Chapter 45

Dragging himself out of bed that morning after barely an hour of sleep was without a doubt and by any measure the absolutely hardest thing Draco had ever put himself through. He had no focus. His thoughts slipped away from him halfway through every task. He had retied his tie three times. He would have to inhale unreasonable amounts of coffee if he was to even make it to lunch. If he could find Boyle, he might be able to get his hands on some of that Weasley candy that would make you sick, but in that case he would have to coordinate with the Gryffindors – they might get the same idea, and it would look too suspicious if they all fell mysteriously ill at the same time. With a jerk of uneasiness, Draco remembered Granger. The fiendfyre explosion, the smell of burnt hair and flesh. The clear cut image of Weasley picking her up when she collapsed, a burned arm in a singed sleeve dangling limply back and forth. He remembered other things from the night before as well, but each memory was like that: visceral, disjointed, the space between them blank or foggy. He couldn't even recall how they had gotten from the island to the school

"You going to finish tying that shoe?" asked Blaise.

Draco looked down at his hands. There were shoelaces and very little progress.

"Yeah," he said and finished the bow he had stopped halfway through.

He followed Blaise and Nott downstairs. Pansy was waiting for them in the common room and they all walked together to the Great Hall. The other three made small talk about nothing in particular and Draco drifted along behind them. They came up from the dungeon and passed a window overlooking the grounds. Rain was drizzling from a grey and overcast sky. Draco stopped. The rain shouldn't have surprised him. It was February after all, and since all the windows in the dungeon were under the lake, it wasn't like he had had reason to expect anything else. And still, he had thought there would be sunshine. There was a lightness humming through him, like the one that comes with warmth and bright weather. He turned away from the window, hurried to catch up with the others and settled back in step behind them. He watched their backs and tried to determine if perhaps they were walking a little straighter. He felt as if a burden they hadn't known they had been carrying might have been lifted. He wanted to ask Pansy about it, if perhaps she had noticed it too.

The four of them joined the steady trickle of students coming down the marble staircase. Ahead of them, Draco noticed professor Sprout and the headmistress standing close together outside the doors to the Great Hall. They were talking fervently, and then Sprout gestured to the stairs, McGonagall turned her head and looked right at the little group of Slytherins. Her eyes settled on Draco. For a short moment, she held his gaze and his heart stilled. Then she turned back to sprout, and Draco grabbed Pansy's arm.

"What?" she said, like she hadn't noticed anything.

He leaned in close to her.

"They know," he whispered.

"What – who?"

Draco pointed discretely to Sprout and McGonagall.

"The teachers? How would they know?"

"McGonagall was looking right at me-"

"Draco, if they knew, there would be aurors running all over the place. Just act normal. Stop freaking out. Come on."
She shook his hand off and continued down the stairs. Hesitantly, heart still racing, eyes still on the professors, Draco followed her.

He turned his gaze to the floor when they passed them, but he thought he could feel McGonagall's eyes boring into him.

They entered the Great Hall, and Draco half expected the aurors to be waiting for them right inside the doors. Or that the hall would fall quiet when they entered and everyone would turn to stare at them. No one did. No aurors rushed out to arrest them. They walked to the Slytherin table and sat down like they would on any other morning. Draco poured himself a cup of coffee while keeping an eye on the doors. He didn't have to wait long before McGonagall and Sprout showed up. They looked a lot less grim than he thought they had outside. They didn't even glance towards the Slytherin table.

Draco was on his second cup of coffee when the owls arrived. They swooped in through the windows and his nerves spiked again as all around him the day's Daily Prophet was delivered, knuts paid and owls sent off again. He thought it took quite a lot longer than necessary before an owl landed by his own plate. He yanked the paper away from it when it did and the bird ruffled its feathers indignantly. He paid it its knut and then unfolded the newspaper impatiently, already bracing himself for the headline – "Terrorist attack on Azkaban", possibly even "former Death Eater Draco Malfoy suspected to be involved".

But there was nothing about Azkaban. The front page was mostly taken up by an article dedicated to the Gringotts tax conflict that had filled the news for the past week. Draco scanned the smaller headlines of other articles, and there was still nothing.

"Anything interesting?" asked Pansy, leaning forward to read from across the table.

"Doesn't look like it."

He flipped through the paper, though if there was anything about Azkaban in there, it would have been front page news. Apparently the Ministry was keeping the whole thing quiet for now.

"'Morning," someone said.

Draco looked up. Across from him, a Weasley took the seat next to Pansy. Freckles and bright, red hair. Red and gold trimmed robes. It took him a moment to realize that Granger was there too.

"Good morning," she said with a thin smile.

Draco stared at her. Then he turned to look down the table, making sure he was sitting with the right house. A few of the other Slytherins were staring back. Most were studiously pretending they hadn't noticed the Gryffindors.

"Are they lost?" someone muttered.

Draco looked back at Weasley, who was pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Pansy was watching him like the act was deeply upsetting to her.

"What are you doing here?" asked Draco.

Granger smiled awkwardly.

"We just thought we'd try sitting over here today," she said. "You know, everyone has been switching around a lot at the house tables this year so…"
She trailed off.

"Nobody switches around between Gryffindor and Slytherin, what are you thinking-"

"He told you, didn't he?" interrupted Pansy. "About Draco?"

Draco's heart skipped a beat.

"What are you-" he began, but then Weasley and Granger exchanged a look.

Draco's jaw dropped.

"He did?"

Weasley squirmed.

"Well… yeah, I suppose you could say that."

"When?" demanded Draco.

"Uh, last night."

Pansy leaned into Weasley's personal space.

"And where is precious Potter this morning?" she asked, interrupting Draco before he could do the same.

He would have worded it differently. Weasley shrugged.

"He slept in, he'll be down in a bit."

"Anything interesting in there?" asked Granger, pointing to Draco's newspaper.

She didn't quite manage to sound casual.

"Nothing. You want to have a look?"

"If I may."

He passed her the newspaper, ignoring the stares he knew he was getting from every Slytherin at the table.

"I'm glad to see you're alright," he said quietly.

She smiled quickly at him.

"Thank you," she said.

She unfolded the newspaper and let her eyes run over the front page. She had just begun flipping through it, when Draco caught sight of Harry over her shoulder as he entered the Great Hall and headed for the Gryffindor table. He reached it and was halfway down the side of it before he seemed to notice that his friends weren't there. He stopped and Draco watched him as he turned around and scanned over the other tables. He looked over Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, turned back to Gryffindor and then to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw again. And then, slowly, he raised his head and looked towards Slytherin. It wasn't like it was hard to spot a Weasley head in a group of non-Weasleys, and Harry's eyes found them quickly. He hesitated, but only for a second. And then Harry Potter walked resolutely away from the Gryffindor table, across the Great Hall to the Slytherins at the opposite end.

By the time he sat down next to Draco, every student in the hall had noticed him. When Harry reached for the toast, everyone who hadn't seen it for themselves had been told by their neighbour that the golden trio were sitting with Slytherin.

"'Morning," Harry said. "So we're sitting here today?"

Hermione shrugged.

"We thought it might be nice."

"Sure," said Harry. "Interhouse unity and all that."

Pansy giggled and Draco glared at her. Since Granger and Weasley had both sat down next to Pansy, Harry had taken the place next to him. Which should have been fine. Draco had hit him and kissed him and slept next to him, and the four inches between them on the bench shouldn't have been a problem at all, yet somehow they seemed more drastic than anything that had come before. It was very public proximity, and though the intentions of the Gryffindors might be good, he knew they wouldn't get away with it. It was too big and too sudden a disturbance of the fragile truce in the school. Pansy sipped her coffee, and Weasley buttered his toast, and Draco sat rigidly in his seat, decidedly not looking at Harry and bracing himself for the moment when someone would break the silence of pretend normalcy and ask them what the fuck was going on.

He didn't have to wait long.

Some third year boy Draco didn't really know – a Zabini, one of Blaise's more distant cousins – stopped dead in his tracks a few feet from the Slytherin table, staring at the trio like one might look at a blast-ended skrewt if it decided to join for breakfast.

"What are they doing here?" he asked, his voice high and piercing.

Pansy glared at him.

"Piss off," she said.

"They don't belong here," said the boy, his voice rising.

Several people from the other tables stretched their necks to follow the scene.

"Why are you all letting him sit here after what he did to us?" the kid pointed angrily at Harry.

"Well, actually there is no rule that you have to sit at your house table," said Granger in a polite voice she probably hadn't meant to be condescending.

The boy looked livid.

"Shut up you fucking mud-"

"That's enough, Alain!"

There was a scramble as Blaise got up from the table. Alain turned to look at him.

"They're mugglelovers! They can't sit with Slytherin, they betrayed us, they-"

In three quick strides Blaise had reached the boy and caught his arm in a tight grip.

"You shut up right now or I swear you'll be in detention for the rest of your life," he hissed.

Alain shut his mouth. Blaise turned to the three stunned Gryffindors.

"I'm very sorry about this, Granger," he said. "Potter. Weasley. You are very welcome at our table."

He nodded to them and then left, dragging Alain with him out of the Great Hall. Everyone watched them go, and only when the two of them had disappeared through the doors did they turn back to their friends. Mutterings spread down the tables. Pansy looked mildly horrified, Draco was sure he wasn't any better. An angry flush was still visible on Weasley's cheeks. Granger cleared her throat.

"Well," she said. "That was…"

"What's Zabini going to do with him?" asked Harry.

He was still looking towards the doors where Blaise and Alain had disappeared.

"Talk to him," said Draco. "I don't really know Alain's… situation. I think he's usually a quiet kid, but there's a lot of anger in Slytherin-"

"He had it tough last year," interrupted Pansy. "I remember him, he- not that that excuses anything. But it's good if Blaise can talk to him. They need to realize we're not fighting anymore."

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They finished their breakfast and managed to keep up a bit of conversation, though it mainly consisted of people asking to be passed the jam or the juice or the toast with perhaps too many pleases and thank yous. There were no other outbursts from the Slytherins. When the Gryffindors were done eating, they excused themselves, and just as he stood up, Harry leaned in close to Draco and whispered:

"Meet me outside."

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Draco gave him a minute's head start. He finished his coffee and tried to convince himself he didn't feel watched when he got up from the table and followed him outside.

Harry waited for him at the top of the marble staircase.

"What is it?" Draco asked when he reached him, glancing back down towards the Great Hall.

"Come on," Harry said, nodding his head at the empty corridor.

Draco followed him, but they had only made it a few feet into it before Harry stopped and pulled Draco with him into a niche between two suits of armour. And then without letting go of Draco's arm, he reached up with his other hand, pushed it into Draco's hair and pulled him in for a kiss. And Draco's heart convulsed in anxiety as much as excitement, because this time they weren't hidden away in the astronomy tower or in the secret room – no one was going to walk by and notice them, but anyone could. And he let it happen anyway, let Harry push him back against the wall, his hand cupped around the back of Draco's head, holding him in place, his tongue pushing into his mouth. Draco looped his arms around Harry's waist, pulling him back with him. Harry's chest pressed against his own, his fingers clenched in Draco's robes. Draco loosened his hold on Harry a bit, and Harry pulled back, looking slightly flushed but with a wide grin on his face.

"So," Draco said, a bit out of breath. "You told your friends?"

"Yeah, I did."

"All of them?"

"Just… well, just Ron and Hermione for now. But the others will find out soon."

"They will if this is going to be a thing."

Harry's grin grew wider.

"Probably," he said.

"So they were ok with it?"

"They decided to sit with Slytherin."

Draco nodded.

"I can't believe they did that."

He leaned his head against the wall behind him.

"Shit," he said. "You have really good friends, Harry."

"I know."

"I think if I had had friends like that, I might have… some things would have been easier. I might have done some things differently."

He took a deep breath.

"Tell Granger I'm sorry about Alain."

"Zabini already apologized."

"I know, but it's important that she understands-"

"She's pretty smart, Draco."

"I thought she was going to die. I thought we'd killed her."

Harry nodded.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I thought so too for a little while, last night. But Pomfrey patched her up. She'll be fine. Pomfrey's brilliant."

"She is. I bet you would have been killed off before third year if we hadn't had her."

"Probably."

"I'm glad you weren't."

"Thanks, Malfoy, I'm touched."

Draco pushed him away.

"Piss off," he said.

Harry grinned.

"If you say so. I'll find you later, though."

He stepped back out of the niche.

"Fuck you, Potter," Draco said.

He grinned and turned away to walk down the hallway. Draco stayed by the suits of armour and watched until he turned a corner and disappeared. Then he headed back to Slytherin.

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Draco pushed open the door to his dormitory and found that in his absence, his bedroom had been invaded by half of Slytherin house. Matthew, Nott, Blaise and Daphne were gathered by Blaise's bed; Pansy, Millicent and Tracey were spread out on Draco's bed, lounging on it as if they owned it.

"Well that took you long enough," said Blaise, standing up as soon as Draco came through the door.

"If I had known we were holding council, I would have been on time, but since no one bothered to tell me-"

"Don't be a prick, Malfoy," said Daphne. "Pansy claims she doesn't know anything, so I hope you can explain to us what just happened."

He had been making out with Potter, that was what had just happened, and for a split second, he was tempted to simply tell them that. He felt reckless and elated, but all their eyes were on him and he could feel Pansy's nerves quivering from across the room.

"You mean at breakfast?" he asked.

"She means Potter and Weasley and fucking Granger sitting at our table and acting all chummy like we're all the best of friends," said Blaise.

"Potter hates you," Matthew added.

Draco shrugged.

"Not anymore," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Draco crossed his arms as he looked around at his housemates. As much as he admired Harry's friends for their loyalty, their decision to sit with him and Pansy didn't really go well with the plan of being discreet until the affair with Azkaban had blown over.

"We're friends," he said, which wasn't discreet either, but they hadn't prepared for this, and the easiest lie to pull off would be one that was at least somewhat close to the truth.

Blaise huffed.

"You mean to tell me you have not imperiused him or slipped him a love potion and that he was actually acting of his own free will this morning?" he said. "Come on, Draco, in what world have you and Potter ever been friends?"

"We've been talking a bit this year."

"When?" shot Matthew.

Draco sighed.

"You know how I've had trouble sleeping this year?" he asked.

There were nods and shrugs all around. He wasn't surprised; he hadn't expected Blaise to keep quiet about his nightmare.

"Right, so sometimes I've been walking around the corridors at night. Apparently Potter was doing the same thing and I've run into him a couple of times."

Blaise raised a sceptical eyebrow, but he looked intrigued.

"And then you became insomnia-buddies?" he asked. "Just like that?"

"I would appreciate if you'd turn down the sarcasm a bit," Draco said.

Blaise just rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, Potter told me learning the patronus charm might help with the nightmares, so I asked him if he would teach me."

"And then he turned you down flat," said Daphne.

Blaise threw up his hands.

"Imperius it is, then. Mystery solved."

"He said yes," Draco said.

"What, so he's forgiven you for Voldemort, is that what you're saying?" asked Tracey.

Draco glared at her.

"Yes," he said coldly. "He testified at my trial, you know. In my defense."

Draco didn't actually know that, he hadn't found the time to ask him. But he thought it seemed likely, and anyway, if he didn't know, then neither did any of his housemates.

"Well that doesn't necessarily mean-" Tracey began, but then Nott interrupted her, speaking up for the first time since Draco came in.

"So can you do it?" he asked. "The patronus charm?"

He was looking earnestly at Draco. He hadn't asked mockingly, like Blaise had, but with something like genuine interest.

"Yeah," said Draco. "I can."

He expected the harsh "Prove it!" to come from Blaise or Matthew, but it was Pansy who said in a curious tone of voice:

"Can we see?"

He turned surprised to her, looking for the smirk around her lips, the thing she was actually saying beneath what she had said, but he couldn't find it.

"Alright," he said.

He pulled out his wand and everyone in the room seemed to straighten up a bit. They all watched him attentively, even Blaise with his careful scepticism, and Pansy who already knew. Draco took a deep breath, concentrating on the shape of his memory, the feel of his patronus – and then he hesitated, not on purpose and not for dramatic effect, but the effect of it was dramatic. He had the attention of everyone in Slytherin house worth impressing. They were intrigued by his supposed friendship with Potter, and none of them would be able to turn the fact of it against him. Blaise wouldn't be able to accuse Draco of being a turncoat like his father, if he decided to go for a low blow, because Draco's patronus was a snake, and none of them would be able to ignore the significance of that. The realization hit him that this was exactly what he had wanted – a few months ago, he would have given anything for this. Once, the whole purpose of befriending Harry had been to get the people in this room to give him the attention they were giving him now, to regain their admiration, to prove that they had all been wrong to count him out. It felt good, only not as good as he had thought it would. It wasn't great, it wasn't a sweeping sense of redemption, because their approval was no longer the thing he wanted most in the world. They weren't his friends. Pansy was his friend and so was Harry. And they had already forgiven him.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The dormitory filled with a soft, pearly glow.

"Draco, it's beautiful," said Daphne softly.

Draco smiled and watched his patronus as the snake coiled in the air. It was beautiful. Looking at it made him feel slightly dizzy, though. He recalled the way it had snapped in the darkness of Azkaban. And hadn't there been a moment where he stopped recasting it? Draco blinked as a sudden memory washed over him of dementors crowding close around him, Harry screaming his name before he disappeared from view, that moment of total darkness and complete cold – Draco's hand was shaking slightly. He was still watching his patronus, he was still in the commonroom, but he didn't like the way the shadows in there seemed to be getting taller, looming – he had wanted to die in the pit. He had looked at the dementors and felt nothing but fear and sadness and he had wanted to die. And then the doe had appeared. Harry's patronus. Harry's second patronus.

"Draco, are you alright?" Pansy asked.

He started, the snake patronus flickered out.

"What?"

"Are you…. You're crying?"

Draco quickly wiped a hand over his cheek. He hadn't noticed.

"I'm not," he said. "Anyway, that's- That was my patronus."

Blaise laughed.

"I can't believe you're actually friends with Potter," he said.

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For one day, the stunt the Gryffindors had pulled at breakfast was all over the school. The theories for why it had happened quickly spun out of control. A few of them even included the detail that Draco Malfoy had learned the patronus charm, a piece of information that received intense scrutiny and debate, especially from former members of Dumbledore's Army. For one day, Draco, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were dodging questions and deflecting attention, corroborating Draco's story when necessary, defending the decision when challenged. And then the Daily Prophet arrived the following morning and suddenly no one cared much about something as silly as school gossip and unexpected displays of interhouse unity, because plastered across the front page were the news that the prison of Azkaban had been infiltrated and all the dementors destroyed.

The article was fairly vague, the Ministry clearly still trying to hold back most of the information. There were no comments to questions of who could be behind the attack or what their intentions might have been, though the Ministry admitted that they didn't suspect runaway Death Eaters, since there seemed to have been no attempt to free any prisoners. Most of the official Ministry statement concerned reassurance that a great number of aurors had been stationed at the prison to act as guards in place of the dementors, and that it was therefore still secure.

Not every Hogwarts student received or read the Daily Prophet, but halfway through breakfast, every single one of them had heard the news, and by lunchtime, everyone had read the article. Draco hadn't seen papers so eagerly circulated since Harry gave his exclusive interview in the Quibbler back in fifth year. It was all anyone would talk about all day, and Draco was constantly on edge, anxiously anticipating the moment when someone would make a connection between the newfound solidarity between Gryffindors and Slytherins and what had happened at the prison, but no one did. Matthew did comment, without much sympathy, that it was unfortunate that dementors had become extinct just when Draco had learned the patronus charm.

"I guess you won't have much use for it now."

"It's not like that's what he learned it for, you squib," Pansy snapped, and Matthew didn't say anything else.

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They had all expected it to be big news. They had expected these tense days of pretending they knew as little about the events as everyone else. Draco had expected the sideways glances from everyone who looked at him and thought that's where your father is and assumed that was his closest connection to the events.

They had not anticipated the outrage.

It burst forth from the pages of the Prophet the day after the news came out: half of the debate section dedicated to letters from witches and wizards from all over Britain lashing out at the Ministry, not for the lapse in security that had allowed the dementors to be destroyed, but for the fact that it had not happened sooner.

Granger threw herself into the seat beside Draco in transfiguration that morning and shoved her paper at him.

"Have you seen it?" she said, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Yes, Granger, I get the Prophet too."

She hardly listened to him and was already flipping through the pages.

"These are all just ordinary people writing in, but listen: "That the dementors were not removed from Azkaban immediately after the war, despite having joined the Dark Lord, seems to me the greatest lapse of our government since their fervent denial of the Dark Lord's return…"," she read aloud. "And this one: "It crushes my heart to think that every petty criminal in Britain has been treated like a Death Eater". And this person is calling it "the most despicable treatment of human beings in the history of wizards."

Draco had read all the letters and comments himself that morning, but he didn't interrupt her. This was more than they had dared hope for.

And it went on for days. The debate quickly sprawled into actual articles: a long feature with a St. Mungo's healer explaining the permanent brain damage and loss of magical ability that can occur from prolonged dementor exposure; an anonymous interview with a retired auror, who had been stationed at Azkaban; the heartbreaking tale of a former prisoner, each of them sparking another burst of indignation and first, second and third hand stories with similar experiences.

The strangest thing was that the anger was mostly directionless. For a few days, the fact that it was not just the government that had ignored the awfulness of Azkaban, but every single witch and wizard in Britain, was conveniently and collectively forgotten, and people raged at the Ministry. But then high ranking Ministry officials were joining the debate as well, expressing the same resentment of Azkaban. Official Ministry statements declared that the use of dementors as guards, as a method of interrogation and as a method of execution was a crime against wizard kind and a violation of the natural rights of any magical person, and then it was no longer so easy for people to decide on who to blame.

It would have been impossible not to feel at least a little hopeful, but Draco was all too familiar with the sluggish process of the Ministry. It was clear that a new prison would have to be established, as well as a new system of imprisonment, but Draco fully expected it to take at least a year before the Ministry would be able to move any prisoners away from the Azkaban tower.

That was before the pictures were leaked.

Someone, possibly one of the many aurors now on the rotating schedule of guard duty at Azkaban, had smuggled a camera into the tower. It was amateurish photography, but it wasn't like the motives needed much framing to convey the horrors of the prison. Draco couldn't stomach looking at more than a few of them before he had to put the paper down. He wished he had done it sooner. He had seen it all before, he didn't need to be reminded. He didn't think he had needed to read that caption either: Many long term prisoners die in their cells and it is not uncommon for days or even weeks to go by before their passing is noticed and the body buried.

The photos ignited another wave of public outrage and the Ministry began the process of moving the prisoners to another "more humane" but "still secure" location almost immediately.

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The names of the dead prisoners were made public shortly after. Draco felt he had known it for a while; he wasn't surprised. That didn't change the way the floor seemed to fall away under him when he read it. Knowing didn't mean it didn't feel like being stabbed repeatedly in the chest.

He skipped transfiguration and walked the long way to the non-existent floor near the Northern Tower, where there was a hidden room behind an invisible door in an inconspicuous stretch of wall.

The room was empty. The furniture was still there, looking sad and abandoned, but everything else had been tidied up, all the maps and notes and mess. He suspected it was Weasley, or maybe Longbottom who had carefully removed and destroyed all evidence of their mission. The books were gone too. Draco had forgotten all about them, so despite the favouritism of Madam Pince, Hermione Granger had apparently proven herself to be the most conscientious of the two of them and had actually managed to remember something like library fines even in the wake of being nearly burned to death.

Draco put his bag down on the floor and then curled up in one of the arm chairs. He had brought his textbooks with him, thinking he would want to be distracted, but he couldn't bring himself to open any of them. He remembered how he had decided, after his first visit to Azkaban, that he already considered his father to be dead. It was odd how big the difference was between considering someone to be dead, and then for them to actually die.

He did end up attending the rest of his classes that day, though when they were over, he couldn't remember what any of them had been about.

In the evening he received a letter from his mother in which she asked him to come home for the funeral.