Mon ange gardien

by virgules

We all know what Harry went through during his years at Hogwarts. But what happened where he wasn't looking? A love affair between his best friend and his nemesis...? Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, from first to seventh year, gradually fall in love during the real books. Chapter every Sunday evening!

92. 92 : Natasha Skye Nott

Hermione

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"You... you planned all this?" asked Hermione in shock.

Draco was still holding the candy apple out to her, his cheeks flushed with effort and... embarrassment?

"Well, yes." he replied. "You told me you were a bit jealous of Potter and Chang getting to have a date here, so... I thought we could have one too. Here."

She took the apple in an automatic gesture and watched as Draco dried the grass on the ground with his wand, cast a Warmth spell and invited her to sit on the grass.

"I can't believe you organised this." she admitted, sitting down next to him.

"It's not that extraordinary." he muttered with a shrug. "I would have much rather taken you to a tea room, like the ones couples go to on Valentine's Day, and kissed you in front of everyone without fear of anything."

"Not me." Hermione replied. "I much prefer this place, just the two of us. It's the best date I could have hoped for on Valentine's Day."

Draco grinned proudly and began to remove the paper that wrapped his candy apple:

"Is it the best of the hundreds of dates you've been on?" he asked, and despite his laughter, she could hear a hint of concern in his question.

Draco and his jealousy. Hermione rolled her eyes:

"You know very well I haven't had many." she said. "Two, actually."

Draco abruptly turned his head towards her and Hermione thought she saw a hint of grey camouflaging his pupils. She continued in a slow voice, taking malicious pleasure in seeing him panic like that:

"Here, and... in Hampstead Heath Park, eating ice cream." she explained with a mischievous smile.

Draco's shoulders slumped in relief.

"We've had a lot more since then." he pointed out. "Every study session in the Library is a date, isn't it?"

Hermione smiled as she heard the conviction in his voice.

"That's true. Then I've really had a hundred." Hermione said. "That date looks a lot like the one in London, sitting in the grass eating a sweet."

"With a nice view." Draco added, looking at Hogsmeade before him. "But this time, your sweet won't melt between your fingers."

"Stop teasing, that ice cream was the best you've ever had in your life." Hermione remarked, unwrapping her apple in turn.

He'd never really admitted it to her, but Hermione knew it because he often talked about that ice cream, which was strange, considering he'd mixed two completely opposite flavours, coffee and mint.

"That's true." Draco admitted. "I never thought I'd eat Muggle ice cream, let alone in a Muggle park, let alone sitting on the grass!"

Hermione chuckled as he curled his lip in disgust. Only Draco would take offence at such a trivial act.

She bit into her apple, the caramelised juice dripping onto her tongue.

"My God, Draco, this candy apple is delicious!" she exclaimed, her mouth half full.

Draco nodded in agreement. The caramel gave his lips a reddish hue. With an elegance not very appropriate to what he was doing, he licked his sugar-covered fingers.

"This is my favourite Honeydukes treat." he said.

It was rare that Draco confided in him about such things. They had spent most evenings together for over a year, but Hermione often felt she didn't know much about him. He didn't open up as much as she did, especially when it came to small, inconsequential details like tastes or childhood memories. Every bit of information he gave was even more precious and carefully preserved in a corner of her mind.

"So... how did your date with Skeeter go?"

Hermione licked the left side of her apple as she considered an appropriate response:

"Better than I'd hoped." she replied. "If she sticks to Harry's version word for word, I'll have succeeded. Harry's story will be printed in a newspaper, and everyone will finally know what happened that night."

"Wasn't it hard to hear?" asked Draco, a worried frown creasing his eyebrows.

"He'd already told me." Hermione said, an uncomfortable shiver running down her arms. "But it's still hard to hear. I think if every reader of that stupid Prophet could hear him tell it, no one would doubt it. I don't know how he managed not to burst into tears, right there in the middle of the Three Broomsticks."

"And you warned Theo?" Draco asked.

"Yes, of course." she replied. "And Harry asked my permission to talk about his father before he mentioned his name."

Draco raised his eyebrows in surprise:

"Did he?"

His question was laced with suspicion, as if he couldn't believe for a moment that Harry could be kind.

"Harry has nothing against Theo. He respects that I'm his friend." Hermione said firmly.

"Unlike Weasley." Draco commented.

Hermione swallowed, the caramel making her cough. Draco had put on his sullen expression, as he did every time Ron's name was mentioned.

"Let's not talk about him on our one hundred and second date, please." Hermione demanded in a quiet voice.

Draco didn't reply, his eyes fixed on the houses of Hogsmeade and his jaw clenched in anger. Sensing that the mood was taking a dramatic turn, Hermione searched desperately for something to say to defuse it:

"By the way... I found out what Amortentia is." she blurted out awkwardly.

He turned to her, a smile curling the corners of his lips, and Hermione knew his mood had suddenly changed again.

"Took you long enough." he said, teasing her.

"I didn't have many clues." she accused. "You didn't give me anything to help me look."

"And what did you find, my favourite Know-It-All?" asked Draco, the only person in the world capable of a tender sneer.

"Amortentia is the most powerful love potion in the world." Hermione said, trying to remember all the information she'd found about the potion. "It's recognisable by its pearly colour, it's very rare, and it's considered one of the most dangerous potions because anyone who drinks it is affected by a deep obsession with the person who made them drink it. This feeling is, of course, not real, but a simple chemical reaction to the components of Amortentia, giving the impression of having created true love, which is not possible."

"Ten points for Gryffindor." Draco teased.

Hermione ended her tirade by biting into a piece of her apple.

"I understood what it was." she continued. "But I find it hard to understand how it could have helped Theo to know that we were in love."

Draco then had a reaction Hermione hadn't expected at all: his cheeks turned a lovely pink and he looked away to concentrate on his apple. He looked genuinely embarrassed, which she loved as much as it intrigued her.

"Oh my God, Draco, don't tell me you made me drink that?" she squealed, the realisation so startling that she almost dropped her candy.

His sheepish expression changed and he burst out laughing. A real laugh, the kind he couldn't control and which echoed around them.

"Merlin, no!" he said, laughing. "How can you ask me such a thing? Does falling in love with me seem so unlikely that you immediately think it could be the result of a love potion?"

"No, of course not." Hermione replied. "But you're so unpredictable that I expect everything from you."

"I didn't give you any and I didn't drink any, Merlin." Draco said, wiping his eyes.

"So how did Theo know?"

Draco was suddenly captivated by the rest of his apple.

"Come on, tell me!" Hermione insisted, her curiosity far from satisfied. "You told me to find out what Amortentia was, which I did, now you're obliged to explain how Theo could have known."

She could only see his profile, but she was sure he was blushing. It was so rare that Hermione abandoned her apple to stare at him, desperate to keep the image in her mind.

"At the end of third year..." he began in a low voice. Hermione leaned in to hear his words, sure he wouldn't repeat himself if she was unlucky enough not to hear the whole story. "Theo made me smell some Amortentia that Snape kept in his class. Do you know what Amortentia smells like, Granger?"

The answer came as if she were in class:

"It smells different to each person, according to the scents that attract them." she recited, though she didn't understand the connection to Theo.

"Exactly." he replied with a shy little smile. "He let me smell it and... my Amortentia smelled of old books in the Library, strawberry and... cinnamon tea."

Hermione opened her mouth but couldn't think of anything to say. Yet it was rare for her to run out of words.

Three smells that suited her perfectly: the Library, the smell of her shampoo and her favourite tea.

"Oh my God." she breathed. "Third year?"

They hated each other back then. They hadn't had a single civil conversation; he hadn't even sat in the Library in third year! He'd caught her scent in Amortentia before he'd even spoken to her properly?

Draco was getting redder and redder. Hermione couldn't understand why this confession was so upsetting to him when he hadn't had the slightest difficulty telling her he was in love with her in London last summer.

"I didn't recognise you at first." he continued in an apologetic tone. "It took me over six months to figure out that the smells were connected to you."

"How?" asked Hermione.

"I should have realised it was you from the start, in the Library, thanks to the cinnamon teas. I stupidly didn't make the connection. I'd somehow forgotten that Theo had made me smell it at the end of the year... I didn't realise until the Ball."

"The Ball?!"

Hermione thought back to when they'd been shouting at each other in the empty classroom, how close they'd come, when the tension had been at its peak and Hermione, despite her anger and protest, had silently begged him to kiss her. Draco must have been thinking the same thing, because his blush was replaced by a glint of desire in his eyes.

"During our... conversation in the classroom, I moved closer to you and smelled your hair for the first time." he confided. He'd leaned towards her as he spoke, and Hermione was transported into his memory as if she'd just fallen into a Pensieve. "I smelled your strawberry shampoo and realised it was you. That I was in love with you. I knew it already, of course, but having proof made me panic, so I ran away."

Hermione remembered his hurried departure. She'd always thought he'd been taken in by reason. She had never imagined such a scenario.

"Oh my God... Is that why you've been sniffing my hair?" she asked, her eyebrows slightly furrowed at the memory of the last few months.

The twinkle in Draco's eyes faded and he pulled his head back in surprise:

"I beg your pardon? I'm not sniffing anything."

"Yes, you are! Every time I come near you, or you hug me, you put your chin on my head and inhale." she protested, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"That's rubbish!" Draco retorted fervently. "You should know I come from a worthy line of powerful wizards, it's certainly not my style to sniff someone's hair."

He lifted his chin and ate what was left on his stick with an elegance that Hermione would have been unable to replicate.

"I'm sorry to break it to you, Draco Malfoy, but the line of worthy wizards ends before you. You're currently sitting on the ground in wet grass, eating a candy apple without cutlery and sniffing my hair whenever you're near it."

Draco chuckled. He had caramel on his bottom lip and his hair was still damp from the rain, tousled in all directions, and Hermione wouldn't have said it out loud, but she had a slight preference for this Draco over the aristocratic one.

"All right, Granger. If you say so." he said with sudden casualness. "Anyway, that's how Theo understood it. You offered him cinnamon tea in the Library and he remembered the scent of my Amortentia."

"I'm sorry." Hermione said impulsively.

He arched an eyebrow:

"Sorry for what?"

"For offering him tea. I suppose you didn't appreciate me sharing it with him."

Draco shrugged:

"I don't like the idea of my best friend having tea with you, but I don't really care because it doesn't taste like mine, and it never will." he explained. "To him, it's just tea. To me, it's you. It's us. It's the Library. No one but me will ever know."

A smile crossed his lips and Hermione realised that this statement was probably the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. She finished her apple thoughtfully. It had been Hagrid who had first bought her this tea, but today it meant as much to her as it did to Draco at their secluded table in the Library. She rarely shared it with anyone else, not even Harry. Perhaps her subconscious had linked it to Draco as well.

"What are we supposed to do on a date?" he asked, looking around. "I organised it for Valentine's Day, but I don't really know what we're supposed to do after we eat and look at the view."

Hermione's heart raced:

"You've never been on a date before?" she asked hopefully.

"Apart from the hundred or so dates with the same girl on every table and bench, no, never." he replied.

Hermione blushed, not hiding her relieved smile.

"Hmm... I confess I don't know either, I've never done it. But I've seen plenty of couples kissing voraciously in front of me all day."

"Oh, yeah?" asked Draco with his usual smirk.

"Yes, it was disgusting." she commented. "Apparently, that's what you're supposed to do on Valentine's Day... but I guess you come from a line far too pure and dignified to stoop to kissing a girl in the grass."

She gave him a mocking sideways glance, and in a move too sudden for Hermione to have expected, Draco grabbed her hips and swung her on top of him. She let out a pitiful little scream and the rest of her candy apple waltzed through the air before falling to the rain-soaked ground.

"Draco!" she cried.

She found herself on top of him in the soaked grass, her mouth open in protest, but he kissed her before she could complain any further. Immediately, her body relaxed against his.

"Pure and dignified bloodline, my ass." he muttered against her mouth.

Hermione let out a small laugh, which was soon cut off as he turned her over so that her back was to the grass. He stood over her and pressed himself against her, firmly enough that she couldn't turn around.

"What are you doing?"

He leaned down to kiss her nose, then brought his mouth right up to her ear:

"Well, you said couples kiss on Valentine's Day, so I am."

"Draco, that's not..."

"What term did you use again?" he asked, clearly very amused. "Voraciously", was it? Let me see..."

He lowered his head towards her, his hair spraying little drops onto Hermione's forehead.

"My back is soaked..." Hermione began.

He silenced her by kissing her again, and very soon, Hermione forgot the reason for her complaints.

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On Monday evening, at dinner, Harry told the Gryffindors in a low voice that he had been interviewed by Rita Skeeter in order to publish his version of the events of last June. They all had a bemused look spread across their faces. Seamus was the only one who pretended not to listen as he devoured as many bites of pie as he could.

"I can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks when she sees you talking in public!" Dean said with an encouraging smile.

"You did the right thing, Harry." Neville said. He was very pale and his eyes were averted. "It must have been... hard... talking about it, wasn't it?" he continued in a whisper.

"Yes." Harry murmured. "But people need to know what Voldemort is capable of."

Seamus sent his fork flying when he said the forbidden name, but no one noticed, too absorbed in Harry's story to pay any attention.

"It's true..." Neville agreed with a nod. "And his Death Eaters too... people should know..."

Hermione thought back to that horrible woman on all the Prophet wanted posters, Bellatrix Lestrange, and felt a strange mixture of pity for Neville and hatred for the woman. She patted Neville gently on the shoulder to comfort him, and he gave her a small smile in return.

The Quidditch session wasn't over yet, so Hermione and Harry waited for Ron, Ginny and the twins to return before heading back up to the Common Room. Hermione was going over her study schedule when she caught Harry's eye, staring at something behind her. Turning, she saw Cho Chang and her friend Marietta sitting at the Ravenclaw table.

"Oh, I forgot to ask you!" Hermione realised happily. "How did your date with Cho go? How did you get to the Three Broomsticks so early?"

"Oh, er..." stammered Harry, helping himself to a second slice of pie. "A total fiasco, actually."

"Was it?" gasped Hermione. "What happened?"

"Well... it was going well at first." Harry said, crushing his pie with his spoon without realising it. "We were talking about Quidditch, the conversation was flowing, she seemed happy. When it started to rain, I suggested we go for a coffee and she wanted to go to the tea room, next to the botanist, Madam Puddifoot..."

Hermione grimaced and Harry nodded:

"It was horrible, there were little cherubs flying around the tables throwing confetti at the guests. I even got some in my coffee!" he yelped in horror. "Anyway, we were seated next to Roger Davies and his girlfriend, and they started making out next to us..."

Hermione's grimace deepened and Harry sighed:

"And all was well between us until I mentioned our lunch at the Three Broomsticks... I suggested she come, as you suggested, but she didn't seem to like it very much. After that, she suddenly got cold and even told me that Roger Davies had asked her out a fortnight before, even though he was right next to us!" cried Harry, increasingly scandalised by his own words. "Snogging his girlfriend!"

"Harry..."

"And on top of that!" said Harry, who hadn't noticed Hermione's interruption. "Do you know what she talked to me about next? Cedric! She told me about their date the year before, in this very café, and I kept asking myself, why did she bring me here if it reminded her of Cedric? And why didn't she accept Roger Davies' invitation instead of pointing it out to me?"

Hermione pursed her lips, trying to think of an appropriate response, but Harry had already launched into his story:

"And just when I thought it was the worst turn of events during a date in the history of mankind, Cho wonders if Cedric told me about her before he died." he concluded. "I don't know if she was hoping for a tearful account of Cedric's last moments in the middle of that cafe, which looked a lot like Umbridge's office, by the way, but in any case, she started crying when I changed the subject, saying that I was the only one who could understand her pain and that I needed to talk to her about it, and I told her... I told her I'd already talked to you and Ron about it, and suddenly, she started shouting at me, in front of everyone! She asked me how many dates I had after yours, and I burst out laughing because, frankly, Hermione, I was completely lost, and she just... walked away! She jumps up and says, "See you around, Harry." And then she runs off!"

He finished his last bite of pie and looked at Hermione with a confused expression.

"I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"

Hermione looked back at Cho, who was pretending to laugh with Marietta.

"Oh, Harry..." Hermione muttered, tenderised by her best friend. "I'm sorry, but you were a bit tactless."

"Me, tactless?" Harry snapped, shocked that she could take her side. "One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid teashop, how was I supposed to feel about that?"

Hermione so wished Ginny was there to witness this act of masculine realisation.

"Well..." Hermione said in a patient tone. "You shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet me halfway through your date."

"But... but..." Harry stammered. "But you told me to meet you at twelve and bring her, how was I supposed to do that without telling her?"

"You should have told her differently." Hermione continued. "You should have said it was really annoying, but I'd made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really had to meet me and would she please, please come along with you and hopefully you'd be able to get away quicker. And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too." she added after a moment's thought.

"But I don't think you're ugly." Harry replied, confused.

Hermione burst out laughing.

"Harry, you're worse than Ron... well, no, you're not." she sighed as Ron, covered in mud and looking grumpy, stomped heavily into the Great Hall. "Listen... You made Cho angry when you told her you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. For her, it was a way to find out if you really liked her."

"Oh, is that what she was doing?" mused Harry.

Ron dropped onto the bench opposite them and grabbed every plate within reach.

"Well, wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just asked me if I liked her better than you?" asked Harry with all of the innocence of a ten year old.

"Girls... don't often ask questions like that." Hermione remarked.

"Well, they should!" Harry retorted forcefully. "Because then I would have told her how much I liked her and she wouldn't have had to get all worked up over Cedric's death again!"

"I'm not saying what she did was sensible." Hermione replied. "I'm just trying to make you understand what she was feeling at the time."

Ginny arrived next. She was just as dirty and looked just as grumpy as Ron. Hermione didn't like talking about Harry's love life in her presence, so she dropped the subject.

"You should write a book." Ron said to Hermione as he cut his potatoes. "Something that translates the silly things girls do so boys can understand what it's all about."

"Yes!" Harry agreed eagerly.

Right on cue, Cho stood up and walked out of the Great Hall without a glance at him.

"So, how was Quidditch practice?" asked Harry in a dejected tone.

"It was a nightmare." Ron replied sullenly.

"Come on..." Hermione said looking at Ginny. "I'm sure it wasn't..."

"Oh yes, it was." Ginny cut in. "It was appalling. Angelina was on the verge of tears at the end of it."

Hermione and Harry were around the Weasleys enough to know that trying to comfort them at that moment would be a grave mistake. Ron was pounding his plate more than poking at it, and Ginny seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They waited in silence for them to finish their meal, then Ron and Ginny announced that they were going to take a bath at the same time, and argued all the way back about who got to the bathroom first.

Hermione and Harry did their homework by the fire. Harry was studying the sky chart that Sinistra had given them three weeks ago, and Hermione was learning her runes. Fred and George entered the Common Room and took a chair to join them at their desk:

"Ron and Ginny not here?" whispered Fred, looking around.

Harry replied in the negative with a nod and Hermione looked up from her Runes textbook, intrigued by his tone of urgency.

"Good. We've been to their training session. They're going to get slaughtered." Fred said, as if announcing the imminent end of the planet. "They're complete rubbish without us."

"Come on, Ginny's not bad." George interjected. "Actually, I don't know how she got so good, seeing as we never let her play with us."

Hermione was tired of the attitude of these boys who didn't pay the slightest attention to detail.

"She's been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since she was six and taking all your brooms out one by one when you weren't looking." she revealed in a bored voice.

"Oh." George replied, moderately impressed. "That explains it."

"Has Ron saved a goal yet?" asked Hermione, glancing at them over "Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms".

"He can do it when he's sure no one's watching." Fred replied, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "Next Saturday, we'll just have to ask the crowd to turn their backs and talk about something else every time the Quaffle gets close to his goals."

He stood up dramatically and moved behind the large window to look out over the darkened Hogwarts valley.

"Quidditch was about the only thing worth staying here for..." he said thoughtfully.

"You have exams at the end of the year." Hermione pointed out.

"I told you, we're not fussed about NEWTs." Fred replied without looking at her. "The Skiving Snackboxes are ready for the market. We've finally found a way to get rid of those boils, they disappear with a few drops of Murtlap Essence, Lee gave us the idea."

George yawned and looked longingly up at the cloudy night sky.

"I wonder if I'll bother to watch this game. If Zacharias Smith ever beats us, I'll just have to kill myself..."

"... kill him, more like." Fred said.

"That's the trouble with Quidditch." Hermione observed distractedly, having fallen back into her translation of the runes. "It creates tension and hostility between the Houses."

No one answered. It was only when she looked up to pick up her "Spellman's Syllabary" that she realised all three boys had turned to her with expressions ranging from disgust to disbelief.

"Well, it does!" she insisted, annoyed. "It's just a game, let's not forget that!"

"Hermione..." Harry said, shaking his head. "You may know a lot about feelings and stuff, but you've never understood anything about Quidditch."

"It's possible." she said calmly. "But at least I don't make my happiness dependent on Ron's ability to defend his goals."

Neither Fred, nor George, nor Harry knew what to say. Fred and George looked up at the sky, giving the impression that they were doomed to an agonising fate and that there was nothing they could do to escape it. The Gryffindors' match against the Hufflepuffs was scheduled for Saturday, but from the looks of them, it was as if they'd already lost.

Ginny reappeared around 10pm, her hair freshly washed and her face frankly depressed. She informed everyone that she was going to cry herself to sleep, and the twins nodded gravely, as if this was a perfectly logical activity after what they'd just seen. Harry stayed in front of his map for long hours, his eyes blank. There was no one left in the Common Room when he announced that it was time to go to bed.

"Harry, wait." Hermione urged as he got up to go to his dormitory. "I wanted to ask you something."

Harry's eyebrows furrowed and he pushed his glasses up his nose, taken aback by her seriousness.

"Tell me?"

"I..." Hermione began, not sure if she could explain such a thing to him. "Harry, do you trust me?"

"Yes, of course." he replied in a heartbeat. "Always."

Hermione was touched by his devotion. Draco would probably have asked her a dozen questions as soon as the question had passed her lips.

"You know I get anxious as soon as you go to bed, now that I know you're having those... nightmares?"

"I told you, Mione, there's no need to..."

"I'm your best friend, I'm worried." she cut in. "And to stop being so, I've... found a spell that lets me know when your heart rate is abnormally high. That way, I'll know if you need help."

Harry considered this information for a few seconds. He must have been used to Hermione's crazy ideas, because he didn't seem particularly surprised.

"Oh." he said finally. Then he stepped back a little and pointed to his heart with a wave of his hand, "All right, go on."

Hermione was so shocked by his spontaneous response that she didn't make the slightest move.

"What? I trust you, I just told you." Harry said. "If you think it can help me and help you sleep better, I don't see the problem."

"I didn't think you'd be so quick to agree." Hermione admitted.

"I let Snape into my head every Monday." Harry growled, unconsciously massaging his scar. "Who would I be if I let him and refused to let my best friend practice a spell on me that she considered useful?"

Hermione cracked a small, emotional smile and Harry imitated her, but his was far more tense, though Hermione had no idea if it was from fear or just the pain of his Occlumency session a little earlier.

She picked up her wand and faced him.

"It won't hurt." she warned as he tensed. "It's a simple diagnostic spell. Pulsatio Reprehendo." A jet of white touched Harry's chest and he watched the spell curiously. Then, Hermione recited the runes she and Theo had found: "Laguz, Wunjo, Gebo, Jera, Ansuz, Eiwaz, Uruz."

"Wow." Harry said as Hermione released the spell. "You're so clever, Mione, I didn't understand a word you just said."

She shrugged modestly. Harry turned, tossed her a final "good night!" and headed up the stairs to his dormitory. Without even asking her what she'd just done. He trusted her blindly.

Hermione forced herself to remember that for the next time he got angry with her for no reason.

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Draco

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"This game sucks." Draco commented elegantly to Blaise.

They were in the Slytherin stands on Saturday afternoon, watching the unmitigated disaster that was unfolding before their eyes: Gryffindors versus Hufflepuffs.

"I've been watching Quidditch matches since I was three." Blaise informed him in his usual calm, collected voice, despite the noise around him. "I've seen everything from the children's teams in the Non-Flying League to the Bulgaria vs. Ireland final of the Quidditch World Cup. And I've never, and I do mean never, seen a game as bad as this in my entire life".

"You know what? I think if we replaced the whole Hufflepuff team with just Crabbe and Goyle, they'd win hands down." Draco commented as the Gryffindor Beater punched Angelina Johnson in the face with all his might, missing a Bludger.

"Time out!" shouted Lee Jordan's magically amplified voice. "Angelina, do you need a break?"

To her credit, the bleeding mouth Gryffindor captain shook her head. The misery of the game continued. Draco concentrated more on Weasley, who was flying in front of his goals but looked like he was going to faint at any moment. He'd let thirteen Quaffles through the rings, which had to be a school record. He'd almost turned green.

"Kirke just had a sensational fall off his broom after Smith ran into him." Jordan commented disapprovingly, probably disappointed with his own House. "And Smith goes straight for the goal... Come on Ron, you can do it... no, that's the fourteenth goal for Hufflepuff..."

Draco burst out laughing as the Slytherin and Hufflepuff stands exploded with joy. The only stand that wasn't animated was the Gryffindors'. Draco would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy seeing Potter's grief-stricken face.

"This isn't Quidditch anymore, it's humiliation!" shouted Blaise, his eyes glued to the pitch.

"Ah, Ginny Weasley is on the chase, followed closely by Summerby!" Lee Jordan continued with a little more enthusiasm. "She's seen the Golden Snitch, she's not losing her trail... and... careful, Ginny, not on your broomstick!"

The redhead had flattened herself on her broomstick, hand outstretched, at far too high an altitude for such an approach. Even Draco wouldn't have tried it. Either Ginny Weasley had fallen on her head during training, or she was the most reckless of the Gryffindors.

Despite the agonising slowness of her broom, Weaslette managed to get ahead of Summerby, who could only watch in dejection as she snatched the small golden ball between her fingers.

"She's got it!" shouted Jordan. "Ginny Weasley has caught the Golden Snitch! Gryffindor recovers one hundred and fifty points and closes out the match. Unfortunately, it's not enough... Two hundred and forty to two hundred and thirty, Hufflepuff wins!"

The yellow and black tower next to the Slytherins began to howl and hug each other. It was a well-deserved victory, they had used techniques far more advanced than the meagre attempts of the Gryffindors. As soon as Weasley set foot on the ground, the entire stadium began to sing the chorus of "Weasley is our King", led mainly by the Slytherins, but Draco was careful to keep his mouth shut, knowing that Granger was watching him from her tower.

"The Gryffindors have been a disaster, but even you have to admit that Ginny Weasley has potential." Blaise commented.

Draco looked down at the pitch where Weaslette had just landed with the Golden Snitch. She threw her arm over her brother's shoulders and they both walked into the changing room with an overwhelmed look on their faces.

"Did she play well, or was she just surrounded by incompetents who made her shine?" asked Draco, a rhetorical question.

Blaise shrugged and they left the stadium after twenty minutes of torture. The shortest match Draco had ever seen.

.

He had dinner with Blaise, Theo and Pansy. Blaise and Draco spent the whole meal telling them in great detail how disastrous the match had been, although none of them really cared.

He then repeated it to Granger as soon as he entered the Library, even though she had watched the same match as him.

"If you make fun of Ron one more time, I'm taking my things and leaving." she warned dryly when he began to describe the greenish colour his complexion had taken after the tenth goal.

"Oh, relax, Granger, I'm not making fun of your precious Weasley." Draco said, although that was exactly what he was doing.

She glared at him, pretending to write down her antidote study sheet:

"Instead of bullying him, help me find the ingredients for the Eternal Elixir antidote."

"No." Draco replied briskly.

He watched as Granger looked up at him, a look of pure revolt written across her features:

"Pardon me?" she snapped in her high-pitched voice. "I'll have you know, I made you study your Arithmancy all night last night, and I even cancelled what I had planned to do in Herbology so that I could..."

"I'm not going to help you, until you admit that Weasley was rubbish at that game."

Granger's cheeks turned crimson. The look she gave him was so black that it made the hairs stand up on the back of Draco's neck.

"Out of the question." she let out through clenched teeth.

"Come on Granger, just for me." Draco insisted, knowing full well that he was playing with fire.

"I'll throw my tea in your face." she warned, and he was sure she meant it.

"It wouldn't be mockery, it's just a fact." he continued. "You'd just be being honest with yourself, Granger, and I think it's important to match your ideas with your words."

"I'm not listening to you anymore."

"Say it." Then he added in a pleading whisper: "Please. You'll get a favour in return."

A spark of interest worthy of a Slytherin crossed Granger's eyes and she stared at him intently to see if he was lying.

"Anything?" she asked with barely concealed envy.

"Within reason, yes." Draco assured her.

"You're sick, Draco. You should go to the Head Injury Unit at St Mungo's and get checked out." she said in a strangely calm tone.

"But...?"

"But..." she let out a deep sigh. "I... I think Ron was indeed... not at his best today."

"And how would you describe his game, in a nutshell?" the blond pressed.

Hermione's mouth twisted in hesitation and she took several seconds to think.

"Not... great." she finally blurted out.

Draco came over to her and gave her a kiss on the forehead:

"Thank you, Hermione." he whispered solemnly. "This is the greatest gift you've ever given me."

"It was worth knitting you a bonnet for days, then." she replied, rolling her eyes at his immaturity. "Seriously, Draco. Eighth floor, just across the stairs, in the room with lots of nice ladies in green scrubs."

Draco was in excellent spirits all evening. He spent the first part of the night with Granger on the bench, which filled him with joy. He could see the outline of the stadium towers in the darkness, reminding him of the match that afternoon. The fact that Hermione chose to spend the night with him rather than upstairs comforting Weasley made it all the more satisfying.

Granger practised her Occlumency, but as usual, she wasn't very optimistic. She followed the meditation steps Draco had given her, then gave up halfway through, claiming she could not go any further. She said the silence made her uncomfortable, even though she could spend several hours in complete silence when studying. It was incomprehensible.

Finally they gave up and quietly returned to their Common Room.

When Draco entered his, the party was in full swing, but neither Theo nor Blaise were there. He ran into Pansy, her make-up running from too much dancing, who informed him that the two of them had gone to bed because they'd caught a cold. He had a drink with her, then Draco decided to go to the dormitory too, leaving Pansy to her own devices.

Blaise was asleep, flat on his diagonal bed, the covers half on the floor. Theo's bed was closed, but Draco thought he saw a beam of light, which meant he was reading before going to sleep. Draco took a hot shower and washed up, laughing to himself when he remembered the afternoon's disastrous game. The panic on Weasley's face refused to leave his mind, so much so that he thought Snape would have to see it at their next Occlumency session.

He went to bed and meditated, as he did every night. Then he filed away a few memories in his mental library and quickly sank into the abyss of sleep, a satisfied smile on his lips.

Draco had no idea how he could have woken up in such a deep sleep. Perhaps his body was on alert without him realising it, or perhaps his subconscious was keeping him on the surface of drowsiness just in case.

Either way, Draco woke as soon as he heard Blaise's hoarse, plaintive croak from his bed.

He jumped to his feet, caught his feet in the covers, stumbled against his bedside table and knocked over the glass of water that was there, which exploded at his feet. The commotion was enough to wake Theo, who opened his curtains at once.

"Blaise?" he called. "Fuck!"

Draco rushed over and threw himself on Blaise's bed at the same time as Theo. Blaise was on his stomach. He was already drenched in sweat and his body was shaking uncontrollably. He was muttering words that neither Draco nor Theo could understand.

"Rennervate!" shouted Theo, but his wand was shaking so much between his fingers that nothing happened. "Draco, your wand!"

Draco turned and ran to his bedside table to get his wand. Of course, it was gone. He must have dropped it when he got out of bed. He immediately dropped to his stomach and searched the floor, his heart beating against his eardrums:

"I'm here!" he cried. "I'm coming, Blaise, hang on, Blaise! Where's my FUCKING WAND?"

He found it under his blanket, which he'd dropped in his haste, and rushed back to Blaise's bed, ready to cast the spell, but it died on his tongue when he reached the foot of Blaise's bed: he was already looking at him, and his eyes weren't black or lifeless.

"Don't bother, Dray. I'm awake." Blaise said in a hoarse voice as he rolled onto his back.

"Wh-what, but... how?" stammered Draco.

Blaise ran his long hands over his face. His forehead was glistening and Draco could see his veins along the dark skin of his neck. Theo was speechless, his wand still pointed at him, as if he doubted Blaise was really awake.

"I've gotten used to the effects of the potion." Blaise explained. "I took some more tonight, hoping it would do the trick for a few more days, but the seizure started anyway."

"But we didn't have time to stop it." Theo argued, his eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. "How can you be awake?"

"I don't know, I heard Dray call my name and it snapped me out of my vision." Blaise said, glancing at Draco who was still standing haggardly in front of his bed. "I wasn't completely in it, it was weird... Like something was pulling me back."

"The potion." Theo guessed. "You still had traces of the Dreamless Sleep potion in your system, but the effects weren't enough to put you to sleep completely."

"Did you drink the lavender tea?" asked Draco.

Blaise shook his head in the negative.

"Why?" asked Theo.

"I don't want the bloody tea." Blaise mumbled.

"What?" asked Theo in astonishment. "But why, if your mother says it will stop the visions?"

"It's precisely because my mother said so that I don't take it." Blaise said. Anyone else would have sounded like a sulky child, but from his mouth, the sentence sounded wise and thoughtful. "She wants me to have these visions, she wants me to open my Third Eye, or whatever. How do I know that really stops them? Maybe it's just Rosa Lee's tea and won't do anything, and I'll end up burned alive anyway."

"Your mother would never lie about that." Theo said.

"Oh, yeah?" replied Blaise with a bitter laugh. "Yet that's exactly what she's been doing since I was born."

"Don't say that. She was just trying to protect you."

Blaise and Theo stared at each other as if daring each other to argue. For the first time since the beginning of their friendship, Draco found himself the neutral element in an argument between the two.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe she was lying." Draco cautiously admitted.

"Draco, you're not helping me here..." Theo grumbled.

"But if that's the case, and tea won't help you at all, you might as well take it, right?" he continued. "Worst case, you have a vision, and best case, your mother is telling the truth and the tea works. If you don't take the tea and the potion has no effect, you'll still have a vision. Might as well take our chances."

Blaise let out a defeated sigh and Draco knew he'd won the battle. Blaise ran his hands over his face again and Draco took the opportunity to sit down at the end of his bed.

"Where are the boxes your mother gave you?" asked Theo.

"Under my bed." Blaise muttered, his face in his hands.

He picked up several and placed them on the bedside table, then prepared a cup and filled it with hot water.

"It really is a curse." Blaise said, straightening his head. "I'm doomed either way. If I take that damn tea every night and then accidentally forget it once or twice, I'm sure my shitty Third Eye will immediately give me a new vision, far worse than the previous ones."

"Kind of like the Obscurus." Theo remarked as he dipped the tea into the boiling water. "They suppress their magical powers until they can no longer contain them, and in the end, despite their best efforts, they always explode."

"All the Obscurus in the history of witchcraft died young." Blaise replied coldly.

Theo raised his eyebrows at the sour note in his voice:

"Ok... sorry." he said. "Here's your tea."

Blaise was by far the heaviest sleeper of the three. He often said that he was a sound sleeper and that nothing could disturb him while he was asleep, but if something did wake him up, he would then become extremely grumpy. Draco and Theo knew this all too well: if Blaise woke up earlier than usual, they'd have to avoid him all day. So it wasn't an unusual attitude, especially since the wake-up in question had been the image of him burning alive, so it was entirely justified for him to be so irritated.

Theo sat on his bed and watched Blaise sip his tea as disgustedly as if he were drinking sock juice.

"Maybe you could endure the visions bit by bit." Theo suggested suddenly, after several minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" asked Blaise.

"If the tea works, you could have some every night, but you choose the nights when you just don't. You'll suffer a vision from time to time, and you'll know in advance when you'll get one."

"Choosing to go to the gallows rather than be surprised." Blaise summarised grimly.

"Well, sort of. And you won't have to experience it for very long, because Draco and I will be there to wake you up."

Blaise's features relaxed a little at his offer.

"Guys, that's very kind of you, but I'm not going to ask you to..."

"You don't have to ask." Draco cut in. "We're going to do it anyway, whether you like it or not. Besides, this way, we'll be prepared, knowing that you'll have it. That's an excellent idea, Theo!"

He nodded in agreement.

"We should pick a day of the week." Draco decided. "Let's say you don't drink tea or potions every Saturday from now on, and we'll stay up all night with you. We know the spell now."

"And you'll pull all-nighters every Saturday for the rest of your life?" asked Blaise sarcastically.

"At least during Hogwarts. After that, your mother said you'd be able to control them better." said Theo, who had an answer for everything. "We'll make the rounds with Draco so the other can get some sleep."

Draco nodded in agreement. Blaise looked at them one after the other, stunned and impressed by their loyalty.

"Really?" he asked in a quiet voice. "You'll do this for me?"

"Of course we will, you idiot." Theo replied, patting him on the head. "Who do you think we are?"

"But Theo... your O.W.L..." Blaise began.

"Who cares?" he decided on the spot. Blaise and Draco gasped in horror at this answer. "What? I'll study at night."

Blaise pursed his lips and looked at his two best friends.

"Thanks, guys." he said, touched.

"Shut up and drink your tea." Theo ordered.

Blaise burst out laughing.

.

To make sure Blaise's mother wasn't lying and that the tea really worked, Draco and Theo agreed to take turns staying awake and watching Blaise all night. Of course, when he was fast asleep, neither of them went back to bed, too worried that he might slip back into one of his visions. So, without even consulting each other, they both stayed by his bedside: Draco had pulled out the armchair where Theo often read and placed it next to Blaise's bed, his wand resting on the armrest, ready to be drawn at the slightest symptom. Theo, on the other hand, sat on his own bed, his legs dangling limply.

Blaise had been asleep for a good hour when Draco felt his eyelids droop. The room was pitch black, except for the Lumos that Theo's wand was projecting onto his book.

Blaise was fast asleep and Draco could see his back rising and falling to the rhythm of his long breaths. His profile was slightly illuminated by Theo's light and he stayed focused on it, dreading the slightest sign that another vision had begun: a twitching of the eyelids, a sharper intake of breath, anything, but Blaise didn't move. Draco remained motionless.

He would have liked some distraction, but he was too exhausted to fetch a book, and he could hardly keep his eyes open long enough to read a single line. He let his eyes wander over his surroundings: Blaise's black wand on his bedside table, the green curtains, the windows looking out into the dark depths of the Black Lake.

"Who's Sherlock Holmes?" he asked when he saw the title of Theo's book.

It was the first time he'd spoken since Blaise had fallen asleep, his voice a little scratchy. Theo was so engrossed in his reading that he didn't even look up to answer:

"A detective who solves crimes and investigations." he explained briefly.

"Must be boring." Draco commented.

Theo wanted to roll his eyes, but they were too glued to the pages.

"It's only the most famous book in English literature, but yeah, it's boring." he replied cynically.

Draco sighed and shifted in his chair, trying to find a less comfortable position. Talking helped him keep from falling asleep, but Theo was too engrossed in his book to make conversation with him. A few minutes passed in which Theo turned the pages hastily, completely absorbed in the story.

"Say, Theo..." Draco asked. "Why do you read Muggle books?"

His question had the merit of interesting Theo enough to finally make him look up. He considered Draco for a long moment.

"Do you know that's the first time you've asked me that since you and Pansy found out I was reading them?"

Draco frowned, surprised at the answer.

"Nonsense, we must have asked you why you were reading them."

"No, you didn't." he denied immediately. "You asked me how I could, but you never asked me why."

"Oh." Draco said, taken aback. "Well, I'm asking you now. Three and a half years too late."

Theo had the shadow of a smile. He was half slumped against his pillow, his book in his hands.

"I like Muggle culture." he said by way of explanation.

"I know that." Draco replied, glancing across the room at Theo's personal library, which was overflowing with Muggle books of all kinds. "But why the Muggle one?"

Theo's face took on a sombre expression. He sat up in bed and put down his book. His eyes wandered, as if suddenly caught up in memories. It was as if he'd suddenly grown old, like Lupin, his features suddenly marked and full of sadness. He didn't know if it was his imagination, but Draco even thought he could see his white scars through his pyjamas.

His pause was so long that Draco thought he'd never answer. He sank back into his chair and watched Blaise sleep.

Then, suddenly, in the stone-cold silence of the dormitory, Theo quietly announced:

"My mother died when I was four."

Draco's breath caught. It was the first time in five years of friendship that Theo had referred to his mother. He'd never even heard him mention her. He didn't react, not wanting to stop Theo in his tracks.

"Her name was Natasha." he went on wistfully. "Natasha Skye Nott. She was nineteen when she had me. My father was thirty-seven."

Draco grimaced in disgust, but Theo didn't see it. His head was down and he was playing with a thread from his pillow, probably to avoid looking Draco in the eye.

"She was Scandinavian, but I don't know from which country, my father never told me. She was taken to England by force to marry him because he had to marry a Pureblood and she was from a respectable family. They were married ten days after she arrived, and she had me less than a year later."

Draco remained silent, partly because he didn't know what to say and partly because he got the impression that Theo didn't want to be interrupted.

"I don't remember much about her." he said with a frown. "I have hazy memories. She had long hair, blonde and curly at the end. She was soft, from her skin to her voice. I remember she used to sing me lullabies to sleep, about lyres and unicorns. She was... always kind to me."

Theo sniffled, probably to hold back his tears. Draco would never have admitted it out loud, but he was having trouble controlling his own urge to cry.

"One night, not long after my birthday, I caught a glimpse of my father through the window of my room." Theo continued in a distant, off-key voice that didn't sound like him at all. "He was in the garden, pointing his wand at the earth to make it float. I remember thinking it was odd. The next day, he told me she was dead. Just like that. When I asked him how, he told me that she'd been attacked by wild men during the night and that he hadn't been able to do anything to protect her. Muggles."

Draco had understood that Theo had had a difficult childhood, far worse than Pansy and himself, but he had never imagined it could be so terrible. Hearing that his mother had died so suddenly must have been traumatic.

"He told me nothing more, and I believed him, for a long time. My father used to say that Muggles were wild, unstable, dangerous. That they were so jealous of our magic that they'd done this to get back at us. They terrified me. At night, I tried to stay awake as long as I could, afraid that one of them would attack me. But... something was bothering me. I didn't really understand why Muggles would want to kill someone in the middle of the night, especially such an insignificant witch. She barely spoke English, no one else knew her, my father wouldn't even let her leave the house without his supervision. And above all, why hadn't my father, who was supposedly a very powerful wizard, been able to protect his wife from Muggles if they were so powerless?"

Draco was stunned that a child could come to such conclusions. He would have blindly believed his father without question if Lucius had told such a lie. But this was Theo. Nott Sr obviously didn't know his son well enough to know that he was far too curious to be fooled like that.

"For several years I vacillated between theories." Theo said. "I couldn't understand how anyone could live in harmony with Muggles if they were as savage as my father claimed. Why would wizards bother to live in peace with Muggles, even to the point of hiding from them, when they could have wiped them out with a wave of their wand?"

He unconsciously rested his hand on the cover of his novel on his bed.

"So I did some research." he explained, using the same phrase Hermione would say to him when she didn't understand something. "I became interested in Muggle culture, trying to understand their nature, their way of thinking. I tried to understand the reasons: what could have driven a Muggle to kill my mother? How could they have seen my Manor when it was supposedly hidden from them? I bargained with the house elves when my father was away, offering to do their chores for them if they brought me Muggle books, which I then hid in my room. I read all the books on their medicine, and none of them spoke of their cruelty, in fact, I found them much better behaved than my father."

Draco chuckled and Theo looked up at him with a smile for the first time since he'd started telling his story.

"I realised very quickly that my father had lied to me. I knew he was a wizard, adept at dark magic, and that I didn't want to share the same hateful views. I could hear him ranting about Muggles, but I soon realised he had no idea what he was talking about."

The resemblance to Lucius was striking. It reminded Draco of when Granger had asked him in the Owlery in second year, "Have you ever actually seen Muggles?"

Draco had been shaken by her question, for only then had he realised that, no, he'd never actually seen one up close.

"When I arrived at Hogwarts, I left the question of my mother's death unresolved and found a real passion for Muggle literature." Theo continued. "I really like wizarding novels, but none are as gripping as Muggle ones. I immersed myself in them, without fear of reprisal if my father saw my collection, for he no longer had access to me".

Draco had a mental picture of eleven-year-old Theo, devouring books with strange covers in the same chair he was sitting in now.

"But as the year went on, I had these sort of... flashes, in my head." Theo said, wrinkling his nose. "Like scattered memories, images that would appear before my eyes at once and disappear just as quickly."

Draco leaned forward so as not to lose a crumb of his story.

"I mentioned it to Blaise, who told me it was probably post-traumatic syndrome after what I'd been through as a child, but I felt it was something... magical. So, when the flashes started bothering me in second year during classes, I went to see Dumbledore to ask him what could possibly cause such a phenomenon." Theo's jaw tightened. "He told me to drink a large glass of warm milk, and sleep better at night."

Draco clenched his fists on the armrest.

"I never asked him for help again." Theo agreed resentfully. "I let it drag on, not knowing what to do to make it stop. I saw my father, my mother, heard a scream, a flash of light, but it didn't make sense, I didn't understand what it meant. It wasn't until the summer before third year that I finally found out."

Draco winced as he remembered what had happened that summer. He could almost smell the ashes and blood when he'd fallen into Blaise's fireplace lair.

"I was sitting at the table where my Latin teacher was lecturing, in the grand salon of my Manor." Theo explained. "I wasn't really listening, because it didn't interest me, I was rather admiring the paintings in the room, the marble floor... When suddenly, my eyes fell on one of the plates on the floor, right next to the fireplace, and it hit me."

Draco was too caught up in his story to catch his breath. He could see the pain on Theo's face as he spoke.

"I remembered." Theo said, and Draco wasn't sure whether he sounded more relieved or horrified. "I was struck by the reconstructed memory, which I'd only seen in flashes since the year before. I was four years old. I couldn't sleep, I think I was hungry, so I decided that instead of calling for a house-elf, I would go down to the kitchens myself. I was walking down the steps of the main staircase when I heard my father shouting. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was furious. I hesitated to go back upstairs, but I heard my mother's voice, as if choked with tears, so I approached the half-open door to check on her. I poked my head between the doors of the grand salon and saw..." Theo's features contracted slightly as he remembered the moment. "My mother, in the centre of the room, her face streaked with tears, and my father, his back to her, his head bent towards the fireplace. My mother was pleading with him, crying. For what, I have no idea. My father was shaking with rage. She begged him, over and over, and then, he turned, a flash of green light exploded across the room, and my mother's body fell backwards."

A shockwave went through Draco's body from head to toe. Large tears rolled down Theo's cheeks and crashed onto the cover of his book, but he was too carried away by his story to wipe them away.

"Her body was hidden by the sofa, but I could see her legs. She wasn't moving. I must have let out a scream of terror, or he saw me, I don't know, either way, my father found me and came over. Even as a four-year-old, I knew he was drunk. His eyes were puffy and he reeked of alcohol. I remember how scared I was that the same thing would happen to me. He told me I had to forget everything, pointed his wand at me and whispered an incantation. I thought he was going to cast the same spell that he had just cast on my mum, because he was green too, but it wasn't that, it was...".

"A Memory Charm." Draco finished, the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place in his mind. "Obliviate."

"Exactly." Theo replied. His eyes were bright with tears. "He thought I would forget that scene forever, but I think he was too drunk to act it properly. The memory hasn't completely left my mind. From the moment I developed my magic, my brain rejected the mental barrier he'd set up, and I remembered what he'd done."

Theo's cheekbones turned a little pink and he lowered his head back down to his blankets:

"That night, when I came up Blaise's chimney... I lied to you. I told you that my father had called me into his office to ask if I had made any progress with my Latin lessons, but that was not what happened. I was so angry... I was the one who went to his office and asked him if he'd killed my mother."

Draco's heart skipped a beat and he clung tighter to the chair.

"He denied it." Theo spat. "That made me so angry I told him everything I'd seen. He couldn't believe it, he was convinced his Memory Charm had held. I said I would report him to the Wizengamot, and he grabbed his wand to punish me. I tried to defend myself, but I was no match for my father, with two years of practice at Hogwarts. Then... well, you know the rest. I escaped down the chimney and ended up at Blaise's, and never spoke to him again."

Draco let out the breath that was trapped in his lungs. In fact, he remembered it perfectly, every detail etched in his mind like white-hot iron. He took in the masterful amount of information Theo had just given him. He tried to picture a four-year-old Theo, with his well-combed chestnut curls, the perfect face of innocence. The thought that this boy might have experienced all these horrors made him sick.

Theo waited for his answer, a little apprehensive, as if afraid of his reaction. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and his fingers were trembling. Draco didn't know what to say. Where to begin. He couldn't measure and express aloud the horror he'd just heard. So, instead, he said the first thing that came to mind:

"You're so fucking brave, Theo."

He shrugged limply and used the sleeve of his pyjamas to wipe away his tears.

"You are." Draco insisted fiercely. "You're so fucking brave. I couldn't have done a third of what you did."

"I didn't do anything, I couldn't even defend her." Theo mumbled sheepishly.

"You were four years old." Draco snapped brutally. "You couldn't have done anything. Your bastard father is the guilty one, he deserves to rot behind bars in Azkaban."

Theo nodded in approval.

"You have nothing to do with that man." Draco continued, carried away by his emotions, and for once, he didn't care that his voice was shaking. "Can you hear me? Nothing. He wanted to blame it on Muggles so you'd hate them, but you didn't let him manipulate you like everyone else would have, and I would have been the first to let him."

Theo started to object, but Draco left him no choice and continued strongly:

"Your mother had a short life, but she loved you, Theo. And you carry the marks of that to this day. You took nothing from your father, you took everything from your mother, her gentleness, her kindness, her purity. How you ended up in this House is beyond me."

A smile brightened the brown-haired boy's features:

"Don't tell anyone, but I... sort of asked the Sorting Hat to put me here."

The eleven-year-old Draco would have been outraged by this admission, but the present one wasn't surprised.

"Why?" he asked.

Theo's eyes shone as he answered:

"To be with you."

Draco's heart sank. They exchanged a smile. He wanted to stand up and hug him, but he was frozen. Frozen with horror at his story. Theo sniffed one last time, then picked up his book again, pretending he hadn't just confided in him the darkest part of his existence.

Draco looked away, down at Blaise's bed. He was lying on his side, his back to Theo's bed, his face barely illuminated by the dim light in the room. He was awake. Theo hadn't noticed that he'd opened his eyes, that he'd heard their conversation.

A single tear ran down his cheek.

It was the first time Draco had ever seen Blaise cry.

.

.

At breakfast the next day, Blaise, Theo and Draco told Pansy what had happened the day before, keeping Theo's story to themselves, of course.

"So? Did the tea work after all?" asked Pansy in a curious tone.

Blaise let out a small sigh of annoyance, as if he feared she might ask that question.

"Yes." he finally admitted reluctantly. "But what proof do I have that it really works? Maybe my Third Eye was just closed last night."

Draco heard Theo chuckle softly into his cereal at this sentence. Blaise obviously did too, because he slapped the back of his head, sending it tumbling into his bowl. When he straightened up, he was splashed with tiny drops of milk.

"It's possible." said Pansy, who must have been used to this sort of spectacle, for she ignored it completely. "But the only way to be sure is to drink it every night."

"Except Saturdays." Draco reminded her.

"Hmm. Still, it's strange that there's no other way to close the Third Eye, to make yourself impervious to visions... I'll check my Divination manual again to make sure I haven't missed anything."

"But we've been going through the manual from cover to cover since Christmas!" complained Theo. "And I've read all the Divination books you've given me, none of which mention this!"

Pansy remained thoughtful, absentmindedly stroking Eris' fur, which was curled up in a ball on her lap. Her face lit up at last:

"I know what we can do!"

"What?" asked Blaise, full of hope.

"We should ask Professor Trelawney for advice!"

Blaise's expression immediately dropped.

"Ah." he replied, rather disappointed.

"I'm sure she'll be able to help you." Pansy said, stamping her feet at the thought. "We can't really see her today because she's locked up in her tower on weekends, but tomorrow we can go and see her after Divination class!"

Draco glanced sideways at Blaise, who didn't look too thrilled at the prospect.

"I'll come too." he announced impulsively. "I want to see what the old hag has to tell us."

He dodged the napkin Pansy threw at him at the last second. In reality, he had offered to accompany Blaise, not really because he was interested, but he couldn't say it out loud for fear of upsetting Pansy. Blaise gave him a small smile of gratitude.

"Me too." Theo added.

"That's out of the question." snapped Pansy firmly.

"What? But why?" he asked, outraged at her refusal.

"Because I know you, Theodore Nott," she replied curtly.

More than ever, that name inspired the deepest disgust in Draco after listening to Theo and his father's story. He promised himself that he would never call him by his last name again, not even to annoy him.

"You're going to make fun of her and Divination."

"I swear I won't!" he replied, holding out his hands to prove he wasn't crossing his fingers. "I'll be a quiet little angel and leave your precious Divination alone."

Pansy glared at him, but made no further protest, which surely meant she'd let him come.

Just then, the mail arrived. Ebony didn't show up, but Blaise got his daily Prophet. He opened it and read a few articles, but nothing seemed to interest him that day, so he quickly put it down and went back to eating fried eggs. Pansy took the paper and opened it to the last page.

She let out a piercing scream that startled the entire Great Hall:

"Oh, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin!" she cried. "I can't believe it!"

"What?" demanded Blaise, his hand on his heart.

"IT'S HER!" cried Pansy, not even realising that the entire Slytherin table was watching her with murderous looks on their faces. "Rita Skeeter, she's back! It's her horoscopes! Oh, Merlin Merlin, thank you for answering my prayers!"

Eris had jumped to his feet and looked around for the person who had dared to attack his mistress, but when he found no one, he curled up into a ball and rested his snout on Pansy's wrist as she read the page at full speed:

"Finally, a proper horoscope! No more Celestia Valpan! Fucking finally!"

"What does it say today?" asked Draco.

Pansy ran her hands over the page as if to unfold it, coughed and read in a majestic voice:

"Scorpios: Your seemingly quiet day is about to take you by surprise, as someone you haven't seen in a long time is about to reappear in your life, much to your delight. Health: A slight headache will prevent you from enjoying your evening to the full. Love: Singles, don't hesitate to take a step towards the person who holds your heart, you might be surprised. As a couple, have you checked his owls lately? Your partner might be hiding something..."

Draco chuckled. It had been a long time since he'd heard Pansy read a horoscope with such enthusiasm. She then moved on to Gemini for Draco, telling him that he wouldn't like his dinner and that he should cover his ears if he went out tonight, and ended with Theo:

"Virgo: Don't let your work blind you more than necessary, you'll have plenty of time to wrap everything up before the end of the week."

Pansy gave Theo a sideways glance.

"Health: Feeling a bit under the weather this morning, did you sleep well? Love: Singles, it's time to wake up! If you're a couple, you're in the clouds, so watch out for a fall.

And if you have curly hair and your last name starts with a G, we'll see if your crazy bets have the success you're hoping for."

Pansy frowned and reread the paragraph several times.

"That last sentence is strange, don't you think?" she asked without taking her eyes off the paper. "It's not her writing style."

She didn't wait for an answer and switched to Daphne's Sagittarius horoscope. On the other side of the Great Hall, Draco saw that Granger was scarlet. Potter was beside her, showing her the Prophet on the same page Pansy was reading. She shrugged vaguely and Potter let go.

Draco then caught a knowing look between Theo and Hermione and wondered, once again; what they could be up to.

.

"Imagine the Library. You're sitting at the round table, reading a paragraph from your Transfiguration textbook. It's almost dark, and you have a cinnamon tea next to you. Can you smell cinnamon?"

"Hmm." Granger replied weakly.

"Good. Think of this place, hard, think of nothing else. Can you do that?"

She nodded.

"Now I want you to breathe in and out deeply. Follow me, all right? One, two, three, exhale. One, two, three, inhale."

He watched her chest rise and fall with his instructions.

"How do you feel?" asked Draco.

"Perfectly stupid."

She opened her eyes and all the mental preparation Draco had been slowly putting into place collapsed miserably. He sighed and repositioned himself against the back of the bench. It was so cold that February evening that even their combined magical protection didn't completely stop the wind from blowing through. Draco's fingers were freezing.

"I'm sorry, I can't do it!" Hermione chirped in annoyance. "It's not for lack of trying!"

"You just need to clear your head." he pointed out.

"Easy for you to say!" she retorted. "I don't know about you, but mine is full!"

Draco forgot his bad mood when he heard this comment and burst out laughing. Against all odds, she followed him.

"Sorry, I'm tense." she murmured once she had calmed down. "Occlumency makes me a bit anxious."

"I understand, I was the same way at first." Draco said to reassure her. "Do you know what we could do? You could try visualising your thoughts and taking them out of your head, like putting them in a Pensieve."

"I don't know how to do that." she replied.

"Neither do I, but we can try. Think of a memory, anything."

She closed her eyes and took a few seconds to think.

"Once you have it, put your wand to your temple and draw out the thought."

Granger frowned. She remained impassive for some time, then with a slow, dutiful gesture, she raised her wand, placed it on her temple and turned it slightly on itself. A ray of light passed through her skin and wrapped around the wood. It had the same texture as a Patronus, like a silvery, wispy filament. Hermione and Draco looked at it in awe. With no Pensieve to store it in, the thought eventually faded and evaporated into the night.

"Wow." Draco blurted out.

"That was beautiful." she said, looking down at her wand as if the thought still clung to it. "Harry had told me when Dumbledore did it, but I hadn't imagined it at all."

"Does it help you visualise your thoughts?" asked Draco.

"Not really." Granger confessed with a hint of disappointment in his voice. "How do you do it?"

"I imagine all my thoughts and lock them up in books in my mental library." he explained. "No one can get in there but me. I close them and hide them when Snape gets in my head."

Draco realised as he said this that he sounded like a madman. He fell silent, embarrassed, but Granger looked at him with that all-consuming curiosity that lit up her whole face:

"It must be incredible." she breathed admiringly. "I'd love to see it."

"Actually... you can see it." Draco realised. "You just have to get inside my head."

Hermione was clearly surprised by this spontaneous invitation. She looked at him with an air of incredulity mixed with that curiosity that made Draco want to spill all his secrets.

"Can I?" she asked.

"Well, you don't need Occlumency to practice Legilimency." he explained. "They're used for the same thing, but they're their own entity..."

But Granger shook her head:

"No, I didn't ask you about Occlumency... Would you really agree to do this? Get me inside your head? It's... rather intimate, isn't it?"

Her cheeks flushed a little and Draco unintentionally cracked a smile.

"Hermione, three quarters of the books in my head contain memories of you. I began Occlumency to protect you, and every night since then, I've locked away moments I've spent with you, to keep and consult over and over again. If you can't get inside my head, who can?"

Granger's cheeks burned even more. Draco decided at that moment that the fact that she blushed when embarrassed was the cutest thing about her.

"Well, that's..." she began hesitantly. "That's very... kind. If I could sort out my thoughts, I'd gladly invite you, too."

Draco chuckled:

"Getting inside the brain of Hermione Granger, every Hogwarts student's dream." he said, making her blush even more. "I find Legilimency more difficult than Occlumency, but that may not be your case. You need to look me in the eye and cast Legilimens. Once you've done that, you'll be projected into my head."

Granger's hand tightened on her wand:

"God, I'll never get used to magic." she blurted out. She hesitantly pointed her wand at him. "Uh... are you ready?"

Draco nodded, smiling. Snape never asked him if he was ready before he forced his way into his head.

Then Granger locked her chocolate eyes with his and, without blinking, spoke clearly:

"Legilimens!"

Draco had suffered hundreds of intrusions from Snape since he'd started experimenting with Occlumency. He'd always compared it to a needle, insidious and painful, entering his temples and making him wince in horror. His presence in his head was unpleasant, heavy, like a wandering shadow, a poisonous insect feeding on his thoughts. Draco had only known Snape's mental intrusions. Since last year, he had often dreamed of the Dark Lord's, imagining them to be even more violent and aggressive.

He didn't know there was another way to get into his mind.

Until Granger did.

Where Snape's needle irritated him painfully and his presence filled his brain like a bucket of ice water, Granger entered his head... gently. Delicately, as if she feared hurting him with the slightest movement. She was nothing like a needle, more like a warm, glowing ball of soft heat. She lit up Draco's mind, just as she did when she entered the Library, or when she came to join him on the bench. Her presence was familiar, so much so that Draco wondered if she hadn't always belonged there. After all, Draco had bent his brain for her, perhaps it could recognise the reason on its own.

He had expected his body to react on its own, to brace itself automatically, to try to reject her as he had been trained to do against Snape, but it was the opposite. He was irradiated by her magic, warm and comforting, and let her enter without the slightest protest.

She moved to the door of his mental library. He didn't know if she was doing it slowly because she was struggling with the Legilimency or because she didn't want to force him. Knowing Granger, he leaned towards the latter. When they reached the doors, Draco mentally unlocked them and Granger entered.

"Oh." Hermione's voice said in his head.

Huge shelves spread out before them, filled with books of every colour. Each one had a title on the spine that referred to a particular memory. Granger reached out and touched a few without taking them. She placed her hand on the small replica of the table they shared every night. A forgotten cinnamon tea sat in the centre, and he thought he heard her laugh at the sight.

She stood for a long time in front of the most massive bookshelf of all, bursting at the seams with volumes: hers. She read each title with the same curiosity as when she discovered a new spell or lesson in class. She picked up the one he'd called "Hampstead Park" and opened it, devouring each memory as if she were seeing it for the first time.

Then, without warning, Granger disappeared like a burst soap bubble. Draco's mental library immediately lost its warmth.

The next second, they were back on the bench, in the middle of the icy wind. When Draco opened his eyes, he was filled with a sense of pride at the idea that she had seen this place of his, the most secret of all, but that feeling was quickly eclipsed when he saw her: she was bent over, her hands on her ribs. Her wand had fallen to the ground.

"Hermione?" called Draco.

"I'm fine." she said with a scowl, and he knew she was lying.

"No, you're not." he said. "It's the Legilimency, isn't it? Did you use too much magic?"

She nodded shyly:

"It's the first time it's ever happened to me." she confided.

Draco knew her well enough to recognise a certain disappointment in her voice, as if she doubted her abilities, when she had just produced a level of magic that most Hogwarts teachers couldn't even manage.

"I'm taking you to the hospital wing." Draco ordered, half rising to his feet.

"No!" Hermione cried, grabbing the bottom of his jumper to hold him back. "No, I'm fine, I just need to catch my breath."

She tilted her head back, sending a cascade of brown curls tumbling over her shoulders, and Draco watched the skin on her neck stretch with each hard breath. Her hand clung to his jumper as if to restrain him.

"I should never have suggested to do this, it was stupid..." he began, his heart beating painfully against his ribs as if he, too, was running out of breath.

Granger lowered his head enough to stare at him:

"Don't say that. I don't regret getting inside your head at all, I just didn't measure the amount of magic I used."

She gave him a smile to reassure him, but he was too busy analysing the purple veins that stood out on the thin skin of her wrist.

"I can't imagine all the work you must have done to create this." she continued, breathing heavily.

"There are also memories of Blaise, Pansy and Theo, but I wouldn't have sorted anything if it wasn't for you." Draco admitted.

"Thank you." Granger said, tears of emotion forming at the corners of her eyes.

"You don't have to thank me. I'm doing this to protect you." Draco said confidently.

That sentence would have elicited a sharp retort from her at any time of the day, but the fact that she didn't react proved that she was still in pain. Draco brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and she rested her cheek against his palm. She was burning up.

"I'm exhausted." Granger whispered, as if he hadn't noticed.

"You practised one of the most difficult forms of magic, without training, for several minutes. I couldn't even get two steps inside Snape's mind and you just... walked around. No wonder you're exhausted. Come, I'll take you back to your Common Room."

"Don't bother, I..."

"Don't try and stop me, Granger." Draco cut in firmly, rising from the bench. "If you don't want to go to the hospital wing, I understand, but there's no way I'm letting you go alone, and certainly not up seven flights of stairs."

He stood in front of her and held out his hand to help her up. He saw her hesitate to take it, surely wanting to show him that she was perfectly capable of making it on her own, but when she took his hand and let herself be lifted, he understood that she had capitulated. Granger fought not to close her eyes and staggered a little against him. He took Hermione's bag and slung it over his right shoulder, picking up her wand from the floor:

"Here. Lean on me."

She did so without protest, further proof that she was indeed in an advanced state of exhaustion. He put his arm around her waist to support her, and they walked out the back door, which was still open.

The Castle was silent and all the torches in the Hall had been extinguished after curfew. Draco didn't know what time it was, but he hoped Granger would get enough sleep to recover.

"I should never have offered to practice Legilimency." Draco repeated in the dark, his voice barely above a whisper so as not to wake the paintings around them.

"I'm fine." Granger replied stubbornly.

"Are you? Then why are you shivering?"

"I'm cold."

"Liar. You're drained of all your energy. I'm sure you couldn't even throw a Lumos."

They crossed the Hall and climbed the stairs. Granger struggled to lift her legs high enough to reach the steps above her, Draco practically had to lift her so she could climb.

"I'll carry you." he decided, running a hand down her lower back.

"I can climb by myself." Granger replied in an annoyed whisper.

Draco had fallen in love with the most stubborn girl in the country. He let out a deep sigh:

"Oh yeah? If I let you go, won't you collapse on the floor?"

Granger looked at the remaining steps, seven flights, and pursed her lips.

"... No." she said, a little less convincingly.

"If you limp from here to the third floor, I'll carry you. End of discussion."

She opened her mouth to argue, but he put a finger over her mouth to stop her before she could get a word out:

"And if you don't want to, I'll carry you to the hospital wing. Is that clear?"

She rolled her eyes:

"All right." she grumbled against his index finger.

They walked up the stairs. Draco thought it was probably the slowest he'd climbed the floors of Hogwarts since he'd arrived in first year, including the time Pansy had bought those ridiculous heels and practised walking up and down to prove to him and Blaise that she could walk in them with ease. Draco had compared her to a duck, and Pansy hadn't spoken to him for a week.

By the time they reached the second floor, however, Granger was so out of breath that she had to stop for a few minutes. She leaned against the banister and bent her head, swallowing large gulps of air. Her legs were shaking. Draco ran a hand through his hair as he walked around her.

"Fuck, Hermione, I'm sorry..."

"It's all right." she lied again. Did she really think he would believe her?

"Come." he said, showing her the corridor on the second floor, dimly lit by a few torches that were still burning. "Come and sit down."

She let herself be led. As soon as she reached the corner of the corridor, Hermione slid her back along the wall and closed her eyes. A chill ran through her body. Draco knew this feeling, he'd felt it many times before when Snape insisted too much during a session, it was as if his whole body was made of lead and the slightest step cost him an unbearable effort.

She had her head on the wall, eyes closed, under a painting of a man sleeping against his donkey. It looked like she was asleep, except she was still struggling to catch her breath. Draco rummaged through her bag and found the teacup she always carried with her. He pointed his wand at it and whispered:

"Aguamenti."

He handed her the cup of cool water and Hermione barely opened her eyes. She drank half of it in a second.

"I'm all right now." she said in a small, trembling voice. "It's all right, I can walk."

He helped her to her feet and she didn't even bother to refuse his help. She clung to him with the last of her strength and they moved slowly towards the stairs. If Draco hadn't been in such a state of guilt, he might have admitted that it wasn't at all unpleasant to feel Hermione's body pressed against his, but the fear of her wavering prevented him from thinking about that.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Draco was mentally searching for a way to suggest to Granger that he should carry her without being rude, when suddenly, a beam of light appeared behind them. With a reflex Draco would never have had, even at his best, Hermione pushed him back, hard, knocking him back a few feet.

At the same second, a chilling voice rang out from behind them:

"Decree number twenty-three: Any student caught in the Castle after curfew will be sent to the Hogwarts High Inquisitor's office for two hours detention."

The voice sent a shiver down Draco's spine. He felt as if all his blood had rushed to his legs. Only she could cause such a reaction just by speaking. He knew who he was going to see when he turned around, but that didn't stop his face from twisting into a horrified scowl when he spotted a small woman at the end of the corridor, dressed head to toe in pink with a smile inlaid into her toad-like face. Her wand was excruciatingly short and pointed directly at them, held by her thick, chubby fingers, painted a fizzy pink.

Umbrige.

She approached as quickly as her short legs would allow. Draco had never seen a teacher so pleased to have caught students breaking the rules. But when she recognised Granger, awkwardly leaning against the wall to keep from falling, her black eyes lit up even more.

"Well, well, Miss Granger." she quipped with a harsh flick of her tongue against her palate. "What on earth are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"I..." Hermione stammered. She must have had a stitch in her side, because her hand was clutching her hip.

Umbridge approached, her smile growing almost carnivorous with each step. Granger blinked as her light shone too brightly on her. Draco stopped himself with all his might from snatching it from her hands.

"It was me, Professor." he said, placing himself between the tip of Umbridge's wand and Hermione. "It was me. Granger caught me wandering the halls."

Umbridge lowered her wand and her face softened, at least as much as it could. It was the first time she'd seen him since she'd walked in on them, maybe she hadn't even noticed he was standing there.

"Come now, Malfoy..." she whispered sweetly.

"It wasn't her, Professor Umbridge." Draco continued, trying to be as convincing as possible.

"Malfoy, your sense of loyalty amazes me, believe me, but I find it hard to imagine you bending the school rules. I know what a studious student you are..." cooed Umbridge.

She stepped around Draco to point her wand at Granger again:

"...which is obviously not the case with this young lady." she continued, her voice suddenly sounding more like a snake's hiss than a human voice. "Well? Explain yourself!"

But Granger was already struggling to stand, let alone speak. She looked like she was going to faint.

"I was..." Granger said, but a coughing fit prevented her from speaking clearly.

"She was on prefects' rounds, Professor." Draco cut in. "She caught me just as you arrived."

"She lied to you, Malfoy." Umbridge said, a shadow of cruel euphoria crossing her face. Her eyes were fixed on Hermione like an animal stalking its prey. "That's Padgett and Shade on their rounds tonight, I met them less than twenty minutes ago. Miss Granger has no business in this corridor, and she deserves to be doubly punished, not only for breaking curfew, but for lying."

She lowered her wand and wrapped her claws around Granger's wrist, his Granger, and Draco saw red. His pulse raced and all rational thought was lost. He reached into his uniform pocket for his wand, intending to throw a powerful Petrificus Totalus between Umbridge's eyes.

"Malfoy."

Draco gasped as he heard Granger call his name. He couldn't remember the last time she'd called him like that. It stopped him dead in his tracks. They exchanged a look and Granger's was heavy with warning. She was about to faint, but she didn't want him to incriminate himself. She saved him, again.

Umbridge didn't understand a word of the silent message; she must have thought Hermione was angry with him for "snitching on her". A new sly smile stretched her pink lips:

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy, for your vigilance." she said in her fake honey tone that made the hairs on the back of Draco's neck stand up. She hadn't taken her eyes off Granger. "You may return to your Common Room."

"Professor Umbridge, there's been a mistake." Draco insisted in a strangled voice. "Granger didn't do anything wrong..."

"Oh yes, she has."

She pulled Hermione forward by the wrist and Draco's stomach churned at the sight:

"Where... where are you taking her?" he asked.

Umbridge was already walking down the corridor, dragging a weakened Hermione behind her with surprising strength.

"To my office."

"What? Now?" Draco choked.

"Well, yes." gloated Umbridge. "If Miss Granger is capable of wandering the halls at such a late hour, I don't suppose she'd mind staying awake for another two hours?"

Hearing this, Granger suddenly became agitated, as if she'd only just realised what was happening to her:

"N-no!" she cried. "Please, not in your office, Professor Umbridge, please..." she pleaded.

She tried to struggle, but what little strength she had left barely allowed her to move her hands. Draco's heart skipped a beat as he heard the terror in her every word. He knew Hermione and Theo had the same dislike of detention, but it wasn't just that that made her so afraid, there was something else, Draco could feel it. He didn't know what awaited her in that office, but obviously it was enough to frighten Granger to a degree he had rarely seen before.

"Please, I'll do as much extra work as you want, but not in your office, please..." Hermione pleaded.

She was crying now. Draco couldn't feel his hands. They were already halfway down the corridor; he could see Hermione's wet cheeks when they passed a window. He ran to catch them up:

"What's going on? What are you going to do to her?" asked Draco in horror.

"It's no longer your problem, Mr Malfoy." Umbridge said, not even bothering to turn her head towards him. "You can go back to your Common Room, I'll deal with the vermin."

A wave of shock went through Draco as he heard the last word. He clung to the wall, feeling as if he'd been given a non-verbal Stupefy.

"Pa-pardon?" he stammered.

"Go back and rest, Mr Malfoy. Everything is under control." Umbridge assured him.

She pulled Hermione forward, who continued to sob, the echo of her cries sinking into him like a knife in his flesh.

Draco wondered when he would wake up, because surely he was in a nightmare. But as the seconds passed, the image of Granger walking away from him, crying, remained imprinted on his eyelids. They were inexorably approaching Umbridge's office and Draco had no fucking idea how to get Granger out of there.

He ran after them in two long strides, his heart beating wildly:

"Take me!" he cried desperately. "Take me instead, please, she's done nothing wrong!"

Umbridge turned and waved her hand with a broad smile, as if he were playing a very funny joke on her. There was a sadistic gleam in her eyes that chilled Draco's blood.

"No one will know about this little... arrangement, will they?" asked Umbridge.

Granger's head swivelled to one side. Her body no longer held together, she was completely amorphous, like a rag doll, pale as death.

Draco listed the spells he could cast on Umbridge to prevent her from taking the girl he loved to this place that seemed to frighten her so much. The Professor opened her office door and Draco was seized by an impulse, he raised his wand, pointed it at the back of Umbridge's head, the forbidden incantation on the tip of his tongue... He could erase her memory afterwards... He could explain himself to the Ministry later... All he had to do was say the spell, free Granger from that monster... He meant it very much... Crucio, Crucio, Crucio...

But before he could open his mouth, Umbridge closed her office door, and Draco found himself alone in the corridor, his heart in his throat.