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The next day, now two days after Sirius' break in, did not start any better, either: The first thing that happened in the morning was that Neville received the worst thing a Hogwarts student could receive over breakfast - a Howler from his grandmother. Draco could see Neville holding the envelop before him like a bomb and sprinting out of the Great Hall. The Slytherin table exploded with laughter at the sight of him. They all heard the Howler go off in the entrance hall. Neville's grandmother's voice, magically magnified to a hundred times its usual volume, shrieking about how he had brought shame onto the whole family.

Draco would have found the whole thing amusing had he not been so angry with Sirius. His shortsighted behavior had caused them more problems than Draco would like to admit. And he was partly at fault too, for showing him the list Neville had been carrying around.

Draco was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn't realize that a young Ravenclaw was standing next to them.

"Good morning, Astoria," Tracey said good naturedly.

Draco almost spilled his drink when the mentioning of his future wife brought him back to reality.

"Ehm- morning, Astoria," he greeted rather awkwardly.

"Hi, Tory," said Daphne, delighted to see her sister.

"Tomorrow is the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff match and I was wondering whether you were going?" she asked hopefully.

The snakes all looked at each other.

"Sure," Daphne finally voiced the groups silent decision.

"Cool," Astoria seemed delighted. "Can I join you?"

"Of course," said Nodd and the others nodded their heads, agreeing with him.

"Thanks," she said and was off with a happy bounce in her step.

"I like that little girl," Nodd said, "too bad she isn't a snake."

Draco couldn't help but agree.

The thought of spending the next day with Astoria cheered Draco up considerably. Suddenly, the world didn't seem such a dark place anymore and he felt more confident that he would find a way to help Black and find a cure for Astoria. But when he met Neville in detention that night, his whole plan changed once again.

"Tomorrow is the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match," was the first thing Neville said when he saw him.

"So I've heard," he said while getting to work on a particularly nasty cauldron.

"That is perfect," Neville continued.

"How so?"

Neville waited, looking at Draco expectantly. But whatever he thought Draco was supposed to get, he did not. "Everyone will be there," Neville finally said. "The whole of Hogwarts. Professors, students,… maybe even Dumbledore. And the weather is supposed to be bad again so there is absolutely no chance anyone would notice if we snuck away for half an hour to talk to Sirius," he finished.

Draco smirked. "Who are you and what have you done to the real Neville?"

"I guess you are a bad influence on me," Neville chuckled.

Draco snickered. "Depends on how you look at it. Personally, I think I am a mighty good influence."

"So?" Neville asked, "what do you say?"

"I think this could very well work," but then his face fell, "but I already promised some people to go to the match with them."

Neville thought about this for a second. "If we leave really early, before the game even begins, we would be back about ten minutes into the game. You could still watch it with them then."

Draco considered this for a while. He really wanted to spend time with Astoria. But he also really needed to talk to Sirius and he would really like to be away from Snape for a while. Astoria and the Slytherins might not even notice he was gone if he really only was 15 minutes late. And Astoria had not asked for him to come but for all of them, so she wouldn't be too disappointed if everyone else was still there.

"Fine," he finally agreed. "Let's meet by the pitch 20 minutes before the match."

He just hoped this wouldn't blow up in their faces.

The next day he told his housemates that he would meet them by the pitch and that he had something important to do before the match.

"Studying again?" Daphne asked warily.

"No," Draco laughed nervously, "something else."

"But you'll sure be there for the match?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

When he left the common room he saw Snape out of the corner of his eyes and hoped that the man hadn't seen him.

He met Neville by the pitch where the first students were already gathering although it was drizzling.

"Let's hurry," he urged Neville and they were soon halfway in the Forbidden Forest.

"Where do you reckon he is?" Neville asked.

"Probably close to the Shrieking Shack," he answered, and Neville gulped.

"Sure, why use a friendly place when you have the most hunted house in Great Britain at your disposal?"

"Don't always be so negative," Draco chided.

"Don't be so negative? How can you be so positive? Literally everything we did so far went wrong!" Neville defended himself.

"Not everything. We got what we wanted from Snape and we didn't get caught breaking into Gryffindor tower," Draco mused, and Neville just stared at him which served to amuse Draco.

"Sirius!" they started to call. "Move your ass here, mutt," added Draco, which Neville gave him a stern look for. "What? We are mad at him and I want him to know it," Draco shrugged his shoulders.

"Sirius!" Neville decided to ignore Draco.

"Sirius!"

They heard something in the bushes behind them but before Draco could turn around to look, a huge black dog appeared in front of them.

"Oh my god," Neville yelped, "You scared me!"

A few seconds later, it was no longer a dog standing before them, but Sirius Black. "Hey guys," he said with a smile, "Long time no see. I started to-"

Draco just prepared to give him a piece of his mind when suddenly Neville started yelling. "How could you?" he shouted. "How could you be such an inconsiderate imbecile and use MY passwords to get into Gryffindor? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble we got into because of you?"

"Ehm-"

"And it isn't gonna make our job of catching that rat any easier! Do you have any idea what security measures they are using now?"

"Wow, Neville, calm down buddy," Sirius tried.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

Draco whistled. "Wow, didn't know you had it in you," Draco praised Neville. "But yeah, Nev's right. Your little stunt meant a ton of trouble for us."

"What's a few problems compared to years spent in Azkaban?"

"Just because something bad happened to you doesn't make what's happening to us okay," Neville said evenly, having calmed down somewhat.

Sirius glared at them, but soon his posture relaxed. "I'm sorry, guys. What happened?"

"Everyone hates me now! Even my own grandmother is mad at me," Neville started.

"And Professor Snape thinks I'm-"

"Wait," Sirius interrupted him, "Professor Snape? Snape as in Severus "Snivellus" Snape?"

Draco glared at him. "Yeah but that's not the point. He thinks I'm helping you and now he's watching me like a hawk and I can't do anything anymore!"

Sirius seemed to ponder this when his eyes darted into the distance. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" whispered Neville.

"There's someone in the b-"

Before Sirius could finish his sentence, Draco had already sent a stunner into the bushes and started running towards them.

TBC