Blind Faith

He was interrupted by an irked humph! that was closely followed by a hissed curse in French. She thumped her fisted hand hard against his chest, spun on her heel and flounced away, up to the Manor.

Draco smirked and leant back against the fountain.

So much for first-impressions.

***

To give Fleur Delacour some credit, it turned out that she didn't whine to Lucius about their exchange. His father did look a little suspicious, though, but this was understandable considering that Fleur and Draco barely spoke two words to each other throughout the hours spent hand-in-hand at the family portrait. It was the most tedious thing he had ever had to endure, which included Dumbledore's end-of-year speeches. His legs were stiff and he was sure that he was bruised from where Narcissa (who had, typical to his luck, been sitting behind him) had jammed her finger into his ribs every time he had fidgeted. He was positive that the artist needn't have taken that long, really, and knew that his portrait-self would most probably turn out scowling, as it always did.

The Delacours had left after a drawn-out evening meal during which Lucius and Fleur's father had made the necessary arrangements for the upcoming wedding. The finalised date was sometime in February.

But Draco felt trapped. More so than when he had been engaged to Pansy Parkinson. He had known Pansy and had hated the fact that he was going to spend the rest of his life sleeping with a pug-faced girl with too-big eyes and wild hair almost as big as Mudblood Granger's. Memories of her were accompanied by fleeting visions of vicious slanging matches across the common room and furious fights that, at least up to third year, were always physical and always painful.

Now Draco was engaged to Fleur Delacour and it all felt so suddenly real, as if the previous engagement had been deniable because of their youth. Pretty, blonde, feisty, he would have been attracted to her as any other sane, heterosexual boy of his age would. But the fact that she was now his fiancée shed a new light on things. He saw her as a flouncy, too-feisty French girl with a way about her that made his lip curl.

The apathy Draco had felt earlier was gone. He was now furious with his father for arranging the marriage in the first place, but it was an impotent anger that he could do nothing about. So he took it out on Narcissa, who deserved it anyway. She took every available opportunity to bait Draco, to remind him that he had no choice in the matter.

The rest of the summer holidays were spent with Draco fighting with his mother, being lectured by his father, or sulking in his room. At the insistence of Narcissa, his flying privileges had also been taken away due to his lack of regret about the McDonald incident (who, to Draco's great satisfaction, had been Obliviated and sacked).

So he was bored and angry and feeling more than a bit rebellious. He couldn't wait for Hogwarts.

***

Harry Potter contemplated the steel blue sky with a strange sense of déja vu. This was just like the summer before fifth year, the most of which he had spent bored and angry. Angry with Voldemort, angry with his friends, angry with Dumbledore, the Dursleys, and the world in general, really.

Angry with himself.

The only difference between the two summers being that this time round the Dursleys ignored him completely. They didn't care what time he came back after his nightly wanderings anymore, they didn't care that they could count the number of meals he had eaten with them on one hand. Of course it was only one week into the summer holidays and Harry really couldn't find the strength in him to deal with the pointed conversations that went on over his head at the meals he did attend.

"Petunia, dear, do you know whether the boy's planning on running off again like he almost did last year? Let's hope he only succeeds this time...The sooner the better, if you ask me"

Any ridiculous hopes that the events of last summer may have affected his Aunt were swiftly shattered. She had merely made a non-committal noise and commented on her nephew's appalling state of dress.

Harry had been banned from sending or receiving any post due to the risk of tracing charms being put on the owls. A hot surge of anger ran through him and he violently beheaded a nearby daisy. He bet his friends hadn't even tried to contact him. At first he had mentally defended them - Dumbledore had said not to; they were only following orders to keep him, Harry, safe.

But the more he thought about it the more feeble this excuse became. What about Muggle post? Dumbledore hadn't banned them from using that. They obviously hadn't spent almost every hour of every day during the last week thinking about it as he had. They obviously didn't care as much about it as Harry did or else they would have come to the same conclusion. Hermione lived with her Muggle parents - why hadn't she thought of it?

Harry sat up suddenly, feeling the familiar prickling sensation along the back of his neck. Without turning around, he pushed himself up and out of the flattened flowerbed and strode into the house, door slamming behind him. By the time he had reached his room, the Dursleys' irritable grumblings were muffled effectively and he was able to collapse onto his bed in the cool darkness of his room.

Last year the sensation of someone watching Harry would have made him suspicious, even panicked. Now that he knew who it was following his every footstep it was annoying and made him strangely paranoid. Yes, they were looking out for him, guarding him, keeping him safe, but he didn't need it. How many times had he proven to them that he could look after himself? Hadn't he faced Voldemort so many times already? And what about last year's Dementor incident? What good had his guard been then? A small part of his mind told him that he was being ridiculous, but he quickly squashed that fleeting feeling of self-doubt.

He now felt vaguely silly about the fit he had thrown at the Order's house last summer. Shouting was obviously not the way he could effectively convey his anger to his friends. Besides, he didn't feel he had the energy to do that. Why bother? They obviously weren't bothering with him.

Apathy. To just not care.

He expected that he could master the art of indifference by the end of the summer; he had five whole weeks in which to practice. A half-remembered phrase drifted through his head, something that he had read somewhere, or perhaps Hermione had told him - he never had been one for literature.

"The worse sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them."

Harry smiled and closed his eyes.

Yes. That will do.

***

It was a week before September the first and Harry was still lying on his bed in the darkness of his bedroom. Moonlight shadows slid across the ceiling as cars passed by, the reflections penetrating the gap in the curtains and painting the ceiling with a silvery sheen.

The indifference that he had enforced upon himself over the past month had been fairly effective. It was like a quilt, blanketing him against the stark anger - no, fury - he had been feeling. The anger had been too fierce, like an overly enthusiastic Incendio. It had burned inside of him, but faded quickly, as though the energy source had been smothered.

It was comforting and calming, but had failed to make his thoughts any more coherent. He could feel them sometimes, jumbled inside his head, straining at the edges of his consciousness. It was too much - even he, the great Harry Potter, couldn't cope with so many confusing, conflicting feelings, some that often went against everything he had learned in the last five years, everything he had learned to rely on.

Harry twisted the Hogwarts letter in his hand nervously and knew that, however much he wanted to deny it, the indifference wouldn't last. It would go the same way it always did - he would meet his friends, shout, rant, they would make him feel stupid, even guilty, they would all kiss and make up (figuratively speaking, of course).

So predictable.

The sharp point of something that shot through him at that thought was almost physically painful, almost as bad as the prickling worry of self-doubt he had experienced while reading the Hogwarts letter.

This, among other things, proved that his apathetic phase was just that - a phase. It wouldn't last when he got back into the wizarding world. He'd have real life to deal with - Voldemort, Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, Snape, Malfoy... These were things he doubted he could deal with the guise of nonchalance. Sirius--

Harry clamped down on the thought before it could develop.

Someone from the Order would be coming soon to take him to Diagon Alley. He wouldn't get angry and he wouldn't shout. They'd be worried, he knew -- he'd confined himself to the house for a whole month and felt a strange kind of satisfaction at the concern he was probably causing. Oh, it wasn't for the attention; he knew that with a certainty. It was a dull kind of satisfaction that he wasn't exactly sure what the source was.

He shrugged to himself and glanced at the pools of ghostly light above him. They would probably collect him tomorrow or the next day.

But no one came.

Harry had waited. Waited and waited and waited until he could no longer completely hide the anger and bitterness, the hurt he was feeling. They had left him and now he had no books, no quills, no parchment, no ink, no potion ingredients. He had completed every piece of homework he had been set except, of course, Snape's. He had left it until last in the hope of some last-minute divine inspiration, but none had come and he had run out of parchment by that time, anyway.

He felt slightly rebellious, even though it wasn't his fault. This, like the worry he had been sure he was causing, was satisfying. Snape was a bastard, anyway. Why should he do the homework of a Death Eater who--

No. He wouldn't think of Sirius.

He rolled out of bed and strode purposefully out of his room, jogging down the stairs and into the Dursleys' living room. They all looked up in surprise.

Harry had started eating with his aunt, uncle and cousin regularly again because he had been getting too thin and he didn't need people fussing about him, especially if it was because of something that was entirely his own fault. He hadn't spoken to the Dursleys for a whole month, apart from the odd, Yes, Uncle Vernon, No, Uncle Vernon, Certainly, Uncle Vernon, and only then when demanded of him. They had been quite unnerved by his sudden change in behaviour and had provoked him with the usual mocking insults and complaints.

To have him willingly seek their company must have taken them by surprise, because no jibes were immediately forthcoming.

"Can you take me to King's Cross tomorrow?"

Uncle Vernon blinked; his many chins trembled. "So we can get rid of you at last, can we? Good riddance."

Harry took that as a yes and started up the stairs and into his bedroom to pack. He felt no excitement about going back to Hogwarts, no nervousness, either, just a familiar apathy.

He closed his eyes briefly and hoped it would last.

***

Draco was trying to think back to his Magical Literature class of last year. The topic had been Hearts and Partners - drawing comparisons between contemporary and traditional love poems. But what had a wedding ring stood for?

Take it

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

If you like

Possessive and faithful

As we are,

For as long as we are

Eternity. That was it. Ceaseless, everlasting, infinite.

But eternity seemed so final; so...forever. And forever was such a long time -- he shouldn't be committed to it at the age of sixteen. Plus he had no real sense of responsibility. Like any normal male teenager, right? He wasn't meant to be worrying about marriage and Azkaban and Dark Lords; he was supposed to get worked up about girls, Quidditch and NEWTs.

It was all his father's fault, he decided. Draco would, naturally, send numerous letters to him full of complaints about the situation, but would provide no real threat to the engagement. Just like always. And his father would read the first few letters, send a blunt letter back and refuse to answer anymore of his owls. Just like always.

He scowled and slipped the ring back onto his finger. It was a surprisingly understated affair -- a platinum band without any mark or engravings, just a tiny maker's seal stamped into the underside. His father had told him to wear it with pride and, for once, to answer any queries truthfully. He wanted there to be a tremendous build up to the wedding, a great anticipation that the papers would not be able to leave alone.

No one knew about the engagement but the Malfoys, Delacours and Parkinsons. The latter had been sworn -- frightened -- into secrecy, while the French family had no interest in publicity. But the Malfoys thrived on it and Narcissa had started plans already for what she had dubbed The Wedding of the Year.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the Prefect's compartment?"

The voice lashed through his thoughts and he snapped his head up to see who had entered his compartment. Pansy Parkinson was sitting opposite him, next to Blaise, apparently having slipped in without his notice.

"What about you?" he countered, suddenly realising that she wasn't scowling or shouting or sneering at him. She looked calm and Draco suddenly felt unsure of how to treat the girl. A lot had changed.

Pansy sniffed. "Already been."

There was a silence in which Draco took the time to appraise her. She was small - about Fleur's height - with tanned-dark skin and a wild bob of rich, chestnut curls, held back by two glittering barrettes. Her nose was still...pugged, but while she was by no means stunning, she wasn't that ugly.

And he felt none of the usual irritation towards her. From the look on her face, she didn't either.

"Do you reckon this is because of the wedding was called off?" Draco asked, bluntly.

An ironic smile lit her glossed lips. "Well, I'm not feeling the usual urge to throttle you, so I suppose it must be. You're not nearly as bad when you're engaged to someone else."

"Oh, I don't know," said Blaise, from behind his text book. "I think he's still a prat."

"Of course he's a prat," grinned Pansy. "Otherwise I'd assume he was ill."

"Never assume, Pansy," said Blaise gravely. "It makes an ass out of you and me."

Blaise was random. He spoke as if he had plucked his words from a novel, not apparently caring whether they had any relevance to the conversation. There was something very odd about him. Perhaps it was that his eyes didn't seem to blink often enough and when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began to involuntarily water on his behalf. Maybe it was the way he smiled slightly to broadly and gave people the unnerving impression he was about to go for their neck. Draco doubted that he was completely sane, but that didn't matter because he was surprisingly intelligent and very useful for scaring younger years into submission.

But this new side of Draco's relationship with Pansy was going to be something to get used to. He would have felt suspicious at the sudden change in her character had he not felt the same reluctance to encourage their fighting.

Pansy looked over at him and held out a delicate hand. "Truce?"

Draco looked at her. The smile on her face faltered slightly. He grinned and enclosed her hand in his, squeezing slightly, and then used it to pull her towards him. "You'll never guess what happened this summer with McDonald..."

***

Harry sat and watched the countryside roll by. If he had wanted to be polite he would have been listening to Ginny, Colin and Dennis Creevey's conversation. But he didn't want to be polite. He was angry and more than slightly miffed that no one was asking him how he was. Ginny had barely greeted him before launching into a chat with the brothers. The two younger boys were sitting thigh-to-thigh, despite the excess room in the compartment.

He sighed irritably and Ginny looked up. She smiled. "Still sulking, Harry?" There was a slight note of exasperation in her voice that he didn't like.

"I'm not sulking," he said, through gritted teeth.

"Of course not," she said sweetly, and turned back to her conversation.

Harry stared. She didn't even ask about him. He was right -- no one did care. He stood up abruptly and strode out the compartment, making sure to slam the sliding glass door hard.

It was two hours into the train journey and there had been nothing. No visit from Ron and Hermione. No letter from an Order member apologising. And an annoyingly familiar voice was floating down the corridor.

"And McDonald -- the bastard -- you know what he did?" There was a dramatic pause before the voice continued, with relish: "He exploded." A horrified gasp. "I know -- it was brilliant. There were pieces of him all over mother's rose gardens. She was furious, you know, because all her flowers died afterwards. She had to spend all afternoon yelling at the gardener so that they could be replanted for the Delacours. Broke my broom, but Father--" Harry felt his stomach do a nauseating flip "--bought me a new one, so I can still beat Potter. Anyway, it was worth it to see McDonald spontaneously combust. You should have seen it..."

But Harry only half-heard all of this. The nausea he had felt hadn't passed and his mind struggled desperately with this new piece of information. So Lucius had bought Draco a new broom. But... But surely he couldn't have done that from Azkaban? Had Voldemort broken his Death Eaters out? His anger at Ron and Hermione had faded now and was replaced with something he was less comfortable with.

Fear.

And a little bit of shame. Here he was feeling sorry for himself when he didn't have a clue what had been going on in the wizarding world. Had there been murders? Surely, if things had got really bad, Ginny, Colin and Dennis wouldn't have been giggling over such inconsequential things as Best-Looking Bachelor articles in Witch Weekly. Right?

He had to know.

Harry slammed into the compartment with so much force that Malfoy actually stopped talking.

"How'd your dad worm his way out of prison, Malfoy? Blackmail? Threats? Voldemort?" He pulled short his barrage of accusations at the communal flinch. He would have mocked them in any other circumstance, but right now it only made him embarrassingly aware that there were other people in the compartment. Namely Crabbe and Goyle (looking as big as ever), Pansy Parkinson (looking as disdainful as ever) and a dark-haired boy who announced, unnecessarily, "It's Potter."

"Well done, Blaise," drawled Malfoy, yawning. "Well done."

The boy hadn't changed much. Silver-blond hair catching the late summer sun was grown a little longer so that it curled very slightly around his collar, as though the tips had been exposed to a naked flame. The narrowed grey eyes were the same, though, as was the winter-pale skin and scowling mouth.

"Did you come in here for a reason, Potter? Because not everyone, you know, appreciates the presence of the Boy Who Lived as much as his fan club does. It might also help if you could form a coherent sentence. As my father says: words weren't made for tripping over themselves."

"Your dad's out of Azkaban."

"Gold star, Potter." He smiled delightedly. "My father is an innocent man due to, ah, susceptibility to the Imperius Curse."

"That's a lie, Malfoy, and you know it. Your father doesn't need any curse to make him lick the shoes of a monster. He does it willingly. Quite the blow to your Malfoy pride, eh?"

"Shut up." Draco's cheekbones flushed red and he stood up--

Harry spluttered in an attempt to hide a laugh. He felt a grin spread across his face and completely forgot about the impending duel. He laughed again, more openly, for the first time in months.

"Let's just hope you have a growth spurt before our duel," he said. " I'd hate to have an unfair advantage against you." Draco made a furious choking noise and started forward, only to have Pansy catch at his cuff, hissing something. Harry grinned again. "That's it, Malfoy, let your girlfriend fight your fights -- she could lend you a pair of heels if you're really lucky."

Draco snatched his hand sleeve out of Pansy's grip. Oh, Harry hadn't felt this good for weeks. He opened his mouth to deliver another barb, but was interrupted by a voice.

"Harry Potter?" Blaise's petrol-blue eyes were peering almost shyly over the top of his book. "Can I--" he began breathlessly, "I mean, could I possibly have your autograph?"

Harry goggled, open-mouthed, at the boy. "Pardon?"

Blaise ran his tongue slowly along his lower lip. "Would you--"

"Ugh!" Harry made an incoherent noise and then spluttered something that he hoped was derogative and almost ran out of he compartment.

***

"Did you see his face?" Pansy screeched, holding onto the luggage rack for support. Her small frame was wracked with giggles and she clamped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to subdue them.

Blaise smiled, but said nothing. Draco bit on his lip in a vain attempt to smother an infectious grin and slumped back into his seat. "Do you think I'm short?"

Pansy looked up and tried to work her mouth into something that was appropriately solemn. "You're taller than me."

"Pansy, you're tiny."

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "Actually, I prefer petite."

"Pansy," he said, trying not to wail distressingly. "I am short, aren't I?"

"Maybe Potter just had a growth spurt over the summer," she said, not bothering to hide her smile now. "He used to look like a runt."

"Used to, Pansy, used to. He's got the advantage now. He'll never let this go. What do I do?"

"Well," she said, examining her manicured nails, "you're welcome to my stilettos."

Draco wailed, scandalised. "Pansy!"

***

Harry stumbled blindly into the next carriage and peered breathlessly into the nearest compartment which, by some miracle, was occupied by Ron and Hermione. He almost fell over in his rush to open the door and threw himself down unceremoniously on the seat.

"Who's Blaise?"

The two of them blinked and glanced at each other. "Never heard of her, mate," said Ron slowly.

"It's a him."

"Oh." Hermione fiddled self-consciously with the end of her braid, which had come slightly loose. "Why do you need to know?"

"He just--" Harry squinted at them. "Look, are you alright? You both look a bit flustered."

And they did. Ron's shirt was half-unbuttoned and Harry could see the flushed skin of his neck and chest. His hair was rumpled and Hermione looked uncharacteristically dishevelled. Ron coughed into the awkward silence and something in Harry's mind clicked. "Oh." His face heated. "Oh. " He coughed. "Right. I'll just go now."

"No!" protested Hermione forcefully. "Tell us how you've been. We've been worried about you, Harry."

Ron didn't say anything, but nodded slightly too fervently.

"No, I'll just...I'll just go," Harry said, sounding remarkably like Neville, and hurried out of the carriage.

Ron and Hermione. Hermione and Ron. Together. Okay, so he had expected something to happen after fourth-year, but then nothing had. Just the usual bickering. And now they were snogging and doing who-knew-what-else all over the Hogwarts' train. No wonder it had been deserted. He felt his face heat up again. Oh God. How embarrassing.

But there was still that treacherous little voice pushing its way to the front of his mind: So that's why they didn't have time to write.

Without thinking, he made his way back to Ginny and the Creevey brothers' compartment.

Ginny looked up and smiled sympathetically. "Did you find them?"

Harry glared at her. "Thanks for the warning."

She shrugged. "I thought maybe a short, sharp shock would snap you out of your moping."

He tried to summon up another glare, but found that it was too much effort. He sat down. He had been feeling furious at everything and everyone, but it was so...tiring to be that angry all the time. It could wait until he spoke to Ron and Hermione properly. Sod indifference.

"Who's Blaise?"

Ginny looked at him curiously. "Blaise Zabini? Why do you want to know?"

Harry blushed, and then wished he hadn't. "Heaskedmeforanautograph," he mumbled, as though the quicker he said it the less painful it would be.

Ginny, irritatingly, laughed. "He's a Slytherin in your year. I used to be terrified of him -- he's mad."

"Mad?"

"Completely off his head."

"Like Luna Lovegood?"

"Much worse." She sighed. "Luna's just...eccentric. She gets teased like mad about it, but no one teases Blaise."

"Why not? I thought you said you weren't terrified of him anymore?"

"Did I?" Ginny scrunched her nose up. "Well he's not terrifying, just..." She looked out of the window. "I don't know. Mad."

"Why does Dumbledore let him stay, then?"

She shrugged. "How do I know?"

"He didn't seem that bad to me. Just one of Malfoy's smaller cronies." He grinned suddenly. "Talking of which, have you seen Malfoy?"

***

Pansy looked around the Great Hall. She was wedged between Crabbe and Goyle, who Draco had instructed her to look after. He had decided to go to his dormitory, claiming loudly that he didn't want to put up with any more fixed Sorting songs or sentimental drivel from Dumbledore. She guessed that he wanted to sulk without anyone to interrupt him.

She sighed and stole a napkin from Blaise. "It's rude to steal, Pansy," he said, not looking up from his apple. He had spent the majority of the meal carving runes into the skin with a butter knife.

"I like to call it borrowing without permission."

Blaise didn't answer, but looked up to watch her wrap up some scones. "For dear Draco?"

"He's sulking."

A smirk. "Give him this."

Pansy took the offered apple without question and tucked it into her robe pocket, along with the bulging napkin. She waved distractedly to Blaise, hopped neatly over the bench and made her way out of the Hall.

Down the web of shifting corridors that made up the dungeons: invitingly cool stone that Pansy liked to trail her hand along the smooth surface of. The candles added little warmth, but she hated to be overheated and was nicely acclimatised to the temperature. She stopped after a little while and whispered the password at a blank length of wall. It slid back soundlessly and she slipped into the common room, smiling at the almost homely familiarity. The boy's dorm was down a short flight of stairs and she knocked sharply against the solid door.

There was a mumbled curse. Pansy rolled her eyes. "Open up, Draco."

"Fuck off, Pansy."

She pushed the door open with a bit of effort and squinted into the room. She very rarely ventured in there because the few times she had set foot in the dorm, she had been irredeemably scarred by the pure messiness. Draco had frightened the elves into not coming into his (and the rest of the sixth-year boys') room and the result was evident. He had been there for only an hour or two and already there were clothes flung everywhere, a trunk was upturned, bedcovers wrinkled...

"Draco?" A movement from the canopy of his bed caught her attention and she squinted up into the darkness. "Draco? Can't you at least light a candle? I can't see a thing."

A muffled "No I bloody can't" silenced that plea.

Pansy huffed. "Fine." She took her wand out of her pocket. "Lumos."

The light was paltry, but it was enough to highlight the pair of eyes glaring at her over the top of Draco's bed. "Wench," he sniffed.

"I brought you scones."

The canopy creaked slightly and Draco said in a hopeful sort of tone, "Really?"

She smiled. "Really."

Draco had always, right from his first year, used the canopy of his four-poster as a bed. He said that the velvet drapes were far more comfortable than his lumpy mattress. The only telltale sign that he was up there was the sagging ceiling of the material when he was lying on it. There was always a mound of quilts that touched the ceiling. The one time she had seen him sleep in an actual bed was the summer after fourth-year when...

She cleared her throat and held her wand high. "Why can't you keep this tidy for just one night?"

Draco pushed at the covers piled around him and swung his legs over the edge of the canopy. He grinned at her -- a flash of whiteness in the dark. "It makes me feel deliciously rebellious." He slid off and landed neatly on his feet, falling back onto the bare mattress. "Makes a change from just feeling delicious."

She sat down beside him and was surprised to find his bed decidedly unlumpy and actually very, very comfortable. What a curious boy.

"Where are the scones?"

Pansy set her wand down on the bed and it rolled, shifting the light onto Draco. He looked almost luminescent against the darkness -gold leaf skin, glowing saffron eyes, hair like the threads of a tapestry that Galleons couldn't buy. Something tugged inside her and she closed her eyes. Not again. She thought she had grown out of this.

"Pansy!" The voice was bordering on a whine. "Do you want me to starve to death?"

She opened her eyes, her heart in her throat. Draco had her wand in his hand and appeared to be searching her for food. She dug into her robe pocket and fished out the napkin and carved apple.

Surprisingly, Draco went straight for the apple and held it up to the wand light. It had an unnatural glow to it. "Blaise?" he asked, examining the symbols.

"He told me to give it to you. What are they?"

"Protection runes," he said, reaching past Pansy and placing the apple on his bedside table with exaggerated care. Pansy inhaled discreetly as he leant over her. Lemon and pepper. "Everyone knows that."

"Clearly not everyone," she said dryly, as he settled back onto the bed.

And, to her horror, she found it an effort to keep her tone steady. Oh, God, why was she getting all emotional now? It wasn't fair. She'd just finished her period and was sure that tearful mood swings weren't usual afterwards.

The scones were the next victims of his examination. "Pansy?"

She swallowed. "What?"

He poked at the scone with her wand, making it give off a warning spark. "Are these," he asked suspiciously, "raisins?"

"Maybe," she said, with some misgiving.

"Are you trying to poison me?" he moaned, letting go of the scone as though he had been burned. "Raisins?"

"I thought it was sultanas you hated," said Pansy thickly. Oh, God, she was going to cry. She could feel it coming and she didn't have a clue why.

Draco glared at her. "Wench."

She attempted a sweet smile. "I think you're running out of insults, darling." Obviously deciding to ignore her, he picked up the scone again and set to work picking out the raisins.

"Raisins are so plebeian," he said, without looking up.

Pansy raised a hand to swipe at her eyes, but a spark of light captured her attention and refused to let it go. She dropped her hand and, to her horror, found her throat thickening even further. She blinked a few times, hating that her belated reaction to the broken engagement was to start feeling the beginnings of a fit of hysterics. Draco was oblivious, still fussing over his scone.

"Draco," she choked out, "you have a ring."

He looked up quizzically. "A ring?"

"A wedding ring."

"It's an engagement ring, actually." He scowled. "And like I fucking want it."

Pansy felt her lip tremble violently. Why was she feeling so bloody emotional? "We never had a ring."

Draco shrugged. "Does it really matter?"

She made a sound that was caught somewhere between a sob and a sigh. "Of course it matters -- I loved you."

Now where had that come from?

***

Draco dropped his scone. He was sure there were things that people did at times like this, but no one had ever told him how to cope with a girl confessing her love for him. Where had this come from, anyway? One moment he was innocently lamenting about his scones and the next Pansy was sobbing into her hands. He didn't understand.

And she loved him?

"You love me?" he asked, staring at her.

"Loved you," she corrected, with a tearful sort of grimace. "I guess I hid it well."

"Yes," said Draco, remembering a particularly bloody tooth-and-nail fight of their first year. "I guess you did." The light of the wand in his hand turned her tear tracks into glistening trails of melted gold. "Pansy, stop crying," he snapped, wondering if he really should be snapping at a hysterical girl.

The sobs got louder and he guessed that maybe snapping wasn't the best answer. "Pansy, stop it," he said desperately. "Please stop it. I don't know what to do! What have I done?"

Pansy suddenly started gulping in great lungfuls of air and Draco felt panic fully settle in. "Pansy, don't."

"I--cant--help--it!" she gasped, and slumped backwards onto the bed.

Draco raised himself onto his knees and leaned over her. "Breathe, you idiot! Breathe!" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. "Please breathe!"

Gradually her breathing evened out and Draco let go and rocked back onto his heels. She glared at him from beneath tear-beaded eyelashes. "You're such an idiot, Draco."

"Me? I'm not the one who got all hysterical!"

She propped herself up on her elbows, breathing deeply. "No?"

He stared at her. What the hell was going on? She was fine, she was crying, she was dying, and then she was fine again. And now a headache was setting in and he didn't know what to do. Mood swings, maybe? He had enough of them to understand, but he didn't burst into tears and dish out confessions of love every which way.

"What happened?" he asked, feeling horribly out of his depth.

Pansy looked at him, wide-eyed, snatched up her wand and propelled herself off his bed with an alarming speed, shooting out of the room and leaving Draco blinking into the darkness.

***

Harry sat on his bed and stared at his two friends. "I don't care about you being together," he interrupted. "In fact, I'm surprised in didn't happen sooner."

Hermione pulled herself short and her mouth dropped open rather unattractively. "You knew?"

Harry slumped back onto his bed and stared at the canopy, willing himself to be patient. "Everyone knows, Hermione, right back since fourth-year."

Ron looked as though he had finally worked something out in his head. "So that's why the other Prefects gave up the compartment so quickly!"

"Are you sure, Harry?" asked Hermione, more dubiously.

He sat up so quickly that the blood rushed to his head and he had to wait a moment for the dizziness to pass before he spoke. "For someone so bright you can be really, really oblivious sometimes."

"So..." she said, with trepidation, "what are you angry about?"

"Argh!"

They were impossible. Even after last year they didn't get it. They didn't get him.

"Is this about the same thing as last year, then?" asked Hermione quickly.

"You're my friends!" Harry realised how close he was coming to shouting and forced his voice into a low hiss. "You're supposed to know what the matter is!"

"Harry, mate," said Ron, looking alarmed, "how're we meant to know what you're upset about? We're not bloody mind-readers."

Hermione nodded earnestly, still staring at him with wide, biscuit-brown eyes. Harry stared straight back.

They had been trying to talk to him for the last ten minutes without much success. And Harry was fed up with it. He was angry with them for ignoring him the whole summer. This, though, was accompanied with a healthy portion of guilt that kept him from venting his feelings in his usual manner. Shouting wouldn't help. Not this time.

"Harry, talk to us," Hermione pleaded, reaching out a hand, but stopping just before it reached him, as though unable to break the wrathful barrier he had erected.

Not looking at her, Harry said in low tones: "Fine then. This is exactly the same as last summer. Except last time -- last time--" He almost choked on the words that he had been avoiding for the last couple of months. Taking a deep breath, he carried on. "Last time I knew I had Sirius to come back to. I knew that he'd be cleared, eventually, and that we'd--" He swallowed and willed the burning sensation at the backs of his eyes away. Before they could offer him condolences that would only hurt more, he ploughed onwards. "I had no owls, no letters, no contact. No one took me to Diagon Alley and--"

"Did you get your books?"

He glared at Hermione. "I didn't." She looked stricken. "They turned up in my dorm, courtesy of Dumbledore, I expect. But that's not the point--"

"Then what is your point?" asked Ron waspishly.

Harry was taken aback. Ron wasn't meant to endanger the arguments he had structured during the holidays with a question that the self-doubting part of his own mind had been asking; with a question that he found himself, now, unable to answer. He had a point, but everything had suddenly become so complicated in his mind.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

"You look like Sirius when you do that," said Hermione softly.

Something inside Harry collapsed at that and he suddenly felt very, very tired again and not at all incensed enough to continue with the argument.

"Don't," he said, somewhat pathetically.

Someone sighed and Harry looked up. He hadn't properly looked at them both for months. He could now see the smudges under their eyes, the exhausted gazes, the rumpled hair. He almost laughed at himself when he said, "You both look awful."

It went against everything he had prepared himself for. He hadn't been prepared for the weariness that he now felt; he had only been expecting a cold indifference melting into a red-hot anger. He wasn't prepared for it and he wasn't sure that he could cope with it.

Hermione managed a watery smile. "Thanks, Harry."

"I mean--"

"We know what you mean," said Ron, and maybe he did. "We're just tired."

"And frightened," said Hermione, leaning a little into Ron, who did not deny her addition.

Harry's stomach did another sickening lurch. "Has anything happened? I know Lucius Malfoy's out of Azkaban, but--"

"Nothing's happened," said Ron. He scowled. "The Death Eaters were broken out, but everyone expected that. Didn't mean the Ministry could do anything, though. There's been a few random murders--"

"Ron," Hermione admonished, "we don't know that. The Ministry's still investigating."

He snorted. "Fat lot of good that will do. Hopefully Fudge'll be the next one."

"Ron, you can't say things like that."

"I can say what I like."

They looked older, even while bickering, but Harry felt...younger, if anything. He wasn't coping, he was just pushing it all to the back of his mind and hoping it would go away, which was probably not the best option. They had had time to accept the news over the holidays, but Harry hadn't and it was all too much.

"So nothing serious has happened," he asked, feeling a warm rush of relief.

"No," shrugged Ron. "Nothing serious."

***

Draco looked up when Blaise swept in the room and watched him glide up to his own bed. He gave the apple in his hand one last cursory glance and called out.

"Blaise?"

The other boy looked up. "Draco." He glanced around thoughtfully. "Let there be light," he said, and clicked his fingers. The oil lamps dotted around the room flared with silver flames and Draco felt his throat go instantly dry. "And there was light."

Draco slipped his wand out of his pocket and whispered, "Nox." The lamps' light was smothered simultaneously, each emitting a protest of glittering smoke.

"Draco," Blaise whined. "You always do that."

"I don't think Snape would be very happy if I smashed them all."

Blaise didn't seem to hear this, but continued in a more hopeful tone. "Is there a reason you want the lights off?"

Blinking at the -- dare he say it -- sultry look Blaise shot at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, Draco remembered something Pansy had teased him about last year. I reckon Blaise has a crush on you, she had said. He had scoffed at the time, of course, but now...

He flicked his wand. "Lumos solarium."

The whole room lit up as bright as day, despite the lack of light source. Draco ducked his head under the covers to avoid being blinded and was quite alarmed to hear the bedsprings several feet below him creak. The canopy shook for a moment and then a warm, solid body was pressed against his side.

"Blaise, what are you doing on my bed?"

There was no response. Huffing impatiently, Draco pushed his covers away and found himself nose-to-nose with Blaise. He scrambled backwards with a strangled yell, making the canopy groan ominously.

"Look, I'm not sure this canopy will take both of us."

"Well stop fidgeting, then," said Blaise, matter-of-factly. "You wanted to ask me something."

"I did?" Draco glanced at the apple that was now sitting placidly in the palm of Blaise's hand. He frowned. "These runes aren't for protection. They look like them, but--"

"Did I say they were for protection?"

"No, but -- oomph!"

In one swift movement Blaise was kneeling over Draco, having pushed him firmly backwards. The crushed velvet was soft against the back of his neck, but it wasn't comfortable and Blaise certainly had no right to be looking at him like that. Pansy's words flashed through his mind again. He began to struggle up, but the other boy's insistent hands on his shoulders prevented him from managing anything more than a somewhat pitiable squirm.

"Get the fuck off me, Zabini!" Draco ordered, not quite being able to ignore the small bolt of fear that shot up his spine and tensed his muscles.

"Only if you kiss me," he said, and leant down so that his lips were less than an inch from Draco's.

Pansy was right, whispered an unhelpful (and mildly hysterical) voice at the back of his mind. He turned his head to the side and pushed vainly at Blaise again. The unhelpful voice in his head was back again. Now if you were taller...

Draco growled. "I'm not going to kiss you, you prat. If you get off me now we can pretend this never happened."

"But I don't want to pretend this never happened--"

"Crabbe and Goyle will be back soon," he interrupted, rather more desperately than he would have liked. "They'll beat you to a pulp and, Zabini, your hand is wandering."

Blaise smiled at him serenely. "Sorry." A frown creased his brow. "Don't you feel any...different?"

"A bit more squashed than usual," said Draco acidly, having given up struggling. "But that could be because I have a useless, molesting lump on me."

He was rewarded with another obscure smile. "I haven't molested you yet."

"Your hand was running up at my thigh and I think -- what do you mean yet?"

"If you just kissed me..."

Draco changed tact. "Wouldn't you rather I do it of my own free will?"

"Like that'll ever happen." He wrinkled his nose. "You sound like an idiot Gryffindor. Just kiss me and I'll go away."

"I doubt it."

Blaise leaned in closer and Draco felt something warm and wet trail down his cheek. He flinched away from it, trying to wipe the saliva off onto his shoulder, fuming.

"That's disgusting! You just licked me. Ugh! Get the fuck off me right now, you bastard!"

"Only if you kiss me," Blaise repeated calmly. "With tongues," he added, almost as an afterthought.

The longer it went on the worse it seemed to get. If Draco had just agreed to this bloody kiss and got it over and done with tongues might not have had to be involved. There would have been no licking or groping or -- he dreaded what could come next.

"I'll kiss you," said Draco, scowling, "only if you tell me what you did with that apple. And let me go."

"Fine."

"And teach me the spell."

A longer pause. "I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"Yes, then."

Feeling as though he were being led to the scaffold, Draco closed his eyes and pressed his lips against Blaise's.