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When Draco arrived in the Great Hall on his last day at Hogwarts, the hall was already packed with hundreds of excited students. The hall was decked out in the Slytherin colors of green and silver to celebrate Slytherin's winning of the house cup. This was largely thanks to their spectacular performance in the Quidditch Cup. A huge banner showing the Slytherin serpent covered the wall behind the High Table.

Take that, Gryffindor, Draco thought happily, walking towards the Slytherin table. Unsurprisingly, the Slytherin table was the noisiest in the whole hall. Everyone was celebrating. Students were laughing and having a good time. Some chanted "Slytherin for the win."

In all that chaos, Draco still managed to relax as he ate, drank, talked, and laughed with the rest. For the first time in what seemed like the whole year, Draco felt like he could relax. For a few wonderful weeks, the weight of the world would not lie on his shoulders. He would not have to protect people. He would not have to save anyone. He would not have to study. He would not have to second guess each of his decisions and wonder how they would change what was to come. He could just enjoy the summer.

"I am so excited," Theodore Nott told Draco eagerly, pulling him out of his thoughts and back into the real world. "This is going to be the best summer ever!"

Draco looked at him, uncomprehending.

"Hello? It's the Quidditch World Cup this summer!" Theo continued.

"Oh," Draco replied, finally catching on, "yeah."

"Oh? Yeah? You've been studying too much, mate. Have lost contact to the real world."

That was not untrue, Draco had to admit.

"Will you be there?" Theo asked.

"Definitely," Draco said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as he possibly could, which was not all together difficult once his brain registered the meaning of the words quidditch and world cup.

"I hope England will make it into the finals," he said.

"Wanna bet?" Draco asked, amused.

"You think they won't?"

"I think no team from Great Britain will make it into the finale," Draco said. It wasn't really fair, as he already knew who'd win, but who cared.

"No way! The bet is on," he extended his hand, and Draco shook it, grinning.

Theodore Nott was a lot more talkative than Draco remembered. But maybe that was more due to Draco being a different person than anything he had changed during his time in the past.

The Hogwarts Express left Hogsmeade the next morning. He was in a compartment with Nott, Pansy, Daphne, Crabbe and Goyle.

Draco watched the Scottish countryside roll by while his friends discussed the Quidditch World Cup. Once or twice he voiced his own thoughts, but speculating the outcome wasn't really all that exciting if one already knew who would win.

"Not a bad year, huh, Draco?" Daphne asked him after an hour on the train.

Draco chuckled. "If you call being attacked by Dementors on the train, falling off a broom, and almost being killed by a lunatic "not bad", then yeah - it was a good year."

"If you'd told me this time last year that I'd be on speaking terms with a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor, I'd probably have shoved you into the lake," admitted Pansy.

The others laughed.

"I wonder what your father will have to say about you helping Black," Nott mused."I was surprised he convinced Fudge to give him a chance."

"Not only you," Draco admitted. If there was anyone who could give Snape a run for his money when it came to hating Sirius, it was probably Draco's father. "But I have my mother on my side," Draco smiled, but for the rest of the ride to London, he worried about it. He hoped his parents would manage to somehow be the united front they showed to the outside world, instead of just pretending everything was alright.

Draco stepped off the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross, looking around for his family. He saw Blaise's mother waiting to pick her son up, and Draco helped him pick up his luggage from the cart. He waved good-bye to his Slytherin friends and talked to the parents of the Greengrass sisters.

"Hello, Mrs. Greengrass," Draco said.

"Hello, Draco," Mrs. Greengrass said. "I heard good things about you from my daughters." Astoria and Daphne looked sheepish.

"Bye, Draco," said Daphne.

"Have a nice summer," added Astoria, before heading off with her parents.

Draco waved Neville good-bye and was surprised that the golden trio waved into his direction, earning them a suspicious glance from Arthur Weasley.

He finally found his father, who was lost in a conversation with someone. But when he saw his son, he shook hands with that person and turned towards his son.

"Draco," he greeted him warmly.

"Father," Draco smiled.

They apparated to their home in Wiltshire.

Draco found his mother buried in books on legal matters. She barely noticed that Draco had arrived back home.

"Don't take it personally," his father said. "She's been like that since… you know," he waved his hand and Draco nodded.

Draco went to his room but found it kind of lonely without Sirius there. So, he moved to the library, determined to find out what these Horcruxes were. The library of Malfoy manor was huge and included an extensive collection of books on the Dark Arts. If you could not find anything about a dark object in here, it probably did not exist.

So he was rather surprised when after looking through several books he had not found a single mention of the subject. Only when he skimmed through Magick Moste Evile did he finally find something, but only one sentence:

Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction.

"Great," Draco muttered. That wasn't helping much. At least now he knew that he needed to look into the Darkest book in the collection, Secrets of the Darkest Art – well, at least the Darkest in their library. Draco suspected that his father had even darker books hidden somewhere where not even his family could find them.

Draco's stomach churned when he opened the book. If Horcruxes where in that specific book then he probably really didn't want to know what they were. But he had no choice - if he wanted to stop Voldemort he had to find out what they were.

A knock on the door startled him and he threw the book into a corner and hastily grabbed one from one of the other shelves, sitting down in an armchair, book in his lap.

"Draco?" his father asked.

"Yes?"

Lucius Malfoy entered the room. "Here you are. I have been looking for you."

Draco nodded his head. "I have been here for a while. Been reading a bit."

"I just wanted to tell you that we have to postpone our vacation this year," he said.

"We are not going to Venice?" Draco huffed. They always went to Italy during the summer. It was family tradition.

"I am afraid not. At least not now. Your mother seems to be otherwise preoccupied."

Lucius Malfoy did not look happy, but Draco knew that he would do everything to make his mother happy.

"Will you join us for dinner?" his father then asked.

"Ehm- can I eat here? I'd like to finish my book," Draco improvised. He couldn't really say that he didn't like to eat at the dining table because he always had to think of the people that had been tortured and murdered there and that he'd rather read books on the Dark Arts.

"Is your book that captivating?" Lucius asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes. Page-turner," Draco said.

Lucius reached for the book and turned it around. He looked at Draco, amused. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard? Aren't you a bit old for this?"

"Ehm- I- ehm-" Draco stammered.

"I'll leave you to it, then," his father said, grinning, and stood up. "I'll tell one of the house elves to bring you dinner."

"Thanks," Draco muttered, before his father left the room.

Draco looked disdainfully at the children's book and went to pick up Secrets of the Darkest Art again.

He began reading and began to feel sick when he first read the word "immortality". Voldemort – immortal? Not two words that belonged together. As he read on, his mood grew steadily worse. The process of creating a Horcrux made Draco's skin crawl. He had to stop reading to recollect himself several times. When he had finished reading it, he threw the book into the fireplace.

Sitting in a huge armchair, he pulled his knees up and slung his arms around them, watching the blasted thing burn.

Draco looked at the children's book, still lying on a little table next to him, again. A tale from Beedle the Bard that his mother had always told him when he was a toddler came to his mind. The Warlock's Hairy Heart. It was about a warlock who thought emotions were a weakness and subsequently cut his own heart out. That's what Voldemort had done – gotten rid of what made him human. That man had literally cut out parts of his soul.

So, to kill Voldemort, they had to find and destroy his Horcrux… or Horcruxes. Draco shuddered. One of those things was already vile enough. But more than one? The book did not mention creating more than one, but it also did not say that one could not create more.

It couldn't be too many, though, as Potter had succeeded in destroying them all in about one year. He must have as he was able to defeat Voldemort for good.

There was the tiara, Draco thought. And the snake, that's what they had been talking about in front of the Room of Hidden Things. But that Horcrux probably didn't exist. Yet. Hopefully, it never would.

Then something in his aunt's vault. Draco couldn't imagine Potter risking a stunt like breaking into Gringotts unless there was at least one Horcrux inside.

Draco thought about it some more. Maybe the book his father had given to one of the Weasleys? The Dark Lord had most certainly been fuming when he found out what had happened to it. He didn't know what had happened with it but suspected that what had transpired at the end of his second year had something to do with it.

Once in bed, Draco couldn't fall asleep for a long time. He felt frustrated. He needed to talk to Dumbledore, but probably wouldn't be able to before the start of the next school year. I was starting to suspect that the following year would not be any less exciting and dangerous than the one he had just finished.

TBC

End of year 3. And it's the last day of November! I have written and uploaded one chapter every day for the whole month! Quite proud of myself. I won't promise that I'll keep on writing a chapter per day, but I'll try to at least write one every other day.

As always, let me know what you think :)