Much to his delight, Draco heard that Dumbledore himself was going to be covering the Defence lessons for the next few weeks. Finally they would be able to see the legendary teacher in action. The class lined up anxiously outside the defence Against Dark Arts classroom. The bell chimed the beginning of the period and they walked in. At the front of the class stood Dumbledore, who invited them to sit down. The Gryffindors were all eager to sit near the front for once and eagerly jostled each other aside for seats. Draco and Hermione managed to sit down together on the front bench, with Harry and Ron just behind them. An eager hush settled over the room and Dumbledore began.

'The key thing in defending yourself against dark magic is to know when you can fight it and when you cannot. If you fight only when you can win, and hide else, then you will never be beaten by dark magic.'

'Yes, Jones? You have a question?'

'Sir, what if you can't beat the dark wizard or run away from them?'

'Good question. If you can do neither then you should avoid doing evil to others by any means.'

'But surely that would mean you're telling us to let ourselves be killed. I mean, if Crouch had succeeded in bringing back He who must not be named then surely we would have a problem if he came to call.'

'You would indeed. That is why you must be able to hide yourself from the off.'

'But then wouldn't everyone hide all the time and nothing would get done?'

'That is why you must know when to fight, so that you needn't fear everyone.'

'But..' Dumbledore raised a hand to stop the question.

'I think it's time for a demonstration. Everyone up!' They stood up, confused as to what they were doing.

'Right, now, everyone look for someone they think they can beat.' Everyone partnered up with someone else, until only Draco was left unpartnered.

'Everyone found a partner?'

'No.' Draco's solitary voice replied.

'Well, you can partner me then, Draco. Now, the younger shall challenge the elder to a duel, and then each pair shall fight, one at a time.'

The lesson ended when they were half way through the class. That left, among others, Draco left to fight Dumbledore. The next lesson would only be the next day, giving Draco only one night to work out how to beat Dumbledore. By nine O'clock, he was already despairing.

'How am supposed to beat Dumbledore? He's the greatest wizard alive!'

'You're not too bad yourself, Draco, there's a reason that you ended up partnered with him, you are the best at curses, hexes and jinxes in the class.' Hermione tried to comfort him.

'Yeah, but I reckon Harry would have a better chance, he's always been better at defending himself than me.'

'Yeah, but I'm not daft, I'm safely partnered with Ron, aren't I?'

'True. There's simply no way I can win the duel, he's much better at it than I am. After all, he has actually defeated a proper dark wizard.'

'Well, how about you change the duel; get him duelling on your terms.'

'That's not going to make any odds, he's loads better at magic than I am.'

'When did I say anything about magic?'

'Don't be daft, Hermione, it really doesn't suit you, it's a wizards duel, how is it supposed to be fought if not with magic?'

'Have it your own way.'

Draco slept poorly that night, tossing and turning , thinking of nothing but how to beat Dumbledore. Of course. That was how to do it. It mightn't work, but it should level the playing field a bit. Satisfied that he had a strategy that might work, Draco eventually fell asleep. The next morning he awoke full of nerves. These nerves built over the day until by lunch Draco could no longer even think of eating. The lesson soon came. The other partners all duelled, Harry beat Ron and Hermione thrashed Nott, which was particularly gratifying. Then it was Draco's turn to challenge Dumbledore.

'Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, I challenge you to a duel with swords.'

Dumbledore's face broke into a broad grin.

'Good, you've learnt something at least. Foil or sabre?'

'Sabre if you please. Shall we fight until the first hit?'

'Agreed.'

Dumbledore used his wand to transfigure two quills into swords.

'It would appear that these swords at least, are as mighty as the pen.' Said Dumbledore, handing one over to Draco. They faced each other and saluted their opponent with their blade. There was no competition; for all of Dumbledore's' superior height, Draco's youthful agility enabled him to avoid Dumbledore's blows and land one of his own. The duel was over, by some miracle, Draco had won.

'Very well done, Draco. What we can take from that is that not only must we know when to fight, we must know how. Always fight on your own terms if you have to fight. Well done, Draco. Anyway, I think that just about wraps up that lesson, so I'll see you next time, it may serve to give yourself a quick refresher on shield charms.'

They got up and left, talking to each other about how the lesson had gone.

'That was awesome the way you beat Nott. Shame Dumbledore had to put him to rights so quickly.'

'Yeah, well, we can't get everything we want. I'm glad I beat him though.'

'Yeah, and you beat Dumbledore.'

'Thanks to Hermione's advice. I don't know how I could have done it without you.'

'You still did it, Draco.' Hermione said, modestly. Draco said nothing to this-what could he say?

Dumbledore covered the Defence lessons until the end of term, when the school emptied. Even Harry and Draco headed home. The four friends promised to spend much of the holidays visiting each other, which they did manage.

Draco was spending the first week of the holiday with Hermione, which happened to coincide with her Father's Birthday. To celebrate the Grangers and Draco went to the theatre. HMS Pinafore. Well, it might be good, Draco allowed. They took their seats and not ten minutes after the theatre darkened. Draco knew how this worked, the curtain went up and the play would begin.

The curtain didn't go up. An orchestra had started to play and for ten minutes Draco sat there in the dark, listening, to be honest this was not what he had expected, and he was in a minor state of shock. Then the opera proper began. Draco found himself humming his favourite number through the interval but eagerly settled down for the second act. That song that Draco had hummed through the interval was soon replaced by a new favourite. Never mind the why and wherefore, indeed perhaps this muggle theatre did have some relevance to the wizarding world, after all, it did rather show up the whole pure blood thing, didn't it?

When they left the theatre, Draco earnestly thanked the Grangers for a great evening and they headed back to Hermione's. As it was getting late, the whole house went straight to sleep, except for Draco who lay in bed playing the evening's performance over and over again in his head. Yes, the muggles who had written that definitely knew a thing or two about music.

In the rest of the holiday Draco met up with Ron at Harry's where they helped Harry prepare for the third task before heading home for a quiet week before heading back to school. Despite disappointment that there would be no cricket year refreshed in his mind, Draco was looking forward to the third task- Harry was in the lead and might even win! Nonetheless, several weeks of preparation would be necessary lest Harry go the way of the Dodo-the third and final task was sure to be the most dangerous. It was common knowledge that the third task would be in a maze and regrettably the use of broomsticks had been disallowed. There was no one spell that would do, Harry just had to learn and learn, and his friends were going to help him. The weeks passed and lessons continued as usual. Although exams were beginning to loom, Draco, Ron and Hermione hadn't even started their usual revision activities, so busy were they helping their friend. Due to all of this work, by the time the third task rolled round Harry was feeling oddly complaisant. He knew enough to do well, or at least to survive. Finally, a mere two days before the task, a final briefing told them all they would know about the task, they would have to work their way through to the centre of the maze and find the Triwizard Cup. The first person to touch the cup would win. The real Moody took the cup to the middle as the champions were having a hearty breakfast in the Great Hall. There was something of a relaxed, celebratory atmosphere. The sinister events of the year had been averted with the capture of Barty Crouch Junior, the Minister for Magic had come to watch the final event, accompanied by Barty Crouch Senior, who was now back to full health and in full command of his department. Draco gave his final good wishes to Harry and headed off to grab some seats in the stands. Having gotten a good seat, Draco stretched out in the warmth of the sun and relaxed. Hermione and Ron joined him slightly later after they'd given their best wishes to Harry and popped back to the common room for some cushions. Apparently they'd thought the seats might get a little uncomfortable. They were nothing of the sort, and as the warm glow of the sun filled the world Draco began to fell sleepy. The champions were let into the maze one at a time, with Harry going first. Despite a few sticky obstacles, Harry made steady progress towards the middle. Cedric was also making good progress, whereas Fleur and Krum seemed to be struggling a bit more, having set off considerably later. Harry and Cedric were approaching the Cup together, they were going to take it at the same time. They lifted the cup and disappeared.

What was going on? An angry murmur filled the stands. Time passed. Fifteen minutes later and they were still nowhere to be found. Then suddenly they reappeared, right in the centre of the maze, which had been vanished in the hunt for the two boys. Dumbledore, Moody and McGonagall ran over to the two boys. Harry was bloodied and looked liked he'd been through the wars. Cedric looked worse. Amos Diggory ran over to him and let out a howl of anguish.

'He's dead! My boy is dead!'

A stern Albus Dumbledore turned his attention to Harry.

'What happened?'

'He's back, Voldemort's back.' I don't know how but the cup was a portkey. Took me to some graveyard. Wormtail was there.'

'And what happened next?' Dumbledore asked, persuading Harry to open up. Draco, Ron and Hermione had by now arrived and were listening avidly.

'Voldemort said kill the spare and Wormtail killed Cedric just like that. Then he sort of imprisoned me on the tomb of Voldemort's father. Then he put this sort of baby-voldemort into a cauldron, chopped off his own hand and took some blood from me. Then Voldemort came back. He summoned all of his old supporters to him and then.' Harry stopped, the memory beginning to overwhelm him, Dumbledore spoke and had soon coaxed some more from Harry.

'Well, when we were fighting and then the spells sort of mixed. I forced some little bead of light into Voldemort's wand then all of these dead people started coming out of the wand. Cedric first, then some muggles. My parents.' Once more Harry faltered but Dumbledore had apparently heard enough to guess the rest.

'So, you let the connection go, grabbed Cedric and then got back to the portkey?'

Harry nodded.

'I see.'

A pinstripe clad figure had finished sauntering his way over to them.

'Ahh, Cornelius. We have a terrible problem.'

'Yes, I can see that Albus, a boy's died in this perfectly safe Tournament of yours.'

'No, it's worse than that Cornelius. The Dark Lord has returned.'

'What?' Fudge spluttered. 'No! You're making it up! Trying to destabilise me!' Fudge stormed off. Draco suddenly decided to go after him.

'Minister! Minister!' Fudge didn't turn around, but slowed to a fast walk, which let Draco catch up.

'What is it?'

'Well, don't you think you ought to listen to Dumbledore?'

'Most certainly not! He's a power hungry busy body who would like nothing better than to be minister.'

'But it isn't Dumbledore who says Voldemort's back- it's Harry.'

'Harry Potter! You expect me to believe him, given all the stuff they've written about him in the Prophet?'

'Yes.I assure you Harry wouldn't lie about this. Besides, what's the owrse that can happen? You put everyone on alert and if nothing happens you blame it on Dumbledore and Potter, you were merely acting in the public interest based on information gathered by certain sources, you must know the drill.'

Fudge did and seemed to be impressed by Draco's political savvy.

'You're certainly your father's son, aren't you, Draco.' The minister half chuckled 'Very well, I will take your advice. But if you're making this up...'

'I'm not.'

'If you're making this up I'm going to ensure that you never get a job with the ministry ever. Understood?'

'Yes, Minister.'