Black Sheep

Chapter Sixteen
In Which There Is Teaching

DRACO HAD PUT THE TWO brooms away and then realised that he couldn't relock the broom shed without magic. Assuming that no one would notice - or if they did, they wouldn't know to blame him - he headed back to the castle anyway, his way faintly lit by the moon overhead. Once inside and without even that faint light, he stumbled through the halls blindly, no wand to light his way. After running into several walls and feeling his way through the corridors, he eventually found the staff wing again, mostly through chance. He tried three different doors before he found the right one, which opened into the history professor's rooms.

The fire was still smouldering, providing at least a dim light in one corner of the shadowy sitting room, but there was no sign that Harry had come back yet. Draco tripped over to the bedroom, barking his shin against at least the sofa and other unknown objects. He called out unsurely, "Potter?"

There was no response. Unable to light the lamps without magic, Draco stripped in the dark, pulling off the clothes that now smelt like grass and night air. He folded them carefully and blindly placed them in a neat pile on the floor next to the bed. Then he sat down on the bed. He stared into the unfamiliar dark for a few long moments, and then he picked up his jeans again and slipped them back on, padding out to the living room where there was the dying light of the fire.

He spied his wine bottle on the floor and picked it up, but his shoulders sagged when he felt how light it was. Tipping it over his mouth confirmed that it was empty. He dropped to sit on the floor, leaning toward the glowing coals with one arm looped loosely under his knees. He absent-mindedly rolled the empty wine bottle on the floor with his free hand. That was how Harry found him when he finally got back: sitting in a dark room, shirtless, his white skin painted reddish gold by the light from the dying fire.

Harry glanced at him oddly and then started toward the bedroom, complaining, "I can't believe you sent me off with that woman alone. I had to walk her all the way to her rooms and then she wouldn't let me go without a 'soothing cup of tea' to thank me. Ugh." He made a disgusted noise and muttered, "Lumos." The two small lamps in the bedroom flared to life. Harry stripped off his clothes again, throwing them to the floor. He fell onto the bed for the second time that night, but ready to sleep for the first time. He called out to the other room, "Are you staying up?"

Draco abandoned his empty bottle and dragged himself up again. He shuffled into the bedroom and undid the button on his jeans, letting them fall down to his ankles and then kicking them off his feet. Then he looked at them crumpled on the floor and frowned. He bent over and snatched them up again, folding them properly this time and dropping them on top of his shirt on the floor. He crawled back into the bed and Harry doused the lights.

Harry sighed tiredly. Draco asked, "Can you sleep now?"

There was a hint of a smile in Harry's voice when he replied, "I think so." He rolled on his side, turning towards Draco even if he couldn't see any more of him than the faintest of outlines. "I still can't believe you jumped, you crazy bastard."

Draco managed a soft snigger this time. "Sorry I can't let you do the same. If you jumped, you really would hit the ground and so would I. I still can't fly a broom on my own."

Harry's exhaled heavily. "I never imagined being able to fly like that."

"I know you never imagined you'd be able to fly like me," Draco teased him, smirking in the dark. "Not many dare aspire to such heights."

Harry laughed and lashed out under the duvet, kicking at Draco's legs. This led of course to a brief but furious kicking match, which left the sheets torn half off the bed. They called a truce and pulled the duvet back up over themselves.

Harry lay still, thinking that he should say something about how the flying had made the whole day seem bearable and even worth it. That he should thank Malfoy in some way. But then he remembered that Malfoy had nearly landed the two of them face first and dead into the ground twice that night. Thanks seemed less necessary then. Instead he let the deep, dark calm inside of him spread through his limbs and lure him into sleep.




Harry woke the next morning to the sound of someone snickering above him. He pried one eye open to look up at Draco, who was leaning over him and holding something in his hand. Something that looked suspiciously like a Scuddimore's Smudge-Proof Permanent Pen. Harry sat bolt upright and looked down at himself. His chest and arms were covered with graffiti. Kicking the duvet away, he scrambled out of the bed and ran for the bathroom. He slammed into the small room and flew to the mirror above the sink. His face was thankfully free of writing, but all over his front and creeping up his neck were doodles and messages.

He struggled to read their backwards reflection in the mirror, muttering, "Gryffindork for life...I secretly am in love with Moaning Myrtle...I'm thick as the big print version of the Complete Works of Charles Dickens...I beat Voldemort and all I got was this lousy tattoo?! MALFOY!" He ran back into the bedroom and jumped on Malfoy, pummelling the other man like he hadn't in years. Malfoy was laughing too hard to do anything more than hold his arms over himself to ineffectively protect his body from Harry's fists.

Harry gave up soon enough. He wasn't really out to hurt the other man, he just felt the need to express himself - upon Malfoy's body. That is, until Malfoy said helpfully, "You might want to check under your fringe." Harry jumped back up, sprinting to the bathroom again, and Draco rolled about on the floor, crying with mirth.

In front of the mirror, Harry lifted the heavy hair that covered his scar, which he now found grossly exaggerated with thick black ink, surrounded by more little lightning bolts, and punctuated with the words, "I'm Harry fucking Potter!"

Steaming silently, he took the opportunity to look again over himself. There were drawings of little stick figures doing naughty things, which ran around his navel and across his chest in one very sick parade. There were messages and quotes scattered in different sizes and styles of writing. A large, ornately drawn heart on his shoulder was crossed with a banner that read, "Buckbeak" and tiny, careful writing crept around his neck like a sinuous snake. He leaned in towards the mirror to try to read it. Harry Potter is a useless sot who can't hold his liquor or pull off a real Wronski Feint or charm his way out of a box. He has no friends but a Death Eater who he previously tried to kill on several occasions. And he likes it that way, the great gay punter.

Harry turned back to Draco with a dangerous look. Draco was lying on his back on the floor and stared at the upside-down Harry with a grin. "Look," he pointed toward the wardrobe, "I had Merry bring clothing." Harry stepped over the blond to check the wardrobe and Draco added pointedly, "No turtlenecks, though, I'm afraid."

Harry stopped walking toward the wardrobe and suddenly dropped down to sit hard on Malfoy's chest. The blond gasped for breath and beat futile fists against him. Harry straddled the man's chest, pinning Malfoy's ropy arms under his knees. He reached out and grabbed the permanent pen from where it had rolled away under the bed clothes in their previous scuffle and then he uncapped it and held it threateningly over Draco, a wild look in his eyes. Draco looked genuinely alarmed this time - since magical items with names including the word 'permanent' really meant what they said - and he threw his legs up, kneeing Harry hard in the back and sending him crashing face forward into Draco. Their heads collided with a painful, loud clunk and they both rolled away groaning and cursing, clutching at their bruised foreheads.

"Oh, you fucker, Malfoy!"

Draco groaned, "You're the one who attacked me!"

"Because," Harry ground out in a pained tone, "you wrote all over my body!"

Of course at that moment there came a knock from the main door in the living room and Hermione popped her head in, calling out, "Harry? Malfoy? Are you two coming to breakfast?"

She heard the cursing coming from the bedroom and stepped cautiously up to the open doorway, to find the two men wearing nothing but underpants and clutching their heads, while sprawled on the floor. And Harry appeared to be covered in tattoos. "What the-" She looked at them disbelievingly. "I thought you said I could leave the two of you alone!"

"That was until Malfoy decided to wake me with an art show. On my skin. In Scuddimore's Smudge-Proof Permanent Pen." Harry looked balefully at the blond, who was grinning painfully while still massaging his head.

Hermione felt an odd bubbling feeling in her chest and then realised what it was: laughter. A few shocked giggles slipped past her lips, then she was bent over laughing at the two of them. Maybe things hadn't changed as much as she'd feared.

"Well," she said briskly, no sympathy in her voice, "are you going to put some clothes on and come down to breakfast or are you just planning to stay in and hide your shame?"

Harry got to his knees and his whole face screwed up from the pain in his head. When his hand came up to rub his forehead ruefully, Hermione saw that there was more writing there. She stepped towards him and brushed aside his heavy fringe to see the mocking message, "I'm Harry fucking Potter!" She had to hide her laughter and turned away. Heading back into the living room, she said in a strangled voice, "Hurry and get dressed. We should get to breakfast. I'm interested to see the papers."

Harry pulled a face, but he finally pulled himself to his feet and staggered over to the wardrobe. He pulled its heavy doors open to find it now packed with what were apparently Malfoy's clothes. His own clothes had vanished from the floor, probably thanks to house elves. He picked out a pair of dark jeans and the longest-sleeved and highest-necked shirt he could find, which happened to be white and - he realised when he pulled it out - have emblazoned on the back, When I'm good, I'm really good. When I'm bad, I'm even better. He said conversationally, "I hate that I'm the same size as you."

"You'd rather have nothing to wear?" Draco asked back reasonably.

He glared angrily at Draco again, but pulled the shirt on. It covered all the writing on his arms, except for one small note he had discovered on his left palm: Alcohol may not solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk. The writing on his neck peeked out from the shirt's round collar and ran around his neck, but no one else should get close enough to him to read it. He stepped into the jeans and, doing them up as he went, walked back out into the sitting room. There he picked up his trainers and noticed that they were covered with mud and grass from the previous night. He called to Malfoy, "Did your miserable house elf bring any shoes as well?"

Hermione frowned at the mention of house elves, but then had to duck when first one, then another shoe came hurtling out of the bedroom, quick followed by a pair of socks, rolled into a ball. Harry collected the shoes and grimaced slightly when he got a look at them. They were retro-looking Converse All-Stars. He was going to look like such a punk in front of all the students and staff, who would all be wearing uniforms and robes.

Or so he thought until Draco stepped out of the bedroom. Harry blinked at him. He was rather accustomed to the blond wearing rather plain and even faded Muggle clothes. Often it was his own faded Muggle clothes. Today Draco was wearing stone-washed, well-fitted and expensive-looking jeans, a thick belt looped around his narrow waist, and a tight black t-shirt that did nothing to hide either his slim physique or the faded Dark Mark on his forearm. His hair, still impossibly blond, hung into his dark grey eyes and the man looked positively dangerous - not in a wild way, like Sirius had, or even a nasty way, like Snape had done. He looked like a beautiful, dangerous snake that would lure you in and then swallow you whole. Harry realised that no one would be looking at him once they saw Draco.

The blond was tucking a wallet, which hung from a long silver chain that was now slung around his right leg, into a back pocket - even though there was no logical reason that he could need a wallet here at Hogwarts, particularly one on a chain. Harry wondered if Malfoy wasn't purposefully dressing even more like a Muggle than usual. Hermione was clearly struggling not to say anything about this get-up of Malfoy's and she simply walked to the door and said, without turning around, "Shall we go?"

Draco strode across the room and Harry was amused when he heard the blond jangle, thanks to the chain hanging from his jeans. He looked sideways at Harry as he passed. "Did you even brush your hair?" he asked disdainfully.

Harry shrugged as he fell into step with the other man. "It's not like it'd make much difference anyway."

They followed Hermione through the corridors and Draco said, "I'm surprised you didn't even try to scrub the pen off."

Harry pulled a grim face. "I've seen Fred and George Weasley use the same prank on their brother Percy. There's absolutely nothing that gets the stuff off, but the specific formula sold by Scuddimore's. Nothing."

Draco grinned widely. "I know! Isn't it great?"

Harry eyed him with a narrow green glare. "Watch yourself, Malfoy. Payback is a bitch."

"Oh, I'm looking forward to it, Potter," the blond purred in a similarly loaded tone.

They arrived at the side door to the Great Hall again. Professor Flitwick had just gone in ahead of them, with a quick startled glance at the two visitors' strange dress. Draco rolled his eyes and shoved past Hermione and Harry to stride confidently into the Great Hall. Harry was reminded of the way he had always strode confidently into rooms in their school days, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. He caught Hermione's eye and gave her a small rueful smile.

Hermione smiled back instinctively and then they entered the Great Hall themselves. The house tables were nearly half-full and the Head Table had only two empty seats left - those for Hermione and Harry themselves. Draco was already seated next to Professor Flitwick, who looked a bit spooked. Harry hurried over to Draco and dropped quickly into the empty seat next to him, hoping no one had time to read the words on the back of his borrowed shirt. Hermione took the last empty seat, which was several spaces down, between McGonagall and Sprout. An owl which had been perched among the arches in the enchanted ceiling swooped down to drop a newspaper in front of her. Ignoring the food in front of her, Hermione first unrolled the paper to read the front page, then glanced through the rest of it quickly. McGonagall leaned in to speak to her and she pulled an Ever-Inked Quill - a fancy Wizard biro - from her bag beside her chair, scrawling something across the top of the first page. She passed the paper to Sprout, clearly with instructions to pass it along to Harry and Draco, because it travelled quickly to their end of the table.

Harry looked at the newspaper, as Draco unconcernedly bit into a cheese danish. There was a fuzzy photo of the two of them blown up on the front page, no doubt taken by some clever person as they had been walking through Hogsmeade with Hermione the previous morning. Draco mumbled, his mouth mostly full of flaky pastry, "Crap shot. You couldn't even tell it was us if you didn't know already."

Harry had to agree and he looked at the note that Hermione had written along the top edge of the paper. It read: Looks like they've followed the statement as well as we could expect. McGonagall is also intercepting all the mail that comes for the two of you. It's being kept by Filch and you can collect it any time you dare. Harry and Draco shared an equally unenthusiastic look as they thought of going to visit caretaker. Neither of them had been popular with him, unless you counted the fact that - after the Weasley Twins - there were perhaps no two people he wished better to string up in the manacles that hung from his ceiling.

"Filch can have it all," Draco said quickly. Harry nodded eagerly. Then Draco said commandingly, "Read it aloud then, if you're going to read it."

Harry glanced at the man next to him, then turned back to the paper. "Well, they've got our statement right at the top, complete with seal and signatures and all. Then there are sort of bibliographic articles of each of us - in case anyone needs a refresher on their gossip." Harry rolled his eyes as he spoke. He read out Draco's little life story first, actually a bit interested by what the Prophet had chosen to say. They gave an account of his illustrious family, of course, and of what they knew of his part in the 1997 Hogwarts invasion that led to the death of Albus Dumbledore. The author had described what was known about Draco's time as a Death Eater - which was not much - and reprinted the government's original statement regarding his release, which included the cryptic phrase that "due to certain actions during the war and the current mitigating circumstances" the youngest Malfoy was not to be sent to Azkaban like the rest of the Death Eaters. The Prophet suggested that his apparent collaboration with Harry Potter, hinted at in their official statement, might have at last solved this mystery of the last of the Malfoys.

Draco scoffed when he heard this last phrase and asked disinterestedly, "And what, pray tell, do they say about your illustrious self?"

Embarrassed now, Harry skimmed over the column about himself, reporting for Draco, "Oh, the usual... only son of James and Lily Potter...only known survivor of the Killing Curse...successful career at Hogwarts-"

"Ha!" Draco interrupted with a sarcastic laugh. "Did they mistake your school reports by any chance?"

Harry couldn't really argue - his marks had never been anything much to brag about. He continued anyway, "Known to have assisted the Order of the Phoenix early in the war... disappeared after Dumbledore's death... occasional skirmishes with the Dark Lord... considered responsible for the Dark Lord's downfall... never reappeared in society after Dumbledore's death..." He trailed off and skimmed over the rest of the front page, then flipped through the rest of the newspaper. "Not much very new. Little blurbs about my taking part in the Triwizard Tournament - probably because those are the only photos they had of me, ugh - and about your 'actions on behalf of the Ministry' when you were part of Umbridge's nasty little Inquisitorial Squad. God, I'd forgotten about that."

Draco blinked. "So had I." He laughed. "Those were the days."

Harry glared at him disapprovingly and put the paper aside, tucking into his own breakfast. Glancing about from the corner of his eye, he saw that none of the teachers at the Head Table were reading the newspapers, though he couldn't be sure if it was some sort of purposeful statement or if they had simply already done so. The students, on the other hand, were almost all rotating through eating their breakfasts, whispering to their neighbours, and staring at the Head Table. Apparently they had read the bit about Draco being the only free living Death Eater.

Draco, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind all the horrified stares that were being aimed at him. He made a show of elegantly, and even seductively, polishing off a breakfast of mostly sweets and pastries. He calmly looked back at the students, a faintly amused smirk hovering around his sugar-flaked lips. Harry twitched as he looked at those lips, but turned away and looked down at his own plate instead, letting his hair cover his eyes, as well as his scar and Draco's artwork.

Draco turned casually to talk to Flitwick, trying to describe to the Charms professor the book-searching spell he'd had Harry use the day before. The tiny man looked as suspicious as a Gringotts goblin but couldn't help being a bit charmed by Draco asking him for advice on his specialty. He haltingly discussed ways to improve the spell with the blond, who once again seemed perfectly able to ignore his fellows' discomfort and chat easily and disarmingly. It was part of that deadly snake charm, Harry thought as he picked up his napkin from his lap and tossed it on the table, done with the public spectacle.

He stood up and, with a brief touch on Draco's shoulder as he passed, headed down the Head Table. He paused at Hermione's chair, nodding to McGonagall respectfully. Bending over to lean closer, he said softly to Hermione, "I'm going to head back up to the library now. If you have free time, I'd be happy to have your help, but I understand if you're busy." He smiled slightly. "You are a professor, after all."

Hermione turned slightly and examined his face from the close distance between them. Draco had left his seat as well and now arrived to lean over them both with an elbow on Harry's bent back, right over the phrase 'When I'm good.' Malfoy's appearance made her pause, but Hermione still hazarded a smile in Harry's direction. "I'll do my best to make time, Harry. I'd be glad to do it for you."

Harry managed a brief rictus of a smile in return, before rushing off again, Draco only a half step behind him.

"Mr Potter. Mr Malfoy."

The familiar commanding voice, coloured with a polished Scottish accent, stopped Harry in his tracks. Draco skidded to a stop as well, stopping himself from knocking over the other man only by quickly throwing up his hands to brace himself against Harry. They both turned back to look at the Headmistress. McGonagall told them in her usual unbending way, "Why don't the two of you come to my office this evening so that we can catch up on things." It obviously wasn't an invitation they could refuse.

While Harry stood there stupidly, Draco said agreeably, "Of course, Headmistress. Shall we bring the biscuits or will you be providing?"

Even McGonagall paused for a moment in the face of Malfoy's irreverent manner. Most students and even staff wouldn't dare be so familiar or fatuous to her. There was a glint of flinty humour in her eyes as she replied, "I will provide for the evening."

"Oh, but it would be so poor of us to show up empty-handed," Draco said regretfully, before suggesting, "Pudding, then? Or a lovely trifle? Spotted Dick? Athole Brose? Deep-fried Mars bars?"

The Headmistress cut him off before he could continue. She said dryly, "I'm sure we can make do without, Mr Malfoy, though I thank you for your generous offers. Please just be sure to bring yourself and Mr Potter."

Draco nodded and then turned back away, dragging the dumbfounded Harry with him as he headed out the side door and into the empty halls. Harry muttered in a shocked voice, "Fuck."

Shrugging, Draco said, "I'm surprised she didn't try to corner us before now, really. We are two rather troublesome guests to have at her school."

Harry looked suspiciously at the man next to him. "I'm not sure if I'm more frightened of her inviting us to her office or of your reaction." He repeated for at least the dozenth time in as many days, "You really are insane, aren't you?"

They arrived back at the library just as Madame Pince was opening the doors. She looked sourly at the two of them, but let them in after herself. Avoiding her hawk-like glare, they hurried back to the Restricted Section and the privacy of the stacks. Draco had Harry try a couple of new permutations of the book-searching spell and then they carried their loot back to the same table they'd worked at the day before.

With even less energy than they had when they'd first started scouring the Restricted Section, they flipped their books open. The problem was that stealing someone's magic was such an unnatural and unthinkable thing to do that there was almost nothing written about it. Only in a few Dark texts and serious books of strategies against Dark wizards were there even mentions of such a possibility, and even then it was only hypothetical. It didn't seem that any witch or wizard, Dark or Light, had ever managed to actually strip another of their power before. Not that it would be the first time that Voldemort had been the only wizard to ever achieve some horrid feat.

A lot of the books they searched were, as Hermione had said, written about or for squibs. Most of these were new to Draco, since his family had of course never seen squib study as something worthy enough to include in their library. They ranged from the mundane everyday sort, such as So your bouncing baby is a squib!: Twenty necessary charms to make their life Barrier-Free, to the seriously academic, like The properties of magic and its non-manifestation in squibs. It was fascinating and depressing to read how some squibs had attempted to get through a 'normal' magical life, with the help of the charms and spells of their family and friends. Reading about it made Draco feel disabled in a way that he hadn't for years and he flipped through the pages quickly, knowing that there wouldn't be much help for him there. If someone had found a way to 'cure' squibs, these books wouldn't exist in the first place.

He realised that Harry was watching him curiously and he remembered himself. His pointless frustration melted away as he reminded himself that his life had worked before he'd come back to Hogwarts. He summoned an easy grin and said lightly, "I just can't believe how stupid some of these books are. Charms to make squibs' dishes self-washing? As if they can't just do it the regular way."

"You mean the Muggle way?" Harry asked

Draco retorted, "Well, the silly Muggles managed to survive this long without magic, obviously they know what they're doing." He shook his head. "As if any idiot couldn't figure out how to wash a dish for himself."

Harry asked dryly, "Have you ever washed a dish, Malfoy?"

"No," Draco said without shame, "but if I had to, I wouldn't ask someone to spell it done for me. I'd just get some water and soap and do it. No wonder squibs have such a bad reputation for being useless drains on society."

"Where's the difference between them and the rest of Wizardingkind?" Harry asked seriously, voicing something he'd long thought. "Why should wizards use charms to cook food or shave or do any of it, when there are perfectly good alternatives?" That was why he hardly used any magic in his daily life - simply because it was easier for him to do things the Muggle way, the way he'd grown up doing them.

Draco grimaced and agreed, "There are a lot of really wank spells around, aren't there?" He laughed and said, "Do you remember in second year, when some idiot Hufflepuff started a trend with that spell to pick your own nose? And then we started doing it to you lot during dinners?" He snickered, remembering the shocked looks on the Gryffindors' faces when their noses suddenly cleaned themselves, dropping any debris straight down from their face and usually into their dinner. "Utterly pointless spell, of course, though it did prove entertaining."

Harry did remember and he reminded Draco, "And then of course we retaliated by modifying a shoelace-tying spell so that all of your shoes were tied together and the whole lot of you Slytherin cunts fell on your faces when you tried to get up at the end of the meal."

Draco laughed wickedly. "Those really were the days. And these kids think they're hard for running out a green professor? They'll never reach our heights."

Harry had to agree, as they easily remembered the good days at Hogwarts. "Of course," he allowed graciously, "they don't seem to have a rallying force like the Weasley Twins. Or our great Slytherin/Gryffindor rivalry."

Kicking Harry in the shins under the table, Draco agreed, "Yes, the old days when Slytherins and Gryffindors hated each other good and proper, instead of getting trashed together and taking trips through the countryside." He almost continued, but broke off when he saw a boy skulking about the entrance to Restricted Section. Apparently they weren't the only ones doing a little early morning investigation.

Draco jerked his head to the side, directing Harry's attention to the half-grown boy. Even from here they could see the Slytherin patch on his robes and Harry rolled his eyes and whispered, "How predictable, a Slytherin sneaking into the Restricted Section." Not that he and his friends hadn't done it, too.

The boy, who looked around around thirteen or fourteen, slipped into the Restricted Section with feigned nonchalance. He walked stiffly into the first row of stacks before him and Draco got up from his chair silently, putting a finger to his mouth when Harry looked at him questioningly. One hand on the chain at his waist, to stop it from making any noise, he glided over to the row where the young student had disappeared. Coming around the corner of the shelves, he loomed over the boy, who was squinting at the old, faded titles on the books, and asked suddenly, "Can I help you find something?"

The boy jumped half a foot in the air and scrambled away from the book he'd had his hand on. Draco frowned at the mousy student as he gibbered and thought to himself, So much for the famed Slytherin cunning.

"I-I-I - No, but I-I was just - I mean, I have permission - or, I mean - um, I was just looking - b-but-" the boy babbled painfully and Draco shut him up simply by holding his hand up in the universal gesture for "Stop, you idiot."

He looked at the boy doubtfully, his eyes falling to the Slytherin crest on his spindly chest and then rising back to the wide-eyed face. He looked back towards Harry with a frown but Harry mouthed forcefully, "Your problem, not mine!"

This wasn't turning out as amusing as he'd expected, as the boy trembled in front of him. Though it was a bit funny to see small children quake with the fear that he might avada kedavra them on the spot, never knowing that he couldn't even if he wanted to. He squinted at the boy. "All right then, no big deal. Everyone and their brother has snuck into the Restricted Section. Though not many have been caught by a Death Eater." He grinned predatorily and the boy paled predictably.

The student managed to stutter out, "I-I was just going to do some research. For class."

"Really? What class?"

The boy's mouth flapped uselessly, making him look more like a fish now than a mouse. "H-h-history."

"I thought you lot didn't have history class," Draco pointed out.

The boy squeaked. "Th-that's why!" he explained quickly. "I've got OWLs at the end of the year and we don't even have a syllabus!"

Draco looked down at the boy, who was apparently a fifth year, though he hardly looked it. He wrinkled his nose - the kid reminded him of an unfortunately male, young Granger. "What are you studying?"

"G-Grindelwald," the boy barely whispered the name of the old Dark Lord, his eyes darting nervously to the Dark Mark on Draco's arm and then back into the man's face, eyes wider than ever.

Draco sighed in annoyance. He decided that it wasn't actually that much fun to have children scared spitless just by looking at you. Not without earning it, anyhow. Stepping around the trembling Slytherin, he looked at the shelves, pulling off a few of the best books on Grindelwald's reign. He handed these to the boy, who automatically took them with his trembling hands, then warned him, "An alarm will go off if you try to take them out of the library and then you'll have all hell to pay."

He turned away and walked back to the table where Harry was waiting with a mocking smile plastered smarmily on his face. "Oh, that was so sweet, Malfoy," he said in a cloying voice. "Playing nice with the ickle students, are we?"

His teasing got him a swift, hard kick in the shin and he bit down on a muffled curseword, grabbing at his leg in pain. The Slytherin student was still staring in their direction with all the horror worth that dream where you're standing in front of the entire school naked. Malfoy waved a dismissive hand at him and the boy scrambled away, back into the safety of the main library, where there were people and, more importantly, witnesses - in case he were to be killed by a rogue Death Eater.

For the sake of his rapidly decreasing unbruised flesh, Harry didn't say anything more about Draco's run-in with the student. They continued going through the books, with fewer interruptions from Harry, as he grew accustomed to what was unimportant and had to ask fewer questions. They worked through lunch without noticing and it wasn't until Hermione showed up at half one and discreetly pulled several napkin-wrapped meat pies from her bag that they noticed their own hunger.

She looked around guiltily, as the two men snatched at the food, and hissed quietly, "Why didn't you two come down to lunch?" She dropped into the chair next to Harry and wailed softly, "I shouldn't even be bringing food into the library! I'm a professor, for goodness' sake, a role model!"

Draco rolled his eyes at her paroxysms of shame and shoved another meat pie in his mouth, noting the crumbs that dropped onto the parchment pages in front of him. Hermione sighed and asked, "Have you two found anything?"

Draco consulted his notes, written out with a biro in a regular, Muggle moleskin notebook he'd had in his bag. "We've had nine very hypothetical mentions of taking away another wizard's magic: two as a sort of temporary paralysis that might be used in a duel, four as ways to combat future Dark Lords, and three as permanent punishment for criminals. None with any empirical evidence or even sound theory to back them up, though." He tapped his pen against the paper, as he moved down his list. "The squib research mostly consists of ways of making squibs 'comfortable,' and occasional theoretical work on why they lack magic, but little to even suggest a direction for providing them with their own magic. On the front of power-mad wizards trying to increase their powers, there's a whole list of things that haven't worked, including ridiculous potions, ceremonies, widely varied usage of magical and nonmagical creatures - who knows what they thought a sheep could do for them or why they'd even think of trying to stick their-"

Harry interrupted him by clearing his throat emphatically. Draco winked at him and then continued, "At any rate, we can cross about a hundred idiotic failed ideas off the list, but that only leaves, oh, everything else in the known world. Of course, these were all attempts to make those who already had power even more powerful, so likely they wouldn't apply to this particular situation anyway." He turned the page in his notebook and then looked up at Hermione to say, "I found one very veiled and couched and incredibly old reference to attempts at making Muggles able to use magic, back before there was a split between the magical and Muggle worlds. But if there is anything to be read on the subject, I would guess that it would be in that 'vault' of yours."

Hermione hummed consideringly. "That's the first I've even heard of it."

"It was for me, as well," Draco said. "It would have been long before even the Founders' time, though, and not many records exist that are that old. And it seems unlikely that they succeeded, or why would there still be Muggles?"

Her hand hovering at her lips, Hermione was looking away with an abstracted and fascinated expression. "I wonder if they didn't do experiments of some sort though. I mean, no one knows why exactly there are Muggleborns. What if, hundreds or thousands of years ago, wizards experimented on Muggles... making magic a sort of recessive trait..."

"But if magic were a recessive trait," Draco protested, "that is carried and expressed in pureblood families, how would you explain squibs? Both of their parents must be carriers and so there is no way, according to Mendelian genetics, that squibs would be born. They would have to be complete sports - genetic mutations."

Hermione stared at him speechlessly after this completely scientific statement and Harry dropped into the conversation, explaining, "He watches a lot of BBC."

Draco continued unbothered, "But squibs appear at least every couple of generations, even in families as pure as the Malfoys. That seems far too high a rate for mutation. Although I suppose that with a reduced gene pool..." He trailed off, lost in thought.

Harry had little input, so he simply asked, "So does any of this genetic speculation help with Malfoy's problem?"

Hermione shook herself from her reverie. "No," she said distractedly, "even if magic is a gene, there shouldn't be a way for someone else to shut off a gene or 'take it away' with a curse. Whatever happened to Malfoy's magic must also be magical, not biological." She frowned. "I think."

Draco fingers danced over his notebooks, tapping out an impatient pattern. "That's where we're at then. Still few or no practical leads and we're nearly two-thirds the way through the Restricted Section. I almost wonder if we shouldn't just move on to this 'vault' immediately. I don't really think we'll find anything here."

Hermione thought she agreed, but she said rallyingly, "But you may find more references like that last one, which will give us ideas of what to look for in the vault." She tried to smile encouragingly at the two men. "Besides, it's not like we have any sort of time limit, right?"

"No one turning back to pumpkins tonight," Draco muttered, slightly bungling his fairy-tale reference.

Hermione's eye twitched ever so slightly and Harry assured her that, "Yes, he usually is this odd."

After a quick unsure glance in Draco's direction, Hermione focussed on the man next to her, saying cautiously, "Harry, I wanted to talk to you before you met with McGonagall this evening."

Harry knit his fingers together and stared as his palms, seeing Draco's message again. He gave a quick snort of laughter. He'd almost forgot that he was still covered with writing. He ought to ask Hermione to get him the removal formula from the joke shop down in Hogsmeade.

Draco pushed his chair back and stood up, causing the other two to look up at him. "I'm just going to kip off to the kitchens," he lied easily. "I'm still a bit hungry." It was clear that Hermione wanted to speak to Harry without him around and Draco was getting quite used to it. People always wanted to speak with Potter.

He walked out of the Restricted Section, noting that Granger didn't even suggest for a moment that he should stay for the conversation. Strolling aimlessly through the library - not really wanting to go down to the kitchens since he would surely run into Dobby, whose pathetic attitude had always bothered him so much more than Merry's downright nastiness - he came across the Slytherin boy who he had caught earlier sneaking around the Restricted Section.

He dropped into a hard wooden chair across from the boy, causing him to look up and then give a terrible start. "Still here?" he asked mildly. "Don't you have any classes?"

The boy glanced at his magical wristwatch nervously and then relaxed slightly in relief, answering automatically, "Not for another hour."

"You've been here this whole time?" Draco asked with bland curiosity, tinged with annoyance. The kid really was like Granger, spending an entire free morning in the library.

Nodding, the boy's eyes shot nervously from the books in front of him up to Draco's blank face and then around the room. Clearly he shouldn't ignore the man in front of him but he had no idea what to say to the strange visitor. He mumbled, "Thanks for getting the books for me."

Draco continued to watch the boy closely, wondering how he could possibly survive in Slytherin, unless things had changed that much since he'd been in school. He asked perfunctorily, "Are they what you needed?"

"Yes," the boy replied, his voice less wobbly, "though I think reading them might just give me more questions than answers."

"Like what?"

The boy shrugged. "Like why did no one try to stop Grindelwald before he was so ridiculously powerful? Didn't they notice him forming alliances with all the Dark creatures, like the werewolves and the vampires? Didn't they notice how the people who opposed him all tended to die or 'disappear?'"

"People don't like to notice Dark Lords, until they can't help it any longer," Draco explained in an old voice. "Those who did try to do something or speak up against him, as you said, all ended up dying or disappearing. You might think that when people saw that happening, they would get up in arms about it. But in the end, most people are simply weak - easily scared and selfishly wanting to live." He glanced at the open pages of the book in front of the boy, where there was an illustration of Grindelwald at the height of his power. "Many people will keep trying to bury their heads in the sand, ignoring what is happening around them until it is too late. It's only human nature - after all, it would be hard and painful and almost certain death if you were to fight. Why not hope that someone else will do it for you? Why not hope that you won't have to do anything at all?

"You may be too young to remember the former Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, but you should research his career if you want to see a real example of how tremendously far some people will go to try to ignore or deny what is happening around them." The boy quickly scratched the name down on a piece of scratch parchment and Draco continued, "But it's also a fault of our society. For the most part, people have become lazy. They are used to their peaceful, easy lives. When something goes wrong, the people don't do anything. They wait for one person - an Albus Dumbledore or a Harry Potter - to fix things for them. But eventually they will end up waiting too long and they will lose a war against the Dark, unless they learn to band together and fight for themselves."

The boy was staring at him with wide eyes. He'd been alive during the last war, of course, but too young to feel its effects, other than being unable to go out alone to play and not going to shop in Diagon Alley for a year or so. The man in front of him, though, made war seem like something urgent and real. He asked, "But weren't there groups like the Order of the Phoenix?"

"There was the Order," Draco agreed, but not very warmly, "and during Grindelwald's time there was the so-called Light Brigade. They both had their little missions - trying to foil minor plots and kicking up skirmishes. But in the last century or more, it has almost always come down to just one person doing the actual work to bring down the entire establishment."

He noticed Hermione standing several feet away and listening to his conversation openly. He pulled a face, not wanting to be accused of anything. Standing up again, he muttered, "And there ends our history lesson." He brushed past Hermione and back to the Restricted Section. Hermione let him go with only a measuring look.

When he got back to the table where Harry was waiting, he saw that the other man had a sour expression. He asked about it and Harry looked up at him in surprise. "That was quick," he said, still assuming that Draco had gone all the way down to the kitchens and back. Then he explained, "Oh, Hermione just wanted to talk to me about the possibility that someone really has been using spells like the Unplottable Charm on me. She wanted to know if I had any doubts about whether you could have had something to do with it, since she's afraid that McGonagall might bring it up tonight."

"And you don't? I assume, since you're telling me about it."

Harry laughed weakly. "If I still had any questions left, I could make you answer."

"I told you not to waste your last question," Draco said, before reminding him happily, "I still have questions."

Rolling his eyes, Harry said, "Yes, I know. But anyway, I don't really think you had anything to do with it. I can't see what good it would do you."

"That's true," Draco mused, "in fact, if I'd known where you were earlier, I probably would have taken wild advantage of it, selling embarrassing photos of you to the press and making your whereabouts public so that you would be tormented by an endless stream of fanmail, loveletters and tourists."

Harry shuddered just to hear it. He dragged a book back in front of him and said bleakly, "Back to work?"

"Back to work," Draco agreed, his own voice becoming grim.

They finished going through their current selections and then reshelved them before starting a new search. Draco remembered something Hermione had said the day before and asked suspiciously, "Didn't your mate say that she would be helping us out more today?"

"Apparently," Harry said, not sounding like he believed it much himself, "she is doing so by getting us clearance to enter that damned 'vault' of hers. She made it sound like quite a lot of paperwork and spellwork to do." He put a couple more volumes back into their proper spaces. "I bet she's just using us as an excuse to get in - from what she said, even the professors at Hogwarts aren't allowed regular access. Only for special research projects can they get permission. That's how fragile and sensitive the stuff they keep down there is."

Draco laughed. "I wouldn't be surprised - we're probably looking like a godsend, if we get her down there. Who's going to refuse Harry Potter, after all? Even if he is accompanied by, gasp, a Malfoy. She must be having nerdy, bookish orgasms this minute, as she thinks about all the rare knowledge to be had."

Harry made a horrified face, not wanting to even think of Hermione and orgasms in the same sentence. He didn't care if they were both mature, consenting adults - as far as he was concerned, Hermione would always be a skinny little eleven year old with big teeth who would never ever have sex of any kind. Draco sniggered, guessing well what was going through Harry's prudish mind.

He leaned close and whispered into Harry's ear in a very naughty tone, his breath tickling against the other man's neck, "That's right, Potter: sex. Sexy sex."

A shiver ran through the dark-haired man and he swatted Draco away from him like an annoying mosquito. "Ugh," he made a disgusted noise. "Just... ugh. No sexy sex for Hermione."

Draco stepped away to put the last of his books away. "Shall I tell her you said so?"

"Only if you want to talk to Hermione Granger about sex," Harry said, hissing the last word under his breath.


"Naw, she's not my type."

Harry couldn't help asking, "Then who is? Pansy Parkinson?"

Draco shuddered and it seemed real. "Oh, no, don't even say it." Then he raised his light eyebrows. "Though she does have lovely, dark hair." His eyes lingered on Harry and he said, "I am partial to dark hair."

Harry felt a slight heat in his face and spoke rudely to hide it, "Probably because you're an albino yourself, you ferret."

Draco seemed genuinely offended and went into a long lecture on how highly coveted his fair looks were and how it had taken hundreds of years of perfect breeding to look as perfect as he did. This led to Harry likening him to a pedigree dog and soon enough they were about to start another wrestling match right there in the library. It was probably for the best that the sound of their argument reached Madame Pince and had her running to the Restricted Section to scold them furiously. With a harsh promise to kick them out if she heard another single noise, she huffed back to her desk.

The men went back to searching through the books, a bit sheepish and muttering unfavourable comments about Madame Pince and her surely inhuman disposition. They managed to search through the rest of the books and by the time they carted all of the ones worth investigating back to their work table, it was nearing three. They set themselves back to work furiously, determined to be done with the Restricted Section before dinner, since they hardly wanted to have to reshelve and then refind all the books if they left any until the next day. Draco had Harry pull out his wand again to perform a quick spell over all the books, which would highlight the words 'magic,' 'loss,' 'gain,' 'curse,' 'muggle,' 'squib,' and 'power' wherever they appeared in the thousands of pages. Now with their eyes darting from one highlighted section to the next, they flipped through the books quicker than ever before. If Draco had believed for a moment that they might actually find something useful, he would have taken his time to carefully read each page. But he was almost entirely convinced by now that if there was any hope to be found, it would lie between the pages of the rare texts in the Hogwarts vault.

Just slightly after seven and already running late for dinner, Draco closed the cover on the last book. Harry had finished several minutes before and was already back in the stacks, reshelving his books. Draco's head fell back against his chair limply. He glanced under his eyelashes at the notes he'd made in his notebook. There were less than five pages. Two days straight of reading everything that the Restricted Section had to offer had resulted in less than five pages of notes, and most of them just describing crazy unsuccessful attempts of wizards to increase their power. Nowhere was there a single mention of an actual, completed curse that could take away a wizard's power, as had been done to Draco.

Picking up the books tiredly, he reminded himself that the curse could have well been one of Voldemort's cruel inventions. The Dark Lord really had been a magical genius - the only known wizard to successfully split his soul into so many pieces and store each in a horcrux - and it could be that no one would ever know how he'd done it, let alone how it might be fixed. Draco had suspected as much since he'd first exhausted all the books in his family's sizeable library and found no clues. He carried his books over to where Harry was still shelving and said with exhausted amusement, "Can you imagine if Voldemort really created the curse himself? The curse to remove a wizard's magic - the very curse that his enemies wished to use against him? Of course he would have thought it perfect irony to use on his enemies in return, the fucking bastard."

Harry paused with a book in hand, looking up at Draco. This was the first time he'd heard Draco sound so venomous about the Dark Lord. Their fruitless research was obviously getting to him. The blond sighed and dropped to the ground, leaning against book shelves as his eyes fell shut. He let Harry continue to move around him, putting books away. "I guess," Draco admitted weakly, "that I really still had some hope left. I didn't think that I did. But being back here again - being surrounded by magic, living it, breathing it, flying in it..." His voice had grown so faint that it disappeared into the silence.

Harry continued picking up the last of Draco's books to put away. He wasn't sure what else to do. Malfoy had never been this open with him, of his own will, without questions or tricks. He'd never been this serious, Harry didn't think, in any of their discussions. His eyes still shut against the useless books around them, Draco murmured, "I must have really believed that I could come back. But now that I'm back here, in the world that I grew up in, everything just reminds me of how - how crippled I am." He opened a silver eye a crack and focussed on Harry. "I saw the look you gave me last night," he said wryly, "when you came in and I was sitting alone in the dark. As if I were just drunk and crazy."

He opened both eyes then and looked down at his hands. "I couldn't even turn on the lights, Potter."

Harry started, understanding flooded him with the pain and embarrassment Draco must have felt. He'd been a fool yet again, hadn't he?

"There were no switches, no electricity, not even candles. All I could do was watch the fire dying." Harry placed the last book on its shelf and sat gingerly down next to the other man. Draco's eyes flicked toward him and then back to the ground. He continued, "At home, Merry knows to always keep all the lights on and fires going at night, unless I tell him not to. I know how to live there."

He leaned almost imperceptibly against Harry, their shoulders brushing in the lightest of touches, and muttered, "I knew how to be normal there."

The sat in silence for several minutes. Harry kept almost thinking of things to say, but then swallowing them unsurely. He wanted to say that it was all his fault, that they'd find a way, that he was sorry, that Draco was just being a prat, that things hadn't been that great in Wiltshire anyway, that-

But before he said anything, Draco shook himself from his reverie. He sat up straighter and said lightly, "We've already missed half of dinner. If we want to get anything to eat before our little soiree with McGonagall, we'd better get going."

Draco jumped to his feet and held a hand out to Harry expectantly. Harry reached up unthinkingly to take it and Draco jerked him to his feet, before hurrying back to the worktable to gather his notebook and bag. He met Harry back at the entrance to the Restricted Section, with a cheeky, "Shall we?"

Harry was still looking at him with a serious, slightly sad expression. Draco punched him lightly in the shoulder and admonished him, "Come on now, Potter. It's not the end of the world. You should know - you were nearly there."

He led them both back down to the Great Hall yet again and even though they were late and even though he had said all those things earlier, he sauntered into the crowded room oozing confidence and charm. Harry shuffled after him, and they headed to the two empty seats, once again, at the end of the table. The staff looked at them curiously, as did the students eating their dinners, and Hermione hissed as they passed her, "Where have you two been?!"

They took their seats and food appeared on their plates instantly. They barely had time to finish their meal (and for Draco to finish half a bottle of wine) before dinner ended and McGonagall looked down at their end of the table expectantly. They both stood up obediently and joined her at the centre of the table, then she whisked them out of the room. They took the long path to the Headmistress's office in silence and Harry couldn't help a little shiver of apprehension. He still remembered walking this route.

They paused in front of the phoenix statue that guarded the entrance to McGonagall's office. The woman said sharply, "Deep-fried Mars bars," and then with one amused glance at Draco's surprised face, she stepped onto the rotating staircase that had appeared behind the statue. The men scrambled on after her and they were all transported up into the tower.


The inside of the office hadn't changed as much as Harry might have expected. McGonagall had chosen to keep the various magical bric-a-brac that had typified the room as Dumbledore's, while adding little touches of her own. Harry sat in the lefthand chair in front of the Headmistress's desk, the one he had always sat in during visits with Dumbledore. He craned his head up and found the old wizard's portrait on the wall, feigning sleep as all the past headmasters and headmistresses did when there were visitors around. As Harry watched the familiar old face, though, one sky-blue eye peeked open. From behind a painted set of half-moon glasses, Dumbledore's gaze slid from Harry to Draco and then back again. He gave Harry a subtle wink and then his eyes fell shut again.

Harry couldn't help smiling, even though he still felt a slight stinging pain behind his eyes. He felt as if Dumbledore, with that one telling glance, had wanted to remind him of the last time the three of them had been together: on the top of the Astronomy Tower, with Harry paralysed under his father's Invisibility cloak and Dumbledore trying to convince Draco to redeem himself. He wanted to tell Dumbledore that it had worked; that Draco had done the right thing in the end. But of course Dumbledore knew. He'd never doubted it.

Speaking of Draco, the blond had taken the other chair in front of the desk and was reaching inside his bag for something. He pulled out an expensive looking bottle and placed it on the table in front of McGonagall, who had taken her own seat behind the broad desk. She raised her thin eyebrows and picked up the bottle of port to look at the label appreciatively. She snapped her fingers and three small glasses appeared on her tabletop, one before each of them. Breaking the seal on the bottle, she filled a glass for Malfoy and then one for herself. She looked at Harry inquisitively and he nodded, still goggling at the sight of McGonagall and Malfoy sharing a companionable port after dinner.

When all three of them had glasses of port in hand, McGonagall raised hers slightly and offered, "To those who have gone."

Harry raised his glass silently in return and Draco said back cheekily, "To auld lang syne."

Then they all took sips of the heavy and sweet fortified wine. McGonagall was examining Malfoy again with a sharp eye, seeming more interested in him now than in her former student, Harry. Her question was directed at the blond - perhaps because she knew he was the reason that both men had come to Hogwarts or perhaps just because she wanted to hear what he had to say - when she asked, "How are you finding things back at Hogwarts?"

Draco drank from his small port glass before answering, "Quite well. Our research has been progressing quickly, though with little results yet. Granger told us of a vault where most of the real texts are kept, and we're hoping to move on to its stores soon, since we have already exhausted the library's Restricted Section."

"Yes, we should be able to arrange that," McGonagall agreed cautiously.

"I also," Draco continued demurely, "seem to recall a promise of biscuits?"

The old battleaxe herself, McGonagall cracked a small smile at the man's gall. She snapped her fingers again and this time, a tray of shortbread appeared on the table. "Since you seem so fond of Scottish culture," she quipped.

Draco took a finger of shortbread without complaint and after a moment, Harry did the same. McGonagall declined to take a biscuit but did take another sip of port. "I must tell you," she said, speaking again in Draco's direction, "that I had an interesting talk with Professor Granger this afternoon."

Draco only cocked one eyebrow in silent question and waited for her to continue, which she did quickly. "She seems to think that you, Mr Malfoy, would prove useful in supervising our history classes, at least until a suitable replacement can be found."

Draco choked slightly on his biscuit, but showed little other reaction. After painfully swallowing down the brittle crumbs that had stuck in his throat, he asked blandly, "Is that so?"

"Yes." McGonagall leaned forward a bit in her seat. "At the moment, we have Mr Filch watching the classes, but of course he doesn't teach them anything, only makes sure that no one ends up in the Hospital Wing. Professor Granger thought that you might be able to do an better job, perhaps even get them to focus on their studies."

Smiling narrowly, Draco suggested, "So you're hoping to switch one squib for another? Do you think we'll last longer than the wizards have?"

McGonagall seemed a bit surprised to hear Draco refer to himself as a squib, but she only said, "I'd be willing to have you take the classes on a temporary basis, if you'd care to. That way Mr Filch can get back to his regular duties, the students will still be supervised and you would even have an excuse to be here at Hogwarts for the time being."

"I see," Draco murmured. "It is all quite convenient, then, isn't it."

Harry wedged his way in to the conversation and asked, "Aren't you concerned about having thirty mad students, all determined to get rid of their professor, pointing their wands at you? And do you just expect me to carry on with your research, while you gallivant around with students?"

Draco's lips curled familiarly and he practically purred, "What are you saying, Potter? That you'd rather come 'protect' me in classes than do research?"

Harry blinked. It had sounded something like that, though. "Well, it's hardly fair if I'm the only one doing any work."

McGonagall inserted dryly, "I can assure you, Mr Potter, that being a professor is most definitely work."

Harry couldn't help an angry flush and he backpedaled, saying, "Of course it is." He still glared at the blond next to him. "I just meant - oh, never mind what I meant."

Draco picked up the bottle of port to refill McGonagall's glass and then his own. He asked the headmistress, "Could Potter tag along as well, then? And if we are doing you this favour by supervising your class, would you allow us to take texts from the vault, so that we can still make some progress on our research?"

McGonagall picked up her freshly refilled glass and drank from it thoughtfully. Books were occasionally lent out of the vault (though they never left Hogwarts herself) but it was usually a privilege awarded only to the most trusted and prestigious scholars. She didn't really need Malfoy that much.

She looked over the blond in front of her once more. His face was schooled into a blandly confident mask, as if it didn't matter to him either way. Perhaps it really didn't. But he seemed to have grown from the sneaky boy she had once taught Transfiguration to. She remembered how he had faced her request that they come to her office fearlessly and even mockingly. And she recognised a little piece of her former colleague, Severus, in that brazen disregard. She didn't need Malfoy, but she did want to see what he could make of her impossible students.

"I will allow it. Though never more than three books at a time. I won't have piles of our most valuable manuscripts lying around where any student could pick them up. In return, you will take the history of magic classes beginning tomorrow, with the second years."

Draco nodded and leaned forward, holding his hand across the desk for her to shake. Once again she was slightly surprised by the Muggleness of the gesture. Not that wizards didn't shake hands, but most would not trust any less than a magically binding contract when agreeing to something. She clamped her hand firmly around his and gave it a quick shake. That would take care of the classes until she could find a proper replacement yet again.

Almost as an afterthought, she turned to Harry, who had been left out of most of the conversation. He was still blinking and looking slightly dazed at the prospect of Malfoy being offered a position at Hogwarts, even a temporary one. No one was offering him anything of the sort, and he was Harry fucking Potter, as the writing on his forehead still declared.

After answering McGonagall's remaining questions about what had brought them to Hogwarts and what exactly they were hoping to accomplish during their stay, the two men were released back out onto the spiral staircase. They rode down in silence and finally Harry asked, "Why the hell did you have a bottle of port in your bag?"