Draco returned to school with a monstrous stack of books that he had found in the darkest, oldest recesses of the Malfoy library. He'd piled them on the coffee table in "their" room in the Room of Requirement. "Well," he said. "It's all in here, we just need to sort it out," he announced.

Ron examined the small mountain of books before him. "Are you sure we need all of these?" he asked incredulously.

"No, but better they be here and not be needed, than there and useful," the blond responded.

Ron nodded. "That makes sense. So where do we start?"

The blond shrugged, "Pick one."

The other wizard huffed and grabbed the first book he could reach.

*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*R*

Over the next few weeks, they ducked away every chance they had to study the books and formulate an approach to fixing the cabinet. They read and debated and played chess when their eyes couldn't handle reading another line.

"I don't know," Ron said as he studied the board in front of them. "I really think we need to reconstruct the cabinet's wardings before we start messing about with its spatial connection to its twin."

"Yes, but without that connection, it's useless to us," Draco countered as the red head made his move. "I don't want to waste a few weeks laying wards just to discover it can't even connect to its twin."

"True, but the defective warding on it will only slow us down, and if it does work. Well, then we're still stuck reconstructing the wards, but now we are weeks behind," he explained as Draco eyed him doubtfully. "Look, I understand it's a risk, but I really think this is the way to go."

The blond sighed. "Fine, we'll do it your way, but if it doesn't work, you're going to explain it to the Dark Lord by yourself."

"Fine, whatever," Ron grumbled but brightened when Draco made his next move. He immediately went for the kill. "Check"

"Fuck," the other wizard spat. After a few more minutes of desperate maneuvering, Draco conceded defeat. "Another game?"

"Only one more," Ron answered. "I plan to hook up with Lav later."

"You're still with that slag?" Draco asked. "I thought you were going to dump her."

Ron grinned. "What can I say, she gives good head and is an easy lay. It's not like Hermione is an option yet," he explained.

"Yeah, but then you have to deal with her the rest of the time," the other wizard said looking over skeptically.

"Why do you think we snog so much? I send her off to her girlfriends when she gets chatty, and when we're together I keep her mouth busy in other ways," the ginger said with a smirk.

Draco laughed. "Well, seems like you sorted out that issue."

"Of course, always have a plan," Ron said as he studied the board in front of him, planning his path to victory.

*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*D*

They started rebuilding the cabinet's wards the following week. It was arduous, exhausting work. They drew up a schedule to work in shifts, doing what they could on their own. It would be less suspicious if they weren't always missing at the same time. They saved the tasks that had to be done together for when they were free at the same time.

"Merlin, this better work," Draco whined as he leaned back heavily on an ancient dresser in the Room of Lost Things.

Ron swiped his hair out of his face. "It'll work," he said tiredly, "but, yeah, I'll be glad when this part is done."

The wards involved blood magic. Even with the blood replenishers Ron had managed to nick from the infirmary, the work and blood letting took its toll. Their arms had been cut and healed so many times that their skin ached and burned.

"If I thought it would work, I grab a house elf and drain him dry," the blond snarked.

Ron rolled his eyes. He'd heard it before. Draco always started this rant after about an hour during their long sessions. He'd learned quickly that while the blond was about as tall as him, he was also quite slender and the blood loss got to him quicker.

"We could slit a vagrant's throat," Draco suggested, then frowned. "No, then we could only use them once. The blood needs to be fresh. Maybe we could catch one and smuggle them in here. We could hide them and just take blood when we need it."

The ginger threw back his head in frustration and rolled his eyes. "Mate, if there was an easier way to smuggle people into Hogwarts, we wouldn't be doing this," he snapped gesturing to the cabinet. Draco stared back at him with a shocked confusion. He wobbled slightly where he stood. Ron then noticed that blood was dripping from the other man's fingers.

"Shit," Ron whispered. One of Draco's cuts was still open on his arm. He rushed over and quickly healed the cut, then steered him to a break area they'd set up for themselves. Once he got Draco seated, the ginger fished a blood replenisher out of his pocket. "Drink this," he ordered. The other man just frowned and pushed the bottle away. "Come on, mate. It'll make you feel better," he prodded but Draco just slumped back in his chair, his eyelids drooping. "Draco!" Ron shouted which caused the blond to startle awake. The other wizard then shoved the potion into Draco's face. "Drink the bloody potion." This time the blond obeyed and downed the bottle in one go.

"Finally," Ron groused as he made his way to his own chair. He drank a replenisher himself and brought out the refreshments he'd obtained from the kitchens. He eyed the blond, finding him finally starting to perk up.

Once he was aware of himself again, Draco looked over to Ron and sheepishly said, "Sorry."

"No worries," he replied. "It's just the blood loss. Here." He handed the other man a flagon of water and a sandwich. "I say we take a proper break."

"Yeah, sounds good," he said as he quietly composed himself.

"That was our last replenisher," Ron said between bites. "I can't nick any more from the infirmary and Slughorn's warded the bloody potions supply cabinet. Any ideas?"

Draco closed his eyes, trying to imagine doing this without a blood replenisher. He was making enough of a fool of himself as it was. "I'll take care of it," he replied. Slytherin always had a steady contraband supply coming in. Requesting something so innocuous would-be child's play.

"Good, but we need twice as much as we're using, because it's obviously not keeping up. We're both too slow. Merlin, a few pepper ups would be nice too."

The blond chuckled. "Might as well get some firewhisky while we're at it."

"Now you're talking, mate," Ron said with a laugh before standing. He reached a hand out to Draco. "Come on. We'd better get back to it," he said.

The blond sighed dramatically then took the proffered hand. Ron pulled him to his feet and back towards the cabinet. There was still much work to be done.