Fear

When Ginny came back from the bathroom Hermione had left to go get into her own bed, where Mrs Weasley would find her when she came in to wake the two of them up. Harry was sitting alone at the end of Ginny's bed unsure whether or not he should still be there, after when Hermione has just said to him. Ginny pushed the door open and beamed when she saw him still sitting there.

"Did Hermione go back downstairs?" Ginny asked, sounding as if she didn't really mind.

"Yeah," said Harry, "she figured she'd better warm her bed up a bit if your Mum's to believe she spent the whole night in it!" The pair of them shared a quick giggle.

"We may as well get dressed then," Ginny said.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, pleased that she had excused him - he hadn't wanted to appear is if he wanted to leave. "Thanks for last night," he said, aware of how odd it sounded. Ginny seemed to pick up on this too.

"Don't say it like that," she smiled, "but any time though." Harry smiled back at her and quickly left the room.

He went to make his bed, and found that the sheets were still slightly damp with his sweat, though it was now cold. He straightened the pillow and shook the sheet before grabbing his towel off the radiator and going downstairs to the shower.

As the warm water ran over his body he looked down at it critically. He followed his hands with his eyes as he soaped himself over, the bubbles coursing away down the contours of his lightly defined physique. His chest was shapely, if not bulging, and there was a faint ripple of muscle across his stomach. He smiled slightly and looked at his upper arms while he reached over his left shoulder with his right hand to wash his back. His shoulders and upper arms were better defined, and as he held his arms out slightly in front of him and allowed the water to run down them before it showered off the ends of his fingers onto the marble base of the shower tray, he could see thick veins running down from his shoulders right to the tops of his fingers, interconnecting and twining all around. Harry had always been fascinated by these. He rinsed the rest of his body to rid it of soap, then turned the shower off. He stood for a while dripping, before finally stepping out from behind the screen and grabbing his towel. He towelled his hair first, then the rest of his body. He stood before the mirror over the basin, the towel now tied around his middle, falling to just above his ankles. He took a comb from the shelf and firstly combed his hair back as he usually did before, as usual, watching it all flop right back forward, save for the bit that always stuck up at the back.

Satisfied with his appearance, he looked for a moment at his glowing body, warm from the shower, then gave his reflection a quick smile before leaving and trekking back upstairs to get dressed.

He went downstairs once he was fully clothed, to find a small pile of mail on the kitchen table.

"Book lists have arrived," Mrs Weasley announced to him as he entered. Harry was surprised to see that though Ginny was already engrossed in her booklist, Ron and Hermione had not yet appeared for breakfast. He went to the mail pile and extracted his own envelope. It felt a little thicker than usual, but perhaps it was just so long since Harry had received any mail that he was feeling a little optimistic about it.

Hermione and Ron slunk into the kitchen at that point, looking a little red in the face. Harry raised his eyebrows from the seat he had taken opposite the door, but both looked away rather quickly, and sat either side of Ginny.

"Well its about time you two made an appearance this morning," Mrs Weasley called over to them, in her most accusing voice, "what's been keeping you?"

Ron looked horrified at his mother's question, and looked around Ginny at Hermione, who was concentrating very hard on opening her envelope without tearing it.

"Well, I can see that I'm not going to get an answer out of either of you - perhaps you wouldn't sleep so late into the morning if you weren't sharing a bedroom," she said after a short while.

"It's not anything like that," Ron said, very loudly. He seemed immediately aware that he had sounded incredibly defensive.

"Like what?" Mrs Weasley asked, her eyebrows raised, and her suspicion apparently confirmed, "I know what its like when friends share rooms - you stay awake all night talking." The stress she placed on the last word made both Ron and Hermione turn red, and Harry felt his stomach twist in sympathy for them both. He let his attention fall back to his letter, granting his two friends a little less embarrassment by stopping staring at them.

Harry slid his knife under the fold of the parchment tongue of the envelope, and slit it open. Inverting the envelope, his caught the wad of parchment which fell from it. Tossing the envelope onto the table, Harry flipped open the booklist. Scanning it quickly, he realised that there were no textbooks required which he didn't already own. He was about to point out to Ron and Hermione that they hadn't been set a new Defence Against the Dark Arts book, when the second piece of parchment caught his eye.

Dear Mr Potter,

Over the past year you have made a very positive impression on the school's management and governors. As such you have been selected for the role of Gryffindor Prefect, effective immediately. Obviously this position comes with a significant degree of responsibility, though this is offset somewhat by the preference you will receive in other areas.

You will be required to attend a short Prefects' meeting with the Head Boy during the train journey to Hogwarts, however the patrols throughout the transit are the sole responsibility of Fifth Year prefects.

You have furthermore been appointed Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, following the graduation of Angelina Johnson last summer. This position also carries a significant degree of responsibility.

Your selection for both of these positions at Hogwarts is indicative of the confidence your teachers and the governors have in your ability to balance this double responsibility, as well as you academic studies. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success with your studies and charges this year.

Albus Dumbledore

P.S. - The password to the Prefects' bathroom is still pine fresh!

Harry stared at the letter, and as he did so, a large red and gold badge materialized at the bottom of the letter. Moments later, the gold triple-stripes of a Quidditch captain appeared also.

Harry became aware that he had been completely silent for the past five minutes when Mrs Weasley brought him a glass of orange juice. As she placed the glass down on the table in front of him, Harry was still hidden behind his pages of parchment.

"My you've got a lot there," she said, moving behind him to read over his shoulder. As she did so, she spotted the badge and the stripes.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, "Well done! You three - look!"

At Mrs Weasley's exclamation, Ron, Hermione and Ginny rushed over to join her. Harry suddenly felt three sets of arms fasten themselves securely round his neck as Mrs Weasley, Hermione and Ginny all hugged him at the same time. Harry could hear Ron cheering, and saying that there was no way Gryffindor could lose the house cup this year.

"Go get your Quidditch robes, Harry dear," Mrs Weasley told Harry as the cleared away the empty breakfast plates, "I'll sew your stripes on for you." Harry started to say it was OK, and he'd do them himself, and not to worry, but Mrs Weasley overrode him. "Oh come on, it'll only take a second, and I know what you boys are like a sewing. Go on." Harry grinned at her and she smiled back as he left the room.

The remainder of the holiday passed with little event. People had stopped by to ongratulate Harry, but for the most part Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny had been keeping themselves amused. Dumbledore had spoken to Harry before he left, promising he would personally give Harry Occlumency lessons once they were back at school. Though he did not let on very much at all of what Ron had been able to tell him, Harry got the impression that Voldemort was gleaning much more information from his mental link with Harry than any of the Order had ever imagined.

"It is still important for you to practise your mind-clearing exercise before going to bed each night, Harry," Dumbledore had said, "even if it is not particularly effective at this stage, even if you only make it the slightest bit harder for Voldemort to enter your mind, it will be worth it."

Harry thought about these words as he sat in the Ministry car Mr Weasley had borrowed, sliding through the narrow streets towards King's Cross Station, where the Hogwarts Express would be waiting at Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters. They were running later than anyone would have liked; when the station came in sight they had ten minutes to make it onto the train.

Before the car had even fully stopped moving, Mr Weasley had dashed out of it to go fetch luggage trolleys. Harry, Hermione and Ginny, with Mr Weasley's help and Mrs Weasley's encouragement, practically threw their trunks from the car onto the trolleys, before they all hurried into the station. They didn't even bother looking around to see if there were any Muggles watching before they plunged through the magical wall between platforms nine and ten, onto the wizarding platform nine and three quarters, such was their rush.

Most of the other students were already on the train as Mrs Weasley hurriedly handed out hugs and kisses and Mr Weasley helped those hugged and kissed with their luggage handing out his usual fruitless warnings against misbehaviour. As Harry stepped onto the train last, having received seconds of Mrs Weasley's affection, the steam surged and the pistons eased into motion.

They all paused to wave fervently at the shrinking, and ultimately disappearing figures of Ron and Ginny's parents before hauling their luggage off down the corridor to find a free compartment. They walked the end of the train before finding a compartment that was even half empty.

"Are there more people at Hogwarts this year?" Ron grumbled.

"Can't we sit in the Prefects'..." Harry began but was cut off both by Ginny's indignant protests and Hermione's matter-of-fact explanation that the rules had once again been changed so that only Fifth Year prefects, whose responsibility it was to monitor behaviour on the train, were permitted to sit in that compartment.

At the very end of the train they finally found a compartment that wasn't full. Harry slid the door open, and was lugging his trunk through the doorway when he spotted a diminutive figure with swept back blond hair sitting in the rearward facing seat by the window, where he had been quite hidden from Harry's glance through the sliding door of the compartment. They caught each others' gaze, and both scowled. Ginny stuck her head around the side of the opening to the corridor, to see what had eld Harry up. She rolled her eyes at the unmoving boys, before talking unnecessarily loudly over their silence.

"Shove along, both of you," she said, pushing Harry in the small of the back so that he had to proceed into the compartment for fear of cutting his shins on the edge of his trunk. "Looks like you lucked out, Malfoy," she continued, fixing him with a cold glare, "blood traitors, half-bloods and a Muggle-born to keep you company." She grinned simply at him, then manoeuvred herself into the compartment. Harry realised too late that Ginny had forced him to the seat opposite Malfoy, boxed in by herself and Hermione.

Harry was pleased to see that now all the Gryffindors had taken over the compartment, Malfoy sat with his head hung, staring either at the floor or determinedly out of the window. They were halfway through their fourth violent game of Exploding Snap before Harry remembered that Malfoy had been missing all summer. Ron didn't outwardly seem to mind, though Harry noticed that Ron's eyes would sometimes stray towards the Slytherin, then narrow and turn to Harry. There didn't seem to be any hint of conspiracy in his expression though, and every time Ron caught Harry looking at him in these situations, he would look abruptly away.

About an hour into the journey, Malfoy finally spoke. He had been staring at Harry's chest for about five minutes solid, before finally making a comment about the shiny new badge pinned to Harry's chest.

"Where'd you find that, Potter?" he sneered, "surely nobody made you a prefect."

"Actually they did," Harry retorted sharply, feeling the heat rise within him, "I think that getting your parents arrested and escaping their boss again had something to do with it, too - so thanks for that."

That was the first time that Harry had ever felt bad about something he had said to Malfoy. The boy looked obviously upset, but angry at the same time. He threw himself back into his chair and stared sullenly out of the window once again. Harry looked at Ron, then Hermione. Ron was grinning broadly while Hermione, predictably, looked reproachful towards Harry and concerned towards Malfoy. Harry and Ron simultaneously rolled their eyes at each other.

"There's Dean," Ginny said suddenly. She pushed past Hermione and out into the corridor. Harry saw Dean's eyes light up, then the pair of them vanished from sight as Dean led her back to his compartment. Ron didn't feel much like playing cards any more.

"You know, Ron, we should probably go see if the new prefects need any help with their patrolling," Hermione said, trying to distract Ron from his apparent disgust at Ginny's choice of boyfriend. Harry had an idea that Hermione had a better way to distract him in mind, but didn't say anything. He grinned knowingly between Ron and Hermione, the realised as they left the compartment that he was alone with Malfoy. He scowled and turned to survey the lightly built Slytherin, and was surprised to see that Malfoy was already looking at him.

"Yes?" Harry asked sarcastically. Malfoy didn't look abashed any more. He calmly opened his mouth and began to speak.

"I was just thinking, Harry," he said conversationally, "you and I - we're rather alike."

"What?" Harry asked bluntly, before continuing, "and by the way - my friends call me Harry; Potter will do from you, Malfoy." He had no idea why he was being so hostile, other than that that was how he and Malfoy had always dealt with each other. So why was Malfoy being so apparently magnanimous?

"As I was saying, Harry, you and I are rather alike. Unloved, uncared for, tortured childhoods - I've heard you had no friends at your Muggle school, I have no real friends - only forced acquaintances with people my father associates with." Draco paused.

"And now that neither of us have parents around ... mine'll be killed I suppose - the Ministry will never release them, and if they did the Dark Lord's Dementors would punish them most severely for failing to obtain the Prophecy from you."

"When you've had no parents for sixteen years, then we'll see how alike we are, Malfoy," Harry said quietly, but with such an edge to his voice he was subconsciously satisfied to see that Malfoy looked afraid.

"At least you can live in the knowledge that your parents loved you - died to protect you," he whispered, emotion and hurt clear in his tone, "I was only born to continue the Malfoy line. Father wanted a strong, popular son - I've failed him, he's had to make me what I am."

"Well that's not much, is it," Harry said spitefully, "and by the way - you can live in the knowledge that your parents are the reason mine are dead!" He started towards the door, but stopped when he heard Malfoy speak once again. He turned to glare at the boy, but found Malfoy meeting his eyes, though tentatively. Harry's stomach gave an indeterminable lurch as he saw the tears glistening in the grey eyes turned up towards him.

"I know," Malfoy whispered, shifting his head slightly to better look Harry in the eye. "Yours and countless others'. I am not responsible for what my parents have done, but I think about it, and have to live with it every day of my life."

Harry left the compartment, leaving the door open behind him. He had never thought about how the actions of a parent affected the attitude of other people towards a child. He initially found himself expecting not to care, but was a little unsettled when he found that he could see sense in what Malfoy had said, even to the point of feeling sorry for him. He stared out of the window as the world sped by, shrouded in darkness as rain clouds had gathered. As he watched the rain sliding down the window, no matter how hard he glared at it he could not stop himself feeling like he had been unnecessarily harsh in what he had said back in the compartment. He withdrew from his thoughts as he almost walked into Ron and Hermione who had just emerged, Harry noticed, from the boys' toilet compartment. He raised his eyebrows and didn't even get the chance to ask for an explanation before receiving one.

"Ron was trying to sort out some boys who were misbehaving, so I decided to give him some backup," Hermione rushed breathlessly. Trying not to give too much though to Hermione 'backing Ron up' or to whatever misbehaviour had occurred, Harry found himself starting off down the corridor, calling over his shoulder.

"Come on - prefects' meeting," he said, before turning forwards again and striding towards the head of the train. He could not help feeling a little left out. Not because he wanted to be fooling around with the pair of them, but because he felt a bit upset that they had left him in the exclusive company of Draco Malfoy so that they could go have their fun. Ron seemed to sense what Harry was thinking, or at least part of it.

"Sorry for leaving you on your own with Malfoy," he said, suddenly, "but we figured at least you could hold your own."

"What - while you were holding someone else's?" Harry asked, initially meaning it spitefully, but finding himself turning to grin at Ron, whose ears turned immediately pink. Hermione remained quite silent.

The three of them finally made it to the front compartment, which had gilt frames to the frosted glass that divided the compartment from the corridor. The head boy was sat beside the head girl, facing towards the sliding door which Harry, Ron and Hermione now passed through. Harry stopped in the doorway as he spotted the head girl - it was Cho Chang. He could almost hear Hermione's eyes rolling, but at that point his own gaze passed onto the head boy, a Hufflepuff whose name Harry didn't know. He moved into the compartment and sat.

"I suppose we'd better get started then," the head boy said, "we'll have to pass messages to those who aren't, or can't be, here."

He gave a short speech outlining the responsibilities of the prefects, and the appreciation he was sure he would feel if the duties were carried out efficiently and without question. Harry got the distinct impression from Ron's attitude that what he was saying was all standard stuff, and was probably largely the same as had been said by the head boy the previous year. Harry found himself wondering why Cho Chang had been chosen as head girl. She wasn't the most confident of girls, and Harry couldn't think of anything she could have done to have attracted sufficient attention to have been given the position. The only thing she was involved in other than her schoolwork, which Harry understood to be 'OK' at best, was Quidditch, which he considered her to be 'about average' at. In fairness, he reasoned, he couldn't think of anyone else who could have done any better, though he couldn't see her being a particularly effective organizer of prefects' duties. Indeed, she said not a word throughout the meeting - though the head boy seemed to have ably managed the entire spectrum of tasks.

"We've decided to organize the duties such that if we split you into pairs you can take care of them like that," the head boy explained. Harry reflected briefly that though he addressed the group confidently, his choice of words were perhaps not the most articulate. "We've split you down into pairs, as follows."

He began to read pairs of names from a roll of parchment Cho had just passed him. Perhaps she did do something then, Harry thought as the names continued. Ron and Hermione shifted slightly and unsuccessfully attempted to hide their grins when their names were read out together. Harry was still smirking slightly when he heard his own name. In the split second between his name and the one that was to follow, Harry felt a small tang of nervousness in his stomach - who would he be paired with. There would have been a time when he would have been sitting there hoping to be paired with Cho.

"Harry Potter ... Draco Malfoy," he said. Harry's stomach froze. He closed his eyes, resigning himself to a year of prefect duties with Malfoy. Malfoy. Why did he have to be paired with Malfoy? How was he going to prove himself to be a better prefect than Malfoy now that they had to work together?

The meeting ended and Harry was walking back down the corridor staring at the floor.

"It's not the end of the world, Harry," Hermione said, but Harry wasn't in the mood to be consoled. He had just been thinking about how he had felt when the head boy had called his name out with Malfoy's. If he had felt annoyed merely because he and Malfoy hated each other it would have been fine, but Harry couldn't understand why he didn't feel annoyed so much as disappointed that he wouldn't have the opportunity to compete with the Slytherin. He then remembered what Malfoy had said to him about them being similar back in the compartment before the meeting. There was a significant degree of truth in what he had said. And how he was going to have to listen to whatever it was the Malfoy had wanted to say, regularly throughout each duty.

"You'll only have to spend a few hours a week with him," Hermione offered into Harry's silence. He still said nothing.

"We're going to stop and get some snacks - want anything, Harry?" Ron asked, pulling Hermione to a halt beside him. Harry shook his head, still walking away.

Once Ron and Hermione had turned to go the other way, Harry quickened his pace - he wanted to see Malfoy's reaction to their pairing while they were still on their own.

He slid the compartment door open quickly and found himself pleased, for the first time ever, that he found Malfoy in the compartment still. The blond boy looked up into Harry's face the same way he had as Harry left the compartment - looking straight into his eyes. Harry found it easier to hold Malfoy's gaze than he had expected - he didn't have to narrow his eyes or glare. Harry moved to his seat opposite Malfoy. Malfoy followed Harry as he sat down.

"Its not actually that hard, being civil, is it?" Malfoy asked conversationally. Harry wondered momentarily at the civility of the statement, but couldn't think of any clever challenge, so he shrugged.

"You weren't at the prefects' meeting," he said. Malfoy did a rather convincing impression of the frustration people usually felt when they had missed something important, but the airy way he dismissed his expression gave it away as an act.

"Well," Harry continued, "they're putting us in pairs for the duties..."

"Let me guess," Malfoy cut him off with his dry, slow drawl, "Granger and the Weasel..." he paused, as if inviting Harry to retaliate, but Harry couldn't see the point, "...and you and I," he finished. As he nodded, Harry was sure he saw Malfoy trying to suppress a small smile; his usually elegantly down-turned lips twitched slightly and the corner curled slightly.

At that moment Ron and Hermione returned. In tandem the two boys forced scowls of dislike at the other, and Malfoy swept his head to look out of the window, flicking his hair out of his eyes in the same movement. Harry turned to his two friends with an expression of resigned disgust. Ron's face looked equally appalled that Malfoy was still in the compartment.

"I'd hoped something would have come and got him," he said, making no effort to hide the contempt in his voice. Malfoy looked around and raised an eyebrow at Ron, before turning casually back to the window.

"Did you tell him about the prefects' duties?" Hermione asked Harry, jerking her head at Malfoy.

"Yes he did, Granger," said Malfoy, having turned back into the compartment - he was fixing Hermione with the same gaze he had shared with Harry twice that day, "it would seem that whoever the head boy is this year is sensible enough to see that Potter needs someone sensible to keep him on the straight-and-narrow."

"And you'd be just the guy, wouldn't you," Hermione replied, tartly. "Babysitting Harry must be a bit of a step down from being on the Inquisitorial Squad, mustn't it?" She turned to Harry, and continued in a mock-hushed tone, "I mean - if I'd been in what amounts to Death-Eater training, and that was what I wanted, I'd have loved it."

A faint pink tinge had reached up from Malfoy's neck into the usual pallor of his cheeks. "How would a Mudblood like you possibly comprehend what I might want?" he spat.

As the train slowed into Hogsmeade station Harry and Hermione, still reeling from what Malfoy might have meant, finally agreed to give Ron his wand back.