Despite enjoying the break from the usual heavy workload of reading, essays and schoolwork, Draco was looking forwards to going back to school. He hadn't seen his friends since Boxing Day, and as it was now early January, he was beginning to miss them. He arrived early at the station, but unsurprisingly given that Mr and Mrs Weasley were in charge of transportation, the others arrived only just on time. Almost as soon as Harry had shut the compartment door, the whistle blew and the train moved off. As Draco sat listening to the active conversation going on in the compartment, he wondered what Ron's choice would be. Would he go for Hermione? Or Lavender? Draco hoped for the latter desperately. Every day he found himself thinking of Hermione more and more often. He had no idea why, but every now and then she cropped up in his thoughts, gently smiling. It had begun to cause Draco some problems last term, as he was developing an unfortunate tendency to daydream. He'd nearly been so far out of it that he'd nearly blown himself up in potions, or at least he would have had Ron of all people not pointed out to him what a catastrophic error he was about to make and saved him from a trip to St Mungo's.

Bouncing off the carriages at the school's main doors, Draco was struck by the snow, suddenly remembering snowball fights long ago resolved and the fun he had once had playing in the snow. That was long ago though, now he hadn't time for such things. Now he had to concentrate on NEWTs and survival whilst not being distracted by such trifles as having a social life and keeping the few friends he had made over the years. What a fun term this was going to be.

There were at last a few things to look forwards to. Apparition lessons had begun in full swing. An elderly wizard who looked to Draco as though he'd have a limp handshake preoccupied them with the consideration of the '3 Ds'. Deliberation, Determination and Destination. Apparition it seemed was more akin to potions than it was to charms, as Draco had always supposed, in that it very much mattered more about your intentions than what you said or did. The first semi-successful apparition was performed by Lavender Brown who, competing with Hermione for Ron's attentions, had decided that smart was cool, and swiftly proceeded to move the five foot into her wooden ring, even if she had left the bottom half of her left leg behind. This was treated with nervousness at first, but when the instructor had put her back together again, a loud round of applause broke out throughout the hall. Draco joined in, even though he wasn't sure whether he was clapping Lavender for apparating, or the instructor for putting her back together again. Before long it was time for the apparition tests, but Draco found, to his bitter disappointment, that he was too young to take it. That afternoon in potions therefore, the usually bustling class was reduced to Harry, Ernie Macmillan and himself. Draco had been sure that Slughorn would cancel the lesson, but to his surprise, it went ahead anyway.

'So, you're too young to sit your tests, eh?'

'Yes, Sir.' They replied, gloomily.

'Well, don't worry about it. Don't imagine for one moment that everyone'll pass and start apparating everywhere. Most people take a couple of goes at it, particularly when they take it young. You'll have whole lot more practise than they will. But never mind. I'm babbling. What I want you to brew me today is something amusing.'

'What, Sir?' Ernie asked.

'Anything. It just has to be amusing. Well, you've not got long. Get going.'

Draco looked desperately through his book. What would work? Hmm, that looked interesting, what was it? A hallucination potion? Looks promising, thought Draco. Not particularly amusing, but it says in the notes that it can be combined with other potions to make a more specific hallucination. Now he'd just have to find the potion to make it amusing, and the final ingredient to synthesise the two together. As he flicked through the pages, Draco found himself wishing- not for the first time- that the book had been published with an index. Here we go, that looked more like it, an invigoration draught. Could it be done in the time available? Yes, it could- just about. Draco got cracking and before long had two cauldrons on the boil, keeping an eye on each one as it simmered gently and occasionally giving each a stir. Now, the synthesis ingredient. What could it be? Draco hadn't covered potions in arithmancy- it was barely touched upon in the subject, even though the theory of both Charms and Transfiguration was covered in some detail. That would be no good as an approach then. Well, he could try treating it as a Golpalott problem, that'd work. At that moment Slughorn came round.

'So, what're you doing here then Draco?'

'I'm trying to make a synthesis of an hallucination potion and an invigoration draught, Sir.'

'I wondered why you had two cauldrons out. That explains it. Going well?'

'Yes, thank you sir. I'm just trying to work out what the synthesis ingredient is. Can I treat it as a Golpalott problem?'

'Good thinking, a good idea, but no, I'm afraid that won't work. Golpalott's Third Law is a special case that only applies to poisons. I don't think that Summersby's synthetic conjecture is in your book, but that would tell you that, let me think, no, not that, but, yes. You'll need to add a dash or two of Bulbadox juice. You'll find some in my store-cupboard over there if you can't find any in your own.'

'Thank you, Sir.'

'Not at all, I've got a rather amusing idea for this if it works.'

'Sir?'

'Tace is latin for candle, Mr Malfoy.'

'Sir.'

Draco quickly headed to the student's store-cupboard. Not an ounce of bulbadox juice in sight. He'd have to go to Slughorn's. Oh well, better give the potions another stir quickly.

That done, Draco hurried to the store-cupboard, found the bulbadox juice and returned to his workbench, where he put three deliberate drops into the main potion, summoned up a thick pair of heatproof gloves and, putting them on, lifted the other cauldron off the heat and poured its contents into the first. Draco put the other cauldron down and began to stir his potion, which was changing colour to a deep nightmare purple as it thickened. Draco stirred three more times and then took the potion off the heat to let it cool. Satisfied with a job well done, Draco sat back down and relaxed, mere moments before Slughorn declared the brewing time to be over. Inwardly, Draco wondered whether Slughorn had been waiting for him to finish.

Ernie had made a hiccoughing solution that Slughorn deemed passable and Harry had made a euphoria solution with a Prince-inspired addition of peppermint, which Slughorn proclaimed to be genius. Draco's potion didn't get an instant roar of approval, or a tut of disappointment, but rather some frantic analysis involving some complicated wand movements that Draco didn't recognise as being part of any spell he knew.

'Well, it looks promising Draco, very promising indeed. We'd have to try it to know for sure, but I've got an excellent feeling about this. Pomona will be giving me tentacula leaves in no time.' Slughorn smiled at himself weakly at that, before continuing. 'Of course boys, you appreciate I didn't say that. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that.'

'Of course, Sir.'

The lesson ended and Draco walked out of the classroom, keen to get to lunch, but looking around he realised he'd left Harry behind. Turning round and heading back down the corridor, Draco went to see where he had gotten to. It turned out that Harry had been talking to Slughorn, making another attempt to get the memory out of him. Apparently Harry hadn't been successful, so it was with the weight of disappointment that they went to lunch.

'How are you going to get this memory out of him? You've been really unlucky, I mean, that last attempt should have worked, shouldn't it?'

'Yeah, you're right. I've been really unlucky. Hang on!'

'What do you mean, "hang on"?'

'I've got a small vial somewhere with my friend Felix in it.'

'Of course- why didn't we think of that earlier!'

'Maybe it's because I was hoping to save it.'

'For what, Harry? What's more important than this?'

'Yeah. You're right. When should I take it?'

'Well. You should probably set things as much in your favour as possible first. Do it this evening.'

'Why then?'

'Slughorn won't be teaching. He'll be out doing things. Things he shouldn't no doubt, given his comments about my potion, though I hope he was joking about that. And apart from that it seems the soonest that you can get away with it. That's what's needed isn't it?'

'Yeah. Oh! Hello Hermione. How are you? Test go well?'

'I passed.'

'Great.'

'Well, it was just a matter of remembering the three D's, wasn't it.'

'If you say so. Where's Ron?'

'Getting debriefed. It takes longer if you fail apparently.'

'He failed?'

'Yeah, left half his eyebrow behind and the clot didn't have enough sense to say he'd blown it off in a potions accident last week. They'd never have found him out if he had.'

'Shame. Oh well Harry, at least we'll have some company, eh?'

'You could say that. Doubt Ron'll be happy.'

'You could always knock him up something amusing, eh Harry?'

'Something amusing?' Hermione asked, confused.

'Yeah, Slughorn got us to brew up something amusing in potions earlier. I made a euphoria elixir.'

'How'd it go?'

'Nearly perfectly, thanks to a certain friend of mine.'

'Not that Prince person? Harry, I don't know why you can't see it. He's one seriously shifty feller.'

'Come on Hermione, you're just jealous I'm outdoing you in potions. Anyway,' said Harry, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, 'without the Prince, I'd never have won Felix. Ron'd have buggered up that quidditch match and I wouldn't have gotten that memory of Slughorn's.'

'You've got it?'

'Not yet, but I'm going to using the Felix tonight, aren't I?'

'Well, so long as you know what you're doing.'

When it was time to head out on his mission later, it was clear that Harry had no idea what the potion was doing with his body, he was just going along for the ride, lucking out as far as possible. It was hours until he returned to the common room.

'I did it.'

'What?' Draco asked, rising himself from the stupor of boredom he had been in since first Hermione and then Ron had headed to bed.

'I've got the memory.'

'Well done. Going to take it to Dumbledore then?'

'What now? It's gone midnight.'

'So- what's he going to do, give you detention for completing homework and helping to defeat the Dark Lord? Really?'

'Yeah, but it might not be Dumbledore who caught me- what if Snape did?'

'Come on Harry- you've never had much trouble evading people before- you went out in your cloak earlier, go out in it again now.'

'Oh yeah, forgot about that.'

'Long evening, was it?'

'Not half. First of all Aragog's funeral- Slughorn was there, and then the wake. Hagrid and Slughorn kept drinking and got completely rat-arsed. Of course, it probably helped that I was filling up the bottle.'

'And then he gave you the memory?'

'Yeah, that's the way it went.'

'Not very heroic is it? You need to get something off someone, so you do it by taking advantage of them after you've gotten them drunk.'

'Don't care. Sod heroic, I just want the job to actually be done.'

'S'pose so. Well, are you going now? Want me to wait up?'

'Nah, it's all right. Get some shut-eye, I'll see you in the morning.'

'Good luck.'

Draco headed up to the dorm, got into his pyjamas and laid down on his bed. He couldn't sleep though. In his mind he turned over what he knew over and over again, guessing what Slughorn's memory might contain and trying to put together the picture that Harry had relayed to him. What could it all mean? In the end, Draco drifted into an uneasy sleep, filled with dreams of insane dark wizards cackling whilst doing handstands in fluffy pink tutus. In the morning Draco scarcely remembered it, but what he did remember, he did his best to forget. That had been a weird dream.