Earthbound Spook

Hermione fretted with her fork. "Oh, I wish I could see it!"

Ron rolled his eyes, digging into his own meal. "Poking around in Malfoy's head?" he asked, when his mouth was mostly empty again. "Rather you than me."

"Oh, but it will be fascinating." Hermione's eyes looked misty. "Another reality, Harry -- seeing into another reality."

"It's just Malfoy's memories," Harry said. "It's not like I'll see world events or anything."

He moved his food around his plate. His stomach was a tight knot of nerves and anticipation.

"But that's what's so fascinating, Harry. You'll be seeing things you know, but made over anew." Hermione subsided, tapping a little rhythm out with her fork on her plate. "I'm so jealous," she admitted.

Ron patted her on the shoulder. "Harry'll tell you all about it, won't you mate," he said, rolling his eyes at Harry over her head.

"Er. Sure," he said. "Course I will. Oh!"

Malfoy had risen and pushed back his chair. Harry pushed his plate away and started to get up, then hesitated. It occurred to him that if he got up immediately, he and Malfoy would have to walk together to the Room of Requirement.

He waited two minutes, his eyes on the big clock on the opposite wall, then shoved his chair back. He swung his bag -- a lot heavier than usual, with the Pensieve in it -- onto his back and headed out of the hall.

"What if he doesn't look around him properly while he's there?" he heard Hermione asking Ron as he left. Ron's soothing response was too low to make out.

The room was open when he got there. Harry had a disorienting flashback to last year, pacing a groove in the floor as he tried to make it open and reveal what Malfoy was doing.

There was something seriously bizarre about meeting Malfoy here to look at Pensieve memories with him.

The Room looked fairly unremarkable. There was a fire burning in a grate, with a low table resting on a rug in front of it. A cushion sat on either side of the table.

As Harry came in, some more cushions flickered into existence, scattered protectively around the floor. He assumed that was his influence, but he wasn't sure whether it was just that he was subconsciously recalling DA meetings, or if some part of him was sure that this was going to come to blows.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at the extra cushions but said nothing. He was standing by the fire, his back stiff.

Harry realised that he was hovering by the door, and came forward in a rush. He pulled the Pensieve out of his bag and plonked it down on the table.

It looked scuffed and dusty; nothing like the gleaming, well cared for object he'd first seen in Professor Dumbledore's cosy room. He gave it an ineffectual rub with his shirt tail, then stood again. "Should, um ..." He gestured to the cushions. Malfoy nodded and sank to his knees on the one on the other side of the little table. Harry lowered himself again, crossing his legs.

"I'll go first, then," Malfoy said. He was raising his wand to his temple almost before he spoke. Apparently he had no hesitation about which memory he wanted. He concentrated for a moment, then a silvery wisp came away from his temple with his wand. He let it coil free into the Pensieve, sinking into the surface and turning the swirls into something with a more definite shape.

"All right," Harry said. Then, quickly, "You're going in with me. I'm not leaving my body alone and defenceless with you here."

"Whatever, Potter," Malfoy said. He sounded bored, but he leaned forward without protest. Harry took a breath and followed him.

*

Harry stumbled as he landed. He straightened and looked around.

He was in the Gryffindor common room. The scarlet-and-gold drapes and the wide, squashy sofas were immediately recognisable. There were cheery fires burning in the three grates, and the usual sort of debris scattered around: books, cloaks, a joke wand from the Weasley twins' shop. It was all as comfortable and familiar as breathing.

What wasn't familiar was the sight of the three boys grouped around a low table near one of the fireplaces. The common room was otherwise empty. It must have been class time, or maybe a Hogsmeade weekend.

They didn't look any younger than Harry was now. Ron -- who was wearing enormous black boots that Harry didn't think he'd seen before -- was hunkered low on one side of the table, his knees on the floor and his elbows pinning scattered pieces of parchment to the tabletop. Harry himself sat cross-legged on another side. He was holding a sheaf of notes in his hand and chewing on his lip, his brow furrowed.

"I can't even read your writing, Draco," he said as the real Harry watched. "Is that 'hexed' or 'sexy'?"

Malfoy was stretched on his stomach along the length of a sofa drawn up to the side of the table. His chin was pressed into the worn red cushion, bringing his head down closer to the level of the tabletop. He lifted it and looked at the page that Pensieve Harry was showing him, then made a face.

"Yes, I wrote 'Dumbledore's hand prob means Horcruxes sexy'," he said. "We're looking for sexy Dark Lord soul-bits."

"Oh, shut it." Harry hit him with the paper as he took it back. Malfoy rolled his eyes at him, then turned to flop onto his back on the sofa cushions.

"Ugh." Ron looked up. "You need to not say things like 'sex' and 'the Dark Lord' in the same sentence."

The real Harry, watching, lifted his eyes to the real Malfoy across the room. He was leaning on the mantelpiece behind the boys, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes fixed on the memory playing out. He looked up when he felt Harry's eyes. He held Harry's gaze for a second, then jerked his head towards the table. "I didn't bring you here to look at me."

Harry wanted to say that Malfoy hadn't brought him here at all -- Harry had brought Malfoy -- but he was feeling off-kilter enough that he just turned back to the boys around the table.

Ron had gone back to staring at the mess of papers spread out before him. He shuffled them a bit, then sighed. "We're missing something," he said. "There has to be a clue to the locations somewhere here."

Harry put his own paper down. "Maybe we need to concentrate on something else. Like how we're going to destroy them when we get them." He drummed his fingers on the table. "I wish I'd asked Dumbledore how he destroyed the ring and the diary."

Dumbledore destroyed the diary? Harry mouthed, watching, but when he glanced at Real Malfoy he was still focused on the memory.

"We could try asking his portrait again," Pensieve Malfoy said doubtfully. He scowled at the ceiling, still lying flat on his back. "But he'll probably just twinkle and regret that he can't offer us tea, the way he always does."

"All right." Harry pulled a new piece of parchment towards him. "We know that the ring did something nasty to Dumbledore's hand. That could have been because it was hexed --" he shot Malfoy a quelling look as he opened his mouth, and the other boy smirked -- "or it could have been a result of whatever it took to destroy it. Just getting his hands on the locket -- the fake locket, I mean -- meant that he had to poison himself. I'd think trying to destroy it would be even more deadly."

Pensieve Malfoy swung his legs around, pulling himself upright on the sofa. "Maybe it was so well protected because it's easy to destroy, though," he said, thinking it out.

Ron shook his head. "No, that doesn't work. Ginny tried to destroy the diary loads of times, once she realised something was wrong. Flushed it down the toilet, tried to throw it in the fire -- it didn't even come out scratched."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot." Malfoy looked embarrassed. "So they're difficult to kill. Um ... that probably means it takes a ritual, right?"

"Why?" Pensieve Harry looked as confused by the leap as the watching Harry was.

"Well ... they're created by a ritual, from what we've read, and that's powerful magic. If the magic binding them together is ritual-strong, wouldn't it need an equal force to break them apart?"

Harry slumped a bit, scowling at the table. "He likes rituals, doesn't he -- Voldemort? I wonder if he chained somebody to a gravestone for those ones, too?"

The real Harry shifted a bit. He wondered whether he really sounded so whiny when he talked about that kind of thing? He'd always had the impression that he was sort of ... stoic.

"Probably depended whether he had a gravestone handy," Ron said uncomfortably, after a moment.

"They don't just pop out of the ground when you need them," Malfoy agreed. "That might have been the only time he ... in a graveyard ... "

Both Harry and Ron turned to look at him as he trailed off, a look of concentration settling on his face.

"It's not, you know," he said.

"Er?" Ron looked at him, then at Harry.

"It's not the only time he's conducted a ritual in a graveyard. When my ... my aunt Bella escaped from Azkaban, I overheard ..." He looked acutely uncomfortable with the subject, but pressed on. "She wanted to know what it had been like to be there at his resurrection. Because she's, you know, completely insane about that sort of thing. About anything to do with the Dark Lord. She had my father collared in his study, and she wanted a blow-by-blow description of what happened. And I overheard -- he said he didn't see the resurrection part, but she kept pushing, so he said that at least this time they'd not been stumbling around in some poky smoggy cemetery in Muggle London, like the last time the Dark Lord had called them to a graveyard for a ritual."

He looked at Harry and Ron, his expression intense. "A ritual in a London cemetery," he repeated. There was a spark of excitement in his eyes now as he stared, willing them to understand.

Harry looked sceptical. "You think Voldemort created and hid a Horcrux in a Muggle graveyard?" Then his mouth opened in realisation.

Ron got it a second later. "Holy hell -- his mum's grave," he said. "Holy ... that's it. That's it."

"That's brilliant," Pensieve Harry said, his face alight.

Pensieve Malfoy's smile was radiant.

"He hated his dad, right," Ron was saying, scrabbling through the mess of papers for something. He found it and looked up, smiling and giddy. He gestured with the page of messily uneven notes, which looked like a list of some kind. "So he wouldn't hide a Horcrux there, but the grave was still important enough that he used it for the resurrection. But his mum --"

"-- is his link to Slytherin," Harry finished.

"And to magic and purebloods. Plus," Malfoy added, his tone ever more animated, "she died, because when it came to it she was weak. She let herself be bested by a Muggle -- his dad. So her grave would be the perfect place to show his own strength against death."

The real Harry was startled by the portrait hole swinging open. A knot of students tumbled in, laughing. They were fifth and sixth years -- he recognised Colin Creevey and his brother with the others.

"Hey, you guys, you should have come!" Colin called. "It was great -- it didn't rain a bit!"

Malfoy hoisted himself up onto the back of the sofa, sweeping his arms out. "Rubbish!" he said. "You're all to be pitied. You went away and missed me being absolutely brilliant."

Ron was sweeping the papers together and putting them away in his bag. He turned to face the newcomers, sitting on the bag. "He's right, you know," he said solemnly. "You all missed out."

Dennis Creevey immediately dropped to his knees in front of the fire. "What'd we miss?" he demanded.

Malfoy sighed theatrically. "Too late. Such moments of awesome grace come only once in a lifetime."

Pensieve Harry hopped up onto the sofa, laughing. Malfoy gave him a haughty look. "That's right, Harry, sit at my feet. You may learn something."

"How to be a complete wanker, maybe," Pensieve Harry snickered. He tugged on Malfoy's knee, unbalancing him so that he tumbled onto the sofa cushions, then reached over to ruffle his hair. Pensieve Malfoy made a protesting noise, scrambling to get back up.

Harry was startled by the real Malfoy tapping him on the shoulder. He turned to find Malfoy behind him, his face shuttered.

"Come on," Malfoy said. He shot a look at the sofa, where Pensieve Malfoy had got up onto the back of the sofa again, and was trying to hold Harry off through his laughter. Then he looked away again. "We're done here."

Harry nodded. He concentrated and pulled out of the memory.

*

Back in the Room of Requirement, he found Malfoy still on his knees on the other side of the small table. He looked pale, and there were lines of strain around his mouth. He picked up his wand and set to work retrieving the memory, spooling it carefully back into his temple.

"Your turn, then," he said, looking at Harry.

"I ... all right."

Harry was suddenly reluctant to use the memory he'd picked. It was the best choice, he'd decided, to show what it had really been like between the two of them; what Malfoy himself had been like. Only ...

"You promised, Potter," Malfoy said tightly.

"Right."

He took a breath, concentrating on the memory, then lifted his wand to his temple. He watched the memory twist out, silvery coils sinking into the stone bowl. He laid the wand down again and looked at Malfoy, biting his lip.

"Malfoy, it's not ... it won't be much like ... yours was."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Obviously."

Harry sighed. "Um, yeah. All right, let's ..."

Malfoy leaned toward the bowl. Harry, still feeling an uneasy churning in his stomach, followed him in.

*

He stumbled once more as he landed, this time on a floor that shook with the motion of the Hogwarts Express. Malfoy was standing a couple of feet down the corridor, holding the wall for balance.

"This way," Harry said. He fell into step behind Blaise Zabini, stopping with the other boy at a compartment door.

Zabini tried to slip through, only to find the door sticking. He struggled with it, a scowl marring the usual haughty expression, until eventually it was jerked out of his hands. Pensieve Harry followed what he knew to be his own invisible form into the compartment. Malfoy, slipping in behind him, ignored Zabini and Goyle who were scuffling on the seat, his eyes on the flash of trainer disappearing into the overhead locker.

"Smooth, Potter," he said, deadpan.

Harry shrugged, not looking at him.

Pensieve Malfoy -- a year younger than the real Malfoy, and looking it -- was snickering. Now, he stretched back over two seats, dropping his head into Pansy Parkinson's lap. She stroked his hair with a pleased expression.

Harry glanced at the real Malfoy. He was looking at Pansy, startled.

"So, Zabini," the Pensieve version said, settling more comfortably against Pansy's hands, "what did Slughorn want?"

Harry hadn't found this conversation terribly interesting the first time he heard it. He tuned it out while Malfoy sulked about his lack of an invite to Slughorn's compartment -- he hadn't seriously imagined it would be fun, had he? -- and watched the real Malfoy instead.

He was watching the assembled Slytherins as though they were volatile Potions ingredients: fascinating and strange, but possibly about to react with each other in dangerous ways.

"These were my friends, then?" he said.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

Pensieve Malfoy was sneering. "Potter, precious Potter," he said, the words black and jagged. "Obviously he wanted to look at the Chosen One. But the Weasley girl! What's so special about her?"

Pansy bit her lip. "A lot of boys like her," she said, elaborately casual. "Even you think she's good looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all know how hard you are to please!"

Harry found himself imagining Zabini stalking along a line-up of sighing Hogwarts girls, finding them all wanting. Then Zabini spat out something foul about filthy blood traitors, and Harry decided that no girl would want him no matter how good looking he was.

Pensieve Malfoy was talking about not taking classes the next year, now. Harry shivered as the old dead dead dead refrain whispered in his mind. He pushed it out. It wasn't relevant any more.

"I mean, think about it," Malfoy said, arrogant and alive. "When the Dark Lord takes over, is he going to care how many OWLs or NEWTs anyone's got? Of course he isn't ... it'll all be about the kind of service he received, the level of devotion he was shown."

The other Malfoy was listening closely. His lip curled when his younger self mentioned 'devotion', and he took a step closer; it looked like an unconscious movement. Harry wondered what he was thinking. He'd been in the school long enough now that he must have heard that he had supported Voldemort here.

Zabini rolled his eyes. "And you think you'll be able to do something for him? Sixteen years old and not even fully qualified yet?"

Pensieve Malfoy smiled. "I've just said, haven't I? Maybe he doesn't care if I'm qualified. Maybe the job he wants me to do isn't something that you need to be qualified for."

The real Malfoy turned to Harry. "What was the job?" Harry hesitated. "Tell me."

"You were supposed to kill Dumbledore."

Malfoy blinked. "How is that ...? Snape killed Dumbledore."

Harry nodded. He rubbed at the back of his neck, avoiding the other boy's eyes. "Yeah, here too. But you disarmed him. And held a wand at his throat. Only you couldn't ... you wouldn't finish it. Snape did that."

Malfoy just watched him for a second. Then he turned back to the compartment. His shoulders were tense.

The conversation had finished now, the occupants in a flurry of movement as they prepared for their arrival at Hogwarts: dragging down trunks and, in Crabbe and Goyle's case, pulling on school robes. The train lurched to a stop -- Harry had to grab the door to keep from falling -- and everybody but Malfoy and Pansy tramped out into the corridor

"You go on," Malfoy said to Pansy.

She dropped the hand she'd been holding out, with a stepped on expression. "Yeah, all right," she said. She dragged her trunk out, letting the compartment door slide shut on its rollers behind her.

Malfoy pulled the blinds down on the door, then turned to his trunk. The other Malfoy glanced up at the compartment where he knew Harry was hidden, then back at his younger self. Harry couldn't help tensing as he watched Malfoy touch his trunk, then spin with his wand and shout: "Petrificus Totalus!"

The thud as his body hit the floor, trapping the invisibility cloak beneath him, was almost as unpleasant the second time as it had been to live through.

Pensieve Malfoy positively crowed. "I thought so. I heard Goyle's trunk hit you. And I thought I saw something white flash through the air after Zabini came back -- that was you blocking the door when Zabini came back in, I suppose?"

He was obviously talking for his own benefit, since Harry couldn't respond.

He regarded the prone form on the floor for a moment longer. Pensieve Harry was glaring. Malfoy smiled, slow and evil.

"You didn't hear anything I care about, Potter. But while I've got you here ..."

The real Harry looked away, not wanting to watch his own nose get broken. He heard the crunch of Malfoy's boot on his face, though, and he saw Real Malfoy open his mouth, a sick little catch in his throat.

"That's from my father," Pensieve Malfoy said. "Now, let's see ..."

Harry turned back in time to see Malfoy throw the invisibility cloak over Pensieve Harry's face, hiding the trickle of blood from his nose. "I don't reckon they'll find you till the train's back in London," he said. "See you around, Potter ... or not."

He turned away, grabbing his trunk and stepping heavily on Harry's invisible hand. Harry heard the ugly little noise of his fingers being ground into the carriage floor.

Real Malfoy stared for a moment longer at the part of the carriage where he knew Pensieve Harry lay. Then he turned on his heel and pulled out of the memory.

Harry followed.

*

He came back to the Room of Requirement to see Malfoy turned half away. He was shivering, and as Harry watched a round silver basin appeared by his foot. Malfoy glanced at it and shuddered, pushing a hand over his mouth. He shoved the basin away and took a breath, turning back to Harry.

His face was pale, but composed.

"Do you believe me now?" he asked after a moment.

"Yeah." Harry didn't know what else to say. He sort of wanted to add: I told you my memory was different, but doubted it would help.

"Right. Good." Malfoy got up. "I'll just -- I -- had better --"

"Malfoy," Harry said. When the other boy turned to look at him, though, he had nothing to add to it.

"Right," Malfoy said again. "I'll see you -- in classes. Or wherever."

He swung his bag onto his shoulder and left.

By the time Harry got out of the Room, Malfoy had already disappeared down one of the corridors.

Harry trailed into the common room, his feet dragging. Hermione saw him immediately and jumped up.

"What was it like?" she was asking, before he could even sit down.

He looked around, but there was no sign of Malfoy anywhere. He dropped into his seat.

"Was he telling the truth?" Ron asked, using the heel of his hand to push the fringe out of his eyes.

"Yeah," Harry said quietly. "Yeah, he showed me a memory of him and Ron and me, here in the common room. We were talking about ..." He looked around. Dean Thomas looked as though he might have been sketching Hermione from across the room -- or maybe the bookshelf behind her -- but otherwise, nobody was paying them any attention. Harry lowered his voice. "About Horcruxes." He looked at Ron, adding baldly, "We were friends. It was obvious."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "Damn."

Hermione was avid. "What else was different? Besides you and Malfoy and Ron being friendly?"

"Uh." Harry racked his brains. "Er, Ron had some boots on I didn't recognise. And ... I think Malfoy's haircut was slightly different?"

Ron stared at him. "You went to an alternate reality and looked at my boots."

Harry flushed. "Oh, shut up. I wasn't looking at your boots. I was looking at you telling Malfoy his idea was super wonderful brilliant."

Ron's eyes went wide. "I didn't."

Harry nodded. "Actually, it was ... kind of horrible." Hermione frowned and opened her mouth, but he shook his head at her. "Not Malfoy's memory. Mine."

Her mouth formed a silent 'O'.

Ron had obviously been thinking about something else. "So ... if Malfoy was telling the truth ... does that mean we're going to go to You-Know-Who's mum's grave after all?"

*

Harry let Seamus disarm him in Defence Against the Dark Arts the next morning, because he was distracting himself with thoughts about Malfoy. Seamus crowed as he helped Harry to his feet.

"Good work," Harry said, his eyes already drifting to the other side of the room where Malfoy was sparring with Lavender.

Seamus handed his wand back. "You need to wake up, Harry," he said, grinning.

Malfoy was focusing on his wand movements with an unwavering concentration. The intentness seemed to be freaking Lavender out a bit.

Harry wondered again why he'd chosen to show Malfoy that particular memory. It hadn't needed to be something that ugly. He could have shown him --

He hesitated, trying to come up with a less nasty interaction between Malfoy and himself.

He shook his head. He should have found one.

The professor called a partner switch, and Harry moved to spar with Neville. He mechanically went through the motions of a shield charm, then threw a tickling jinx.

He knew that he wasn't, but he felt weirdly responsible for that incident on the train, now that he'd made Malfoy watch it. He shook his head, dodging a Stunner from Neville.

He needed a way to balance it out.

*

"Malfoy!"

Harry caught up with Malfoy when the other boy was on his way to Ancient Runes. Malfoy was walking down the corridor ahead, flanked by the hulking shapes of Crabbe and Goyle. He hesitated, his head half-turning. Harry put on a burst of speed and caught up.

Malfoy turned around. He looked stiff and -- oddly defeated.

"Malfoy," Harry said again. Then, remembering that he'd called him this in Malfoy's memory, "Draco."

Malfoy looked startled, but he only said, "Yes?"

"I, um ... need to talk to you."

Malfoy looked blank. Then he turned to Crabbe and Goyle. "Could you guys go ahead?"

They nodded. Goyle gave Harry a suspicious glower as they left.

Harry waited till they were out of earshot. Then, "I want you to help us look for Horcruxes."

"All right," Malfoy said after a moment.

Harry relaxed. "Good." He grinned.

Malfoy didn't smile back, but he did agree to meet Harry and the others in the library in the free period before dinner.

*

Harry hung around outside the library, trying to look as though he were re-tying his shoelace rather than waiting for somebody. He wasn't alone, at least -- there were several other students leaning against the marble pillars scattered around the large entrance hall of the library, talking to friends or tapping their feet and looking at pocket watches.

Harry straightened for the third time and saw Malfoy coming out of one of the side corridors. He was alone: no sign of Crabbe and Goyle for once.

Malfoy reached him and came to a stop, a bit abruptly.

"I thought we were meeting inside." His voice held the same odd, polite stiffness as his body language.

"Uh. We are. I was just ..." Harry waved a hand at his shoe, a bit lamely. He noticed how scuffed they were and shifted his feet. "Anyway, do you want to --?"

Malfoy followed him into the library.

Ron and Hermione were already set up at their usual table, away up behind the Music and Movement Magic section. It was on a higher level than the main library floor, but tucked away enough that nobody tended to notice them. There was a low wooden railing, smooth and age-darkened, as well as several out-jutting bookshelves, to shadow them.

Ron was in the middle of recounting something that had happened at lunch, books and papers elbowed to the side as he swept an illustration with his hands. There was a sound-scrambling charm extending a few feet out from the table, so Harry and Malfoy couldn't hear what he was saying until they were a few feet away. Ron fell silent as they came up. He and Hermione both turned to watch them.

Harry hadn't told them he was bringing Malfoy; which was part of the reason that Harry had been waiting outside for him. Ron and Hermione looked cautious, but not especially surprised.

"Hey." Harry gave a half-wave. "I, um ... I figured since Dr-- um, since Draco was working on the Horcruxes in his own, er, world, it would make sense if he worked on them here, too."

He could almost see Hermione's thoughts as they crossed her face. She was wary, but she couldn't object; not when she'd been Malfoy's advocate to Harry and Ron ever since he came back.

Ron just looked resigned.

Hermione pushed a chair out with her foot. "Sit down, Malfoy, if you'd like."

He did, although he looked as though he had reservations about it. "Thank you, Hermione," he said carefully.

Hermione looked taken aback, but she didn't comment.

"Malfoy," Ron said with an awkward nod.

Malfoy nodded back; a stiffer gesture than he'd used with Hermione. He put his bag down next to his chair and straightened. He had his hands on his lap; Harry could see that he was twisting the fabric of his robes over his knees.

Harry was the only one still standing around like an idiot. He pulled the remaining chair -- next to Hermione -- out and sat down, dropping his bag onto the table. He cleared his throat.

"So. I, uh ... I thought we could talk about looking for this Horcrux at Merope Riddle's grave."

Ron brightened. "Like you mentioned in McGonagall's office?" he asked Malfoy. "What you were doing when you got Avada Kedavra'd?"

Harry had the thought that only in the face of spiders could Ron possibly be excited about going somewhere where he could be facing Death Eaters and Avada Kedavra.

Hermione leaned forward. "What were the three of you -- you and the Harry and Ron in your own world, I mean -- basing your theory on?"

Malfoy hesitated. "Well, just what you already know, really. What I told the Ha -- the Potter and Weasley in my world, about overhearing my aunt Bella talking."

Ron and Hermione gave him equally blank looks.

Malfoy made a disbelieving noise and turned to Harry. "You didn't tell them? I showed you that particular memory for a reason, you know."

Well, no, Harry hadn't known. He'd been a bit too distracted by the vision of himself ruffling Malfoy's hair to pay attention to ulterior motives.

"Well, you tell them, then."

Malfoy glanced at Hermione, leaning forward with a slight frown, then at Ron, his face open and curious.

"Right." He sounded nervous. "We were, erm, talking about the ritual needed to create the Horcruxes ..."

It was a fairly short retelling. It didn't express the sheer euphoria over the discovery that Harry had seen in the memory; but he could see a gleam of excitement beginning to show in Hermione's eyes as she listened.

"Where did you read that the Horcruxes are made with a ritual?" she demanded as soon as he'd stopped talking. "We've been assuming it's a spell of some sort." She sounded a little suspicious, but mostly burningly curious.

"Oh." Malfoy was looking a lot more relaxed. He smiled. "It was in one of the books from Dumbledore's office."

Ron frowned. "We've read all those. Haven't we? Or Hermione has, anyway."

Hermione was busily pulling the books out of her bag and stacking them on the table. "Show me."

Malfoy reached towards the book on the top of the stack.

His hand went through it. Harry blinked, wondering if that had been a trick of his eyesight. Malfoy was frowning, though, and picking it up now. It seemed completely solid.

"Soul Transfusions and Other Thought Experiments," he said, reading off the spine.

"It must have a disappearing hex of some sort on it," Hermione said. She gave it a curious look and he immediately handed it to her. "We should probably be careful when we handle this one," she continued, giving him a nod of thanks. She frowned again, laying it down. "I'm glad you noticed."

"Right." Malfoy gave it one last puzzled glance, then began to sort through the pile of books until he found Enchantments Moste Foul. "Here," he said, flipping through the pages, then tilting the book to show Hermione. Ron and Harry leaned around to look too. "It's a trick footnote," Malfoy explained. "You have to try to read it backwards before it will come clear."

"Oh!" Hermione leaned closer. "I thought that was in Gnomish. I never even ..." She shot Malfoy a quick, considering stare.

He smiled, quick and flashing. "Well, that's because I'm fantastically clever."

Then he bit his lip, the smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. He avoided everybody's eyes as he leaned towards the book again and and pointed out a part halfway through the footnote. "It's here, see?"

*

Pansy Parkinson apparently reached some sort of boiling point after the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor Quidditch match the Saturday following.

Harry was sweaty and exultant as he trooped off the pitch with the rest of the team, the hand still holding the Snitch thrown loosely over Ron's shoulder.

He might not be captain, but Ginny was probably a better one than he'd been anyway; the Seeker really wasn't best suited to direct the flow of play. Hermione had turned down the Head Girl badge this year, and he knew that being Head Girl meant a lot more to her than the captainship had ever meant to him. And he hadn't made himself give up playing entirely. His memories of the Quidditch ban in fifth year were too awful for him to ever do that voluntarily.

Even after six years of magic, there was nothing that compared to flying.

He was grinning broadly as they approached the foot of the Gryffindor stands, where people were climbing down onto the pitch, chattering excitedly.

"... And then Pritchard nearly got that last one past me, did you see it?" Ron was saying, resting his elbow comfortably on Harry's shoulder. Well, comfortably for Ron, anyway. "I thought I was going to fall off my broom, swinging down that suddenly. Then I still thought it had got past -- I swear if the breeze had been blowing in a different direction it would have slipped past my fingertips. I don't know how I got it."

"Dumb luck, big bro," Ginny said, coming up behind him and clouting him in the lower back. "And what did you think you were doing, letting that second goal in? You looked like you were meditating over the hoops!"

"Oi!" Ron tried to hit her back, but she was out of reach. "She takes this captain business far too seriously," he complained to Harry.

She'd joined the other two Chasers ahead by now. She twisted around. "Good game!" she called back, grinning. "You too, Harry!"

Harry noticed Malfoy hopping down from the stands a little way over. Ginny saw him and swerved out of the way, her grin faltering, but Malfoy didn't seem to notice her. He was frowning a bit, his face sort of pinched and unhappy. Harry noticed that he was walking away from what looked like an elated point-by-point post-game discussion among the other Gryffindors.

His first thought, the one that came by habit -- that of course Malfoy must hate to see Harry win at something -- was superseded when he realised that Malfoy was almost definitely used to playing in rather than watching Gryffindor's matches. He felt an odd lurch in his stomach as he wondered suddenly whether Malfoy had been Seeker on that other Gryffindor team.

But no: Harry had always out-flown Malfoy.

Still. Malfoy would definitely have been on the team in his own world. Harry had known he was good on a broom the very first time he'd seen him fly, when Malfoy had grabbed Neville's Remembrall.

Harry dropped his arm from around Ron's neck, ducking and making Ron lose his balance as he lost his elbow rest. He caught up to Malfoy.

"Dr -- Draco. Hi." He still stumbled over the name, but he was determined to get it right.

Malfoy turned to face him. "Good game," he said.

Harry nodded, since it had been. "What position did you play?"

Malfoy gave him a sharp look. "Beater," he said. Then. "What about here? Nobody's mentioned ..."

"Seeker," said Harry. "Um, on the Slytherin team, obviously."

Malfoy looked startled. "Really?"

Harry looked at him. Malfoy grinned. "No offence," he said, "but the Seeker position -- well, it's dead boring most of the time, isn't it?"

Harry gaped. He didn't have a chance to come up with a response, though. Pansy Parkinson had just caught them up and planted herself in Malfoy's way. Her mouth was set in a stubborn line, and her hands clenched and unclenched on the outside of the cuffs of her robe.

"You need, Draco," she said, her voice clipped, "to stop avoiding me."

Malfoy backed up a step.

"Parkinson. Hi."

He looked even more awkward than he'd been when she'd thrown herself into his arms. Harry wondered whether Draco was remembering Pansy stroking his hair as he lay on her lap, in the Pensieve memory.

She glared. "That, too. Has to go. You need to stop calling me Parkinson."

"It -- look." Malfoy ran his hand through his fringe. "I know you were friends with -- with him. But I'm not that Draco, Pansy."

Harry stepped back a bit, out of the range of the conversation. He didn't walk away, though.

Pansy was still glaring, but there was the hint of a tremble in her lips now. "I know that, you wanker. Well, I know that now. I don't care, though. You're Draco, and that's -- why would you talk to Vince and Greg again, and not to me?"

Malfoy winced. "Pansy, I don't want a girlfriend," he said. He ducked his head; maybe in case she threw something. She was just staring at him, though. After a moment he looked up again.

"Well, obviously," she said. "I know that." Then she laughed. "My god, Draco, did you think I was trying to get into your pants?"

He frowned. "You don't need to sound as though it's so unbelievable." He looked annoyed, but he was blushing too: pale pink splotches on his cheeks.

She laughed again, stepping in close and shoving him with her elbow. "Oh, relax," she said. "I'm sure you're -- uh, really hot, if you like that style." She giggled, snaking an arm though his, the giggle turning into a snicker as she tilted her head to look at his expression. "No, really," she said, smirking. "And anyway, as far as unbelievable goes -- seriously, Draco, you think I don't know you better than that?"

She was kind of grabby, Harry thought. And what did she mean, really, by telling Malfoy that he was hot? Was that something friends did, usually?

He wasn't that good looking, anyway. Not compared to, say, Cedric Diggory, or Tom Riddle maybe.

Although he had nice hair.

Harry turned away. Apparently this was a Slytherin reunion of sorts, now. He was probably in the way.