Harry relaxed, bit by bit, the longer Draco took charge. He dragged Harry around the room, and managed to pick out people who would be polite and not overly sycophantic, and then helped Harry escape before the pleasantries dragged out for too long.

When they were back home, Harry was definitely going to force Draco to teach him how to gracefully back out of conversations, without seeming rude.

"Neville, I'm going to need your help with our next target," Draco said, as he snagged a butter beer off of the extensive drink table.

"Why me?"

Draco beckoned the group closer. "Because Harry needs an in with the head of the D.M.L.E., and I'm not going to help him make a first impression."

Neville frowned, and refilled his punch. "I don't know Madame Bones any better than you do."

Draco gave a frustrated huff, the rolled his eyes after Harry failed to properly commiserate. "Your gran is the patron saint of law and order, while my father is a rumored Death Eater. Bones will like you. Besides, don't you sit with Susan and the other 'puffs sometimes at lunch?"

Harry frowned. Did he? Harry'd been so preoccupied with his own problems, that he had clearly not been paying as close attention to his friends as Draco had. He would have to do better. Maybe invite Neville to sit with them at Slytherin once in a while?

The thought of Neville trying to eat while surrounded by vipers made Harry smile. Maybe not.

They could find time to hang out outside of study sessions in the library, though.

"It's not like I know Susan well," Neville said.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I don't need you to be best friends with her, just mention that you hang out at school, and then introduce Harry."

"Come on, Nev," Pansy said, looping her arm through the crux of Neville's elbow. "We'll be right there with you. You'll only have to do the talking for the first little bit, and then we'll back you up. Once we're safely talking about school, Draco and I can handle things from there."

"Okay, okay, fine," Neville said, his shoulders sagging in defeat. He tried and failed to free his arm from Pansy's grasp, giving up with a sigh. "Just don't blame me if things go terribly wrong."

Harry nudged Neville reassuringly with his shoulder as they walked over to Madame Bones. The poor boy looked like his hors d'oeuvres were about to make a dramatic reappearance.

The head of the DMLE was conversing with a stuffy old woman that Harry hadn't been introduced to or warned about, yet, and Neville hovered awkwardly near the pair, waiting for an opening.

When the old woman turned to flag down more champagne, Neville stepped forward. Pansy gave him what Harry was fairly sure she intended to be an encouraging shove to help him along.

"H-hello, Madame Bones? M-my name is-"

"Ah, the Longbottom heir, yes," Madame Bones cut in smoothly. "How very odd to see a Longbottom and a Potter cavorting about with a Malfoy and a Parkinson all evening. You've all made quite the impression."

"I, um," Neville floundered, his carefully scripted introduction obliterated with careless ease. "I know your niece, Susan. We have lunch together sometimes, and, well…"

"And what of your Slytherin friends? Do they spend much time with my Hufflepuff niece, I wonder?"

"Er, you see…"

"We haven't been given much of a chance to, actually," Pansy said crisply, as she pulled her shoulders back and raised her chin. "On the first day of classes, I told Hannah Abbott that I liked her necklace, and her friends all looked at me like I was trying to hex them. They've been avoiding me ever since."

Harry had to concentrate very hard to keep from rolling his eyes. He remembered that day. She had been trying to hex them. Tracy had dared her to, and had held it over Pansy's head for a week when she'd failed.

"Harry hasn't had it much better," Draco added, in sorrowful tones. "The whole school thought he was evil when he was sorted, like he couldn't possibly have good intentions or make his parents proud if he wasn't made a Gryffindor. Neville here has been one of the only non-Slytherins that has been kind enough to speak with us, outside of class assignments."

"Unless you count insults," Pansy grumbled.

"No one else even seemed to care when Harry was almost murdered a while back," Draco said, too deliberately for Harry's comfort.

Madame Bones' eyes snapped to Draco's face, searching his features for a lie. "He what?"

"Susan didn't tell you?" Pansy asked sweetly.

"Someone tried to murder Harry at the Gryffindor-Slytherin quidditch match this year," Draco reiterated. "They hexed Harry to fall off the front of the stands. I was right next to him when it happened, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. It was horrible."

"Professor Snape saw the whole thing from the teacher's box," Pansy said, bragging up their Head of House. "He saved Harry and suspects a culprit, but Dumbledore won't do anything about it."

"He didn't even ask us any questions," Draco said. "Did he talk to you at all afterwards, Harry?"

Harry shook his head, numbly, but he hadn't really heard Draco's question. The lurching sensation of unexpectedly falling kept washing over him. He could see the pitch rising up to obliterate him, over and over again. He could hear the whistling of wind in his ears as he fell.

Warmth surrounded him, and he blinked. Neville was hugging him. Draco was rubbing soothing circles along his arm. Even Pansy looked worried.

"Sorry," Harry whispered, as his face heated in shame. "I zoned out a little. What were you saying?"

Madame Bones was looking at each of them, but her scrutinizing gaze lingered on Harry the longest. Harry knew he must look awful. He felt cold and shaky, and a little lightheaded. He took a deep breath, mimicking the relaxation technique he'd learned in his doomed meditation training.

"This is serious," Madame Bones said. "If what you're saying is true, there should have been an investigation opened."

"I told my father about it," Draco said, "and he took it to the board, but since none of them were witnesses, and none of the teachers had come forward, there wasn't much they could do."

"You said Severus Snape was a witness? He saw enough to think he knew what happened?"

Pansy nodded. "It certainly seemed that way. He wouldn't tell us anything outright, but he's very protective of Harry, and he said he'd handle it."

Madame Bones hummed, then continued her interrogation.

Harry blocked most of it out.

He felt like an idiot, getting all worked up over nothing.

He was fine. Everything was fine.

He had managed to keep himself alive all on his own for all as long as he could remember, and now that he had friends and adults to care for him, he cried like a baby when he tripped and fell?

It was pathetic.

"Harry," Madame Bones brought him back to the present with her clipped, professional tone. "This is Rufus Scrimgeour. Head Auror. He'd like to ask you a few questions."

Startled, Harry looked around, to find his friends looking at him with shining eyes, and jaws set in determination. What were they hoping he'd say?

"Erm, hello… Sir," Harry said, scratching at the back of his neck.

"Your friends have asserted that someone intentionally attempted to murder you at a quidditch match, Mr. Potter," Mr. Scrimgeour said, gruffly. "Tell me what happened, that day."

Harry shrugged, helplessly. "There's not much to say. It was a normal day. I was cheering for Slytherin from the stands. I stood up to cheer, and felt something like a shove, but different, like I'd been shoved from everywhere at once. And then I was falling."

"And then?"

"And then nothing! I was saved in time, before I hit the ground. I don't remember much of what happened after that. People were asking if I was okay. It was all blur, but I was. I was okay."

Scrimgeour grunted. "And you told a teacher that you had been assaulted?"

"It was just a spell, a shove. No one punched me in the nose, or broke my arm, or anything."

"But you told someone?"

"I told Professor Snape. He was the one who saved me, and he was the first one to make sure I was okay."

"And the Headmaster?"

Harry shook his head, slowly. "He never spoke to me about what happened. Professor Snape told him what happened, but didn't have enough proof to get him fired."

"Fired? Did Snape tell you it was a teacher who attacked you?"

Harry hesitated. Professor Snape had sworn him and Draco to secrecy, but this was the wizarding police. Surely this was different. "He said it was Professor Quirrell."

Pansy gasped and Harry flinched. He had forgotten that he had an audience. Pansy was a horrible gossip. Professor Snape was going to kill him.

"So, Snape was the only one who saw what happened, and the only one who reported it to the headmaster?" Scrimgeour pressed.

"There were prefects there, too, and the school nurse checked up on me. I'm sure someone else probably said something, too. I don't know."

"This wasn't the only incident this year, either," Draco said.

Harry narrowed his eyes at his friend. He had messed up by mentioning Professor Quirrell by name. Draco couldn't tell the aurors the rest of what Professor Snape had said.

Draco ignored him. "There was a troll attack, on Halloween. Professor Quirrell said he found it in the dungeons, and it ended up being taken down by professors on the third floor. I heard it nearly killed a student, too."

"But not Potter, this time."

"No, Sir. Harry was with us. The Slytherins all went straight back to our dorms."

"So, you weren't too concerned about the troll in the dungeons, then."

"We took precautions," Draco said, defensively. "The prefects and seventh years formed a perimeter, and we all had orders to run back to the Great Hall together, if anyone spotted the thing."

"There's the forbidden section on the third floor, too," Pansy said. "We all got a warning that we could die some horrible death if we got too close. Who keeps a school open with something that dangerous in the middle of it?"

"Who took down the troll, in the end?" Mr. Scrimgeour asked, an oddly intent look in his eyes as he stared Draco down.

Despite his best effort at bravado, Harry watched as Draco buckled under the pressure. "It… I heard it was Professor Snape."

"It seems like Professor Snape is a key figure in all of these tales," Scrimgeour said, coldly.

Harry bristled. "Professor Snape would never hurt me!"

"Of course, he would, you idiot boy," Scrimgeour growled. "He's a Death Eater."