We remained in our places on the grass, trying to process everything that Abigail had just told us. I couldn't help but think that her decision to keep her promise was ultimately a selfish one.

I mean, sure, if it had been my task and I was meant to 'save' either Ron or Hermione or both, I'd do it. But then I thought what if it had been Ron's or Hermione's task to 'save' me? I would rather carry the Dark Mark throughout my life than lose all the memories I had shared with them!

To Hell with that promise, this was not anyone's but Malfoy's decision to make!

Hermione was the first to break out of her reverie. "Okay let's see if I'm getting this right: when Malfoy's rid of the Mark, he'll also be rid of his memories of you or just memories of the, erm, harvest itself?"

Abigail smiled that sad smile again. "I've said that they didn't remember ever having met the harvester at all."

"But you weren't as close to those Death Eaters than you are with Malfoy, right?"

Abigail didn't answer immediately. She looked into the distance and sighed. "Since the Dark Lord's downfall, you can just imagine how many chances I've had to perfect the technique, trying to 'work out the bugs', so to speak. I always knew I was going to be the one who harvests Malfoy's Mark, so…" she trailed off, shook her head, and concluded, "There's no way around it."

"Maybe you can pretend to be someone else when you're doing the, erm, harvesting?" Ron suggested.

I was going to say that that might actually work, but Abigail shot it down. "It's a more complicated magic than that, Ron; I've tried that and it didn't work."

Hermione raised a hand to rest on Abigail's shoulder, consoling her. "I guess you could always just start over with Malfoy or something."

"I'm not staying, Hermione."

I couldn't take it anymore. "You're being selfish! This is Malfoy's life you're making decisions for! At the very least, you should tell him about this whole Dark Mark thing! You're his friend, aren't you?"

She was unaffected by my outburst. I watched her stand back up on her feet with surprising calm before she turned around to say, "I am many things, and a good friend is not one of them." She then regarded us with a meaningful look. "Perhaps he has yet made such friends."

"If you won't tell Malfoy, I will!" I threatened her. I hadn't meant to, but she was just impossible!

In no time at all, she had immobilised me. I sensed that she had done the same to Ron and Hermione, but there was no way to tell for sure. At any rate, none of us made a move to counter her.

"Then you will leave me no choice but to hurt him for it. I can do that, you know." She raised her wand and released me then, intentionally letting her Mark peer at me as she did. "Please, don't do anything stupid."

Having been caught off my guard just now, I couldn't say anything to that and just let her go.

But didn't Slytherins know better than to ask that of a Gryffindor? Hah! Like I was going to let her empty threats get to me. I was going to tell Malfoy everything the very next chance I get.

Wait, maybe not absolutely everything. I wasn't ready yet.

'The very next chance' became more and more impossible over the next few days. NEWTs were looming in closer, demanding much more than there was of me. Hermione had all but sold her soul to it, and even Ron had taken to bringing his notes to the Great Hall for meals. No, really, he actually read those notes. This didn't help my nerves at all. To top it off, I always had my days occupied, and got too exhausted by the end of them to stay up perusing the Marauder's Map. I could only hope that Abigail keeps delaying her final task until I get the chance to talk to Malfoy again.

As if in answer to my prayers, Neville botched up our potion so severely one afternoon that Professor Slughorn had to have the class replaced on the next day. The replacement class was to be held together with the Syltherins' usual class. Once it ends, I would take Malfoy aside and tell him about Abigail's task. If I had known that ruining a potion was all it was going to take, I would have purposefully melted my cauldron well before this week.

The dungeon room we used for Potions this time was bigger and better ventilated. I noticed the improvement immediately, and wondered why we didn't use this classroom for Potions all the time. Neville and I settled ourselves down at the table behind Ron and Hermione's.

Professor Slughorn was in front of the class, consulting his pocket watch. "I'm sure I've informed them about the change of venue…"

A door at the opposite side from where we had entered the class then swung open, and the Slytherins began filing in. Neville and I started unpacking our potions ingredients onto our table.

"You're in my seat, Longbottom!" an irritated voice suddenly spoke from beside me. I turned to see a slightly dishevelled Malfoy shoving Neville out of his seat. Nott, who I guessed was his potions partner, was watching with a face that probably mirrored my own. Neville was too taken aback to give any response.

"Er, Draco, maybe that wasn't entirely called for-" Nott began, but Malfoy must have glared at them with such fierceness that Nott actually started tugging at Neville's sleeve and pulled him away to another table. Neville barely had time to recover all his things. I started packing up my stuff, too, but was stopped by Malfoy. "What are you doing? Sit down."

By Salazar, NEWTs was taking its toll on Malfoy, too.

Professor Slughorn had started the lesson with a few notes on the board. I sat back down and returned my attention to Malfoy.

"So you talked to Abigail." He began with a statement.

I hadn't fully recovered from my surprise, so my reply was not as swift as I would have it. "Yea, a few days ago. What, she's still not talking to you?"

Malfoy shook his head. "Doesn't help that we have NEWTs to study for."

"Alright over here?" Professor Slughorn was now doing his first round of the class.

"Yes, sir." We answered in unison.

I watched the professor walk over to the next table while Malfoy squinted at the board. "Great. Now my eyes are going."

I gave Malfoy a smile before turning to the board. I picked up my textbook and flipped it open to the page that was indicated on the board. I then placed the book between Malfoy and myself on the table.

He ran a long finger over the list of ingredients as I watched. "Fuck me, I've run out of belladonna. Have you got enough for three full measures?"

Of all of the curse words he could use, he just had to go for that one. "Err…" I surveyed the mess I had laid out on my side of the table and found the glass phial that contained said ingredient. I held it out to Malfoy, but he only looked at it before giving me a raised eyebrow.

"Oh." I caught myself and unstopped the phial. I prayed to whoever would listen that I wasn't blushing as I measured out its contents into a beaker.

Malfoy was shaking his head slightly. "Humph."

I watched out of the corner of my eye as he dumped something into his mortar and pestle and began crushing it.

"What did you find out?"

"What?"

"From Abigail."

The book said we needed one measure of shrivelfigs for the potion. I didn't have enough. "Have you got half a measure of shrivelfigs?"

"Huh? Oh, erm… Here."

"Into the cauldron."

Malfoy wouldn't take my word for it; he checked with the book before adding the shrivelfigs into the cauldron. I rolled my eyes.

He didn't approve of that. "What?"

"I can read the instructions as well as you can, you know."

"I wouldn't know that."

I sighed. I moved on to the next instruction. It said we needed root of aconite. I searched for the wrinkly brown root amongst the mess on my side of the table. I had three of those, and I took the smallest of them in one hand. I compared the sizes of the roots.

Wait, did it say we needed a small one, or a medium one? I reached for the book with my free hand, still comparing the sizes of the roots. I touched something that was decidedly not made of paper.

I whipped my head around to find Malfoy retrieving his hand from where it was resting over the book. From where I had touched it.

"Sorry," I offered, praying again that my embarrassment would go unnoticed.

"It's fine." Oh, Merlin, he was blushing. "I mean, no! I mean," he wisely shut up and started cutting something up instead.

I couldn't help grinning. He didn't approve of that, either.

"What are you so pleased about?"

I grinned wider. This was fun. "You."

He stopped cutting the whatever-it-was and raised the blade in his hand at me. "Get back to work!"

I did as I was told, chuckling.

"And you haven't answered my question: what did you find out from Abigail?"

I was just picking up a bottle of infusion of wormwood, having read the instruction to do so. The cramming I did in the past couple of days was not letting me follow two separate trains of thought simultaneously.

"Erm… Oh, she's not upset with you, but it is something about you."

"What is it?"

The mixture was supposed to have turned green by now. Perhaps it had something to do with the bottle in my hand.

"Malfoy, right now is really not the best time to talk about it. Let's finish brewing this potion first."

He peered into the cauldron, and then looked over the book again. "Oh, yes. Right."

Forty minutes later, the atmosphere in the Potions classroom had changed to the familiar hot and stuffy one. I've always hated high-heat potions. Sweat was starting to break out and trickle down the side of my face. I shed my outer robes in defeat.

"Alright, now we 'leave it to brew for half an hour'," Malfoy read the last instruction from part one aloud, waving his wand over the cauldron.

After a short delay, the heat was getting to him, too. I watched him shrug off his outer robes and undo the top button of his shirt. "I hate high-heat potions," he told no one in particular. He wiped off the moisture on his forehead with the back of his hand. My eyes followed the hand as it moved from his face down to his neck. Malfoy pressed the back of his fingers on his throat before bringing the hand to the back of his neck.

On second thought, maybe just this once, I loved high-heat potions.

If he would just stop being so dazzling, I mightn't be so distracted all the time and maybe, just maybe, I could even tell him everything.

"So how about now? Can you tell me now? We have half an hour."

"W- What?" I blurted out.

I saw his lips tighten and his hands balled into fists. "Why are you so distracted all the time?" he asked, slowly, in suppressed frustration.

"My higher brain functions seem to be eluding me at the moment. Allow me a minute." I managed to draw out a small laugh from him with that. Thank you, Hermione.

Malfoy checked himself then and cleared his throat. "What did Abigail tell you?"

"Well, um…" I suddenly found it difficult to begin. "Erm, what do you already know?"

"I don't know! Look, did you or didn't you talk to her?"

"I did!"

"Then?"

"I… She…" Merlin's pointed hat, this was not my secret to tell.

Wait a minute! Did Abigail do something else than immobilise us that day? That's impossible!

"So she didn't tell you anything. I've been lured here under false pretences."

"What? I didn't lure you here!"

Fortunately, Professor Slughorn was now doing his second round of the class. "Are you boys doing alright? How's your potion? Let's see… Excellent, excellent! Nothing less than I had expected from you, Harry!"

His disregard of the former Death Eater was not lost on either of us. And then the professor moved on to the next table.

I really didn't want this, whatever it was, with Malfoy to end. I tried to get the words out as best as I could.

"She promised to do something for someone, something that would hurt herself and you, too, in a way. She's torn between having to keep that promise and hurting you."

"What is it? What did she promise who?"

I felt my heart constricted, and I knew I could reveal no more. "It's really not my story to tell, Malfoy. I think… No, I have faith that she'll let you know when she's ready. Look, I'm really sorry."

Malfoy had already stopped listening to me. He was looking pensive and somewhat sad again.

"Malfoy?"

He didn't respond. I wish I could simply resign to having things go back to the way they were before, but no. I had dared to hope, and now I was not going to just give up.

"No, I'm sorry, Potter. This really had nothing to do with you from the very beginning."

Dare I say it? Yes. Not a Gryffindor for nothing. "No, you don't have to apologise. I made it my business."

Malfoy gave me a face. His 'what the heck' face.

"I'll do whatever I damn well please, Malfoy," I said, shrugging.

He stifled a laugh, and had to resort to grinning.

Phew, I almost died.

[Author's Notes]

I got really bored with the plot, so here, have the proper Drarry fluff of sorts. I've just been aching to reach this scene. I can't wait to have my OC out of this place already.

I too am facing exams, a fact I shall present as the excuse to the absurdity of this entire story!