Draco walked along the hallways blindly; a restless energy filled him and he needed to keep moving. Christmas, the New Year – the holiday season was over, and yet there hadn't been any news as to the success or failure of his other plan. The waiting was difficult, and he desperately wanted to hear it had worked. Magical carpentry wasn't his forte, after all.

As he walked though one corridor, he heard the sound of a voice coming from a room just ahead. He located where it was coming from and pressed his ear to the door to listen. "…brewed you right," the voice from within was saying. "But why aren't you working?"

Draco would know that voice anywhere. Impulsively he entered the room. Creevey turned at the sound of the door opening and his eyes widened in shock. "Draco! What are you doing here?"

Thrown by the sound of his name coming from the Gryffindor's lips, his reply of I could ask you the same question died before it made it out of his mouth. Creevey seemed to realize what he'd said, for he flushed and stammered out, "Sorry, for the, um, over-familiarity."

Draco moved to look around the room to give himself time to think. The emotions that had bubbled up inside at hearing his name were confusing. "So this is your photography room?" he asked, to cover the tension of the moment.

"Yeah," Creevey – Colin? – said carefully. "Darkroom is the technical term for it."

Draco looked at the pictures hanging from a line stretched across the room. "Why aren't they moving?"

"They're Muggle pictures. Sometimes I do magical ones, but that requires a potion that is difficult to make. I've only managed to make it correctly once. This batch" – he waved his hand at a cauldron in the corner of the room – "went wrong somewhere and I don't know where."

Draco stepped over to the cauldron and peered inside. "When did you add the Rose Oil?"

"Right before I added the flower heads."

"There's your problem," Draco said. "They need to be added at precisely the same time, while stirring clockwise."

"The book doesn't say that!"

Draco shrugged. "I've experimented with a lot of different potions. Found a few tricks of the trade."

"Thank you."

Draco nodded stiffly. An awkward sort of silence fell, and he turned back to the photos drying on the line. "Most people think of me as simply a Malfoy," he said somewhat haltingly while looking at a picture of a snowball fight between five heavily snow-covered figures. "There aren't that many people who think of me as Draco, but I – like it. That you do, I mean. So you – have my permission to call me by my given name."

"Thank you," the other boy repeated, with feeling. "And likewise, you may call me by my given name if – if you want to."

Draco nodded once more. "Do you have more ingredients for the Developing Solution?"

"Yeah." Colin gestured to a nearby cupboard. "I buy them in Hogsmeade."

"Let's get to work then."

Twenty minutes later, the potion started to bubble a perfect pale pink color. "It will turn translucent when done," Draco murmured.

"That's what it said in the textbook," Colin replied. "But even the one batch I made that worked didn't turn translucent."

"How did that batch work?"

"It wasn't too bad. The people moved about half the normal speed, but they still moved so I was rather pleased with it anyway."

"Does anyone know that you use this room?"

"Yes." Colin laughed, and Draco suddenly wished he could hear that sound more often. "Professor McGonagall allowed me to use this room as a permanent thing. She kept finding me all over the school. The last time it happened I was in her Transfiguration classroom, and I gave her such a fright she dropped the stack of books she was carrying."

Draco gave a shout of laughter, unable to help himself; the thought of the stern Professor dropping books from being startled was too peculiar not to be funny. "What?" he asked when his companion looked at him oddly.

"I've never heard you really laugh before," Colin said in wonder.

Draco looked away, embarrassed. "I know it seems strange to you," he said, "but I used to laugh a lot. My life hasn't always been so – cheerless. It's only been since – "

"Since when?" Colin prompted when he didn't continue.

"Since…since the summer after my fifth year," he whispered.

"And yet – you still believe in the cause?" Colin asked. He wasn't attacking; his tone was curious, as though he was truly interested in the answer. "You still want Him to win?"

Draco didn't respond right away. "I believe in the cause," he said at last. "I don't know anything else."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I believe in the cause," he repeated. "But I – I wish it wasn't Him in charge." The last few words came out in a whisper. He'd never admitted that before, not even to himself.

Colin nodded and glanced at the cauldron. "Look! It's translucent!"

"So it is," Draco said with a satisfied smirk.

"Thanks for helping me," Colin said somewhat shyly.

"Go on, try it out," Draco said, embarrassed.

Colin went to work. His demeanor immediately became focused, serious. Draco watched him; a strange sort of feeling enveloped him and he tried to place it but couldn't, no matter how much he tried. He shook his head slowly.

"It's perfect," Colin said. "Look at this." He held up the photo, and Draco smiled at the image of a first year girl putting together a snowman and then waving at the camera.

"Of course the potion is perfect," he replied. "I made it."

Colin just laughed and went to work developing the other photographs. Draco leaned back against an old desk and watched. For the first time in a long while, he felt calm, relaxed, as though his problems outside of Colin's darkroom ceased to exist, and for just a moment in time, he almost felt – happy.

That feeling, however, was not to last long. Days turned into weeks, and progress on his mission was at an all time low. He lived for his venting sessions and occasional conversations with Colin, which were becoming more and more frequent; nearly every day they met up in the abandoned girl's bathroom or, from time to time, Colin's darkroom.

The latter room was where they were on the first of March. For once, Colin was talking, Draco having exhausted his supply of words. "…and as I entered the Common Room, the first thing I noticed was Lavender and Romilda shouting at each other, something about a Love Potion and Ron and Harry taking him to get sorted out. Pretty much the whole House was listening to the argument, and I figured I wouldn't get any homework done around there so I came here."

"Romilda? The name doesn't sound familiar." Draco frowned in thought.

"She's in my year. We're on friendly terms but I wouldn't exactly call us friends. She's too obsessed with Harry."

"Sounds like you two would get along well," Draco said dryly, and he couldn't help the teasing grin he threw at the Gryffindor.

Colin grinned back but rolled his eyes. "I've grown up a little since then, if you hadn't noticed."

"Point taken," Draco conceded. "I haven't seen you hound him with a camera since what, my third year?"

"Sounds about right."

"Why did you stop following him around, anyway?"

Colin looked at him, his eyes clouded in thought. "Because," he said thoughtfully, "I stopped thinking of him as a hero."

"I've known he wasn't – "

"No," Colin interjected, "you misunderstand. He's someone I look up to – yes he is, don't look at me like that – I look up to him. But he's not a hero, the way that they are portrayed in the books and movies I devoured as a child. He's real, he's human, he's a child – just as we all are."

Draco opened his mouth but Colin interrupted him again. "I know you don't believe that. You might not understand what I mean, either. And that's okay."

"Why do you do that?"

"What do you mean?"

"We obviously have very different ways of looking at the world. Why don't you care? Why don't you try to change my mind?"

"Friends accept each other for who they are," Colin said simply.

Draco blinked. We're friends? he wanted to say, but didn't. "Do they?" he asked instead, his tone doubtful.

"True friends? Yes."

Draco was quiet, and Colin left him to his very confused thoughts. They departed the room together in silence, exchanging a nod as they split ways.

The Gryffindor common room had not quieted down when Colin entered after he left the darkroom. If it was possible, the chaos had increased. "What's going on?" he asked a second year boy whose name he did not know.

"Ron Weasley was poisoned," the boy said, his eyes wide with fright.

Colin's mouth dropped open. "How?"

"They're saying it was a bottle of mead."

When the boy couldn't give any more details, Colin asked a few other people until the whole story became clear. Apparently Ron had swallowed a love potion; Harry took him to get an antidote from the Potions Master, who had, at some point, offered up a toast (for what, no one seemed to know, as each account was different); and the drink had been laced with some nasty substance that (rumor had it) had been meant to kill. Exactly who it had been meant to kill, however, no one knew, but there were plenty of guesses.

Fear gripped Colin. Was this, again, Draco's doing? He knew the Slytherin was still working on his mission, though as of yet he had not told Colin who he was trying to hurt. He had tried not to dwell on it as much as possible. He knew that keeping such a secret might very well cost someone their life, and yet – not keeping the secret might also cost lives. This whole situation, Colin thought, was quite a catch-22 and it gave him headaches just thinking about it. Yet no matter how many times he'd mulled it all over he still found himself on the fence. Secretly he knew that his unexpected attraction to the Slytherin was swaying his decision, and while he felt guilty for it he couldn't make himself change his mind – and so, day after day, he had allowed things play out without his influence.

Colin found the answer to his suspicion the next day at the breakfast table. He happened to glance up at the Slytherin table and for a moment he met Draco's gaze. Grey eyes flicked to the side twice, and Colin mirrored him quickly to show he'd understood: that was their signal to meet, to be used only in emergencies. Two minutes later, Draco left the Great Hall. Five minutes after that, Colin followed.

Draco was pacing the length of the bathroom by the time Colin found him, apparently so lost in thought that he didn't even hear him enter. "I'm here," Colin said quietly.

Draco stopped pacing and looked at him. His face was blank, but the turmoil was easily read in his eyes. "You knew that was me." It wasn't a question.

"I guessed, yes."

"I hate Weasley," Draco said savagely. "I hate him, and I wouldn't care if he died, but I don't want him to die now because I don't want it to be my fault."

"They say he's going to be okay," Colin informed him. "He'll be in the hospital wing for awhile but he'll make a full recovery."

Draco nodded but didn't look reassured. "I didn't realize it would be this hard," he whispered. "When I took the Mark I thought – I don't even know. But I was proud that I would be the one to bring honor back to my family. I didn't think about this – how difficult it would be to deal with the idea of harming someone." He paused and resumed pacing. "I don't understand this. I hate Weasley, and he's the worst kind of blood traitor – but to know that I'd be responsible for – " He stopped talking, unable to articulate exactly what he was thinking.

But Colin seemed to understand. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Draco."

"It is," Draco insisted. "I have to complete my mission."

Colin started to pace beside him: fourteen steps to the right, fourteen steps to the left. "Tell me something," Draco said abruptly.

"Tell you what?"

"Anything. Just give me something to focus on besides this."

"My Mum," Colin said after a moment, "makes these brilliant chocolate hot cakes. When Dennis and I were kids she'd make them every Monday. To 'start our week out right' she'd say." He smiled fondly. "When I first came to Hogwarts that was the thing I missed the most. But then, in my third year, I stumbled upon the kitchens. While I enjoyed a snack I talked to the House Elves about Mum's hot cakes – I didn't think they were really listening, but they must have been because the next Monday there was chocolate hot cakes amongst all the usual breakfast items. And they've been there every Monday since."

Draco nodded to show he was still listening, but chose to keep his less than complementary comments about House Elves to himself. Colin started on another topic once he realized Draco wasn't going to respond. "A year or so before I got my Hogwarts letter I was on a skiing vacation with my friend Jay. He dragged me down a diamond trail – that's the slopes meant for people who can ski well, and neither one of us were experts – and not even a quarter of the way down we both were having trouble. Jay was starting to panic and I wasn't all that calm myself and then there was this odd little rush that went through me and all of a sudden both of us were sprawled in the snow on the bottom of the hill." Colin shook his head in disbelief. "It wasn't the first time something odd like that had occurred around me, but I assumed that I'd just been concentrating so hard on getting down the hill that I'd spaced out during it or something. Jay certainly had no trouble accepting that explanation."

"It turned out," he continued after a moment, "that Jay was a wizard too, although his parents elected to send him to an American school."

Draco snorted. "An American school over Hogwarts. Figures."

"Well he grew up in Colorado. And I don't think his parents were thrilled about sending him to a foreign country."

"Father wanted to send me to Durmstrang , but Mother didn't want to send me so far away."

"I've looked into most of the other Wizarding schools, but none of them sound as brilliant as Hogwarts." Colin shrugged. "You'd have done well in Durmstrang though."

"I would have," Draco said. "Perhaps I wouldn't be stuck in this mess then." His tone was bitter.

"Perhaps so," Colin agreed.