Disclaimer: I do not own the creation of Harry Potter or anything to do with it. It all belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Chapter Eight: Draco's Eye-Opener

...

"This can't go on!" said Snape angrily, staring at Draco with shock, "How could you have even considered this Draco? It's too dangerous. Draco, your father is doing this for his own glory; not yours. You cannot be used!" Draco had speaking for the last hour, giving in-depth details of his summer and the task Lucius had set out for him; gradually throughout the conversation, Draco had unconsciously edged closer and closer to his godfather, until their legs were practically touching.

"I'm not saying this is the best of situations for me, but it is an opportunity nevertheless," said the young Slytherin quietly. "Regardless of that, I have no choice. He'll kill me if I didn't comply."

And then Snape did something very out of character. He gave Draco a hug. He pulled the Slytherin towards his chest and wrapped his arms around him. Despite the fact the two had not had much loving contact from anyone, it was not awkward. Snape had never experienced much of a family, just like Draco. Whilst Snape's childhood had not experienced abuse like Harry's or even Draco's, he had most certainly watched it. His father, the drunkard he was, inflicted most his anger on Snape's mother. It was mainly echoes of loneliness that surrounded Snape right up to adulthood and even until this present day.

"This is not even the Dark Lord's idea!" Snape continued to rant, "You… How will you befriend the boy Draco? I'm not sure if you have noticed, but you have despised each other for the last five years; I know your father asked this of you in first year as well! And this was when Potter was even more of a gullible fool than he is currently; there's no chance of it working now. And he sticks to his Golden Trio like Armadillo blood on a cauldron."

Draco chuckled grimly and replied, "I know, it's not an easy situation there. I have a feeling I'm just going to have to ad lib. I dunno. I really don't. I've tried speaking to him but you're right; as daft as he is, he's not going to suddenly strike a friendship with me." Severus sighed. Why did Draco have to tell him? His godson wasn't aware Snape was a spy, but at the same time this had nothing to do with the Dark Lord. Snape could also see through Draco's calm facial composure by the ineloquent mannerisms in which he was speaking; it was incredibly un-Draco.

"Draco, you have put me in a very difficult situation. I want to be here for you, but this is the most ridiculous idea your father has made to date!"

"Potter's changed a lot. I can tell; the way he's been acting these past two days isn't usual. If I could possibly find out what's wrong, maybe I could work on that-" mused Draco, changing the topic. Snape could do nothing to help him and Draco was beginning to regret telling him now.

Severus looked at his godson mildly impressed; he was quite observational indeed but nevertheless Snape caught the change of subject. "Draco, as idiotic as the Gryffindor is this is an impossible task. If the Dark Lord had made this decision this would be a different story."

"You know… sometimes I wish Aunt Bella was right; that you were a spy. Then you wouldn't have to berate me like my father." Snape looked at Draco in badly concealed shock. The young Slytherin, heir to the whole of the Malfoy fortune… Does not want to be a death eater? Snape cleared his throat; he'd have to be careful how he addressed this. He would never let anything happen to Draco that he was not willing to do. However, Draco was too young to know the truth. It wasn't that he wasn't trustworthy; it was a matter of Draco not being strong enough. If Lucius Malfoy ever broke through Draco's mind barriers, Snape's life would be in grave jeopardy.

"Draco, I'm going to speak to you as a godfather, not as a Death eater. If you do not wish to be the Dark Lord's servant, you do not have to be. It is a very hard choice, harder than many other choices in life. You are bound to a powerful dark wizard for your whole life, and everything you do must be with the intentions to satisfy him, and him only. It is difficult to experience a loving family as well as serve the master - as you may well have realized," Draco snorted at this, "- so here's my advice to you against the Dark Lord's wishes for the first time and only time; if your heart is not into serving him, go to the Headmaster. He WILL protect you, he wouldn't let any harm come in your way. You will be useless to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, if you do not care for his desires."

"I do care!" Draco suddenly yelled. "I want this and I deserve this. I deserve the power that I know only HE can give ME. I'll show my father just how great I can be, and that beating me down wasn't the way to get me to follow. I want to follow him, I want this, I do!"

Severus looked at Draco, half cagily and half in amusement. "No, Draco, you do not. You think you want this because you have a mild fascination in the dark arts and you wish to prove your father wrong. You're a sixteen year old teenage boy with your whole life ahead of you. There's no shame in admitting you wish to follow something different from your family. It's okay to do so, and it will also be potentially safer for you."

"If Dumbledore is so great Sev, why have you never turned to the light side?" Draco spat questionably. Then he immediately regretted it; that was personal and he shouldn't have asked. But he did have a fair point, if Sev thought serving the Dark Lord was that hard, why didn't he just turn to Dumbledore?

"I do not have to explain my reasons!" snapped Snape. The boy was starting to infuriate him. It was dangerous enough suggesting such an option, now he's asking for private information!

"Alright okay! Before I leave do you have any dreamless sleep?" said Draco quickly, putting the subject back on him.

"It is too late into the night for you to take dreamless sleep. Go back to the Slytherin dorms and try and to sleep," said Snape shortly, getting up from the couch. Draco looked down in disappointment for a fraction of a moment then quickly regained his unreadable mask.

"Ok Sev, thanks for everything."

Just as Draco was about to leave through the portrait, Severus called out to Draco by his bedroom door. Draco looked back dully, one eyebrow raised, "Yes?"

Severus took pity on the boy and gave him a knowing look. "Very well. Come on then. Come over here."

Both of Draco's eyebrows raised this time, into confusion. "Excuse me?"

"You know exactly what I'm hinting Draco, and don't make me drag you over from there. It's late and I'd quite like to receive as much sleep possible," said Severus, leaning against the half open door.

Draco coloured very quickly, "But- No! I haven't since I was like…12!"

"14 is more like it Draco; and either way, who's to know? You need a restful sleep, so come along before I change my mind," replied Severus, smirking slightly at the very embarrassed boy in front of him. Severus then walked in to his bedroom and lay on the left hand side of the bed, followed by his blushing furiously godson, who lay down next to his godfather on the right.

But Draco slept incredibly well; with not a single nightmare that night. Needless to say he was quietly grateful.

...

The next morning Draco walked down the corridor towards his lesson Care for Magical Creatures in deep in thought from his conversation with Severus the previous night. It had been most certainly eye opening – This was the second time the Headmaster had now been recommended to him, firstly by Potter and now his own godfather. Was there an opportunity he was missing here? But how can there possibly be one?

What was he to do? No; there was no way he could go to the Headmaster. Potter's an idiot and Sev must be wrong... And he's hiding something. Why had he not gone to the Headmaster up until now if it was the easy way out? No... No one can be stronger than his father except the Dark Lord... Sev doesn't understand. He doesn't know what Lucius Malfoy is... really like. Draco walked out the doors of Hogwarts and towards Hagrid's small hut. He felt sick. Why did his father put him up to this? It couldn't be true what Sev was saying. Draco truly believed he was going to achieve a grand amount of respect out of this. His father will merely bask in all the glory of capturing Potter alongside Draco. Talking of the boy, he was already standing near the hut with Granger? But why was he stroking her hair?

Abruptly a red-headed figure brushed past him and strode to Harry. "What are you touching her for?" bleated Ron, giving Harry a not so gentle shove on the shoulder.

"Ron, Ron, leave it, you don't understand-" Hermione moved away from Harry and grabbed Ron's shoulders to stop him pushing Harry again.

"What's there not to understand?" thundered Ron lowly, his face matching the colour of his hair as he realised just what he was insinuating about his friends, "I saw him– I saw him-"

"Ron... I swear... What the hell did you see? We were just talking and Hermione just had something in her-" Harry began to say turning towards Hermione, totally bewildered.

"Harry… I don't know what got into me. It's just these past few days have been really odd," said Ron nonsensically, as he raised his arms up in a gesture of surrender. But then Harry did something he really would regret later. He flinched. Harry began to back away slowly... his hands shaking irrepressibly.

"Harry... No, I wasn't going to..." By this time, many other students had arrived to watch the concluding quarrel between the golden three.

"What's going on here?"

Draco froze at the voice.

"I am your cover for Hagrid for this week. As some of you may know, I am Professor Markel your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher however I do have a small amount of knowledge in Magical Creatures – I daresay maybe even more than your previous teacher!" Some of the Slytherins chuckled, but most of the rest of the group looked reproachful. Draco was still frozen in shock. William Markel. He'd forgotten that he was the new defence against the dark arts teacher.

Neither Ron nor Harry had forgotten what happened. Ron looked at Harry, despite feeling absolutely ridiculous for the arrogant assumption that his best friend had made a move on his girlfriend, gave Harry a concerned face, indicating that they 'need to talk'.

"Okay pairs. You have twenty seconds to get yourselves into pairs otherwise I'll do it myself," said Professor Markel, turning around and looking at Hagrid's house with his eyebrow slightly raised. Ron looked around and saw Hermione moving away from him. Ron understood the signal and went up to Harry.

"We'll work together, is that okay with you?" asked Ron, his face incredibly apologetic. Harry merely nodded numbly, feeling his shakiness dissolve finally.

Hermione looked around for a pair but could not find anyone untaken apart from two Slytherins and a Hufflepuff. Strangely, Knott did not choose Malfoy but the Hufflepuff. This left Hermione with Malfoy. Internally growling, she walked up to him.

"Granger." Draco said, teeth clenched, attempting not to groan.

"Malfoy..." Hermione replied dejectedly, glancing at Ron. Ron looked sincerely contrite, which made her feel slightly better.

Markel turned around and grinned enthusiastically. "Well that was fairly easy; it would have taken the first years another hour. Good. I would like you all to go into the forbidden forest, stun a creature, you may have heard of in your past lessons and come back. Whichever couple seems to have found the most interesting creature wins. It's fairly simple for a double lesson hey?" Markel looked around at the pupils doubtful faces. "Come on! You're in sixth form now!" He clapped his hands together. "You have one hour. The last half an hour we can discuss the creatures. Go!"

Draco looked at Markel curiously. Why was he behaving so friendly? He wasn't anything like his father had made him out to be. Despite the man being very new and relatively unknown to the Death Eater circle, Lucius Malfoy had made Markel appear very harsh.

Harry and Ron set out on their search. Harry decided to make amends before Ron could get any more insults in. "Listen, Ron, I'm really sorry if you thought I was trying anything with Hermione. I swear she is just like my sister. I wasn't doing anything. I honestly don't know what you were seeing. There was just something in her hair. It was nothing Ron," said Harry firmly.

"I know that deep down Harry. It's just the way you were grabbing her head – I love her mate and I guess I was getting a bit overprotective. These past few days…" Ron trailed off uncertainly.

"Go on," edged Harry, turning to face his best friend.

"It's just – This past summer obviously Hermione had only seen me, so I've been the only person in the picture. I just… What if she realises it's not me… she wants?" Ron finished awkwardly, not looking directly at Harry. His fellow Gryffindor bristled however.

"Do you honestly think Hermione, "righteous-save-the-house-elves" Hermione, would do that to you? Mate, I've had a feeling for about three years now that you two will eventually get together. And trust me, I know she thinks of me as a brother, and that's exactly where I want to be. Do you reckon you can understand this?" Ron had the decency to look abashed.

"You're right. Forget about it. But what was that cringing all about? Did I say something?"

"No, no. I was just being an idiot. It's nothing," said Harry quickly, internally shrinking with mortification at the reminder of his earlier reaction.

"Come on we better get on with this then, we've already wasted fifteen minutes staring at bark."

...

Meanwhile Hermione and Draco were attempting to walk separately through the forest, metres apart from each other. They had unwisely chosen the rockiest, steepest region to find their creature.

"Why did you choose this area Granger; aren't you meant to be smart or something?" sneered Draco attempting to balance on a jagged rock.

"If I recall correctly, it was you who walked in this direction Malfoy!" replied Hermione, her arms already scratched from falling over twice.

"Excuse me? If I remember precisely- AHH!"

"Malfoy? Malfoy where are you?" said Hermione nervously. Silence, except the sound of gushing water by the lake where the rocks were, "Malfoy quit playing about you're not funny!" Hermione began to carefully hold the rocks and move towards where Malfoy was just standing. No sign of him.

"I'm down here. I'm fine." Malfoy called from below. Hermione had to stifle a scream of shock. Malfoy was hanging off a branch, which hung over the rocks, by his robe... which looked like it was about to tear into two. If he fell, he would get extremely hurt!

"Malfoy you need help! Where's my wand?" said Hermione, trying not to panic.

"I don't need help... I can just... NEED HELP, NEED HELP, ARRGHH!" Hermione looked down again; Malfoy's robe had very nearly split.

"I can't find my wand!" Hermione moaned looking around in despair.

"I've got it!" called Malfoy from above the water and rocks.

"What! How?"

"I... Well, I just nicked it and was waiting for you to realise..." Draco murmured.

"You bastard! Purloining my wand means now you're the one who's going to suffer!" Hermione shouted down. But obviously she couldn't just leave him there. Quivering with fear, Hermione took off her robe and began to climb her way down the rocks, her hands clenching as hard as she could.

"Listen I'm about three meters away from you to your left now, can you turn around and hand me my wand?" Draco turned to his left and reached into his pocket, and stretched to hand her wand over. Quickly Hermione produced a rope. She tied one side to a rock and threw the other to Draco. "Listen. Tie this around yourself. Tight." Draco nodded and did so immediately. Just in that moment, Draco's robe split into two, causing him to swing off.

"Whoa- that was close." Draco climbed across the rocks to where Hermione was standing. "Thanks," he said, undoing the rope. "What happened to your face?" A sharp rock had sliced Hermione's face when she was climbing down. He reached up to touch it but Hermione had moved away from him.

"It's fine," brushed off Hermione. "Oh my... What is that?" Behind Draco was a very small creature, small enough to fit in their hands. It seemed like a lizard; however it had a smooth body with... wings?

"I have no idea but we've only got ten minutes to get back. Let's just stun this and get out of here."

"I'll produce a ladder while you do that." Hermione began to create a ladder up to the top of the forest again. She turned around once she was done and saw Draco cradling the small creature.

"Come on Malfoy." Hermione started climbing up the ladder lying down the damp grass once she was away from the rocks. Draco soon came up too and sat down nearby her. Hermione glanced at him. "What's happened?" she asked questionably.

"What do you mean?" Draco said, lying down in the long grass, his arm propping his head up.

"You're behaving… differently. You haven't insulted me once today. And what's up with all your Slytherin friends? What's really going on Malfoy?" rambled Hermione. She just couldn't understand what would cause such an abrupt change in the boy.

"Well... As you were aiding in saving my life, and my life holds a lot of importance, I guess I can only be polite; it's called manners in pureblood terms Granger. Nothing is going on. What happened with Potter and Weasley?"

Hermione bristled slightly at the remark against her blood heritage. HerhH"Ron's making a big deal out of nothing. He's infuriating me at the moment! But they'll make up; they always do in the end."

"Shit we have to go; we've got like ten minutes to get out of here." Hermione and Draco began running through the forest back to Hagrid's hut.

"So what's the deal with you trying to talk to Harry?" asked Hermione, testing her luck as they slowed into a face walk.

"We're not children anymore. I don't see why Potter doesn't see that."

"Why would he see that? We have no reason to mingle with you. You've behaved like a pratt to all of us for our whole time to Hogwarts, and are the opposite of everything Harry believes in!"

"Yet you're speaking to me now," Draco smirked slightly.

"That's because I haven't any choice! I'm glad Harry didn't agree to making amends with you, you're a bastard like your father and always will be," said Hermione heatedly as Draco's smirk began to fade.

"My father is not a bastard! We've got to get over childish feuds and move on. Again, why can't Potter see that?" said Draco now, completely serious. Perhaps this could be a way he could truly understand why Potter would refuse to make amends, and this could aid him in his father's plan to befriend him.

"And that's because you attempted to make our lives a living hell for five years! You bullied him for reasons that were either not his fault or didn't exist! I don't blame him for not forgiving you!"

Hermione walked away from Draco towards Hagrid's cabin in a huff, and for the first time in his life, Draco felt inferior to a mudblood.

...

Chapter End

Quite a Draco-esque chapter we have here; I just feel I needed him up to date with the rest of our characters. The next chapter will contain a little more Draco, and perhaps an announcement on when Harry's meeting is going to take place. And who is Markel…?

I hope Ron wasn't too out of character here; I've mentioned his insecurities subtly across the previous chapters, but this was his final outburst here. His uncertainty with Hermione is important for later on in the story.

Please please please grab a moment to type a review the chapters, I really do enjoy reading them and they motivate me to write more detailed and longer chapters more regularly! To anyone who has reviewed in the past, please don't stop! To those who follow/favourite, please review!

Thank you to TheSamurai'sRose, Caraline Fisher (and her son hehe), Allie Danger, Talia-Elizabeth and a guest for reviewing the last chapter.

Please review! Comliments and critique equally welcome.

Have an excellent weekend.

Best wishes

Raiise