Harry Declares War

Draco

In the middle of the night, after Professor Sprout had come to check on him and return to bed, Draco swung his feet out of bed and put his slippers on. Then his robe. And then he grabbed a fuzzy blanket from the foot of his bed.

As he stole quietly out of the dorms and into the common room, Michael Jackson's "Bad" was playing in his head. He even shuffled his feet a little as he snuck out the portrait entrance and into the hall. Down the corridor, he whispered to himself, pausing and restarting the song to focus on listening for teachers and Prefects. And finally, he made it to the hospital wing and shook Rosalie awake.

She jumped quite badly when he first touched her and he shushed her quickly. "It's me," he said. "Want to go look at the stars?"

She had smiled wide in the dark and his heart had skipped multiple times in his chest.

They stole away to the top of the Astronomy tower together. Once Rosalie was with him, he didn't need to listen for teachers or prefects. She would just run her hand along the wall and deem them clear and he trusted her.

Underneath the stars, he laid the blanket down, invited her to sit in between his legs, and then folded the rest around them. Then he untied his robe and wrapped it around her, too.

"There's a Muggle song," Rosalie began, and Draco thought, "If I had a knut for every time I heard that..." As if she could read his thoughts, she laughed, and said, "I know, I say that a lot. But it talks about diamonds in the sky."

Draco nodded and looked up at the glittering dots. The new moon had just ended and only a sliver of silver lit the sky. "I'm not sure about diamonds… but they are shiny."

"Fiery," Rosalie said. "Massive balls of burning gas in the sky."

"And still, not quite as hot as you are."

She had laughed and Draco had shushed her for the sake of not getting caught. "My family has diamonds," he said. "The kinds that go in crowns and such."

"Interesting," Rosalie said. "I've seen the French Crown Jewels and I thought, well… I thought I could do a better job."

Draco snorted and began to laugh, so she had to shush him this time. "I'm serious! I dunno, Louis XVI's Crown just looked like gems held together with wire in person? I have pictures – I'll show you. And I remember thinking, "That's it? I could make a knockoff with a glue gun.""

"You'd look good in a crown," Draco said.

"I look good no matter what," Rosalie replied.

The confidence was attractive. And what she said was true. Whether it was with blonde-red hair, or brown-blue hair, or black curly hair… she could probably make a house elf's pillowcase look good. Draco kissed her cheek, right on the cheekbone. Her skin was cold. It was March next week. He wrapped the robe around them tighter.

"Not right now, but do you want to get married one day?" he asked.

Rosalie looked up at him. Their noses were almost touching. "In general, or to you?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. She laughed again. He loved the sound.

"I do want to get married," she said. "I have always wanted a tiny, really nice wedding. Ten to twenty people and a lovely dress and posh food and drink. What about you?"

"I always knew I would get married," Draco began carefully. "My parents have been dropping hints as to a potential arrangement for years. They're very excited that I've met you though."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I did leave out the bits about meeting you in the Muggle world, but I told them you were beautiful and a Pureblood and I shared some of the places you'd travelled to and they seemed very excited about you." He hugged her tightly. "I'm not sure I ever really thought about the wedding's contents but I did think that my family mansion would be an excellent place for it. And there's a ring I always thought I'd use."

"Call me vain, but I always wanted something sparkly," Rosalie said. "And I think silver is more my colour, don't you?"

Despite the cold, she pulled her arms out of the robe and put them up around the back of his neck, leaning into him. This new placement put her head closer to his, so she turned and kissed the skin on his jaw.

"I'm getting the sense you'd like to see it first?"

"Yes, please, in a few years. I'd always thought I'd go ring-shopping with my future fiancé before he proposed."

"Subscribe to that gender norm, do you?"

"For my own personal life, yes."

She did something she had never done before and kissed him on his neck. A shiver went through his whole body. "And, for you, I think I'd be willing to change my name," she said.

"Rosamund Spinks Malfoy?" Ever since he'd heard her full name, he'd been diaphramming it in his head.

Rosalie removed her hands from his neck to cover her ears. "No!" she moaned. "Don't call me Rosamund. I hate the name Rosamund."

"I think it's cute," Draco smiled. "Very old-fashioned."

"Exactly! That's why I hate it." She adjusted the blanket around their legs. "My legal name is Rosalie Spinks."

"You know my mum's name?"

"No, I don't. Is it old too?"

"Narcissa." The name felt a bit weird to say aloud. As if his brain knew that he should be referring to her as mum instead. "And my aunt Bellatrix, and my cousins Sirius and Regulus. You'll fit right in with Rosamund."

Rosalie shook her head. "No," she said. "You can call me Rosalie. Or Rosie if you want to go super short."

Draco moved his hands up to her hair and played with the strands. "Rosie Malfoy," he said. "Well, when we finish Hogwarts… or when I finish Hogwarts if that's not what you want… I think I would really enjoy life with you in it."

"Twenty-four-seven muggle music," Rosalie said. "And muggle movies and muggle cars…"

"Well, eventually it won't be all Muggle stuff because we'll get wizards and witches hooked as well," Draco said. "Right? That was your idea?"

Rosalie took his chin and he felt the kiss coming before it happened. Her thumbnail found a groove in his chin that he liked when she touched. She put their lips together and then, after a moment, sucked his lower lip in between her teeth. It was a new contact and sent a bit of electricity down his spine.

"Rosie and Draco," she mumbled against his lips and the idea sent sparks to his brain. "If we get there, I think I would really like that life too."

Rosalie went with him to the Room of Requirement to view the Vanishing Cabinet the next day. They used her trick from before and created a larger room with the cabinet set in the middle and a variety of woodworking tools set all around it. The cabinet was a tall triangular prism, but one of the sides was badly damaged. A large fissure had opened in the centre of the board and several other cracks sprouted from the main one.

While Draco examined the cabinet, Rosalie examined the tools. "This is all quite handy," she said, pulling down one of the tools. "I did a little bit of woodworking as a hobby when I was younger."

"Brilliant," Draco said. "Because I think this cabinet needs a whole side."

Rosalie made a sound of disbelief and wandered over. "I've only made small things. Boards and boats and carvings. I've never made… an entire piece of furniture before." She traced her hand up and down the crack.

"Good thing it's not an entire piece of furniture, then," Draco said. "It's just one side of it."

"Draco, are you-"

"We'll figure it out." Draco rolled up his sleeves. "Is there something for nails in here?"

The day after the Battle at Privet Drive, Professor Umbridge was served her official court notice. She wasn't coherent yet, so it only sat beside her bed, but for all intents and purposes, Rosalie's case was rolling.

She shared with Draco that she secretly hoped the Minister would attempt to reach out to her without use of her lawyer, so she could have another charge laid on him, but her lawyer soon relayed that the ministry's lawyers had acknowledged the lawsuit against Umbridge and had begun gathering evidence themselves, though the Fidelius charm and the fact they couldn't come onto school grounds was making things difficult. They were now in the process of obtaining an official warrant, which Dumbledore hoped would be enough for the castle to not boot them to the curb.

It wasn't the only maze Dumbledore had to manoeuvre.

"The ministry is quite puzzled about what happened at Privet Drive," he told Weasley, Harry, Rosalie, and Draco, after pulling them out of dinner. "The Trace, as you know, alerts the ministry to all spells performed in the vicinity of those under the age of seventeen. Normally, Mr. Potter would naturally be blamed for all instances of magic at Privet Drive. However, there were too many spells occurring at different points around the home and too many dark spells for all of them to be pinned on him. It is clear, from the list of spells, that this was a fight of life and death. The Cruciatus Curse and the Killing Curse were used several times independently, as well as several other dark spells. They have narrowed it down to a minimum of six casters. But they cannot verify who was truly there."

"Do they think it was Voldemort?" Harry asked. "Have they decided he's back?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "They believe it was a revenge ploy by the escaped death eaters, not an organised attack by Lord Voldemort."

Harry looked to the ceiling, clearly disappointed, but Draco understood the conclusion. "What I'm hearing," he said, "Is that the ministry can't prove which underage wizards or witches were there, and it was a life or death situation anyway, so they're not charging anyone and no one is getting a black mark on their record."

"Precisely," Dumbledore confirmed. He turned back to Harry. "Your aunt and cousin are currently at St. Mungo's. Unfortunately, your uncle was killed when he came to the door with a gun and attempted to shoot one of the Order members."

"An order member killed him?" Harry looked stricken.

"No, Harry," Dumbledore said, and Draco jumped to hear a professor use a student's first name. "He missed while firing upon Tonks and a Death Eater-" Draco swore Dumbledore looked to him for a moment, "-fired the killing curse when he became aware there was a weapon."

"Where were you?" Harry asked.

"I was fending them off the lawn," Dumbledore said. "I'm sorry, Harry."

Harry dug his toes into the floor and nodded. He glanced towards the Great Hall. "I'm not hungry," he whispered to the group. "I think I'm going to head back up to Gryffindor Tower."

"Harry," Dumbledore said before he stepped away from the group. "Would you like to see your aunt and cousin?"

Harry paused. "I'm not sure," he said, and then continued his retreat. Dumbledore nodded a little, then sighed once Harry was far enough away up the stairs.

"Professor?" Rosalie said. "How long will Hermione take to recover?"

"That would be a question for Madam Pomfrey. I'm not certain."

He left them alone in that corner, shortly after.

Weasley reported that Potter wasn't in the dorm when he went up, and Rosalie reported that he wasn't in the hospital wing with Hermione when she went down for more calming draught. She seemed a bit better now that her lawyer was organising the evidence for her and the danger was far away, but her hands still shook from time to time. The entire day passed with no sign of him.

That meant Potter was probably in the Gryffindor room, hiding.

Draco still had not opened the Hufflepuff room for a few reasons. First, even though he wore the robes and attended the classes, he did not feel like one of the house. Nor did he want to. Second, he knew the word would blazen itself on his hand the moment he touched the handle, and he had to return home to his parents at some point. He had to keep up the appearance of being Slytherin. His father would be extremely disappointed to hear of his new house assignment.

Nagini the snake had been weaving through Harry's Aunt's petunias when Draco had seen it. Even though he'd only had one year of a competent Care of Magical Creatures class, he remembered a spell to trap something and had caught the snake in its attempt to escape. Then, he'd immobilised it and conjured a box and got a bit of rope out of the Dursley's garage to tie it shut before flooing back. She hissed under a massive stack of books in a locked classroom for hours until Rosalie had finally been able to come and open up the Ravenclaw room to haul her into the centre room.

Rosalie led him up the steps to Ravenclaw Tower and to a door Draco had never seen because he'd never bothered to visit Ravenclaw, the box balanced between them. When they approached, the door spoke to them. "I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but come alive with wind. What am I?"

"An echo," Rosalie said before Draco had turned the whole thing over in his head. The door swung open.

"I could never be a Ravenclaw," he said. "I'd have to sleep outside."

"You're second in your year," Rosalie replied. "You'd manage."

They hauled the box up. The common room was more or less what he'd always expected the Ravenclaw common room to resemble. An entire wall of books with little nooks and crannies to curl up in, and plush blue furniture around a few fireplaces. Inside the common room was Cho Chang and her friend who always looked unhappy. "What's that?" Cho asked.

"Why's he here?" Her friend asked.

"It's a snake," Rosalie replied. "And he's helping me to carry it." Up above, Draco could also see the Grey Lady, the Ravenclaw Ghost, floating up ahead. Rosalie waved at her. "Hello, Helena!" she called.

Helena?

Helena the Grey Lady ghost waved, but did not come down from where she was watching dust fall off a light. Rosalie went to the blue door and pulled it open. Whatever had been in the room before, it was bare now. And it smelled like drywall and mould killer. Rosalie wrapped her scarf around her mouth and waved him in quickly.

Draco drew his wand before Rosalie opened the other door. He and Harry had reinforced the box, but he did not trust the snake farther than he could throw it. He also did not know if he wanted it to see him. Voldemort had not been at the house, but Harry had seen the door numbers in his… scarhead moments. Draco didn't know if Voldemort could see him through the snake, but didn't want to test that theory.

The circular room had come a long way. The walls were in the process of being painted white. There wasn't any mould anymore, but a few funny stains and declines could be seen in the floor here and there.

"Reckon the house elves could install underfloor heating?" he asked Rosalie as they hauled the box to the centre of the room, where the diadem was in its own little box.

Rosalie sighed dreamily. "I love underfloor heating," she said.

"Christmas was the first I'd ever had it. I'm hooked now." They dropped the box in the middle of a walkway and Nagini hissed inside. Draco took off his tie and kerchief and attempted to cover his hair and tie the tie in place across his mouth. He must have looked really stupid, because Rosalie laughed. "Help me enlarge its cage, will you?" he asked, and withdrew his wand.

Rosalie drew hers out and mirrored his stance. He counted back. "Three… two… one…" and then they both said, "engorgio!" and the box grew to about a meter squared. Draco wiped his brow. "I'll transfigure the sides into glass and we can reinforce it," he said.

"While you do that, I want to examine this diadem." Rosalie pulled on the oven mitts they'd been using.

Draco turned the top to glass first, so he could see what Nagini was doing. It did not surprise him to see teeth marks along the inside panels of the box. She hissed up at him and the lashed upwards, only to bang her head against the top and withdraw into a mound. Draco hoped she'd given herself a headache. He did two sides opposite from each other and then turned to fix the tie on his head. When he turned back around, Rosalie had the diadem in hand and was holding it over the box, drifting it from one side to the other. Nagini hissed at it in a way he could only describe as uncomfortable, shrinking to either side and shaking her head when Rosalie brought it close.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Hermione and I are wondering if we can use one to track another. I was thinking, if the snake is a horcrux, then hopefully it'd have a reaction being in the presence of another."

Draco thought about that as Rosalie raised and lowered the diadem over the snake. "What if it just hates silver? Or jewellery?"

Rosalie sighed and stared at him. "Seriously, Draco?"

"I'm just saying…"

Rosalie put the diadem down and shook her head at it. "Hermione is so much better at this."

"Rosalie, you picked it up, waved it through the air, and put it back down again. Calm down."

And she stuck out her tongue at him. She did!

He finished transfiguring the sides of the box into glass and stared at Nagini. "Do you reckon she's hungry?" he asked.

"Snakes can survive on one meal for months," Rosalie said. "I've got no idea what kind of snake she is, but I can write down her markings and see if maybe I can get a computer to access the internet here."

"What makes you think you can do that?" Draco frowned at the mostly empty room. He'd not used a computer much in the Muggle world. What he really wanted was his cell phone to work. The screen remained blank every time he pulled it out. It was probably out of… battering? Whatever the word was.

"I have a theory," Rosalie said and took his hand. "And… it's going to sound a little silly at first, because I'm fleshing it out." She took a seat atop the glass cage. Nagini snapped at her through the glass, but Rosalie did not flinch. "I think that Hogwarts has a communication issue. Something about the castle makes it hard to communicate here. I think it also affects the students to some degree. I've noticed that people are less inclined to ask questions about each other here than anywhere else."

Draco stared at her dimly. "You've completely lost me."

"Well…" Rosalie seemed a bit nervous now. "I tried explaining this before I threw Professor Umbridge out, but most technology that was invented before 1801 seems to work just fine in Hogwarts. And then it becomes shifty right afterward. The Muggle world began making connections. The magical world didn't. You all are still spread out and-"

"You all?" Draco interrupted.

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "We are."

"Is America not like this?"

Rosalie thought about that, shifting her weight from side to side. "I mean… it is… that's why I began to favour the Muggle world, when I found it. The idea of the internet… having the whole world at my fingertips…"

Draco found himself sitting on the floor, staring at her. "How long have you been in the Muggle world?" he asked.

"Um…" Rosalie waved her hand vaguely. "A year… maybe two… why all the questions? You've known me for several months now."

"Well," Draco said, finding a point above her right shoulder to stare at. "I just realised I'd never asked."

Rosalie stared at him and took a little breath. "We should head to the Muggle World for a bit," she said. "I've got some things I want to try and see if we can get to work here."

"Yes… yes!" Draco jumped up. "Now? Are we leaving now?"

"Sure!" Roselie said. "We've got… an hour til class. Dobby!"

A house elf popped in. He wore a tower of knitted hats and layers and layers of knitted socks as well. "Missus Rosie!" He exclaimed. "Dobby is here – are you needing to be going somewhere?"

The elf looked very, very familiar. Draco tilted his head at it. Rosalie set about introducing them. "Dobby, this is my boyfriend Draco. Draco, this is Dobby, who works for Professor Dumbledore."

Dobby the house elf tilted his head at Draco, then shrank back a little. "Sir… sir, is your last name being Malfoy?"

"Er…" Draco glanced at the snake, wondering if it had ears and really did have a connection to Voldemort's head. Too late now. "Yeah, um… it is? Do I know you?"

"Yous is Draco Malfoy?"

"Did Harry tell you about me?" Draco asked.

Dobby's ears fell, then flicked back up. "No, sir," he said. "Dobby will be happy to take you anywhere. But Dobby is a free elf. Dobby will not be letting anyone push or kick him around." This was quite stunning to Draco. He'd never heard of an elf wanting to be called free. He must get along fantastic with Granger… actually, Draco could answer that himself. He seemed to be wearing everything Granger had ever knit all at once.

"Of course not, Dobby," Rosalie said. "Draco wouldn't dare. I'd punch him in the gut for you." At this, Draco started and stared at her, but she didn't noticed because she was getting off Nagini's box and turning to take Dobby's hand. "Draco? Are you coming?" she asked.

With one last glance towards the snake, they popped away.

Draco barely made it to class and did not stay behind one minute before he was running back to the Ravenclaw rooms. He had to ask a Ravenclaw to fetch Rosalie for him when he couldn't answer the door's riddle. Luckily she'd only closed one of the Ravenclaw rooms, so she heard the knock and came to let him in. By that point, house elves were in the room, helping her hack into the sheetrock they'd just finished so that Rosalie could install a generator.

Draco had never seen such a contraption before. And it was heavy! Rosalie immediately put him to work holding it up while the house elves made a quick stand for it. Dobby the house elf was especially excited about the machine. It was about five feet tall, so Draco could see over the top of it. It had a black bottom and yellow and black horizontal stripes. A company logo Draco did not recognise was plastered on one side and on the other was a sticker reading "Hazardous: Handle with Care". It was about three feet wide and a foot thick.

"This thing is massive!" Draco grunted as he and another elf pushed against it to keep it from falling forward. "What does it do?"

"It'll supply power to our rooms," Rosalie said. "Let it down in three… two… one…"

They did and a thud echoed through the empty room. Draco wiped his brow off. "I don't suppose you know how to put in electrical lights and such, do you?" he asked.

"Nope!" Rosalie said. She looked at the house elves. "Do any of you know what electricity is? No? Well let me pull out the manuals and we'll figure this out together."

Draco stared at her. His understanding of electricity could be summed up in the cell phone, the underfloor heating, the telly, and the illustrated picture of a skeleton with hair being shocked by a lightning bolt. "We're all going to get electrocuted," he whispered.

"Nope," Rosalie disagreed cheerfully. "You and I are going to figure out how to convert magic to power. Come on!"

She pulled him into the hole in the wall and to where the generator was. Draco drew his wand, expecting to need to use it soon. "Now, typically, you put propane here… burn it… the chemical energy begins to turn these gears… and we make power. We need to figure out a magical solution to get these to turn on their own."

Being in this tight space with her would have been nice if the smell of the wall and the generator wasn't so odd. Draco touched the gears with his thumb. "That's it?" he asked. "We need them to turn?"

"Yup," Rosalie said. "Any ideas?"

Draco put his wand away. "Got a marker?" he asked. Rosalie dug in her pocket and came up with a sharpie. He leaned towards the gears and, on one, wrote a summoning charm. On the other, he wrote a banishing charm. "These are runes," he said. "Dunno if you've taken that class yet, but Hermione loves it. Anyway, they're ways to do spells without word work. Once you activate these with your wand, they'll spin until kingdom come."

"They will?" Rosalie looked overjoyed at this. "Oh. Marvelous!"

"Pretty easy." Draco was pleased to have come up with a solution so fast.

"Oh stop, you're brilliant." She got on her toes and kissed him and Draco found he didn't actually mind the lifting of the ridiculous machine or the cramped space as much as he had thought he did. All too soon, she was on to her next project, though. "Come on!" she said and squeezed out from beside him to join the elves.

They were cutting holes into the walls and stringing wires inside the drywall. And they were the perfect sizes for it as well. Draco got given the job of holding a very thin type of saw and following Rosalie around as she made marks on the ceiling for where she wanted electric lights to go. She had a ladder, and he had a ladder, and she would make a mark, and he would begin cutting. The elves ran on the top of the ceiling – their little feet sounding like the pitter patter of rain - and strung their wires as if they had been doing this for years. They were very, very excited.

They quit for dinner, but the elves were too excited and refused to stop. Instead, they shoved Draco and Rosalie out the door, encouraging them to go get food. They were covered in white chalk dust and powder.

"I'm going to go shower," Rosalie told him through her laughs. "Meet you at dinner?"

"Yeah, you'd better," Draco said. They opened the Ravenclaw door into the common room and Rosalie headed up the stairs. Draco pushed the door shut.

Cho Chang's gloomy friend was back in the common room. She watched him head to the door. He was just about to open it when she said, "what does your father think of all this?"

Draco glanced back at her. "Who are you?" he asked instead of answering.

"Edgecomb. My mother works in the Ministry."

"Ah, yes, Edgecomb." The name did not ring a bell. "Hopefully not the same department as Professor Umbridge? I think that'd be a hard place to work at the moment."

Edgecombe folded her arms. "So, your father doesn't know?"

"Does your mother know?"

He had no idea whether saying that would put him in more or less safety. When Edgecomb didn't reply, he opened the Ravenclaw common room door and left.

He showered and headed to the Great Hall and found Weasley chowing down at the Gryffindor table alone. Rosalie was with a group of Ravenclaws and appeared to be helping them study together. With her hair slicked down and still damp, she reminded him of him when he was younger.

He approached Weasley and tapped him on the shoulder. Weasley jumped. "It's me," Draco announced. "Harry still gone?"

It took Weasley an awfully long time to chew and swallow. "Actually, he did come out," he said. "He ate and then said he was going to go see if Hermione needed homework brought to her or not."

Draco snorted. "Of course he did. I'll go say hello." He took a plate and filled it with food from the Gryffindor table, then headed back towards the door. He spotted that girl, Edgecomb, alone in the centre of the Ravenclaw table. She had a parchment and a quill and was writing with a hunched back. Draco paused, then continued on. The Hogwarts Fidelius had thus far stopped anyone from saying anything about the house changes. He wasn't worried. Let her send her letter. It'd get stopped at the lake if there was anything off in it.

Hermione was asleep, but from the looks of it, only recently so. When Draco walked up, he noticed that Harry's mouth looked as if it had seen recent action and Hermione's matched. "Has she just drifted off?" He asked.

Harry nodded. "You just missed her." He was sat in the chair to her bandaged left side, holding her copy of Hogwarts, A History.

Draco sat on the opposite side and continued eating. "What'd she say about everything?" he asked.

Harry laughed, which was surprisingly good to hear. "The expected stuff. About how it wasn't my fault and I can't blame myself and all that."

Draco paused. "About the death eater attack, or about barging in?"

"The death eater attack," Harry said. "And her choosing to follow me." He leaned forward, put the book on the nightstand, and then took his index finger and traced a line down the bandaging. "Every other time something's happened to me, she and Ron have been out of it," he said. "Except for this time. And now she's got this bloody awful word on her arm."

"She has?" Draco hadn't heard. "I thought she'd been tortured."

"She was," Harry said. "Lestrange."

"Cruciatus?" Draco asked.

Harry shook his head and leaned toward him, over Hermione's legs. "She carved the word 'Mudblood' into her arm," he said softly. "Madam Pomfrey says it'll scar."

Draco suddenly did not know what to say. There were a lot of conflicting voices in his head. He himself had scarred Hermione with that word back when she'd just been Granger to him. He'd repeated it less and less over the months… to the point he'd almost disconnected the word from her. It'd only been a week now since Rosalie had called him racist.

Sure, Hermione was a mudblood, technically. But did she deserve to have something written on her arm? No, of course not. Did anyone deserve to have what they were written on them?

Harry picked up Hermione's hand under Draco's gaze. For a moment, he could see "Slytherin" and "Gryffindor" in their accompanying thoughts.

He looked down at his own empty hand and felt a pang of absence. Like he wasn't truly a part of the group yet. And that got him thinking about his spot in Hufflepuff house, and-

"I hate her," Harry said suddenly.

Draco was reeled back into reality gasping for air. "Hermione?" he asked. "Why do you hate Hermione."

"No, no, not Hermione, no!" Harry said, shaking his head. "I hate… I hate Bellatrix. I hate Voldemort. I hate this system! She works twenty times harder than everyone else… she deserves the world!" Harry's voice was intense and Draco thought that if Hermione had not just barely gone back to sleep, that he would be yelling. As it was, his ears lit up that red colour that happened when he was thinking brave thoughts.

"I have a feeling I know where you're going with this," Draco said. It was becoming a sort of catchphrase, Rosalie's silly little declaration.

Harry nodded determinedly. "I declare war. On blood systems. On the Death Eaters… on anyone and anything who thinks that being pureblood makes you better. Anyone who thinks that this-" He gestured to Hermione's bicep, "-is right."

Draco thought about that. He could take it one of two ways, really. One way would break up his friendships and his relationship. The other… well, maybe his father would never find out.

Draco stood up and offered a hand for Harry to shake. "You know… our goals go hand-in-hand. In part, you want to get rid of the Death Eaters… and I want Voldemort gone. I know… I've been going back and forth… maybe it's time I solidify that I'm working with you."

Harry stared at his hand. "I don't think I've ever shaken your hand before," he said.

"Well, you turned me down our first year, on the train," Draco replied.

Harry scoffed. "Yeah. You were a prat." He clapped his hand into Draco's and shook. "And for the record, if you decide to become a prat again…"

"We won't be friends?" Draco asked, testing the new territory. He saw a yellow light glint off Harry's glasses and winced. His ears must be alight.

But Harry didn't mock him. In fact, he grinned. "No, we won't be," he said. "So stay good, right?"

The next chapter will be called Horcrux Math. I will post it early if I get five reviews.