As It Should Be

1.

It begins on a normal day. Draco wakes and the first thing he does is look in the mirror. His skin is still flawless, his hair untangled, and that dimple that has plagued him his whole life is perhaps a shade less pronounced than it had been yesterday.

He still, Draco notes, hates Potter.

And that is as it should be.

2.

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"Oh, give it a rest, the both of you. Please."

The Mudblood walks off, disgusted, and Draco sneers at the Weasel, whose colouring is unfortunately clashing with his equally unfortunate hair. His hands clench and unclench at his sides and Draco knows a word from him would have Weasley ignoring his girlfriend's advice and flying at him with fists and blood-temper.

Draco smiles slowly and relishes the moment.

Later, in the infirmary, Granger visits, her mouth in a tight line. Draco leans past Pomfrey's ministrations to see her rest her forehead against the Weasel's and cry. Seems a bit much for a split lip and a black eye but then no one said Mudbloods were emotionally stable.

3.

Millicent leans across the table for the coffee and announces that she hasn't seen The Boy Who Bores (TM Draco Malfoy, double Potions, last Friday) since the weekend.

Draco's eyes find the spot on the Gryffindor table where the dullest trio of friends on the planet usually eats. The trio is a duo, he sees, and Weasley's plate is uncharacteristically empty.

4.

Draco sits in History of Magic and strokes the feather of his quill across his chin. Potter was at Quidditch practise on Saturday morning because it was Draco's turn to spy on Gryffindor tactics. He was at dinner that night and breakfast the following morning because Draco had learnt a new insulting Muggle gesticulation and had been practising on Potter. It was amusing to see Potter drop his drink in shock.

Try as he might, though, Draco can't recall Potter being anywhere after that.

Millicent, damn her, was right. And there was something surely wrong about Draco Malfoy not noticing Harry Bloody Potter's absence for three whole days.

5.

"He could be dead." Pansy, a gleeful Death Eater's daughter if there was ever one, sprawls across his bed, unladylike. His mother wouldn't approve and he doubts Pansy's would either.

"They'd have told us." Draco selects a dubious-looking green Every Flavour Bean and pops it into his mouth. Oh, good. Peppermint. He tosses the rest of the packet to Pansy, who pours them onto the dark-green, velvet blanket his mother sent him for Christmas and sifts through the flavours with black-polished nails.

"There's nothing for it, darling, you're going to have to ask a Gryffindor."

Draco had been worried it might come to that. As worried as a Malfoy could be, anyway.

6.

"We don't know, Malfoy."

This is inconceivable. "What do you mean you don't know?" Draco demands, quite forgetting to use one of his usual insulting nicknames for her.

"We don't know." Granger closes her eyes as if this conversation is difficult, when all Draco needs is straight answers. "He just vanished."

"Hermione," the Weasel hisses, once again. "Shut. Up."

"Why?" She turns on him, much to Draco's surprise. "Why should I? No one's doing anything. Dumbledore won't tell us; your father won't tell us. They're shutting us out. He could be dead for all we know!" Her anger is extremely unattractive, making her look red and shiny all at once.

Disgusted by this display, Draco walks off, his hands in his pockets.

7.

He owls his mother. A futile gesture, since all of his owls home have gone un-answered since his father was sent to Azkaban. He doesn't trust any of his other relatives with this information; he doesn't want to trigger any unfortunate events just because Harry Potter went on holiday without telling anyone.

Potions is the only lesson that doesn't bore Draco and he sits at the front. Snape adores him, and not just because he's a Malfoy. Draco's potion is perfection, despite Goyle's attempts to wreck it. It's an immaculate shade of peppermint, smells like freshly-cut grass, and turns Goyle the right shade of evergreen for Draco to get an A+.

He turns to see what the Mudblood gets and realises for the first time that neither she nor the Weasel are present. When he catches Snape's eye, the professor glances hurriedly away.

8.

"You should talk to Dumbledore," Draco tells them. Snape has set them the task of cleaning all the potion vials by hand for missing out on his lesson. He did not deduct points from Gryffindor, however, which Draco finds very telling.

Granger's stubborn chin is firm. "We have, Malfoy."

"What kind of idiots do you take us for? Why don't you piss off, Malfoy?"

Draco ignores him. Despite the obvious blood taint, talking to Granger is infinitely preferable since she can keep her temper under control. "You clearly haven't expressed yourself well enough. I'll do it."

"What?" they chorus, like stupid seals, a useless animal with no redeeming features whatsoever.

"I'll do it. I'll talk to him."

9.

"Your concern does you credit, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco leans away from the phoenix that is attempting to nibble on his ear. He ineffectively bats the bird away. "Thank you, Headmaster. And Potter's whereabouts...?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you."

This is unexpected. "What do you mean – oh, blast!" The phoenix regards Draco curiously as he touches the blood at his ear.

"Oh, dear, Fawkes appears to have taken a quite a fancy to you. I don't suppose you like boys?"

Speechless, Draco puts a bloodied finger in his mouth and sucks.

10.

"He said 'cannot'. This means he knows where Potter is. He just can't tell anyone."

Draco paces his room, his robes flowing dramatically behind him. Pansy is using his mirror to brush out her hair and Blaise is going through his wardrobe, selecting his clothes for the weekend. "What about this, Draco?" Blaise asks, holding up a pair of dark grey, obviously summer-weight trousers.

"It's Hogsmeade and it's winter, Blaise, have some sense," Draco sneers. "Did you hear me? Potter's alive and Dumbledore knows it."

"Oh, certainly, Draco." Pansy pinches her cheeks and leans forward to inspect the effect. "But why on earth do you care?" Her reflection catches his eye and smiles coyly.

11.

Draco wakes up and no longer thinks he hates Harry Potter.

He decides to stay in bed for the rest of the day.

12.

It comes as something of a surprise that his mother's personal owl is waiting for him first thing in the morning. He sees straight away that it's her handwriting, though it is in dark-blue ink instead of the blood-red the family usually prefers.

Dearest, how strange. Nothing in the papers. I'd ask your father, but he would cackle, and you know how annoying that is. I hope he turns up; he inspires such passion in you. Love, your mother.

Passion? Draco feels slightly ill.

"What is it, darling?" Pansy strokes his arm.

"My mother. She... was obviously drunk when she wrote this." He burns the letter in the fire, ignoring Pansy's disapproving frown. She strokes his earlobe with a finger.

"Draco? When did you get this scar?"

13.

Potter is eating breakfast alone on the Gryffindor table when Draco comes down after a night of no sleep. He stops in the entrance and stares. "Potter."

Potter looks up, chewing on a huge mouthful of toast. He frowns, but not in an irritated way, more as if Draco's presence is unexpected. "Malfoy?"

Annoyed, Draco stalks over to stand opposite him at the table. Potter's hair is particularly untidy. "Where the hell have you been?"

He flushes. "Oh. Er. I can't – wait, why do you care?"

"Because... because... I have my reasons," Draco says enigmatically. "Let's not bring 'caring' into it, though."

"Fair enough." Potter smiles and reaches up to push back his hair. The scar is gone. "Voldemort's dead."

Draco is absolutely sure he's dreaming.

14.

He is not dreaming

15.

His mother kindly owls him a list of the family members being sentenced.

You will be glad to note that Uncle Tobias is not receiving the Dementor's Kiss, after all. Just lifelong imprisonment. Yours, your mother.

16.

It is a miserable Slytherin table that meets Draco first thing the following morning. He notes several missing – either they have been sent home or couldn't make it down to breakfast. He sighs and pours some orange juice for himself and for Goyle and Crabbe.

Slytherin is not the only house affected. A few Ravenclaws (useful minds) look particularly shunned on their table and there are even a cluster of Hufflepuffs (easily led, easily manipulated) clinging to one another. No Gryffindors, of course. Of course.

Harry Potter shows his non-existent scar to someone new, face bright. He looks strangely younger than before.

Draco fiddles with the scar on his ear and presents an uninterested face to his audience.

17.

"They're just waiting to snatch your mother, Malfoy. Just you wait."

Draco jerks back, shocked out of a standard retort. "No, they're not. They're not!"

The Weasel pulls back his lips. "Oh, yeah? Lucius Malfoy was the head Death Eater. The Ministry have been waiting to get their hands on your mother since he went to prison."

That this might be the case hadn't occurred to Draco, whose mother liked to cross-breed roses the Muggle way and didn't like cats because they had evil eyes. "They don't have any reason to imprison her!" he exclaims. "She's not a Death Eater." The very idea, Draco thinks, is ludicrous. Her mother would never sully herself with politics.

"Draco, darling, come away," Pansy whispers in his ear, a well-placed hand on his hip pressing harder than it might appear.

He insults Weasley's masculinity one last time before walking away, only realising later that he's shaking.

18.

Another owl home returns unsuccessful. He lets Pansy into his dormitory and allows her to curl around him as he reads The Daily Prophet from cover to cover every morning.

19.

"They'd tell you, Malfoy," Potter tells him when they bump into each other after the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff Quidditch match. (Dark Wizards may come and go but the Hogwarts Quidditch schedule will be kept to.)

Draco shrugs. "Doubt it, Potter." He lifts the corner of his mouth. "Not many of my relatives around, now."

"Yeah," Potter says. He reaches out and his hand stops just short of touching Malfoy's arm. "Um. Sorry."

"You should be." Draco sneers. "Everything was fine until you disappeared."

20.

Darling, sorry, things been a bit hectic. Ministry being bothersome. You should be aware that Professor Snape is your legal guardian, should anything happen to me. Yours eternally, your loving mother.

21.

Draco sets fire to his lab bench deliberately and Snape escorts him to the Headmaster's office. He rests his hand on Draco's shoulder for a long moment before walking back to his classroom to deal with Draco's mess.

Fawkes sidles up close to Draco who eyes him nervously.

"I've told him to behave, never fear, Mr. Malfoy. Peppermint crème? They're homemade." A tin is proffered and Draco takes a crumbly sweet. "Bad day?"

"They're going to take my mother away, aren't they?" He nibbles on the sweet slowly, peppermint sugar melting on his tongue and on his fingers, and stares into the fire.

"Your mother is innocent, am I correct?"

He swallows and nods fervently. "Absolutely."

"Then, you have nothing to fear."

Draco looks at his headmaster doubtfully. Stupid old man. "I see you are relying on justice, truth and all that nonsense."

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy. Justice. Truth. And all that nonsense." Dumbledore smiles, his beard twitching.

Fawkes clamps down on Draco's other ear and Draco cries silently because it hurts.

22.

Potter sits down next to him in Potions. "Hey," he says.

Draco stares. "What on earth are you doing?"

Potter rubs where his scar used to be. He does this a lot, Draco knows. "Er. I don't know if it's escaped your notice, Malfoy, but I'm terrible at Potions. I thought sitting at the front might help."

Pansy and Blaise watch with cat-like interest from another table.

Draco makes Potter drink their potion. He gulps it down, clasping a handful of his robe as he does so, and then steam starts trickling out of his ears and his glasses fog.

Snape looks amused. "Excellent, Mr. Malfoy. A+. Potter, B-."

This is blatant favouritism; Draco feels much better.

23.

"Snape?" Potter grimaces when Draco tells him (he doesn't know why; it just comes out). "Awful."

"At least I have a guardian."

"I had one, once. Sirius Black."

Draco has his family tree in his head, drummed in there from a childhood tutor who liked to emphasise Pureblood relations. "My mother was a Black."

Potter nods, much to Draco's surprise. "I know. Cousins, right?"

Draco hadn't known they were that close. The relationship had always been a much treasured one of his father's – Black was, after all, the one who had supposedly led Voldemort to the Potters – but his mother had always pursed her lips at his name and avoided the topic.

Draco notices, then, that they have been standing in the corridor for ten minutes and they are now all alone, the rest of Advanced Potions class having gone their separate ways.

Embarrassed, the both of them leave in opposite directions.

24.

Draco talks to his mother via the fireplace in his room. He calls her Mummy by accident and she laughs and tells him she's redecorating.

She seems fine. Draco isn't sure he is, though. Nothing is quite as it should be any more.

25.

Each day new Death Eater names are announced in the newspaper. Instead of smugness, he hears Granger ferociously complaining about the lack of privacy this leaves the families. "Honestly. It doesn't mean their entire family are Death Eaters. For instance, this woman had three children under the age of five," she declares, slapping a hand on the table. "And you can't tell me those children are minions of You-Know-Who."

"Yes. I can," Weasel snorts.

"Your mother collects singing teapots, Ron. Does that mean you do?"

"That's completely different –"

"It is not!"

Potter looks up and catches Draco's eye. Potter smiles and Draco sort of smiles back. Worryingly, he thinks his dimple shows.

26.

"He's been Kissed." Pansy sits at the end of her bed, holding Draco's hand tightly. "I never thought it would happen."

"How do you feel?" Draco asks, interested.

Pansy considers, looking down at the hem of her non-regulation length skirt. "I don't know. It's not like I liked him. He was going to marry me off to you, after all."

Draco blinks. "Really? Did I know this?"

Pansy's purple-slicked lips are a thin line of disapproval. "This is about me now, Draco. Please do try to focus."

He strokes her hand with his thumb. "Sorry."

"Gosh. What a strange feeling. Do you know, I feel quite ill?"

27.

Draco's father is Kissed next. It is, indeed, a strange feeling. He sits in Dumbledore's office while it happens, Snape and the Headmaster sitting respectfully in silence.

Draco shivers violently when it's done and Snape hands him a glass of something that burns as it goes down. "Your mother will contact you tonight," he says, walking Draco back to the dorms afterwards.

28.

Potter's head wakes him in the night. It appears to be floating.

"What kind of Dark Art is this?" Draco asks, sleepily.

Potter's body flows and appears. His pyjamas are checked in red and yellow. Predictable. And quite hideous. "Invisibility cloak."

"That explains a lot," Draco says, dryly, touching the fabric of the cloak and watching his fingers reappear and disappear. "Mother had a dress made out of this material for Halloween, once. It was eerie."

"Your mother's okay, then?"

"Oh, yes, they've lived in separate wings since I was five."

Potter’s brows draw together. "Oh."

"Arranged marriage, Potter."

"They do things differently in families like yours."

Draco tries on a sneer but it doesn't go with his pyjamas. (They have bats on them.) "They do things properly." He thinks he probably wouldn't mind being married to Pansy, after all. They could have separate wings. "Why are you here?"

"I'm not entirely sure." He pulls a box out of his back pocket and proffers it hesitantly. "I brought some cards."

Potter, Draco thinks, is a little odd.

29.

"How did you kill him?"

"Sword."

"Cool."

30.

In the morning, Draco leans very close to his mirror and finds another dimple, a twin of the one on his other cheek. It's less pronounced, but visible nonetheless.

"It'll only be a problem," Potter says, sleepily, from the end of the bed where he curled up with Draco's spare blanket, "if you start smiling more."

"Well, that's not going to happen."

Potter yawns and stretches and Draco forgets, for a moment, to watch his own reflection, and watches Potter's instead. "Just think what'll happen if Snape catches me in here."

Draco smiles and then gasps, leaning forward again. "Oh, bollocks, I think I've found another one."

Potter snickers. "Leave it to you to get a third dimple."

The dimple turns out to be a newly forming spot, which Draco blames on the plebeian proximity of Potter. He hates Harry Potter.

And that is exactly how it should be.