can't remember if I did or not, but I definitely thought it."

Draco looked back at the ceiling. The earnestness in Bill's eyes was too much.

"I said those things because I was angry," Bill continued. "I think I told you once that being a friendly person meant people trusted me with a lot of personal information, and that when I get angry, I sometimes use that information to hurt people."

Draco did remember that conversation. And he remembered finding it funny at the time. Draco had been sure that yelling at someone couldn't possibly be as bad as physically hurting someone. Bill had proved just how wrong he was.

"I was angry," Bill said, and there was something tight in his voice that made Draco wonder if he was going to cry. He risked another glance over. Bill's gaze had dropped to the bed; his eyes were suspiciously bright. Draco looked away again, feeling a burst of awkwardness.

"I was so angry," Bill continued, that half-strangled note still in his voice, "that I lashed out at you. But I wasn't angry at you. I was angry at myself. I thought that I had failed the Order by letting Voldemort regain his horcrux. I thought that I had failed Mirabelle by letting her die. I thought that I had failed my siblings and my family by letting them get hurt, and that was the worst failure of all because…," he paused to swallow, "because I'm the oldest and I'm supposed to protect them."

Draco fully turned his head away. He didn't want to hear this. Bill was practically throwing it in his face that he had people to protect; people more important than him. Draco was an afterthought, an experiment, a pity project.

Bill let out a shaky breath. "But you were right."

Draco's eyes flicked. What?

"I took too much on," Bill said. "I cared too much. I wasn't… Slytherin enough to understand the difference between things I wanted to change and things I could change. I felt guilty for the things outside of my control, and when you pointed that out, I hit back. I threatened you with the secret you entrusted me with and that was wrong. I hurt you, deeply and terribly, and I scared you, and I am so sorry."

Draco pulled in a shaky breath. Bill was saying all the things Draco would have wanted him to say if he was actually going to accept his apology. And even worse than that, he sounded sincere. It would be so easy to believe him.

"You have every right to be angry at me," Bill said. "I was the first person you trusted, and I betrayed that trust. I understand if you're still hurt and scared, and I understand if you hate me now. This apology is not to make you to forgive me. It's about me acknowledging the harm that I've done to you. And it's also about informing you of the change I'm making as I go forward. Even if you don't forgive me, I will still make the change because I don't want to hurt anyone else."

Bill paused. Draco cautiously peeked over and saw him scrub a hand over his face. His cheeks were wet.

"At the end of the year," Bill said, "I will be stepping down as a spy for the Order."

"What?" Draco sat up in surprise. That wasn't… Bill couldn't… why…

Bill met his gaze with gave a sad sort of smile. "You were right. I care too much and it's hurting me. It's turning me into someone I don't want to be." He gestured at Draco. "It turned me into someone that hurt you, even when you were trying so hard to be kind to me."

Draco glanced away again. "I wasn't –,"

"You were," Bill insisted. "You were trying to be kind – you were kind. You were, perhaps, a bit blunt, but it was my fault for not hearing what you were saying. You were a good friend to me. And in my own pain and guilt, I lashed out at you."

Draco suddenly remembered everything he'd done over the past week, the havoc he'd created in his classes. He'd lashed out too, hadn't he?

"I hope you will forgive me," Bill said. "I will do all I can to keep being a friend to you, but you don't have to do anything in return. I know you don't trust easily. I convinced you to take a chance on me, and then I betrayed you. Some people only give one chance, and if that's the boundary you have, I will respect it. Until you tell me otherwise."

Bill fell silent, his apology seemingly done. Draco chewed over a hundred different responses, from angry accusations to hateful insults to cold dismissal. What came out was –

"I'm not apologizing to you."

"You don't think you should?"

Draco turned to Bill, eyes burning. "You threatened to turn me into Dumbledore! After you promised not to!"

"I did," Bill agreed readily.

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Not at the start. But afterwards, you threatened to kill my sister."

Draco paused. Yes, he had said that, hadn't he? "It was to get you not to tell Dumbledore about me."

"So you didn't mean it."

"No." At least, he didn't think he'd meant it. It was hard to say what he would have done if Bill had followed through with his threat.

"I didn't really mean what I said about turning you into Dumbledore. I thought about it, but I wasn't going to do it."

"I believed you were."

"And for a minute there, I believed you might hurt my sister."

Draco paused again. Bill had a point.

"I'm not sorry about saying it." Draco crossed his arms and gave Bill a challenging look. "You threatened me. I threatened you back. That's how it works."

"But it doesn't work with apologies?" Bill asked. "I apologize and you apologize back?"

"I…," Draco wasn't sure. "Threats are an approved retaliation method. They're effective."

"Against enemies perhaps. But what about with friends?"

"I…," he was at a loss again.

"How about you think about it," Bill offered. "You don't have to apologize now."

"What if I never apologize?" Draco asked.

Bill sat back in his chair. "It's different for a lot of people. Some people really need an apology. Others need the change more than anything. If you don't do it again, I think I can accept that."

"But if I threaten your family again?"

"It would be hard being friends with you, just like it'd be hard for you to be friends with me if I kept threatening your family."

It was a fair point. Draco tapped his fingers together, 1 to 2-4-3-5. It made sense, everything that Bill had said. Draco had been prepared for Bill to make an appeal to his emotions and had built up all his defenses to protect against emotional manipulation. He hadn't been prepared for a logical case for reconciliation.

Bill made it sound easy to be friends again. Bill wanted to keep being friends, and now it was up to Draco to choose.

The decision sent his heart racing. What if the apology was genuine and they could go back to being friends and everything was fine again?

What if it all went wrong?

He had a desperate desire to steal Trelawney's crystal ball and try to tell the future. If it was going to end badly, he didn't want to risk it. But if there was a possibility that it would all work out…

"I can't –," Draco had to stop to pull in a breath. "I can't –,"

He couldn't talk apparently. The words were getting tangled. His fingers fumbled their pattern and he curled his hands into fists.

"You can't do that," he forced out.

"Do what?" Bill asked, intent and serious.

"You can't be nice and then… and then just stop. I can't –," He couldn't handle it again. He'd go crazy. "You just can't."

Bill nodded. "You're afraid I'm going to turn on you again. That we'll start working together, and then I'll get angry, and I'll hurt you again."

Draco jerked his head in a nod even though 'afraid' didn't begin to describe the terror he felt. It loomed in front of him like a grim, a shadowy portent of future horrors.

"I will do everything in my power to never hurt you like that again," Bill said.

"That's not a guarantee."

"Draco," said Bill, meeting his eyes with patience and sincerity, "I still get mad and say things to my family that I don't mean. Granted, what I said to you last Thursday was probably the worst thing I've ever said, and I don't think I'd ever come close to that again, but I snap sometimes. I get overwhelmed and irritated and mean words leave my mouth. My family calls me out on it, and you're welcome to call me out too, but I'm not perfect."

"You seemed perfect," Draco said, hearing a good deal of resentment in his voice. "In the beginning at least."

Bill's face scrunched. "Are you disappointed?"

"I… don't know." In some ways it was a relief that Bill had screwed up. He'd been intimidatingly perfect before, but now Draco had proof that he was human. But Draco really wanted a guarantee. He wanted to know, before he chose, what the end result would be.

"Is it enough if I can't give you a guarantee?" Bill asked.

"I don't know," Draco said again.

Bill didn't seem worried about his indecision. "You don't have to decide tonight. We can talk more tomorrow. After all, it's late and you're still sick."

Draco wanted to protest that he wasn't tired, that he was fully capable of making a decision, but there was so much to think about, that he could probably use the time.

Bill packed up his papers and paused again. "Also, it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing choice. If you want to take it slow, that's fine. We can start with the runes and re-build from there. Or, if you only want to work on the runes and never talk about personal matters again, that's fine too."

Draco hadn't realized those were options. He'd thought forgiveness was all-or-nothing. And he'd thought the runes were dependent on his friendship with Bill.

"I want to work on the runes," he said, because that was an easy choice. If he couldn't have anything else, he at least wanted those.

Bill nodded. "You got it."

Draco found himself bracing for the twist, because it couldn't be that easy. There had to be a price tag attached to working on the runes, even if it was just listening to Bill apologize every Thursday until Draco's defenses wore down. But Bill only slung his bag over his shoulder and smiled.

"I did miss our Thursdays," he said. He patted Draco's leg underneath the blankets. "Get some sleep."

"Okay," Draco said.

Bill doused the light, then took down the wards. He pulled the invisibility cloak over his head and slipped out of the infirmary.

Draco sank back onto his pillows, already replaying the conversation in his head, trying to make sense of what had happened because it was still so unexpected. Bill had apologized. Draco had believed him but he was still reserving judgement. He pulled in a breath, trying to identify how he felt.

The underlying sense of danger that had been present since their argument was gone now. Bill wasn't going to reveal his secret. Draco was still safe at Hogwarts. That was a relief. And Draco could still work on the runes. That was… well, that was probably the best news of the night. He could already feel the anticipation and excitement returning. His brain flicked over to the last pages they'd been working on, but he shook those thoughts away. He had more to sort through.

Bill had said they could wait and see about rebuilding their friendship. That was an intimidating prospect. Draco wasn't sure what he wanted to do with that. But Bill had said they could take it slow.

Bill also said he wasn't going to tell anyone about being a genius, his brain pointed out.

But Bill hadn't told. He'd just threatened to tell, Draco pointed out right back. And Draco had threatened to kill Ginny, so he supposed things were equaling out on that front.

And Bill had felt so badly about hurting Draco that he was going to quit being a spy.

Draco huffed out a breath as he considered that piece of their conversation. He didn't know if he agreed with it. Bill was a good spy, and he didn't know who the Order could possibly replace him with.

His brain pointed out that he really shouldn't be worried about the Order, since he was more closely allied with the Death Eaters.

Draco pointed out that it was possible to care from a purely theoretically perspective, and his brain fell silent.

He returned to the idea at hand. Bill was going to quit being a spy because he'd gotten overwhelmed and hurt Draco. But getting overwhelmed and irritable was a natural consequence of a high-stress job. Bill didn't need to stop just because he'd gotten angry after the trauma of witnessing a dark ritual. Snape was irritable and angry all of the time.

But he understood that Bill didn't want to turn into Snape. Bill didn't want people to be scared of him – didn't want Draco to be scared of him. It was striking and strange to Draco, the decision to change for someone, so that you didn't hurt them again.

Lucius didn't –

Draco reflexively shied away from that thought. But then a perverse need to examine it overrode the instinct, so he picked at the thought even though it hurt, like poking at a particularly vivid bruise.

Lucius didn't change for him when Draco was hurt by his actions. When Lucius had missed his recitals or competitions, he apologized in the way that Pureblood society apologized.

"I've missed your event." A statement of impact, but no acknowledgement of the hurt.

"There was business." An excuse, not context.

"I'll have to make it up to you." A bribe, but no willingness to change to ensure that it didn't happen again.

Bill couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't say anything mean again, but he was actively changing his situation to lessen the odds that it ever happened again. It made Draco feel important to Bill. Draco hadn't felt important to someone in a very long time.

He let out a slow breath and told himself he was going to wait and see how things went with Bill, but he already knew what he was going to do. He was going to try to rebuild their friendship. He wanted it back.

Rule number nineteen: Perhaps... maybe sometimes... friendships could be a good thing.

Draco rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes. He felt tired, but not overly exhausted. He let himself drift towards sleep.

Bill could hurt him again, his brain pointed out.

Draco groaned at the anxious thought, and pointed out that he'd lashed out too, hadn't he? He could hardly fault Bill for taking out his frustrations on someone when Draco had –

His eyes opened to stare at the faint pale shape of the hospital curtain in the relative darkness of the infirmary.

Draco had lashed out too, but he hadn't lashed out with words. Draco had lashed out with curses. He'd created havoc in the school. He'd antagonized people into battling each other. He'd dueled with the Golden Trio. He'd fought with Nott and Warrington. And not just fought with them; he'd tortured them.

The memory came back, in perfect, vivid detail. He'd stood over Nott, cold rage coursing through him, nothing but retribution in his mind. He'd cast the Cruciatus. He remembered how Nott had choked. He remembered how his face had gone red. He remembered his scream.

Draco sat up, his hands pressing against his eyes, trying to force the memory away, but he knew he'd remember it perfectly for the rest of his life. He felt his stomach churn and tasted bile in the back of his throat.

Bill hadn't been perfect. Bill had threatened him, but he hadn't tortured anyone. And if Bill had been so traumatized from watching the Dark Lord torture people, what would he think about Draco doing it? In Hogwarts? To other students?

His breath caught. He couldn't be friends with Bill. Not because Bill was dangerous, but because Draco was.

oOoOo

Bill headed up to the infirmary Sunday morning with a bouquet of flowers to celebrate Ginny's release. She was currently out of bed, dressed in normal clothes, and Pomfrey was trying to shoo her into the exam room, but Ginny stopped to grab the flowers from him.

"Oh, thank you!"

"Miss Weasley, the Healer is here to see you," Pomfrey said, covering up her breakfast tray and casting a warming charm on it.

"They were supposed to be here an hour ago. They can wait thirty seconds," Ginny said, with a roll of her eyes. She kissed Bill on the cheek. "Thank you so much."

"Healers have many patients, but not much patience," Pomfrey said, reciting the old adage. She plucked the flowers from Ginny's hands and set them beside her breakfast tray "Come along." She made a shooing motion, then turned to him. "She'll be a few minutes. In the meantime, would you mind checking with our Slytherin friend?" She nodded in Draco's direction. "He's refusing to eat."

"Refusing?" Bill asked, feeling faint stirring of alarm.

"I'm not hungry!" Draco snapped, clearly hearing the remark though he was a few beds removed from the chaos. There was a good deal of teenaged petulance in his voice.

Bill smiled at Pomfrey but the nurse didn't return the grin. Her mouth pinched. "He's been sulky since dawn, and I don't think he's slept. His fever's not back, but at this rate, it will be. Maybe keep him company, since the two of you get along?"

Bill tried not to notice the way that Ginny's eyes were darting between him and Pomfrey. He saw her lips move, a wordless echo of 'get along?' The question was written on her face.

"I'll sit with him," he said.

"Thank you, and do try to get him to eat something." Pomfrey prodded Ginny towards the exam room. She twisted around to frown at him, and then the door was closed behind them.

Bill stared at the door for a second, realizing he was going to have to come up with something to tell Ginny, but apparently the first thing on his to-do list was to figure out what was wrong with Draco. He turned and crossed over to the Slytherin's bed. Draco was sitting up, his breakfast tray shoved to the side, and Pomfrey was right. Draco looked like he hadn't slept. Dark circles ringed his eyes, looking like deep bruises, and his mouth was twisted into a grimace. When Bill had left, Draco had seemed calm. What had happened between last night and now?

Bill claimed the chair beside Draco's bed and tried not to panic at the way Draco stiffened and looked away from him.

"Feeling?" Bill asked gently.

He tracked the way Draco's fingers tapped together, a sure sign of his agitation.

Draco was silent for a moment, and then said, flatly, "This isn't going to work."

A hundred protests sprang to Bill's mind, but he forced himself to put them aside. He didn't want to make any assumptions. "Can you be more specific?"

"You can't be friends with me."

Bill paused. He'd been afraid that Draco would say that, but in reverse, that Draco couldn't be friends with him. But this phrasing caught him off-guard.

"Why can't I be friends with you?" he asked.

Draco pulled in a breath, like he was stealing himself, and then he turned to face Bill. His jaw was set; his expression resolute. "I used the Cruciatus on Warrington and Nott."

Bill sat back in his chair. He realized where Draco was going with this, and while Draco was wrong, Bill found himself oddly charmed by his concern. "Why can't I be friends with you?"

"Because I used the Cruciatus," Draco repeated. "It's an Unforgiveable."

"That's a legal term," Bill said. "It doesn't have anything to do with friendships. I'm friends with several people who have cast that curse before."

"That's different," Draco said.

"How?"

"They probably cast it out of necessity."

"And you didn't need to cast it?"

Bill watched as Draco blinked through a couple of memories, minute expressions crossing his face so quickly that Bill couldn't identify them. Draco shook his head. "I could have done things differently."

'Could have done things differently.' Bill knew that thought. That thought had plagued him after fire and after Mirabelle's death. He was slowly learning that the thought was purely an exercise in self-flagellation. He didn't say any of that though, he just asked, "So why did you cast it?"

"Because I was angry, and because I wanted to hurt someone." The admission left Draco's mouth easily, like he'd already asked himself the same question. He glanced quickly in Bill's direction and then away again. "You don't… that's against your morals, torturing people. It makes you upset."

"It does," Bill agreed. He wasn't going to lie or pretend that it didn't bother him.

Draco nodded, still not looking at him. There was a tightness to his body that said he was waiting for Bill to yell at him or reject him.

"There was a rumor around school that you had used the Cruciatus," Bill said. "I've had some time to think about it."

He watched Draco pull in a breath and hold it.

"We had a discussion about power one time," Bill said. "I didn't fully understand what you were telling me then, but I've since seen a lot of people with power, and I've seen them use that power to hurt people. I've realized that there's a big difference between people who like having power and people who like inflicting pain. I've heard you say you like power, and that when you're angry you want to hurt someone, but I didn't hear you say that you enjoyed it."

Draco didn't move. Bill wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"Did you like it?" he asked, carefully keep all judgment out of his voice, even though he was nervous to hear the answer.

Draco slowly exhaled. "Maybe at first," he admitted softly.

"Why?"

Draco looked over. "They insulted my signum."

Bill's mouth dropped open. He wasn't surprised to learn that Draco had a signum, all of the old, aristocratic families did, but he was shocked by the insult. "People fight duels over that."

"Nott was too cowardly to duel."

Bill put the pieces together in his mind, and then sat forward, wanting to reach out to Draco, but restraining himself. "They all fought you?"

"They tried," Draco said, sounding smugly satisfied, but then his expression flattened. "Everyone heard what they said about my signum. And Nott's been trying my authority this whole year, except he was hiding behind Warrington, and I didn't see it. Not until it was almost too late. And no one thought I was actually a threat. They thought I was some sort of joke, and they were laughing at me, and so I shut them up."

There was something cold about the last words Draco said, cold and snarled and vicious, and Bill's heart quickened because that wasn't Draco's voice. That was a Death Eater's voice. But then Draco hunched over himself and ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke again, it was softer.

"And then, when Nott started screaming, I wasn't angry"

"What were you?" Bill asked.

Draco wrapped his arms around his legs. "Scared."

"It didn't feel good anymore," Bill guessed.

Draco nodded in agreement.

"Do you think you'll use it again?" Bill asked, genuinely curious.

"I…," Draco stopped and considered. "I don't think I want to, but…,"

"But it sounds like things are getting rough for you," Bill filled in.

Draco jerked his head. "It might be a necessary evil."

"That's all I need to hear," Bill said.

Draco turned. "What is?"

"That you think it's evil."

"It's a turn of phrase."

"So you don't think it's evil?"

Draco paused. "I suppose it is."

Bill smiled. "Then I doubt you'll use it so easily again."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You're not… upset?"

"I'm upset at the situation," Bill said honestly. "I don't like hearing that you're in danger. I don't like that you've been taught that the Cruciatus is an option. But I'm not mad at you for defending yourself. I just wish there was more supervision in your House so you didn't have to."

"Snape can't intervene."

Bill raised his eyebrows. He hadn't thought about that before. "Because of his Death Eater ties."

Draco nodded. "If he was known to be a hands-on teacher, they would wonder why he wasn't spreading the Dark Lord's message. His best chance at not actively recruiting Death Eaters is to be aloof and distant and leave Slytherin to sort itself out."

Bill couldn't fault Severus's strategy. He'd picked the best of two bad options, but it was frustrating to think that an entire House of students was left to their own devices while a civil war was breaking around them and while recruitment for both sides was at an all-time high. Kids were going to get pulled in directions they didn't necessarily agree with due to peer pressure and emotional manipulation.

"How bad is it in Slytherin?" he asked.

"Some of the older students were trying to segregate the Common Room," Draco said.

"Well, shit. That's pretty bad," said Bill. And then he asked, "Were?"

"Warrington and Nott thought I'd gone soft or turned blood-traitor because I wasn't running Slytherin by Death Eater rules. That's one of the reasons they challenged me." Draco's voice took on a wry note. "They picked the worst time to try me."

Bill couldn't help it; he laughed. And Draco's lips tipped up, ever-so-slightly.

"This doesn't change my opinion of you," Bill said. "I'd still like to be friends, if that's possible."

Draco shrugged, like he was trying to be casual, but his shoulders were still a touch too tight. "You said we could take it slow."

"Absolutely."

Draco nodded. "Okay."

"Thank you," said Bill, and that made the Slytherin frown, so he elaborated. "Thank you for trusting me with this. I won't tell anyone."

Draco's smile faded, and his eyes went calculating, like he realized how much Bill had over him.

"And I hope that when you trust me more, you'll come to me with these concerns," Bill said, hoping to distract him from freaking out. "Maybe we could figure out a way of handling it that doesn't involve you waging a one-man war against your classmates."

"I suppose," Draco said slowly. Bill could tell he was still doing calculations in his head. He seemed to come to a conclusion because he sighed and settled back against his pillows. He gave Bill a dark look. "I blame you."

"What?" Bill asked.

"You got me sick," Draco said.

It was a change of subject, a rather obvious one, but Bill followed Draco's lead. "My sincerest apologies."

"Pomfrey says I'm going to be stuck here another couple of days."

"Longer if you don't eat," Bill said, nodding at the breakfast platter. He took note of the bland food, porridge and plain toast, a glass of pumpkin juice, things that would be easy on an upset stomach.

"I'm not hungry."

"Have you tried to eat anything?" Bill asked.

Draco gave him a dirty look, picked up the pumpkin juice, and took a couple of swallows. He set it back down and gave Bill an 'are you satisfied?' look.

"Bill!"

Ginny skipped back into the infirmary, the Healer from St. Mungo's following her.

"Excuse me," Bill said. He crossed the room to meet Ginny who had a wide grin on her face. "All free?"

"Yup," she agreed.

"Everything looks like it's healing well," the Healer told him. "She'll be on the lung-stabilizers for another month, but after that, we don't foresee any further complications."

Bill let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much."

The Healer nodded and left to Floo back to St. Mungo's. Ginny made for the door, but Pomfrey stopped her.

"Breakfast first, dear," and then sharper, "Mr. Malfoy, I want that plate cleared."

"It's cold," Draco complained.

Ginny peered over Bill's shoulder. "Too good for a warming charm, Malfoy?"

"Obviously," Draco returned.

Ginny snorted, then returned to her own bed, picking up the flowers on the side of her tray. "Thank you."

"Well, you are my favorite sister," Bill told her.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm the whole family's favorite sister."

She pulled the lid off her tray and gave her meal a sniff. Unlike Draco, her breakfast was a full English spread, the kind that was served in the Great Hall on Sundays.

"Breakfast, Mr. Malfoy!" Pomfrey said, striding over to stand at Draco's bed. She stared him down. Draco picked up a piece of toast, bit into it, and all but gagged when he chewed. Pomfrey waited until he forced it down before nodding and moving off again. "All of it! You need your strength."

Draco reached for his wand.

"And no vanishing it!" Pomfrey called, without even looking back. She swept into her office to finish up Ginny's discharge paperwork.

Bill glanced between Draco and Ginny, feeling caught between the two of them. He wanted to celebrate with his sister; he also wanted to make sure Draco didn't make himself any sicker with whatever resistance he was having to his breakfast.

Ginny caught him looking. She glanced over at Draco as well, and then to Bill's surprise, picked up her tray and moved to the bed next to Draco's. Bill was pretty sure Draco was just surprised as he was, but he only narrowed his eyes, like he thought Ginny was plotting something. Ginny didn't seem to notice their surprise, which meant she was ignoring their reactions. Bill belated followed her, grabbing the chair between them and wondering what his little sister was up to.

"Well, Malfoy," she said, tucking into her eggs. "I bequeath the infirmary to you. I can't say it's been a pleasure, but at the very least you were less obnoxious than your housemates."

Draco's eyes flicked over to Bill, then back to Ginny. He shrugged. "They've never been known for their manners."

Ginny's eyebrows raised. "No defense of your fellow Slytherins? It might make me start believe those rumors after all."

"Rumors?" Draco queried with an unconcerned expression.

"That you bested them in a duel."

Bill didn't miss the way that Draco did not react to that.

"Apparently you were fighting over Parkinson," Ginny added.

Now Draco blinked. "What?"

Ginny shrugged. "The rumors say that you and Nott were fighting over Pansy. The others interfered and got caught in the crossfire."

"And what was Pansy doing during all of this?"

"Making out with Eleanor Connelly, I believe."

Draco's lips quirked. "That's the most believable part of it."

"If you say so," said Ginny. She passed off her tea to Bill. "Here."

Bill took it, a sort of ritual that all families had. Ginny didn't drink tea in the morning, she preferred coffee, and if Bill had been eating with her, he would have passed over his strawberry preserves for her toast.

"I suppose you'll be very lonely now," Ginny said to Draco.

"You mean I'll finally have some peace and quiet."

"I was an exemplary hospital-mate."

"You talked to yourself."

"You threw up."

"I have the flu," Draco said.

"It was gross."

Draco glanced at Bill, who could only shrug and take a long sip of tea. He had no idea why his sister was needling Draco, but she did it well.

"I helped you with potions," Draco said.

"Eh," said Ginny. "Bill would have helped sooner rather than later." She took a large of her toast.

Draco glanced between them again, and Bill finally realized what his sister was doing. He followed her example by taking another sip of tea, and then gave Draco a similar shrug. "I wasn't bad at potions."

He watched as Draco, now surrounded by people who were eating, looked at his own breakfast a little less hostilely. He picked up his spoon. "Not bad doesn't mean good."

"He does struggle with teaching it," Ginny allowed.

"I object," Bill said. "If I had time to lesson plan, I would have explained it better."

"Bill, we've talked about this. You don't have to be perfect at everything. It's okay to admit to your faults."

It was another family ritual, falling into the familiar conversation beats and traditional jokes.

Bill scoffed. "I am the golden child and refuse to relinquish my title." He snuck a glance over at Draco, who seemed to be interested in the interplay, but he was also absently taking a bite of porridge, so Bill counted it as a win.

Now if he could only figure out why his sister had decided to eat with Draco.

"We've all decided," Ginny said, "that if you put all of us siblings together, we can create a superior version of you."

"What?" Bill asked. That was news to him.

Ginny listed off on her fingers, "Charlie can beat you at flying, Percy can beat you on intelligence, the twins got you beat on creativity, Ron's got you beat on laid-back attitude, and I've got you beat for popularity. With our powers combined, we can defeat you."

"Why are you trying to defeat me?"

Ginny shrugged. "It's a younger sibling thing. You wouldn't get it."

"I think I'm offended," Bill said. "I raised you all, and this is the thanks I get?" He turned to Draco. "I want you to know that I was a perfect older brother. I was kind, I was supportive. I babysat, for free, I'll have you know."

Draco's eyes slid over to Ginny, who was adamantly shaking her head.

"It was terrible," she said. "We were constantly harangued by our parents to 'Be more like Bill'. Do you know what that does to someone?"

"Creates a competitive atmosphere?" Draco hazarded.

"Exactly. And we could never win. We've all got inferiority complexes now."

Ginny was clearly joking; there was a good deal of laughter in her voice and a smile at the corner of her mouth. Bill was relieved that she hadn't gone with dry humor. Draco was good at picking up on emotions, but he didn't always translate them right.

Draco shrugged. "Then you really should have found a way to sabotage his success."

"Such a Slytherin thought," Ginny said.

Draco shrugged again. Bill was pleased to see that half of the breakfast on his tray had been eaten. He picked up the thread of conversation.

"Well, I certainly didn't need any more sabotage while I was in school. I had Lionel David in my year, and he was intent on taking me down." He told the story that Ginny must have heard a dozen times already, about his academic rival who wanted to make Head Boy and his childish attempts at sabotage. Ginny chimed in, on cue, at the funnier bits, and by the time he finished the story, Ginny's breakfast plate was cleared and Draco's was… well, he'd eaten half his porridge and finished his toast, so Bill figured it was good enough.

"He never stood a chance against you," Ginny said in summation. "Not when you're siblings with Fred and George."

"His attempts certainly paled in comparison," Bill agreed.

Ginny got up to gather her schoolbooks. "Help me carry these back to Gryffindor?"

"I know for a fact that your levitating charms are perfectly adequate," Bill said, but he still got up to help. He smiled and waved to Draco as he passed. "Take it easy."

Draco gave him a nod, and then Ginny shoved half of her books into his arms, and he followed her out of the infirmary.

Bill had figured that Ginny's request for help was an excuse to talk privately, but he wasn't expecting her to pull him into the nearest empty classroom they passed. She shut the door, and then warded it.

"Alright," she said. "What's your deal with Malfoy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb. Pomfrey wanted you to check in on him because you two 'get along'."

"He's in my class," Bill tried.

"You also came to visit him, on your own, without prompting."

"I'm tutoring him."

"Even McGonagall got you to talk with him, after the fight with Ron, Harry, and Hermione."

"How did you hear about that?"

"Ron told me; he was there," Ginny said. She put her hands on her hips, looking startling like their mother. "So, what's going on."

Bill paused for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what to say. "There are certain matters that I need to keep private."

"Alright, how about I give you my two guesses and you tell me what one is closer to the truth," Ginny said.

"I'd rather not," Bill said, but Ginny was forging ahead regardless.

"One, he's some sort of informant and is working with you and your secret spy stuff here."

"Ginny, really," said Bill.

"Two, you've somehow, through some unknown feat of magic or pure willpower, become friends with him."

She waited, expectantly, and Bill sighed because he had to tell her something or she'd start poking around in his business.

"Your second guess is closer."

"Huh," she said, genuinely startled. "For some reason, I thought the first guess made more sense. Not that it makes sense that Malfoy would be helping you spy, but friends. With Malfoy. I genuinely did not think he was capable of having friends, even though he has made some interesting choices this year."

"What interesting choices?"

She shrugged. "The Neutral party mutiny he tried to incite."

"The what?"

"That's not important now, and it fell through anyway," Ginny said, waving his question off. "The point I'm trying to make is that Malfoy doesn't have friends, and I'm worried about you."

"You're worried about me," Bill repeated, a little incredulous. "Ginny, I am a grown man. I can be kind to my students and visit them when they are ill and nothing bad will come of it."

"He just terrorized the whole school because he was in a bad mood. People were injured because of him."

Bill tipped his head to the side. "You seemed rather casual with him in the infirmary, almost friendly even."

"Because I wanted to see what was going on between you two," Ginny said. "You looked like you were worried about him, and not in a distant professor type of way, but the same way you looked when me and Ron were in the infirmary. You have to realize how weird that is."

"No weirder than you picking on him like you pick on us," Bill pointed out.

Ginny opened her mouth to say something and then stopped herself. She sighed. "Okay, I've been keeping an eye on him."

"You what?" Bill asked.

She shrugged. "Like I said, he's making interesting choices this year. And strangely enough, if you go into the conversation expecting that he's going to be civil, he usually is."

She wasn't wrong.

"I have to agree," Bill said. "But why are you keeping an eye on him in the first place?"

"For threat assessment," Ginny said. "Last year, with Umbridge, we ended up fighting a lot of our classmates. Malfoy and his cronies did a lot of damage to Dumbledore's Army, so we're keeping closer tabs on people this year."

"Who's teaching you threat assessments?"

"Moody did, over Christmas break," Ginny said. "Kingsley helped, too."

Bill had to take a moment to acknowledge that this was the state of their reality. His sister, his little sister, who was only fifteen years old, was conducting threat assessments of her classmates.

"That is… really good thinking," he managed.

Ginny put a hand on his arm. "I know you don't like it."

Bill shook his head. "It's not that. I don't like –,"

"The situation," Ginny said with him, and when he raised his eyebrows in surprise, she added, "It's becoming your catch phrase."

"Well, it's true," Bill said. He let out a breath. "So, what did your threat assessment say about Draco?"

"Ron, Harry, and Hermione have him ranked pretty high," Ginny said. "Mine came out lower. I can't tell if he's a generic school bully, a Death Eater in training, or a misunderstood, socially awkward kid with anger issues. But regardless of my assessment, I haven't forgotten who he is." She leveled a look at him. "He's the son of Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort's right-hand, a man who gave me Tom Riddle's diary when I was eleven years old."

Bill felt his heart break. He hadn't forgotten what had happened to Ginny; he could never forget it. The horror and anger and helplessness he'd felt when he learned about it came rushing back. But working with Draco, he'd had to push thoughts of Lucius to the side.

"Ginny," he said, reaching out to her. She stepped into his arms, and he wrapped her up in an embrace. "I'm so sorry."

Ginny returned the hug, her arms squeezing him tight. "You don't have to be sorry. You tutoring Draco, and having a weird quasi-friendship, won't hurt me. I just don't want him to hurt you. He was raised by a man who plays with people like pawns on a chessboard."

She pulled back and tipped her head to the side, considering. "But you never know, your friendship with him might help us in the long run. If he starts to doubt Voldemort, other people might follow him. I just… don't want to see you get your hopes up."

Bill kissed her forehead and let her go. "While that's very sweet of you, I will remind you, for a second time, that I am a grown man. A little disappointment won't kill me. I can manage it."

Ginny outright laughed at him. "When you get disappointed, you're like a kicked dog. You mope about the house, looking absolutely forlorn, like you can't believe how terrible the world is. We all get vicariously disappointed through you."

"That is patently untrue," Bill objected.

Ginny grabbed her books and left the room, still laughing as she went.

OoOoO

Author's note: Welp, I thought this was going to be a shorter chapter, but then Ginny wanted to talk to Bill. Lol.

What did I change this time around? I added in more of Draco being sick, because honestly, the flu sucks. Also, it gave a chance for Bill to be a friend to Draco, even before the apology, which showed how seriously he was taking it. I definitely worked on the apology to make it more realistic as to why Draco would forgive him, and more in line with Bill's character.

I added in the bit about Draco realizing that he might not be a good person to be friends with. Draco's character development in this book is centered around his decision to be a Death Eater or not. Last chapter, he had a taste of torture, and realized he didn't like it, but now he's facing the consequences of his actions, which is that good people, like Bill, are going to be disappointed in his actions and may not want to associate with him. Fortunately Bill got a lot of insight into Death Eaters and Pureblood culture, and can understand Draco's action instead of assuming the worst.

I did pull out the bit about Bill getting Draco to eat his breakfast by dropping secrets about Harry because, the more I looked at it, the more I realized Bill wouldn't do that, particularly not after Bill just threatened to reveal Draco's secrets. So Ginny was featured more heavily this time around. I originally used her as a plot device about why Draco didn't want to go to the infirmary (because he wanted to avoid Bill), but then she got to highlight what's going on for the Gryffindors during this time. We can see that a lot of Slytherin students are starting to fight for the Dark Lord in Hogwarts (with Nott and Warrington leading the cause) and so it makes sense that the teens involved in Dumbledore's Army and the Order are doing the same, mainly by monitoring potential enemies.

Ginny's definitely intrigued by Draco. Not only is she aware that he's making some interesting decisions of late, but she's also aware that Bill's been friendly with Draco, which is just making her more curious. But she also has a lot of suspicion towards him because of what Lucius did to her. So while she's pretending to be unconcerned and casual, she's really trying to get more information. And she thinks it's funny to annoy him. I've figured out a lot more about her character that will become pertinent later on.