Hi again! Thanks for coming back. Quite a few of you have Alert'ed this fic, I hope you're happy with the rate of the updates. And thank you to my lovely two loyal reviewers. You make my day every time.

In this chapter, Hermione notices something important, Draco is definitely not going back to Hogwarts, and Ginny and Harry don't make sense.

Scar

Harry woke up at six the next morning, courtesy of his new Auror training-imposed habits. He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep again, but couldn't manage to. At seven he rolled out of bed with a groan, knowing the night was over. He felt tired, but something in him refused to go to sleep. Merlin, couldn't he even sleep in on weekends anymore?

He trudged downstairs in his pajamas wearily, trying not to make too much noise. The stairs creaked under his weight.

"Harry?" a voice called softly from the kitchen. "Is that you?"

"At this hour, it couldn't be Ron," he replied, smiling tiredly as Hermione appeared in the doorway. "What are you doing you already up?"

She shrugged. Her hair was almost as messy as Harry's, but she was dressed and looked wide awake. "I couldn't sleep. You?"

"The same. Tried to but couldn't."

She stepped aside to let him maneuver around her and into the kitchen, moving over to the counter. "Do you want coffee?"

"I really don't need anything to keep me awake," he answered. "If you have a Sleeping Draught, I'm all ears."

"Sorry, I don't think we have any of that in the cupboards," Hermione said. "Pumpkin juice?"

"I could live with that."

He took the bottle she was holding out to him and poured himself a glass, swirling it around a little before gulping it down. "Pumpkin juice always reminds me of Hogwarts," he said, setting the glass on the counter again.

"Me too," Hermione said. A soft smile touched her lips. "At home, we only had orange juice and hot chocolate. Pumpkin juice always had that special feel to it."

"Magical," Harry agreed.

"Ron would think we were crazy. It's just juice."

He poured himself another glass. "It's different for Ron."

"Yeah." Hermione was silent for a moment. "Do you ever feel like... like we've had two lives? The second one started when we were eleven years old and discovered a separate world. I used to think I loved this world, loved being a witch, but..." She shook her head helplessly. "Everything is so difficult right now. I don't think it would ever have hurt this much if I hadn't been a witch."

He set the glass down and looked at her. "You're an amazing witch, Hermione. You could never not be one."

"I know," she said. "But don't you ever wonder? What it could be like?"

He was silent for a moment. "Not really," he said finally. "It's not the same for me. I... I was never happy before I knew I was a wizard. And I could never turn my back on the world my parents came from. This is the place for me, Hermione. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"You wouldn't change it? Not any of it? Not the fear, the deaths, You-Know-Who? Nothing?"

He looked down at the counter. "I can't."

"But if you could?"

"It's no use thinking like that, Hermione," he said harshly, cutting his eyes to her. "Of course I wish Fred, Remus, Tonks... I wish they hadn't died. Of course I do. But they did, and there's nothing we can do about it. But we put an end to it. We stopped Voldemort."

Her eyes shone with tears. "Then why don't I feel happy? Why don't I feel like we've succeeded? Why does it feel like the world is even worse than before?"

"You're not supposed to be happy," he told her. "Not for a long time. But someday, maybe."

Hermione dragged the back of her hand against her eyes, brushing the tears away. "That isn't very encouraging."

He shrugged. "It's the best I can do." He nodded at the table, which was bare. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, I only got up fifteen minutes ago." She managed a weak smile. "I'm starving, but I don't think there's much to eat."

"I think we still have muffins or something," Harry said, crouching to open a cupboard. He closed it quickly and opened another one. "Yeah, they're here." He took out a paper-wrapped muffin and tossed it to Hermione. "Hope you like blueberry."

"It'll do."

Harry heard the paper crinkle as she unwrapped the muffin. He stood up straight again and walked over to the table to sit down, leaning back into the chair, closing his eyes. The sound of a chair being scraped back told him Hermione had sat down across from him. He opened one eye to look at her.

"How is it going, with – you know... Malfoy?" she asked after a moment.

"Badly," Harry said, stretching his arms out over his head and yawning. "We got into a little argument yesterday – think I was lucky he can't use magic against me."

Hermione rested her chin on her hand and blew out a sigh. "It's that bad, then?"

"You don't seem surprised."

She had already finished the muffin, but she didn't get up to take another one. "I was expecting it. It is, after all, Malfoy. With you."

"Yeah, you're right. It wouldn't be him if it weren't a bit difficult, would it? But it wasn't even... I mean, I don't go out of my way to get on his nerves anymore or anything. It was... It was about his parents, actually."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing!" he protested. "I didn't do anything. He won't let me talk to them."

Her eyes widened and she sat up straight. "But he can't do that. The agreement that they signed says that –"

"He knows what they signed, Hermione. He just doesn't care."

"Well he should," Hermione said indignantly. "You could tell the Auror Office that he was refusing to respect the contract and that would be the end of it. He would go back to Azkaban!"

"You know I wouldn't do that."

"I know," she said, "but does Malfoy?"

Harry shrugged. "If he doesn't, then he doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. I mean – how could he think I'd do that? I know we hated each other for years at Hogwarts, but we were kids. I would never have gone out of my way to seriously mess his life up. He probably would have, though, if he'd had the chance."

Hermione looked at him. "You can't really think that."

"He's not really giving me a choice."

"He saved your life, Harry."

"The way he acts, I don't get the feeling that he meant to do it."

"You mean he didn't do it on purpose?" Hermione shook her head. "That's just stupid. You saw how he threw himself in front of you and threw you the wand. The way he shouted your name. That was no accident."

"I know, but..." Harry shrugged. "I just get the feeling that he regrets it. Like he would rather I'd died or something."

"That's horrible."

He tried to smile. "Well, it is Malfoy we're talking about."

"Why do you think he did it, then?" Hermione asked. "It was all so sudden. He risked his life to save yours, even though he was never on our side."

"I don't know, Hermione. I really don't know. And I don't think he does, either. We still don't like each other."

"You should make an effort to be pleasant. You may be the Saviour of the wizarding world, but he saved you, too."

Harry grimaced. "The Prophet came up with that, didn't it? 'The Saviour.' Merlin."

"Well, you are."

He waved the subject away. "I have better things to do than discuss Malfoy. You're going back to Hogwarts this week, aren't you?"

Hermione's face lit up. "Yes."

"I wish I could be there to see you off," Harry said wistfully. "Ron is going to feel so bad about it, too."

"I know. He's told me." She blushed. "He made himself very... clear."

"I don't want to know," Harry told her, making her laugh. He grinned. "I bet now he regrets joining Auror training instead of going back to Hogwarts with you."

Hermione shook her head. "He could never have gone back to school. It's where..." Where Fred died.

Harry swallowed. "I know. But he'll miss you when you're gone. We both will."

"We'll see each other at Christmas," Hermione said. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"I know you will. Look after Ginny for me, will you?"

Hermione smiled warmly at him. "I promise."

"I mean, she's tough, but..." Harry bit his lip thoughtfully. "It's just... I don't know how she's dealing with all of this, really. And Fred..."

"Don't worry," Hermione said again. "We'll be together. She'll pull through. You haven't talked to her in a while, have you?"

"I haven't been to the Burrow lately. I'll see her at dinner tonight. We need to talk, anyway."

"You've been saying that since the Battle."

"It just... never seems to be the right time." He smiled. "Besides, it's not like you and Ron. Ginny and I, we missed out on a lot this year. Which was my fault," he added hurriedly, raising his left hand to stop Hermione from saying anything. "I know. But it's still pretty difficult. It's different."

He expected Hermione to give him solid advice, to reassure him.

"Harry, what's that?" she asked sharply, reaching up to take the hand he was holding up.

She turned his hand around so that his palm was facing upward. Harry glanced down at what had caught her attention – a scratch in the middle of his palm he imagined he had obtained during the Battle, or on the run. A smattering of pinpricks which, if you played connect the dots, outlined the vague form of a flawed number eight. It shimmered slightly, like a burn scar, but Harry couldn't remember having been burnt recently. Maybe it came from Crabbe's Fiendfyre, or from Bellatrix's vault.

"Where did you get this?"

"Gosh, Hermione, I really don't know," Harry said, feeling inexplicably annoyed as he pulled his hand back. "Maybe when we were busy fighting for our lives or something? Do you think it could possibly have been then?"

Hermione frowned at him, letting him know she didn't find his sarcasm amusing, but she quickly glanced down at his palm again. "This reminds me of something," she said, and had that look on her face that meant she was going through her mental library to look it up.

Harry closed his fingers into a loose fist, hiding the scar. "I'm sure it's not the first time you've seen the number eight, and it isn't the first scar you've seen on me, either. Of course it reminds you of something."

"That's not it," Hermione said, eyes still on his hand as though she thought the intensity of her gaze could allow her to see through Harry's flesh and bone to the scar. "I've seen that somewhere, I know I have."

"Leave it alone, Hermione," he said. "It's just a scar. Want to see the one I have on my forehead? I'm sure you could look up some interesting things about that one, too."

She gave him a dirty look, but then her expression cleared and she laughed aloud, giving in.

Draco's parents were getting better, which was both a blessing and a curse. He was glad, of course. Relieved. But at the same time, now that his parents had a firmer hold on their sanity, little things kept coming back to Draco. The little things they had always nagged him about. For some reason, his mother still seemed to think he was a normal eighteen-year-old. She pressed him to keep in touch with Pansy, invited Theo over without telling him, and introduced him to pure-blood Astoria Greengrass, who had been two years below him at Hogwarts and whose mother was a distant relative of one or the other of his parents (or, most likely, both).

Needless to say, he hadn't contacted Pansy even once, that half-hour with Theo had been extremely awkward until he'd finally told his "friend" to leave, and as for Astoria... Well, he'd had the good grace not to dismiss her himself, and they had had a long, exceedingly polite conversation about everything under the moon except the obvious issues. He had seen her eyes slide down to his left forearm and linger there. He had pushed his sleeve up and let her see the Dark Mark, and she had gone white and stuttering. He hadn't said anything, just watched her coolly until she excused herself.

He wondered whether she had thought he was proud of it. Some people still thought that, didn't they? Thought he was proud of what he had done. But that was his own fault. He had bragged about having the Mark, at first. He remembered that much. To Pansy. No wonder she resented him his freedom. He had been despicable. He probably still was, but at least now he was aware of it. He wasn't proud of himself anymore.

His mother still was, though. Proud and determined that her son lead a normal life. She kept telling him he'd been 'brave' and 'strong' and that he had done everything he could under the circumstances. "Yes," Draco had agreed once, "Everything I could to harm people." Her newest fancy was that he should return to Hogwarts and finish his studies like everyone else.

"Not going to happen," Draco had said the first time she brought it up. "No. No way."

He had said it practically every day since then, because his mother kept insisting. Like right now, at breakfast, on a Sunday morning.

"The train leaves this week," Narcissa said. "And you will be on it."

He raised his head, gave her a look, then stared back down at his plate. Sliced bread suddenly seemed fascinating.

"I know you've said you don't want to, but it's important. It wouldn't be so hard. It would just be like every other year you've spent there. Pansy, Blaise and Theodore are returning. I think you should be with them."

"Yeah? Have you asked them what they think about that?"

"They're your friends. They're worried about you. You need your friends at times like these, Draco. If you keep brushing them off like you've been doing, you'll have none left."

He ignored her, pushing bread crumbs around with his knife instead.

"Severus would want you to go back. Dumbledore would want you to go back."

"Well that's the first time Dumbledore's opinion has been used as the argument of authority in this house," he snapped. "Listen, Mother, they're both dead now. Shows how much their opinion mattered, doesn't it?"

"Don't talk like that, Draco," Narcissa said harshly. "Remember all Severus did for you –"

"None of that matters anymore! It wasn't enough, and he's not around to do anything about it."

"If he were – and that's what matters –, then he would tell you exactly what I'm saying right now. Go back, Draco. It's not too late. You can still go back –"

"I don't want to, Mother. No one wants me to."

"I do. Please, Draco."

He looked up at her dispassionately. "Do you know who will be there?" He raised a finger to indicate the number one. "Hermione Granger, for starters. Remember her? Remember when I watched as Aunt Bellatrix tortured her? I'm sure she remembers." He lifted a second finger. "Luna Lovegood. She spents a few weeks in our cellar recently, you know." A third finger. "Ginny Weasley. The Carrows made me torture her last year because she was a member of the DA. And –"

"Please don't," Narcissa said, her eyes filling with tears. "Stop it, Draco. None of that was you. None of it was your fault."

"All of it was my fault," he snapped. "And they all know it. Don't you see there's no way I can go back? I can't –" His voice broke. "I can't face them. Any of them. Pansy –"

"Pansy adores you."

"She also hates me."

His mother changed her tack. "The Ministry would approve, you know. It's the perfect place for you to be. Hogwarts has always been the safest place in the country."

"Until I managed to smuggle Death Eaters in and kill the headmaster, you mean."

"You didn't kill him."

"You're right. Snape did."

"Don't talk about him like that. He was a good man. He looked out for you and he was good to our family."

"That hardly qualifies him for sainthood, though, does it?"

Narcissa pressed her lips together in a thin line. "That's enough, Draco."

He shoved his plate away, pushed his chair back, and stood up. "You're right. It's more than enough. It's no use pretending we can have a normal life anymore, Mother. I'm not going back."

I won't leave you two alone at Potter's mercy, he thought as he strode out of the room.

"I'm only trying to help you, Draco," she called after him, but he ignored her. "Why won't you let me?"

Ginny sat down next to Harry at the table that evening, which he took to be a good sign. Their hands brushed as they ate, making them glance surreptitiously at each other. Harry savoured the light, friendly contact and when, before dessert was served, Ginny closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder, he jumped as though he were still sixteen and worrying about his feelings for his best friend's sister. He almost wrapped his arm around her shoulders but decided against it and instead just looked down at her, smiling. He wasn't used to weary, unsmiling, vulnerable Ginny, but at that moment he thought he probably wouldn't mind getting used to her. It would just take some time.

And she did smile when after dinner, he asked her if they could talk.

"We always say that, don't we?"

Harry thought she was brushing him off, but then she added, "Outside?"

He followed her out the door. She didn't take his hand. They sat down in the grass, cross-legged, facing each other.

"I'll miss you," Ginny said before he could say anything. "At Hogwarts."

He looked into her eyes. "So will I."

"I missed you last year."

"So did I."

"I was afraid you would die."

He was quiet for a moment. "… So was I."

Ginny hesitated, then looked down at the grass. "You did die, right? In the Forest?"

"Yes. I told you." And she was the only person she'd told, besides Ron and Hermione.

"But you came back."

"Yes."

She wouldn't ask how, she wouldn't ask what it had felt like. A part of Harry desperately wanted her to, just to know that she cared, but – the rest of him never wanted to tell her.

"A part of you died back there, didn't it?"

"No. It was –" The words tasted foul in his mouth – "a part of Voldemort."

Ginny looked at him searchingly. "But it was inside you, right?"

He ground his teeth together, then forced his jaw to relax before answering as steadily as he could. This wasn't something he wanted to become public knowledge, either. "Yes."

"And that's why your scar used to hurt, and you could see what he was doing?"

"I think so."

Then she asked the question they'd both been avoiding since the first time he'd told her about the Horcrux inside him. "So are you – different? Now that he's no longer..." She trailed off.

"Maybe."

Ginny nodded like she understood. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"All that, pretty much."

They exchanged a small smile.

"And also," Harry added, "That you had better beat Slytherin in the Quidditch Cup. I'm counting on you... Captain."

She grinned, a genuine smile that showed a flash of white teeth in the darkness of the night. She had received the badge along with her Hogwarts letter and it had been decisive in her choice to return to the school.

"We'll massacre them," she promised.

"I also wanted to tell you that I'll miss you."

"You already said that," she pointed out.

"Well, don't forget it."

"I couldn't." She paused. "You... Will you be at the platform? When we leave, I mean?"

Harry shook his head regretfully. "I can't. I'll have classes. I'm sorry."

"So this is good-bye?"

Something heavy settled in his stomach as he looked at her, taking in the way the darkness cast shadows across her face and made her eyes seem black as night. "Yeah, I s'pose."

She leaned in and kissed him then, a hot, burning kiss that tasted of pain and bitterness and blame. It felt empty somehow, unsatisfying.

And when they went back inside, they still didn't hold hands.

Next chapter (still within a week!), Harry and Draco are face-to-face again. It's also the chapter that gave this fic its name. Temporary Insanity, indeed. You have to love these guys.