...

Author's Note:

TW for starvation and food issues, briefly addressed at the start of the chapter.

Thanks for reading!

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The following Tuesday, Draco awoke to a note folded on his bedside table.

If we're still planning on working together, we can't keep ignoring each other. I'll be at the Bell Towers library at 7PM if you're open to talking.

He recognized the chicken scratch immediately.

Things had grown increasingly awkward between himself and Potter over the course of the week. Apart from the forced interactions that came with sharing a bathroom and having several classes together, the two seemed similarly committed in their efforts to completely avoid one another.

This was easy enough for Draco, who spent most of his time holed up in his room or the corner of whichever library was least occupied that day. He hadn't been to the Great Hall in weeks regardless, opting instead to just grab some food from the kitchens whenever his limbs would start to shake.

He could tell that Potter was pointedly circumventing interaction as well. The pair being put together for potions lab on Friday had resulted in over two hours of silent ingredient prep with no eye contact, broken only by Draco instructing Potter to remove the phasmid's legs before adding it to their cauldron.

Potter hadn't huffed or rolled his eyes at the demand, which was how Draco knew that things weren't close to normal. It seemed that Potter had even started showering at night instead of in the mornings as assurance that he wouldn't stumble into Draco in the bathroom again.

The only connection they really maintained with each other was Granger, who continued to meet with Draco in the libraries and the common room to work on Ancient Runes essays and Arithmancy problem sets.

Granger didn't seem to know the extent of what occurred between him and Harry, but she could clearly tell that something had gone awry.

She has even tried to gently nudge Draco into talking about it, but he had shut that down completely by returning their attention to the Lyapunov functions from class.

Draco had to admit, the silence was excruciating. It reminded him of his life in the manor, constantly waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop and shatter that terse silence.

There was a point where he even considered provoking Potter to the point that he would punch him in the face or hit him with a hex—anything to break the unbearable tension.

A massive sense of relief had washed over him after reading the note. He knew that they needed to find some way to move forward, but he just couldn't (wouldn't?) make himself do anything about it.

The anxiety rose in him again as he left his Apparition lecture on Tuesday. He had an hour to kill before meeting Potter in the Bell Towers, opting to sit on a bench in one of the dark dungeon corridors and pretend to be reading Fragments of the Mind's Veil for the fifth time.

He wondered what Potter would do when he got there—was he going to yell? To take a swing at him? To pretend that nothing had happened and start talking about the project again? To try to talk to him about it?

He wasn't sure which of those options was the worst.

When the fluorescent light of his tempus spell read 6:45PM, Draco stood and made himself start the short trek to the Bell Towers library. His legs felt like they were moving through molasses and his breathing grew fast and unstable, but he blamed that on the stairs.

When Draco arrived at the library, he did a quick once-over of the space and his eyes immediately landed on Potter at the same table they had sat at before.

As he approached, he saw that there was a small plate of mixed vegetables, boiled potatoes, and a pumpkin pasty on the table in front of his seat. They were the only foods he ever really did more than pick at in the Great Hall. How Potter knew that, he wasn't sure—coincidence, maybe.

"Peace offering," Potter said blankly as he approached, nudging the plate towards him.

Draco looked at the plate for a moment and wondered if the food had been tampered with in some way. But then he remembered the gnawing, aching hunger from Potter's memory—the kind of hunger that made your temples pound and your body shake—and he felt a sharp pang of guilt in his stomach.

"Maybe you wouldn't be so snippy if you ate actual meals," Potter said snidely, and Draco's guilt immediately dissipated as he raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, last one, couldn't help myself," he chuckled, motioning to the plate again. "Eat and we can talk."

Prat, Draco thought, rolling his eyes, but he sat down in the seat next to him.

He thought about pushing the plate away as some kind of passive resistance, but the growling in his stomach from missing so many meals eventually won out and he took a bite of the boiled potato as he was bid.

"I think I owe you an apology," Potter started after a few moments, causing Draco to nearly choke on a spoonful of peas and carrots. He coughed slightly, turning to face the other boy.

"What?"

"I didn't tell you about some of my experiences with legilimency and occlumency before we started, and obviously I should have. I really didn't mean to go barrelling into your head—that was an accident—but it did happen when Snape tried to do legilimency on me as well, and you should've been aware of that beforehand."

Potter took a deep breath, the expression on his face looking a little pained. "So I'm sorry about withholding that information. We should probably talk more before we try any other exercises."

Draco was a little dumbfounded at what had just occurred—here was Harry Potter, Savior of the Bloody Universe, actually apologizing to him for something.

Part of him wondered if this was more than an apology for just withholding information. His chest collapsed at the thought of compressing seven years of wrongdoing into one apology—mostly on his part.

Sorry for rejecting your friendship.

Sorry for insulting your friends.

Sorry for antagonizing your father.

Sorry for releasing your worst fear onto the Quidditch field.

Sorry for slicing your torso open.

Sorry for letting a fleet of Death Eaters into the castle.

Things that would never be said out loud. He almost laughed at the concept.

"I'm sorry about that, too," Draco said, surprised at how easily the words came out when contained to this one instance. "Those exercises can cause some emotionally charged memories to flood to the surface. I knew that and didn't say anything based on some assumptions I made about your childhood. That wasn't fair—I should've at least asked, even if you wouldn't have told me."

Potter nodded and then looked down. If the expression on his face said anything, it was that he definitely would not have shared any of those personal details unless absolutely necessary.

"Maybe we can both start with a list of key background information that the other person should know?" Draco suggested. "Just in terms of prior experiences with legilimency and occlumency?"

Potter nodded, seeming alright with that suggestion.

"Ok, great," Draco said, starting to take out some parchment and a quill, "I'm just gonna write down some notes so I don't forget anything."

He felt Potter start to do the same, then sit back and clear his throat after a few minutes. "Ready when you are."

"I'm ready. I'll go first?"

"Sure. Oh—" Potter seemed to remember something and abruptly picked up his wand, causing Draco to flinch. Potter paused for a moment at that and looked like he was about to say something, but must've decided better of it and turned his attention back to the spell.

"Muffliato," he murmured the charm as he motioned around their area, then turned to Draco, "for privacy."

Draco nodded, feeling grateful that one of them had thought of that precaution. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Alright, so, I mentioned last time that I had done some occlumency before. I basically taught myself most of what I know from textbooks, particularly Protection Charm Your Mind and Guide to Advanced Occlumency," Draco started.

He took a deep inhale before continuing, taking a quick look at the notes on his parchment. "When the Dark Lord came back at the end of our fourth year, Severus took it upon himself to spend most of the following year training me. It went well, he was a great teacher—"

Potter raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"For me, at least," Draco continued. "And possibly because I already had a solid baseline. We did a lot of the exercises from the textbook you cited, actually, which is why I thought that might be a good place for us to start."

He took a deep breath and read the next line on his parchment, realizing that his chest was getting heavy and his fingers were trembling. He placed the parchment on the table and sat on his hands to stop them from shaking, hoping that Potter wasn't aware of his physical reactions to this conversation.

"The next year, our sixth year—" Draco paled. "Well, you already know what I had been tasked to do. The Dark Lord was worried that Dumbledore would be able to read my mind, and he didn't know that I had any occlumency skills yet, so he put my Aunt Bellatrix in charge of training me for that."

Potter's eyes widened, seeming to imagine himself in that situation.

That made Draco chuckle darkly. "I know that you're familiar with her, so you can imagine how fun that was. I can only imagine how bad it would've been if I hadn't already worked with Severus. It turns out that it's really hard not to imagine times you've been in pain when you're scared shitless that you're going to be in pain."

A strange look crossed Potter's face—Understanding? Empathy? Draco couldn't quite place it.

"Anyways," Draco continued, swallowing the lump in his throat, "That was pretty awful, and I don't think it really helped my occlumency skills, either—if anything, it might've made them worse just because of how freaked out I was with her having so much information on me."

Draco removed his shaking hands from underneath his legs and folded up the piece of parchment that he had written notes on. "That about sums it up. Any questions?"

Potter seemed to contemplate for a minute. "Er—yeah, if you don't mind answering it. You said that you were aware that some memories might flood to the surface, that it happened to you. How long did it take for you to be able to suppress those?"

It was actually a good question, Draco thought.

"Well, as evidenced by the little detour that we took into my head last time—"

Potter winced.

"I still can't prevent them 100% of the time. I need to be relatively calm and prepared. It will also depend on the strength of the legilimens who's attempting to penetrate your mind. I've been told that my occlumency is much stronger than my legilimency, so you may be able to shut me out rather easily once you get the hang of it. In general, though, I'd say that I was able to hold most of them back after a couple months of practicing with Severus," Draco finished.

"Ok," said Potter, nodding. "I'll go next?"

"The floor is yours," Draco drawled, reclining and wrapping his hands around his right knee as he brought it up onto the chair.

"Er—right, so…"

Potter mumbled through an explanation of how Dumbledore had been worried about Voldemort's access to his mind. The two had apparently shared some sort of mental connection at the time, but Potter didn't elaborate on it and carried on too quickly for Draco to voice questions anyways.

He explained that Dumbledore had enlisted the help of Professor Snape to assist Harry in learning occlumency to shield his mind from both projections and penetrations from the Dark Lord.

As he recalled separate instances in which he had failed to shut Snape out of his mind, he began to fidget nervously with his wand and accelerate his already fast-paced speech.

"It was basically just a lot of my emotionally charged memories flooding to the surface every time Snape would cast legilimens, followed by him reprimanding me for not disciplining my mind enough, followed by more legilimency attempts," eyes downcast at his wand in between his fingers.

He swallowed visibly and a wave of shame seemed to cross over his face, if only for a moment.

"Merlin, this is so hard to talk about," Potter grimaced. "I wish I could just show you what it was like."

Immediately after the words were spoken, Draco felt the now familiar sensation of his stomach lurching and his mind tumbling into Potter's.

He couldn't have been much older than fifteen or sixteen now, his shaggy black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He barely had time to brace himself before Professor Snape cast legilimens and his mind tumbled into a cacophony of emotions.

He's on a broom, soaring over a gray lake with the wind ruffling through his hair and euphoria rippling through his chest.

He feels Granger throwing her arms around his shoulders and squeezing tightly, almost sobbing with relief at her friend's return.

A dementor reaches out, ice cold fingers unfurling with menace as all warmth and comfort floods from the room. A woman's shrill cry echoes in the back of his head, feeling as though it might tear his face in half with grief.

Students talking, then the Dark Lord's face, then a black door that somehow causes his stomach to twist in guilt and anxiety, then the Dark Lord's face again—longer this time.

Potter catapults back into his body, panting with effort and sweat continuing to soak the front of his shirt. He's given no time to recover, only chastised briefly before Snape is forcibly prying his memories back open.

This time, he stands in front of a mirror with his parents. He looks around eleven years old in the memory, probably a first year. Snape manifests himself in the memory directly behind Potter and nearly snarls, "feeling sentimental?"

"That's private," young Harry grits out as soon as he's back in his body, clenching the chair with fingers turned white.

"Not to me," drawled Snape. "And not to the Dark Lord if you don't improve."

Harry panted out a breath, fear and overwhelm completely clouding his thoughts.

In what seemed to be milliseconds, Snape had closed the gap between them. His face was mere inches from Potter's, so close that he could feel the warmth of his breath.

"Every memory he has access to is a weapon he can use against you," Snape spoke urgently. "You wouldn't last two seconds if he invades your mind."

"You're just like your father," Snape barked. "Lazy, arrogant—"

He felt a surge of rage bubbling up in Potter as he stood on unsteady legs and nearly shouted, "Don't say a word against my father!"

"You're weak," spat Snape.

"I'm not weak."

"Then prove it," said Snape. "Control your emotions. Discipline your mind."

Potter stood this time, chest heaving with rage and fatigue at his labored breaths. His lips had nearly curled into a snarl when Snape raised his wand again and cast legilimens.

The tumbling sensation struck again as a variety of charged memories flashed into Potter's brain at an even more accelerated pace—a hedge from the Triwizard tournament maze, a giant reaching towards him, a man with long black hair lovingly cupping his face, a phoenix bursting into flames over Dumbledore, Cho Chang leaning in for a kiss, the Dark Lord again, a snake attacking Mr. Weasley, Potter's parents embracing one another, a poster of Sirius Black screaming, a prophecy from the hall of mysteries, Potter running and embracing Sirius Black with relief.

Then Snape appeared again. "I may vomit," he drawled, launching Potter back into his body.

"Stop it!" he pleaded, hunched in exhaustion and sounding desperate.

"Is this what you call control?" Snape asked, voice thick with condescension.

"We've been at it for hours! If I could just rest—"

Snape turned aggressively and closed the gap between them once again. "The Dark Lord isn't resting. You and Black are two of a kind—sentimental children forever whining about how bitterly unfair your lives have been. Well, it may have escaped your notice, but life isn't fair. Your blessed father knew that—in fact, he frequently saw to it."

"My father was a great man!" Potter protested, the rage bubbling up in him threatening to explode.

"Your father was a swine," spat Snape, bunching the front of Potter's shirt in his fist and swinging him around to slam him back into his seat. "Legilimens—"

"Protego!" Potter cast, raising his wand almost instinctively.

The scene changed then, into what was clearly Snape's mind. He looked to be around the same age as Potter in this memory, straight black hair falling into his face as he solemnly walked the halls of Hogwarts and tried to settle down under a tree.

James Potter and his friends seemed to have other plans, as the group approached him with taunts and jeers. Young Snape began to raise his wand in self-defense, but it was easily dismissed with an expelliarmus.

"Dad?" came Potter's soft voice, watching the scene unfold with disbelief.

His father continued to advance as the crowd of students cheered him on, casting a spell to hang Snape upside-down precariously by one leg.

"Who'd like to see if we can take off Snivelly's trousers?" James egged the crowd on, smirking in triumph. The Gryffindors surrounding the scene only continued to cheer.

As Potter came whirling back into Professor Snape's office, so did Snape.

"Enough," the professor gritted out, leaning backwards onto his desk. Potter rose as Snape made his way across the room, balling Potter's shirt in his fists again and somehow leaning in even closer than he had before. For a moment, there were only the steady sounds of their heaving breaths.

"Your lessons…are at…an end," Snape managed through barely contained anger.

"I—I didn't—" Potter spluttered.

"Get. out." Snape said with finality, releasing the front of Potter's shirt.

As quickly as it had started, Draco found himself returning to his own body in the Bell Towers library. He almost went to yell at Potter again, but the look of him stopped Draco in his tracks.

Potter had gone completely white, almost starting to sweat and shake as he had in the occlumency lesson memory. For a moment, Draco wondered if he might get sick all over their project notes.

"Potter…" he started hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

Potter just closed his eyes and nodded his head, seeming to float elsewhere for a moment.

Draco had an idea then, and started to rummage around in his bag until his fingers landed on a thin bar of dark chocolate that his mother had sent him in the mail last week.

"Here," he said, extending the sweet to Potter. "Eat a little. It will help."

Even in his shaken and disheveled state, Draco could've sworn that he saw the corner of Potter's mouth twist into a grin. He took the candy and unwrapped it with shaking hands, breaking off a piece and taking small bites.

The two sat without words for a while, Potter nibbling on chocolate while looking thoroughly disturbed and Draco whisking his dinner plate back to the kitchens with a flick of his wand before assembling their project notes into small piles.

"I'm not judging, and it's actually kind of impressive," Draco started softly. "But we really need to get your accidental magic under control."

Potter looked as if he were going to protest but didn't have the energy.

"That memory actually makes a lot of sense," Draco said, eyes lacking focus as he seemed to stare off into the distance.

"How so?" Potter panted out, still breathless from the accidentally revealed memory.

"Well, Severus always sort of acted like you were the one who was bullying me," Draco explained. "And I always tried to assure him that I was fine. But given that he saw you as your father's son and me as mine, it makes more sense how he came to that conclusion."

Potter's eyes flared in warning at the mention of his father in a negative light, but the notion seemed to have nowhere near the hold that it had on him at fifteen years old.

"That must've been scary as hell," Draco contemplated. Potter nodded again.

"Oh, I—actually, well, I could see how that was terrible for you too, but I was talking about Severus."

At Potter's bewildered expression, he elaborated. "Severus said that any information you knew, anything you saw, any memories you had—they were all possibly available to the Dark Lord."

"So?" Potter spoke, seeming as though the effort to understand had taken the effort away from his lungs as his breathing evened.

"So," Draco drawled. "You happened upon a memory in which your father was bullying him. Probably because you were primed for it after Snape insulted him. But imagine all of the other memories that Snape had, what could've happened if the Dark Lord had access to those too—through you."

Realization seemed to dawn on Potter then. "Oh."

"Yeah. And imagine the subject matter you would be dealing with if he had kept the occlumency lessons going, the memories of his that would be dredged up if you had surprise counterspelled him again. It could've revealed his entire betrayal to the Dark Lord. That's probably why he kicked you out; he was probably scared out of his wits."

Potter nodded slowly, processing, and then handed the remainder of the chocolate bar back to Draco.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Another silence passed.

"I have a question," Draco eventually said.

"Mhm," Potter said by way of permission to ask it.

"Why occlumency?"

"What?" Potter countered, looking befuddled.

"Why study occlumency for your final project?" Draco clarified. "I mean it seems like it was something that you really struggled with—and I haven't really seen you naturally struggle with much of anything, magic-wise."

"Careful, Malfoy, that almost sounded like a compliment." Potter smirked, some color returning to his face. "What would've been the point of that? So I could bang my head against my desk while I wrote out ten scrolls worth of history and theory on defensive spells I mastered in third year? I'd much rather get to actually experience something new, even if I'm not as naturally inclined to it."

"I suppose that's understandable," Draco spoke slowly, but he didn't agree with the words. He would have never in a million years chosen the topic he had most struggled with as the one he'd be assessed on. In fact, the thought of any of his Slytherin counterparts making that choice was almost laughable.

It truly was a courageous move on Potter's part, albeit nauseatingly full of Gryffindor brashness. But Draco would never admit that out loud.

"I think that we should work on some smaller, less activating exercises until we feel more controlled entering each other's headspaces," Draco proposed.

"That makes sense," Potter agreed. "Or just try to go about it in a less invasive way."

"Well first things first," Draco started in, voice dripping with sarcasm. "It would help if you put your wand away while we go through these things."

Potter turned away, looking properly ashamed as his face flushed, but also let out a small chuckle.

"We could also try using a pensieve for some of these memories beforehand instead, at least the ones that might cause either of us to act unpredictably. It would be much more controlled," Draco suggested. "I don't know where we'd get access to one though."

"McGonagall has one in her office," Harry seemed to offer without thinking.

Draco wondered if the new Headmistress would give them permission to utilize said pensieve given the circumstances. She had, after all, saddled the two of them together on what she must have known would be an incredibly vulnerable and extensive project experience.

McGonagall was leagues better than Dumbledore, at least in Draco's head. Dumbledore would never have testified on his behalf in front of the Wizengamot. Dumbledore wouldn't have stepped in to advocate for all students, Draco included, against the non-consensual use of legilimency and veritaserum during the post-war trials. Dumbledore would've never pulled him into a tearful hug following his father's sentencing. And he certainly would not have mumbled apologies about failing him while explaining that he only sent the Slytherins to the dungeons during the battle to protect them from needing to choose between their family and their friends.

Actually, Draco couldn't recall a single time when Dumbledore had appropriately explained anything to the students.

But McGonagall had done those things. She had done those things and then some. So he couldn't really be angry at the turn of events that had chained his graduation to Harry Potter.

"Wait!" Potter exclaimed, bolting upright in his seat once again. "I have an idea."

Draco looked at him in shock and mild amusement. "Do share."

Instead of sharing his idea, Potter had risen from his seat and swept their project notes directly into his open bookbag, disrupting their carefully laid out piles. Draco groaned.

Potter had gotten a couple feet away from the table before he turned back around.

"You coming?" he said, mouth rising into a playful smile. Whatever downtrodden mood the memory had gotten him into seemed to have vanished completely by now.

When Draco didn't respond, Potter grabbed him by the wrist and started to eagerly pull him out of the library, which made Draco's ears color to a deep pink.

He did his best to tail Potter closely, silently disappointed when the latter dropped his hand off of Draco as they ascended several flights of stairs. Draco wasn't exactly sure where they were headed until Potter started to pace right next to a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy's attempt to teach trolls how to dance ballet.

Potter looked incredibly pleased with himself as he strolled back and forth in front of the tapestry, muttering something about a pensieve and a place to study.

Draco could feel the color drain from his face now. "The Room of Hidden Things?" he speculated.

"The Room of—wait, what?" Potter asked, smugness fading into incredulity.

"This is the Room of Hidden Things, is it not?" Draco asked, rolling his eyes as he motioned to the heavy brown doors materializing in front of them.

"That's funny," Potter mused, stepping inside. "I always called it the Room of Requirement."