Earthbound Spook

"Is that even possible, Professor?" Hermione sounded as though she were doing her best to sound curious rather than sceptical.

"Wait," Ron said. "Do you mean -- this reality's trying to send him somewhere else? Or --"

McGonagall sighed. "There is no travelling spell at work here, Mr Weasley. Professor Sinistra is saying that this reality is trying to squeeze Mr Malfoy out of existence entirely." She made a curt little motion to Sinistra, who stepped back, rolling her neck. Now with a free view of Draco, McGonagall hesitated. "And ... I am afraid it is not only possible, but very likely. I have been rather expecting something of the sort to occur, in fact. Hoping not, but expecting nonetheless."

Draco's mouth worked for a second. "And you didn't think you might warn me?" he said at last.

"Draco ..." Narcissa said softly.

Her son shrugged her off. "You didn't think that in one of those cosy meetings we had that that might have been something worth mentioning? That I was going to be killed off by this world?"

Professor McGonagall's mouth compressed into a line. "I was not certain, Mr Malfoy. Speculations would hardly have been useful to you."

"They might have stopped me from trying to make some kind of fucking effort in this world!"

"Draco!" Narcissa gave his arm a shake, and he swung towards her. Whatever he saw in her face shut him up, although he was still white with anger. "There is a way to mend this," Mrs Malfoy continued, turning to the headmistress. Her tone didn't allow the reply to be 'No.'

McGonagall inclined her head in something that might have been a nod, if she had been holding herself a little less stiffly. Harry wondered, distantly, when the last time had been that a student had sworn at her. It didn't, he thought, happen often.

"There are actions we can take. They are ... short term. I don't currently have a final solution. But --" she fixed Draco with a long look, "We will work on finding one, Draco."

"You can send me back," he said. "If this world is forcing me out, find a way to send me back to my own."

"No!" Harry didn't realise he'd spoken aloud till everybody turned to look at him. Draco was blinking at him. Harry shifted. "I just don't think ..."

McGonagall pressed a hand to her temple. "We've discussed this before, Mr Malfoy."

Narcissa made an involuntary motion, drawing Draco closer to her; he looked up at her face and winced.

"I just ..." His voice was small. "I thought it might ..."

McGonagall continued as though there had been no interruption. "There is a directed Avada Kedavra waiting for you in your own reality," she said brusquely. "Returning you, even if we knew how, would be nothing but a swift death sentence."

Pansy Parkinson had been sniffling into a handkerchief since they gathered in the headmistress' office. Now she gave a great sob and threw herself forward, catching her arms around Draco's neck. Draco let go of his mother's arm to catch her, letting out a whoosh of air at the impact. "You c-can't die, Draco!" Her voice was almost completely obscured by sobs. "We only just got you b-back!"

Draco closed his eyes for a second. Then he draped his arms around her shoulders, dropping his forehead down on top of her head. He pressed his cheek against the dark shine of her hair. "I don't want to," he said, his voice shaky.

Harry made himself look away after a moment.

Hermione coughed and turned to Professor McGonagall. "What are the actions that we can take, Headmistress? I think that -- er, everybody here, would like to help, if there were something that they could do."

Her eyes flicked to Professor Sinistra, who had conjured herself some tea and was sipping it while she watched the reactions around her. She noticed Hermione's look. "Oh yes," she said. "Quite."

Draco gently pushed Pansy away and turned to face the headmistress' desk again. "Professor?" He was stiff, but no longer shouting.

McGonagall set her hands on the desk and looked at all of them. "The problem, as Professor Sinistra articulated, is that Mr Malfoy does not belong in this reality. There is nothing anchoring him here. This would not be an issue, except that there is also a disconnect between what is true here, and what is true for Draco." She drummed her fingers on the mahogany surface of the desk. "His ... memories are wrong for this reality. That is the heart of the problem, and that is what is making his presence unstable." She looked grim. "And without an anchor, that instability will be enough to push him out of existence entirely."

Hermione chewed on her lip, casting a glance at Draco. "Could he be Obliviated?"

Draco's eyes widened.

Hermione instantly looked guilty. "I'm trying to be helpful!"

"You're rather bad at it," Professor Sinistra said. She tilted her head, examining Draco again. "Unlikely to work, anyway, child. Something violent like an Obliviation would probably push him out entirely. His inner reality needs to agree with the world around him, not be obliterated."

"Which is why we will need to change the world around him," McGonagall said. She snapped her spectacles off and cleaned them with a handkerchief, before replacing them on her nose. She looked at Draco over the top of them. "Little things, only. We cannot fool reality into thinking that the things you remember really happened, but if we recreate some of the effects, we can reduce the strain between what is real and what is only real in your head. It will buy us time, I believe."

"You make it sound like I'm delusional," Draco said.

"I am helping you, Mr Malfoy." The headmistress' expression was stern again.

Draco bit his lip. "I -- yes. I'm glad. I -- what do I do, then? Do I need to remember things that happened?"

McGonagall nodded. "That is exactly what you need to do. Tell your friends, your mother, about events that happened in your own world; events whose effects can be replicated. They can carry out the changes while we research the issue more fully."

Narcissa spirited Draco away to the library immediately after the meeting with a quill and a long sheet of parchment, so that he could list everything that he remembered happening at the manor since he started school.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were hustled off to be patched up by Madam Pomfrey. Only Harry had been badly hurt -- although Hermione had some particularly nasty scratches under a sleeve which Harry hadn't noticed was shredded. The mediwitch mended all of them in an efficient, distracted way which made Harry wonder whether the headmistress had filled her in on the more serious malady Draco had.

Ron and Hermione drifted off to dinner afterwards. "I can't believe that he could really die, now that he's been brought back," Hermione said, hanging back as they left. "After we survived the Avissi attack and got the cup, too. It seems -- just really wrong, somehow."

"Well, he won't die," Harry said. He curled his fingers into fists. The vague guilt and feelings of responsibility that had been swirling around in him over the last few weeks had crystallised into a single purpose. He hadn't saved Draco last time. He hadn't even thought about whether he might be worth saving. Even after the bathroom, when he knew Draco was in trouble up to his neck, he hadn't considered it. This time would be different.

"We'll find a way to stop it," he said.

Ron ran a hand through his hair. "I hope so."

Hermione nodded. "What Professor McGonagall said about the disconnect between his reality and ours -- maybe Obliviation wouldn't work, but there's got to be something like that that we can try. Something that won't expel him from our world."

She was chewing on her lip as they left, thinking it over.

Harry went to the entrance hall of the library and sat down against a pillar opposite the library doors. He folded his arms around his knees and settled down to wait.

It was well past dinnertime by the time Draco and his mother came out of the library. Harry was the only one left in the entrance hall, and the space was well lit with cheery yellow-white torches, so they saw him immediately. Harry stood and waited for them.

Narcissa still had hold of Draco's arm, as though she wasn't going to let go of him until she absolutely had to. Her face was calm, however.

She gave Harry a faintly disapproving stare. Still, considering that he had been intimately involved in her husband going to gaol, she didn't seem to bear him much rancour. Probably that had a lot to do with the boy whose wrist she held.

"Good evening, Mr Potter."

"Uh. Good evening."

"Were you waiting for my son?"

Harry nodded, his eyes on Draco. He looked tired, but a lot calmer than he had been. He gave Harry a washed out smile, slipping out of his mother's hold. "Hey, Potter. Come to pay your last respects to the dead man?"

Harry shoved his shoulder, lightly. "Don't be a wanker. You're not going to die."

Narcissa adjusted her handbag over her shoulder, smoothing down the front of her robes. "I must go, Draco. I will write you to keep you updated on what I've managed to accomplish from your list. And ..." she hesitated. "Let me know. Immediately. If anything happens." She paused again. "Please."

Harry tried to look as though he wasn't listening as Draco said goodbye. Narcissa turned away and set off towards the headmistress' office, where Professor McGonagall had said that she could use the Floo. Her shoes clicked on the smooth stone floor and her back remained straight as she disappeared around the corner.

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at Draco from under his fringe. "I mean it," he said quickly, wanting to get it out. "I'm not going to let you die."

Draco looked at him. His mouth moved into an awkward shape. Then he looked away, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the floor. "It's not that I don't want to believe you," he said. "Because I really, really do --"

"Then do." Harry took a step closer, wanting Draco to look at him so that he could convince him. "I know that researching things has never exactly been my secret superpower, but I'm really, really stubborn." Draco still wasn't looking at him, so he went on, stepping closer again. "And, actually, so are you; you're about the most stubborn person I know. You can't tell me you're going to give up on fixing this already."

Draco did look up then, his eyes flashing. "I don't give up on things, Potter."

"Right." Harry grinned, suddenly happy despite everything. "No, I didn't think you did. So ... good. Things will be all right, then."

He was really close to Draco now. "You know," Draco said, sounding just a tiny bit discomposed, "you have a bit of a saviour complex. I've noticed that."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Right," he said. "Nobody's ever said that before."

Draco laughed, and his face looked so open suddenly, and Harry was so glad all through him that Draco was there, he'd disappeared but he'd come back, that he tilted his head forward to rest his forehead against Draco's, moving just slightly to the side so that his lips brushed over the other boy's cheek.

Draco let his breath out in a surprised huff. He went still for a second, then he relaxed, laughing a bit as he stepped back.

"You're not very good at things like distance and perspective, are you?" he said.

Harry could feel his cheeks flaming. He'd just -- he couldn't believe he'd just done that.

He'd kissed another boy.

Sort of.

"I think ... I should ... go and see if Dobby can get us anything for dinner. But, um ... I meant it, all right? We're going to --"

"Yes, we're going to save me, I got it." Draco shook his head, but more as if he were trying to clear it than to disagree. "I'll, um, try to think of a list like the one I gave Mother, of things that happened at school, tonight. If you really do want to do this."

Harry nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that's good. We'll start doing them tomorrow."

"Probably we should start looking into ways to destroy the cup, too," Draco said.

Harry blinked. "Oh. Right, I guess." He shrugged. "Voldemort's soul isn't going to get any less split, though, is it?"

Draco huffed again, softly laughing. "That's something else you're not so good at: focusing on more than one thing at a time."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut up."

Draco was still snickering as Harry set off for the kitchen.

*

Harry was weighed down with the food an overly enthusiastic Dobby had piled into his arms. He nearly fumbled it when Ron barrelled around the corner ahead. Ron threw out an arm to catch himself at the last minute against the wall.

"Mate! Where've you been? We came looking for you."

'We' was he and Hermione. She came around the corner a moment later, puffing and out of sorts.

"There was no need to run," she said. She flopped backwards against the wall.

"Where's Draco?" Harry looked beyond them, but there was no sign of him.

"In the common room," Ron said. "With about fifty people clambering round, wanting to know if he's really going to disappear into nothing."

Harry stared. "And you thought you'd just leave him?"

"Well, that's the thing." Ron shrugged, honestly confused. "We tried to rescue him, but then he started doing these impressions of heroic ways to die --"

"Killed by a sword and leaping from a moving broom, that sort of thing."

"Right, and then he started showing how disappearing into thin air was more heroic and cool than any of them."

"The whole world would remember the Amazing Disappearing Malfoy," Hermione finished.

Harry closed his mouth. Then he opened it again. "But he was ..."

Terrified.

He didn't finish the sentence.

"I would have thought he'd be more bothered," Ron said. "I dunno, maybe he doesn't really get it, yet."

"He should be taking it more seriously," Hermione agreed. "It's going to be terribly difficult to find a way to save him if he doesn't appreciate that he needs saving."

Harry was aware of a rush of gratitude toward her. She was still so touchy about the idea that Draco had taken her place in his own reality, but she wasn't even stopping to consider not helping him.

"It'll be fine," he said, giving them both a smile he couldn't quite keep in. "The playing it up thing -- that's just Malfoy." He shrugged. "How many times did we see him act out his terrifying Hippogriff attack in third year?"

"I suppose," Hermione said, although she was still frowning. "I just can't think why he would like that kind of attention."

"I think he likes any attention, really." Except his friends kissing him out of the blue. He didn't seem impressed with that. He fumbled the carefully balanced foodstuffs again, nearly dropping a roast chicken wrapped in a napkin.

Hermione looked contrite. "Oh! Give us some of that, we'll help you take it up."

"There's enough for the whole dorm, here," Ron said, giving the food a speculative look as he took his share.

"Dobby," Harry explained.

"Never mind." Ron grinned. "We'll find some way to deal with it."

Hermione shook her head at him. "You ate twenty minutes ago," she said; not disapproving, particularly, just amazed.

"Hey, I'm a growing boy," Ron said as they set off, hoisting a careful tower of pumpkin pasties in one hand.

"God, I hope not," Harry said. "It's going to be mortifying if you get any taller. You'll start resting drinks on the top of my head."

They were nearly at the portrait hole when Lavender and Parvati skidded around the corner behind them. They were out of breath, hair flying loose from plaits and sparkly hair bands.

"Is it true?" Lavender demanded as soon as she could talk. She was wide-eyed and panting. "Malfoy's really got some kind of wasting disease?"

"Is he going to die?" Parvati looked genuinely distressed.

"Oh, don't glare at us, Harry," Lavender said impatiently. "We like him. We don't want him to die."

"Well, he's not." Harry folded his arms.

"Not definitely," Hermione added, and Harry glared at her. She looked uncomfortable, but didn't back down. "Well, he might, Harry."

Hermione frowned, glancing at Parvati and Lavender again. "Why didn't you hear all about this at dinner?"

"We weren't at dinner," Lavender said. Her eyes were darting between the three of them, curiosity still obviously unanswered. "We were watching the Slytherin Quidditch team practice -- they went late. Parvati," she added, nudging her friend, "wanted to watch because she has a crush on Vincent Crabbe."

"I do not have a crush," Parvati said. "I don't have crushes." She tucked the loose hair behind her ears and added, with infinite poise, "I just happen to enjoy the sight of a pair of shoulders that can fill out Quidditch leathers nicely."

Hermione was giving them the look that suggested they were from another planet. She took a breath and made an obvious effort. "Draco's ... there are problems with Malfoy belonging to a different reality," she said. "It's not anything like a wasting disease. He's just ... he might disappear and not come back. He's already disappeared a couple of times."

Lavender opened her eyes wide. "Good grief," she said after a moment. "That's awful."

Parvati took her arm. "Where is he?" she asked. "We should -- would it help if we all held onto him or something?"

"We're going to find a way to fix it," Harry said firmly, before Hermione could chime in with something like, No, he's completely doomed.

"Oh. Where is he?"

Ron nodded towards the common room. He was too horrifically uncomfortable around Lavender to even talk to her, these days.

The two girls trailed past them up to the portrait of the Fat Lady; they were still holding each others' arms when they climbed through the portrait hole. Harry thought it looked uncomfortable, but it was ... their thing, he supposed. They always walked arm in arm. He shot Hermione a look, wondering whether she'd done the same in the other reality.

She was frowning, maybe thinking the same thing.

"I wonder if I could have talked her out of a crush on Vincent Crabbe, if we'd been friends," she said, still gazing after them.

Oh. Not really the same thing, then.

"I know Malfoy likes him, but I think he might be a bit crazy, actually. He's got an unstable look sometimes."

"Um, all right. I don't really see Parvati Patil hooking up with Crabbe, no matter how nice she thinks his shoulders are in -- um, Quidditch leathers." Harry thought about that for a moment, and made a face. "Anyway, let's see if we can pry Draco away from his adoring audience and take this stuff up to the dorm."

*

Harry sat with Ron and Hermione on the outer steps of the courtyard, frowning at the quill and parchment balanced over his knees. Disconnect between what is and what D. remembers, he wrote, then circled the word 'disconnect'. Possible to connect? he wrote underneath. Then, No, no point connecting to reality where D. is Avada Kedavra'd.

Hermione was absorbed in an enormous tome she'd found in the library. Harry wasn't sure what it was about, except that she'd been extremely excited to discover it, and hadn't really looked up since. He gathered it was terribly relevant in some way, but whether to the Saving Draco research or to the research into destroying the Hufflepuff Cup, he wasn't sure. Harry couldn't personally get terribly excited over the Horcrux research at the moment, but he supposed it was good that somebody was still looking into it. If that was what she was looking into. Maybe it was actually something to do with house-elf enslavement. Maybe it was even NEWTs study. He knew Hermione still meant to pass.

Ron was poring over the list of changes-to-make that Draco had come up with. A few of them had been crossed out, because they were things which had actually happened here too, and a couple of them had been marked with question marks, because replicating the effects seemed close to impossible. There was still quite a long list there, though, and they'd only worked their way through a couple, so far.

"We should do this one next," Ron announced, circling one of the items. "The Whomping Willow. Where's -- oh, here he comes."

Harry looked up. Draco and Pansy were walking down the steps from the entrance hall into the courtyard. Sunlight glinted off the two heads, bent together, as they came out of the shadow of Hogwarts; one sleek and dark, the other bright. Pansy said something that made Draco look up and laugh, teeth glinting white for a moment. He shaded his eyes against the sun, frowning and picking at something on his sleeve. Pansy knocked him with her elbow, obviously laughing at him. He said something that made her shake her head, and then set to work straightening his cuffs.

Harry felt a breathless, waiting sensation in his chest as he watched. He couldn't seem to look at Draco any more without feeling it. It was as though that accidental kiss -- which hadn't even been a kiss, really, just a momentary connection of mouth and cheek -- had forced something free inside him.

It didn't make any sense. He liked girls: Ginny and Cho, and maybe Luna, a little bit. That knowledge seemed awfully distant these days, though. He kept thinking about the kiss, and remembering the momentary softness of Draco's cheek under his mouth, the tickle of his fringe in Harry's eyes; the hitch in his breathing when Harry leaned close. The scent of -- he didn't even know what, soap probably -- certainly nothing distinctive like Ginny's floral perfume. Only he wanted to smell it again. He'd found himself leaning close to Draco when they were looking at a book together the night before, just so that he could breathe it in.

Draco had given him a wary look and budged over a bit.

"All right," Harry said to Ron, not even looking at the item he'd circled. "Let's do that one, when he comes over."

"Okay. Oh, hey, Gin."

Harry looked around to find Ginny and a couple of other sixth year girls loping down the steps from the grounds. Harry could never get their names straight, but they were something like Clarrie and Jo -- or maybe Jess.

"Practice tonight!" Ginny announced as she came level with Harry and the others. "You'd better shape up, big brother -- you're getting soft with all this lounging around with books." And then, "Hi, Hermione."

Hermione mumbled something that might have been some form of 'hello'. She didn't look up from her book.

Ron looked faintly nauseous at the idea that he could be the kind of person who lounged around with books. "A bit of warning might've been nice, Ginny!"

She gave him a sunny smile. "Last minute pitch allocation," she said, with unconvincing regret. "The Ravenclaw Keeper's down with doxie 'flu, so we got an extra go."

"We don't need an extra go. We're unbeaten."

Ginny gave him a disgusted look. "We've had one game, Ron. But we're going to be unbeaten, come the end of the season." She included Harry in this comment, and he gave her a weak smile.

"All right, tonight -- we'll be there."

Draco and Pansy had started up the steps.

"Also," Harry could hear Draco saying, "that was far too difficult. Whoever knew Pince would be so reluctant to put a book in the restricted section? Usually she seems to think students touching books at all is some kind of sacrilege. I thought she'd be all for locking another one away."

"What I want to know," Pansy said, "is what you guys did with the spells in that book that was so horrendously inappropriate that they wanted to lock it away in your reality."

Draco grinned at her and tucked a finger under her chin. "You want to know what bad boys do with books?" he murmured.

Harry cleared his throat. Pansy looked up first, her eyes crinkling into amusement at whatever she saw in his face. "Hey, Potter," she said easily. "Cross another thing off your list."

"For we are brilliant," Draco added, slinging an arm over her shoulder, "and have braved the librarian in its lair." He shifted his gaze to Ron and added, "Number eight."

Ron leaned the parchment on his knee and crossed out the number. He tucked it into his pocket and stood up. "You want to bring your brilliance to the Whomping Willow? I thought we might brave a tree next."

"Ugh." Pansy stepped back, slipping out from under Draco's arm. "I hate that tree. I'll grab Vince and Greg and go ask McGonagall whether she's worked anything out yet, all right?"

Ginny's easy lean against the stair railing had gone tense and awkward. She reached out a hand now and snagged Jo's - or Jane's - arm. The other girl looked around, nearly stumbling down a step. "We, uh -- we have to get going, anyway," Ginny said.

"Ginny, wait." Draco stopped her. "I wanted to ask you a favour. There's one of these reality-change things that would work best if you helped. Would --?"

"No. Sorry." She backed up another step, pulling Jess with her. Her friend gave her a wary glance. "I can't."

The others watched her go.

Harry glanced at Ron, who looked uncomfortable. "She's got a ... thing," he said, as though this explained anything at all.

"Oh. All right," Draco said.

Pansy was staring after Ginny with her eyes narrowed. She didn't comment, however. She said goodbye to Draco, and started back across the courtyard. Her not-quite-regulation-length school robes swished around her ankles.

Harry stood, dumping his parchment and quill next to Hermione. "You're staying here, right?" She looked up after a long moment, her eyes glazed. "Oh, right," she murmured, and looked down again. Harry decided that was the best he was going to get.

Draco, Harry and Ron headed across the grounds towards the Whomping Willow, on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Patchy cloud gave the day an uncertain air. Sunshine gave way to grey as they walked, then flickered into sunshine again a moment later. Something moved off in the middle of the forest, and a flock of black and orange birds erupted, piping shrilly. The willow thrashed a branch idly, responding to the disturbance.

Draco seemed to still be in a good mood, even after Ginny's odd rejection.

"You can laugh about braving trees, Weasley," Draco said, shading his eyes against the sun again, "but we didn't have your neat little off button when we did this. It was a lot more heroic when we thought we might be crushed to death at any second."

"Right," Harry said, shooting him a sideways look. "It was a heroic crusade to leave our names on the trunk."

"Don't mock," Draco said. "It was your idea, you know."

Harry looked at him and Draco laughed. "All right, it was my idea -- but you went along with it."

Harry could believe that -- he could imagine following Draco into almost anything, actually, when he looked at you with his eyes dancing like that and an enormous beaming smile that said that he'd had an amazing idea.

He didn't know what was showing on his face, but Draco's smile faltered and he looked away, pushing his hands into his pockets in the way that he only did when he was uncomfortable.

An owl wheeled over their heads. Draco stretched out his hand, and it circled to land on his wrist. It was Narcissa's -- Harry had become very familiar with it in the last couple of days.

Draco unrolled the note on its leg and read quickly, then wrote something on the back of it. Probably: Am okay; not dead, given his previous notes. He wrapped it back around the owl's leg. As he jerked his arm up to throw the bird into the sky, his outline flickered, his face registering a frightened, nauseous expression. The owl staggered in the air as the arm throwing it became momentarily non-existent, then righted itself and flapped upwards, gaining height.

Harry resisted the urge to take two steps and grab Draco, and not let go until he stopped looking so white and shaken.

"Are you okay?" he asked instead. Draco ducked his head, shaking his fringe forward into his eyes.

"Yeah. I'm fine." He looked up again, the smile more strained now. His eyes flickered to Harry for a moment -- Harry tried to relax the frozen, anxious expression he could feel on his own face -- then he looked away, focusing on Ron. Ron looked anxious too, but maybe less alarmingly as though he were about to spring at Draco. "So, you ready to deface school property?"

Ron let him change the subject. "Baby," he said, lifting his chin, "I was born to deface school property."

Harry took a breath and made himself stop staring at Draco, waiting for him to disappear again. "Come on, then, what did we write on this tree?"

Draco pushed his hair back. "Just our initials," he admitted.

Ron looked disappointed. "Well, there were branches crashing all around us," Draco said. "Lots of them. There wasn't exactly time to be witty. Oh, and make sure you're not too neat. I'm not sure you actually finished the 'W' on yours, Ron."

Ron sighed. "So I'll be Ron Veasley, then. Come on."

*

Harry wouldn't have noticed Draco if one of the suits of armour hadn't tripped him as he was walking by, and made him drop his library books. He heard the snicker as he dropped to his knees to pick them up. He turned his head, peering into the shadowy window seat tucked away in an alcove in the corridor.

"Graceful as ever, Potter."

Harry peered into the alcove. "Like you've never had the castle trip you up."

Draco was sitting sideways on the window seat. He had one knee bent with his foot on the seat, and the other curled beneath it. His hair was a pale shine in the dimness, but the black school robes made him otherwise fade into the dark worn velvet of the seat behind him.

It was one of those corners the castle was riddled with; hidden away behind curtains or under stairs, with seats that were never sat in, windows that were never looked through. This one was in the shape of semi-circle, with a window seat curving around, mirroring the shape of the age-worn sill under the thick glass of the window itself; a blacker shape in the dimness.

Harry got to his feet, hugging the three library books against his chest. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you'd be hanging around with Crabbe and Goyle." That was what he'd said he was going to do when he left the common room half an hour ago. Harry hadn't seen any reason for him to go at all -- they hadn't even been researching or studying, for once, they'd just been messing around. He hadn't thought they were being especially boring. But Draco always found some reason to go off somewhere when they were just chatting or Ron suggested a game of chess or something.

"They're still at dinner," Draco said. Harry's eyes were still adjusting, but he thought Draco's cheeks took on a pink tinge. "I'm, uh, not used to that yet."

"What, Crabbe and Goyle practically living in the Great Hall?" Harry asked, grinning.

He squeezed into the alcove and dropped onto the seat beside Draco. The other boy shifted along. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a rotten sense of personal space?" he asked, pulling his knees up against his chest.

"Nope."

"Right. Well, you do. It's rotten. Really. What are you reading?"

Draco was talking at random, and too quickly. Harry thought that might mean something, but he was too busy being acutely conscious of the body next to his to concentrate.

"Er, books," he said. "On rituals." He could feel the heat of Draco's knee almost touching his own. Somehow he couldn't remember how to fold his legs naturally. He shifted, which brought their knees into contact, meaning that he had to shift away again.

Draco reached out and tilted the spines of the library books towards him.

"You're reading about the structural theory of ritual magic?"

Harry coloured. "I am actually capable of reading books that aren't about Quidditch, you know."

Draco grinned, a flash of white. "I must have missed your deep interest in ritual theory."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, you were the one who said that ritual magic was the most powerful," he said. "I figured powerful magic was probably what we needed, if we were dealing with reality being off."

"Oh." Draco cleared his throat. "Um. Thank you."

Harry shifted again. Seriously, what else did Draco imagine he'd be getting ritual magic books out of the library for?

There was a flutter of wings, and Narcissa Malfoy's owl swooped into the alcove. It landed on Draco's wrist with a tired little hoot, then stretched out its leg.

Draco laughed, startled. "I don't even know how he gets inside the castle after hours," he said. "I think my mother must be using dark magic of some kind."

He unrolled the tightly furled parchment, reading down it. He blinked. "She's ... trying to convince McGonagall to let her come here as a teaching aide." He stared, turning the parchment over as though he expected to find a postscript that would make it make sense. He flipped it back. "My god."

Harry picked at a thread on his jeans. "Well, she's your mum."

Draco opened and shut his mouth. "You can't just -- just say that as though it explains everything. My mother doesn't beg for embarrassing and undignified jobs just because she wants to keep an eye on me. She's not --"

"She loves you," Harry said. He had to turn his head away because of the fierce colour he could feel on his cheeks, but he ploughed ahead. "Stop being so damned surprised, Malfoy. She must have told you she loves you."

The silence made him look around. Draco looked carefully blank.

"Oh."

"I always thought she did," Draco said, not looking at him. "To a certain extent. She never made me choose, or anything. I thought that probably meant she ..."

"Choose?"

"Between --" Draco waved his hand. The owl, which had begun to nod off, ruffled its feathers and hopped from his wrist to his shoulder, then onto the window sill. "After fourth year, when I stopped talking to Lucius. She never even mentioned it; and she never stopped me from writing to you and Ron during the holidays."

He frowned. "Although, that might have been partly because she wasn't that keen on the Dark Lord herself. I never knew, in my world, how involved she was; but I know that here, after -- after Lucius went to Azkaban, and then I was killed, she cut off all ties with Voldemort and retreated into the manor. Apparently Aunt Bella kept hassling her, but Voldemort himself let her go." He looked up, a speculative gleam in his eyes. "He probably guessed that keeping a woman who'd lost a husband and a son to his cause close to him might be dangerous. Or it might be when the woman was Narcissa Malfoy, anyway."

Harry held his breath for a moment. He couldn't not ask -- not when Draco had come this close to it.

"What about you? Why did you decide not to become a Death Eater?"

Draco blinked. He gave Harry an uncertain look.

"I mean -- why did you choose m-me, or, or the Order of the Phoenix, whatever -- over your dad?" Draco was still staring. Harry looked at him and away. "He's Voldemort's right hand man; and he's your dad. You used to talk about him all the time. You must have had to make a choice, Draco."

Draco shut his mouth, then opened it again. The owl was pecking sleepily at his hair, now, teasing out strands with its beak. He reached up and disentangled it, using the opportunity to look away from Harry as he spoke.

"I didn't -- you have to understand, I didn't believe he meant for Ginny to be possessed, when he gave her that diary. I knew you and Ron believed it, and I had a huge fight with Ron, but ..." He stopped, then started again. "I believed him when he said he was Imperiused in the First War, too. He never said anything about joining another war until after You-Know-Who rose again at the end of fourth year. Then he was talking about -- you know, blood purity and all the rest of it."

He used the back of his thumb to stroke the owl's head, making it shift further along the window sill. "I don't ... really know what I would have thought about it if I'd been thinking calmly. Maybe I would have thought it made sense. Maybe I would have wanted it to make sense, because it was him saying it. But I already knew, because you'd told us, that he'd been one of the Death Eaters who stood by while You-Know-Who took your wand away and tortured you. He knew you were my best friend, but he just let -- he didn't even try to help you. And then he thought that I should --" He shook his head, frustrated. "I don't even know. I don't know how his mind works."

He looked up again and realised that Harry was staring at him. "Anyway, that was ages ago."

Harry smiled a bit; tried to smother it; smiled again.

"What?"

He tried to sound casual. "You really did choose me."

"Because you'd been tortured." Draco looked uncomfortable. "You won on the sympathy vote, Potter."

Narcissa's owl pecked at his hair again, tangling its beak in the light blond strands.

"Ouch." Draco put his hand up, trying to free it, but the bird had now extended a foot in an attempt to untangle itself, and its claw was tangled up too. It gave a distressed hoot, unfolding one wing and flapping, and Draco winced again.

"Here." Harry leaned forward, using two hands to untangle the flapping owl. It pulled away from him with a chirp of offended dignity that reminded him of Hedwig, and moved further along the window sill. Harry still had his hands in Draco's hair, the tangled fine strands soft under his fingers. He could smell the soap and warm skin and nearness of him. He smoothed down the tangles, pushing the hair off Draco's forehead and behind his ears, not pulling back far enough to see his expression. He could feel his own pulse juddering in his wrists, the thudding of his heart almost loud enough to cover up the way that Draco's breathing sped up and caught in his throat.

He smoothed the hair behind Draco's ears for the fourth time, then moved his hands carefully down to the line of of Draco's jaw.

"I ..." Draco said. Harry leaned forward to stop him saying anything else and pressed his mouth against Draco's -- just for a moment, hardly more than the moment outside the library had been. Draco sucked in a breath, the sound harsh, and opened his mouth a tiny amount. Harry shivered and pressed forward once more, a little harder, just barely sucking in the bottom lip beneath his own. Draco responded with a hand that crept up to Harry's neck, folding around his collar. Draco opened his mouth a little wider. His tongue just touched Harry's lip, and Harry heard himself make a noise -- a gasp needy enough to be embarrassing if embarrassment hadn't seemed so far away, somewhere on the other side of the thrumming of his blood and the warm, smooth skin against his fingertips.

Draco arched up, the hand at Harry's collar curling around his neck, and pulled him down. His mouth moved against Harry's, a warm slide, and his fingers were a torture on the skin of Harry's neck. Harry pressed closer, needing more, god, anything. Draco's mouth was assaulting Harry's now, his tongue forcing its way inside before Harry had time to open for it. Harry groaned and pressed closer. He moved his hands to cup the back of Draco's head, holding him while they kissed, his hands sliding over the soft strands. Draco's mouth was hot under his, his tongue insistent against Harry's own, and Harry never wanted to stop this.

He had to pull back for air. He stared down at Draco, panting, his mouth sore and swollen, and watched as Draco opened his eyes. He was panting too, his mouth open, and he looked dazed. His eyes weren't open all the way, as though lifting the lids was an effort, but he didn't take his eyes off Harry's face. His hair was mussed again; worse than before.

He looked like the most incredible thing Harry had ever seen.

"Um," Harry said. He could feel a smile trying to take over his face; the sound of it was in his voice, ridiculous and beaming.

Narcissa's owl hooted softly, talons scraping on the window sill. Draco pushed himself upright, his eyes turning to the owl. A change came over his face -- it sharpened into something harder and more shadowed. His mouth pressed into a line.

Harry sat up, dazed. He glanced at the owl, and back at Draco.

Draco cleared his throat. "I've said before, you have -- a distance problem, Potter." His voice was a bit breathless, but it gave nothing away. He was adjusting his robes, now, and pushing the hair back behind his ears, smooth and neat once more. He didn't look at Harry.

"I ... what?" Harry ran his fingers through his own hair. It was even messier than usual, mussed by Draco's fingers. "Draco, what's ...?"

"It's not your fault," Draco said. "I know. You just -- you get caught up in -- and then you can't even tell when you're taking something too far." His voice was uneven now, the expressionless tone cracking a little.

Harry felt the words as though they were kicks to the stomach. Was that really what he'd been doing? Taking something too far?

Draco had kissed back; he hadn't imagined that.

"Draco, we were ..."

"It doesn't matter." Draco did turn to look at Harry now. The hectic colour was fading from his cheeks, leaving him pale and distant. "You can just forget about it, Harry. It wasn't important."

"How come you get to decide that?" Harry could hear the beginnings of anger in his voice. He pushed himself straighter, feeling at a disadvantage with his rumpled clothing and the mussed fringe falling into his eyes.

"Oh, for god's sake, Harry! You're just -- you'll get it, okay, and you'll be glad. And in the meantime, just don't -- don't grope me in window seats. And this won't happen again."

He stood, pulling his robes close around him as he ducked out of the alcove.

Harry sat slowly back against the seat. He touched his mouth, tender under his fingers. He felt slow, as though it would take his thoughts a while to catch up. He missed the warmth of Draco's body in the alcove. He didn't know whether he should be feeling guilty.

The owl gave a plaintive chirp, hopping from one leg to the other.

Harry roused himself and tore a strip off the parchment he'd tucked into the cover of one of the library books, for notes. He found a self-inking quill in his pocket.

He wrote: He's all right; not dead.

The owl took the proffered scrap of parchment with a shake of its head and flapped out of the alcove. Harry gathered up his books, hugging them to his chest, and followed.