The Subtle Knife

Chapter 2: A Found Object

The first month of his sixth year at Hogwarts passed without much notice. Most of Draco´s time was spent furiously studying for Defense Against the Dark Arts class, which had a sixth professor in as many years teaching it. Draco did not even bother to learn the man´s name, knowing that he would not be a member of the faculty at Hogwarts the following year. Draco also devoted extra work to the History of Magic, which Draco knew Granger was the only student in his year to best him at it.

That was last year, however.

It had occurred to him once or twice that he might also want to try to improve his care of Magical Freaks mark- his Father had complained to the board of school governors multiple times throughout his fifth year that Draco was performing poorly because of an unjust and biased teacher who was not qualified for the position. But that would have been energy well wasted. He knew Hagrid did not like him. It probably hadn´t helped matters when he had accidentally set twenty-three graphorns loose from their `locked´ pen last week and the class had spent seven hours frantically searching in the Forbidden Forest for them.. Well, actually Draco and Pansy had snuck off after a half-hour of making snide remarks at the Weasel´s ability to be chased around by the graphorns at horn-point. Detention with Hagrid was worth seeing the look of unadulterated stupidity and complete lack of control the oaf had displayed. Besides, he was hopelessly doomed to a barely passable mark and the oaf only taught the class useless stuff. Who cared about flobberworms and gnomes (last year´s final project)? He wanted to learn about unicorns and centaurs and dragons.

Especially dragons. They were his namesake, after all.

Or even basilisks would suffice, because they killed dirty Mudbloods.

He had also actively been making life for the Boy-Who-Lived as miserable as he was capable of doing, without working terribly hard. Thrice, in the first week of classes alone, Potter had tripped over Draco´s foot, and fallen flat on his face. He broke his glasses one time, the lens having popped out of a snapped frame, but Granger fixed it promptly. Draco had not been pleased to know this, as he had hoped Potter would have suffered at least a day without much use from his eyes. It also had not helped that the Weasley girl had shot him a loathing glare that seemed to insinuate that Potter had told her about his own vision `deficiency´.

So Draco moved on to better things.

Before the Gryffindor´s first Quidditch practice of the season, he snuck into their changing rooms- which were decorated in no less than garish red and puce yellow- to hex Potter´s equipment. He had not anticipated the Golden Boy´s Firebolt to have been protected with a hex-repellent charm, so instead he ended up attacking the nearest thing in Potter´s labeled little cubbyhole- his Quidditch robes. He slithered back onto the Quidditch pitch an hour later to find Potter in a green Slytherin robe-

Laughing.

Laughing?

Draco frowned. It wasn´t meant to be funny for Potter. "Nice robes, Potter!" Draco shouted as he sauntered out from under the stands where he had been hiding in the hopes that Potter might have had the decency to be angry or chagrined. "So you´ve decided to join the winning team? Sorry, we´re full!"

"I guess Slytherin decided to get a second Seeker! Might actually catch the Snitch for once then!" Potter turned his back on Draco, walking off with his other team members, including the Weasel, who now played as Keeper.

Draco had spent the remainder of the week fuming at Potter´s indifference at what should have been an embarrassing moment, and he plotted his revenge.

This revenge happened to occur in Potions the following Monday. The Gryffindors and Slytherins shared the same class for the sixth year running. As he casually walked up to the front of the classroom to ask Professor Snape an innocent question about the uses of the Ostrum Aestuo poison (a hint for the upcoming test), he made sure to have his hand brush over the top of Potter´s cauldron. Draco then happened to sprinkle a little Djinn dust into the depths of the contents of the Gryffindolt's cauldron.

When Potter sprouted little brown bat wings all over his body later that class, he smirked openly. Snape had insisted that they all try their Vocarum potions, which gave the user the ability to summon any person into their presence. Most of the students managed to be able to summon unsuspecting first years into the dungeon classroom (or, in Weasley´s case, a hooting ball of fluff). Longbottom, though, somehow managed to turn himself a fetching shade of terracotta, with magenta undertones, which, in addition to Potter´s strange and erratic fluttering about, brought howls of laughter from the Slytherins.

Needless to say, Gryffindor lost 100 house points that class for their "...lack of intelligence in simple potions making that anyone would be ashamed to teach!"

Potter had desperately, along with the Mudblood and Weasel, tried to pin the blame on Draco, but he responded with an angelic and openly innocent `Who, me?´ expression, that could win the heart of even Dumbledore himself. Potter only netted himself a five-hour detention that night and a smirk from Draco.

Yes, school was good.

Plus, Draco gave out three detentions to first year Gryffindors for 1) running in the halls, 2) having an untied shoelace (it could have caused an injury) and 3) for being just plain ugly.

The dagger his father sent him lay neglected since the train ride to Hogwarts and had gradually shifted its way to the bottom of Draco´s trunk unnoticed. It did cross his mind to check the library in the Magical Weapons section, but the fleeting thought was lost when Goyle's massive form had thundered into Draco's private dorm. Draco had just been about to sneer at him for entering his room without an invitation when Goyle started to complain to Draco that his father had refused, for the fourth time, to join the Death Eaters until he was at least seventeen, which Draco knew was mid-spring some time.

"Well," Draco drawled unsympathetically, "at least my father hasn´t put any restrictions like that on me. I could get the Mark anytime I wish."

"Then why haven´t you gotten your Dark Mark yet, Draco, love?" Pansy wandered into the room, swiveling her bony hips unnaturally and sitting down roughly on the dagger that was lying atop Draco´s bed. He was lying down on his stomach idly next to it. Pansy, on the other hand, was always welcome in his room.

"Ow!" she shrieked, pulling the dagger out from under her skirt pleats. "What the hell is this thing?"

"Oh, it´s nothing," Draco lied, tossing it back into his trunk, slamming the lid shut.

Pansy raised a thinly plucked eyebrow at him and Goyle lumbered out of the room as quickly as it was possible for him to go.

There was a much-needed tension-relieving shag that afternoon and the possibilities of determining the exact magics of the gift (meant for Potter) were put on hold for some time.

Outside of Potions class, and the occasional glaring in the Great Hall at meals, Draco did not see much of Potter that first month, except for at the weekly prefects´ meetings, held every Sunday morning at 10:30am sharp. These were led by Hogwarts' Head Girl and Boy, Cho Chang, the incessant note-taking Ravenclaw, and Bert Macmillan, from Hufflepuff. Draco had not been thrilled in the least when he heard that Macmillan was this year´s Head Boy. Hufflepuffs were complete pushovers and to have one as the exemplary student in that kind of power position was too much to digest. Not to mention that it was absolutely shaming to be attending an institution that catered to such policies. The old crackpot Dumbledore had been far too easy-going on the Hufflepuffs since Diggory had croaked over a year ago, giving them morale boosters and extra house points for nothing. Draco was not pleased with the increased status of Hufflepuffs, but at least the Gryffindors were not benefiting too much from the arrangement.

He did see the Weasley girl after dinner one evening in the Great Hall. She was making her way up the stairs to the Gryffindor Common Room (Draco had a vague notion of where it was, somewhere on the seventh floor near a small collection of stodgy English portraits) and he could see that she was walking with her head hung low, occasionally wiping her nose on her sleeve.

She was crying.

Excellent.

Girl Weasley was walking lethargically and very methodically up the stairs, her feet moving up each individual stair as though it were her last and her shoulders slumped as though she carried the weight of the world.

But that was Potter´s job.

He ran up before her effortless, swooping in for the kill. "Adapting Potter´s stance there, Weasley? It doesn´t suit you."

She whipped her head around, ruddy hair obscuring her features. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

she asked miserably.

His eyes gleamed. "Oh, lots of things. Quidditch Cup, top mark in Defense Against the Dark Arts, a new set of marble gobstones, Polonius´ Every-Poison-Potion. My father refused to get that for me at Christmas, you know. Said it was...distasteful. And, oh!" Draco leaned closer and grinned. "Potter´s head on a platter!"

Her head seemed to droop further when he mentioned that name.

Draco smirked with glee. "Did he reject you again?" he prodded. She was alone, none of her many brothers or `Harry´ or mouse boy to save her. She was victim to his total lack of mercy.

Her bottom lip trembled. "Leave me alone." She ran past him up the stairs before he had the chance to trip her. Her face was hidden in her hands, tears undoubtedly streaming down her Weasel face. She seemed genuinely miserable.

Even better.

Draco found out the reason why two days later when he was walking silently into the prefects´ bathroom only to find Potter and the Head Girl sucking each others´ faces as though the end of the world was nigh. It was...disgusting that Potter had finally made some progress with girls, and strangely humorous. Potter was actually kissing a girl, the girl whose boyfriend he had killed.

How ironic.

Draco was, however, too disgusted to walk in and make some scathing comment to Potter about his lack of experience. He shut the door without a sound and left unnoticed.

* * * *

The sixth year Slytherins had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs that year. Dumbledore had shaken up the schedules, which made for some unexpected changes, but these did not extend to Potions. This relieved Draco as he could still make life miserable for Potter then, amongst other things, as well as during Magical Freaks class, taught by none other than the most monstrous freak himself, Hagrid.

Draco came to learn that Herbology with the Badger house really was not so bad. The Ravenclaws had been good to work with as they usually brought up marks with the frequent group projects, but they were such prudes when it came to having any fun. The Slytherins now had such wonderful subjects- erm, classmates to either: a) sabotage, especially with the Southern Grecian Man-Eating War Cactus the students, well, the Hufflepuffs really, were transplanting that week, or: b) mooch off while the diligent and hard-working, thoroughly honest Hufflepuffs did all the work. The Hufflepuffs never even bothered to rub in the fact that they were generally better at Herbology than the Slytherins. The Ravenclaws were notorious for that. Draco was glad for this because, frankly, no Ravenclaw had ever bested him in that class, though he could not say the same for his fellow housemates.

On the last Thursday of the month of September, during the double Herbology class that morning, Professor Sprout had the students checking the dirt and soil conditions of the Southern Grecian Man-Eating War Cacti and she had paired up each Slytherin with a Hufflepuff. Draco was stuck with a round-faced girl with childish straw-coloured pigtails. He didn´t actually mind much as she did the majority of the labor, sticking the moisture-meter in the plant, which snapped and moved and pricked her with its thorns, all the while muttering happily to herself. Draco spent the time studying his nails, which had been, again, bitten down to the quick the previous night while going over his Transfiguration homework. They stung like bitches now and he almost regretted biting them so low. He hated the fact that he bit his nails. It was an addiction, like chocolate, and he could not stop himself. He had tried desperately when he was younger to hide it from his father, but in his all-knowing wisdom, Lucius had found out and given Draco a long and drawn out rant about his many imperfections, even bribing Draco with gifts and treats if he would stop.

But he always relapsed and had given up fighting it.

His father ignored it now, but his mother still harassed him about it, threatening every once-in-a-while to use Magic Nails™ Stick-On nails that grew realistic nails onto the bitten enamel.

The cactus began to creep precariously close to the blonde girl; its spikes were bristling out like a porcupine´s. Draco felt that he might need to say something to the Hufflepuff that the plant was nearly jabbing a prickled appendage into her jugular, but she was humming a simple little tune, crouched over and deeply engrossed in her work, too involved in digging up the soil with her trowel. It would have not prudent to disturb her.

Besides, Draco did not want to actually do any physical labor in Herbology that day. He wrote essays.

"Suck on your fingers," the girl urged suddenly, not turning around to face him.

"What?" Draco snapped at the chubby girl. What the hell was she talking about?

"It can sense the blood from your fingernail biting. It´s attracted to the smell. We have to be careful with these plants. They´re about eighty years old and it would be really hard to grow a new one for Professor Sprout." She began to hum again.

Whatever.

Draco did suck on his fingers warily and the cactus swayed less animatedly, spines retracting somewhat into its sickly greenish flesh.

Halfway or so through the class, Pansy came over to talk to Draco, leaving her own partner, Finch-Bletchley, or whatever. His name was of no importance- he was a Mudblood anyway. Draco's hand had been in the process of roaming down Pansy´s low-cut, now half-buttoned, shirt when Professor Sprout had noticed said Mudblood´s hand being devoured by the mouth of one of the plants. The `mouth´ was really more of a gaping, mucus-filled hole near the base of the six-foot high cactus stalk. Sprout had hauled Pansy off half-heartedly to look after the plant while she escorted the Hufflepuff to see Madam Pomfrey.

Pansy shot Draco desperate glances and blew him a kiss from the palm of her hand. He nodded unenthusiastically back at her and resumed pulling out painful, and irritating, hangnails that annoyed him to no end, even though they hurt even more and bled profusely afterwards. It was a more stimulating endeavor than examining the dark, soggy and dirty, well, dirt like he was supposed to be doing. Draco would never do anything so messy, despite wearing the frocks the school supplied for Herbology work, or anything at all to dirty himself or his expensive new robes that his mother had specially ordered from a tailor in Italy. Gardening was servants´ work; essays, on the other hand, were currently his.

"Hmm..." he heard the girl, Hannah Abbot, or Anna Habit, or whichever, say. "What´s this?"

"What´s what?" Draco hopped off the perch he had occupied on a marble bench, strolling over to the girl and hovering overtop of where she was crouched by the cactus pot. He was careful not to get too close to the cactus, which leered at him several feet away and being mindful of any dirt that might soil his black Italian faux-manticore-hide leather shoes.

Hannah Abbot wiped a blackened, muddy paw across her pink forehead, smearing dirt across her flushed skin. Draco wrinkled his nose up at the sight. She held out a clump of dark earth in her hand, which glinted silver in the dull light.

He looked at her blankly. "A clump of dirt?"

"No." She frowned and crumbled the clump in her hand before letting the dirt fall through her fingers, then rubbed the something on the side of her smock in an effort to clean it. She studied the object intensely for a quick moment before Draco had to clear his throat in irritation.

"Well?" he drawled.

She held out her hand again, timorously and her eyes were downcast. "It´s a necklace," she whispered breathlessly, in awe of her discovery.

Draco snatched it up immediately and strutted over to Crabbe and Goyle, chuckling. Huffing and puffing with the effort, the Hufflepuff girl ran up behind him. "Hey! I found that!"

Draco nodded almost imperceptibly towards Crabbe and Goyle, who flanked his sides instantly. They could be very useful at times, with their impressive size and ability to intimidate anyone smaller than them. Except Draco, of course.

"You were saying?" he drawled, his arms folded in defiance.

The Hufflepuff girl walked off without so much as a squeak, defeated.

Draco held up the necklace to the light streaming through the greenhouse ceiling. It was an old silver chain, tarnished, no doubt, from being buried in the greenhouse earth for who knows how long. Though why it was buried was beyond him. The silver had taken on a dark, almost pinkish appearance and there was a single charm that dangled tranquilly from it. Held in a claw-like clasp, a smooth liquid green stone lay. There were partially visible scratch marks, obscured near the claws of the setting, and the stone seemed a strange fit for the clasp, as though it didn´t belong. The claws splayed out in too tiny an angle for so large of a stone. The stone itself was diminutive and was lack-lustre, despite its obvious polish and smoothness and the tiny veins of white and emerald that rippled through its innards.

Crabbe looked at Draco, thick eyebrows scrunching. "Givin´ it to Pansy?" he grunted.

Draco tossed it up into the air. "Nope," he said, catching it with his innate Seeker´s reflexes.

Crabbe muttered a `why not´.

Draco stepped outside the nearest exit doors of the greenhouse briefly and hurled it across the still-green school lawns behind the greenhouse. The necklace bounced twice, unevenly, when it landed and disappeared towards the lakeside. "Piece of junk." Draco slammed the glass door behind himself as he strolled back into the building.

"Besides, it wouldn´t match her eyes."

Draco did not think anything more of the necklace the following week, although he did bother to take his dagger out of his trunk to examine it again before going to bed late the next Friday night. He resolved that he would go to the library in the morning after breakfast and leaf through a couple books on wizarding weapons of the eighteenth century. The upcoming Quidditch game was foremost engraved in his mind- the season opener: Slytherin versus Ravenclaw. There was less than a month until that. Two weeks, actually, he thought as his eyelids drooped heavily and he swam off into the ocean of sleep.

Beside him, the sapphires of the dagger hilt shone a bright cornflower blue and the amethysts twinkled under a hidden moon.

Draco was dreaming.

He knew that primarily because he was in the middle of a field. At night. And he never did anything like that when he was conscious. No, if he were awake, he would most certainly have either been in Hogwarts Castle spying on Harry Potter or in the Forbidden Forest spying on Harry Potter.

Nevertheless, it was night in his dream, he was in a grassy field in the middle of nowhere, and it was so dark that he could not see; he couldn´t even make out the form of his own body, but he knew he was physically there. He could feel the cold dew of the grass on his bare toes, which strangely were warm despite the chill one usually associated with the moisture. He could feel the wind ruffling his hair, messing it. He brought a hand up to fix the strand that fell in front of his vision. Not that it mattered.

"You want to be perfect even in your dreams," he mumbled to himself.

He heard muffled giggles nearby and was drawn towards them, his feet moving confidently in the darkness. He shivered under his thin silk pajamas. The dream, which was not real, sure had a high degree of verisimilitude. The fine hairs on his arms were standing up and he shivered again, wrapping his arms around himself. He did not truly feel cold; it was an unconscious move, as though to protect himself against something to come. Draco walked on, hugging his body closely.

The laughter grew in volume, and Draco wandered aimlessly to find the source. He was certain that he must be standing on top of the people, or perhaps he was a ghost. Or, maybe they themselves were the phantasms. He couldn´t see them; rather, he felt their presence, their auras. There were two of them- one obviously male and one softer, a female. And they felt young, his age, perhaps. He could sense that much.

The laughing stopped abruptly and Draco felt the invisible, formless beings merge, as though they were kissing, or embracing, or disappearing together into the netherworld. He felt like an intruder, violating something that he had no part of, but he was mesmerized and something unnatural not of his own will dragged him forward, beckoning- no, forcing him to stay.

Then a clear, soprano voice rang through the darkness. It was very much a feminine one. "We cannot continue to meet here like this."

A young male´s tone responded. Draco heard the laugh again; he seemed happy.

"Could we stop if we wished to?"

"Do you?" the girl asked in return.

"No." Was the firm reply.

Then the two voices took form with a swirling of a smoky cloud. The clear image of a young man and a lady embracing closely was directly in front of Draco, yet he seemed to be entirely unnoticed unto them. The girl was of average height with long, dark hair, pale skin and flushed cheeks. Her eyes were shining a dark jade in the moonlight and her lips were parted in a smile. She had a distinct cut on her left eyebrow, slicing it into two jagged pieces with the scar. She was dressed rather strangely in a very dated long, white dressing gown trimmed with a delicate fading cream lace; a dark cloak was draped around her body and a silver chain hung around her neck, stark against the paleness of her skin.

It was the same necklace the Hufflepuff had dug up, only it was much newer and polished. Somehow it managed to glitter in the darkness and reflect non-existent light.

The boy was of roughly the same height as the girl and likely the same age, around Draco´s. He had hair that was dark, thought not nearly as much as the girl´s and his eyes were a brazen blue. His hair was longish, well past his ears, and fell over his face. The girl lovingly pushed it aside and kissed the boy gently on the lips.

That boy needs to tie his hair back, Draco thought. Especially if it gets in the way of kissing.

As the two young people kissed, he noted that the boy was also dressed in bizarre clothes. He wore tight grey...hose? Either that or extremely tight trousers that revealed much more than Draco would have ever wanted to see. The shirt the boy wore was loose and white, with a ruffled collar and cuffs.

Even for Wizarding clothes the lace was a bit much.

The girl broke away from their kiss reluctantly. "I fear someone knows," she said in a low voice, seemingly wary of any watchers, her cheek resting on the boy´s.

The boy nuzzled her neck, pushing her dressing gown to the side with his chin. He kissed her collarbone languidly. "I want everyone to know."

She pushed the boy away roughly with her fists, startling him. "They cannot know!" she hissed, her manner instantly turning vicious and angry. "They would not understand! I am a-"

The boy pursed his lips. He was irate too, but did not display it so openly. His fists were balled and his body was stiff, rocking forward on his toes. Draco sensed that they had had this conversation before.

"A Slytherin, yes, and I am a Gryffindor." He stepped towards the girl, and her face softened. "And I care not, either. I do love you."

The girl looked at the Gryffindor boy. Draco could see her eyes now. They had changed from the green and were now a clear violet, flecked with azure and amber. Pale and dark and glowing all at once. "As do I." She moved closer to the boy and threaded her arms around him, then moved her lips achingly slow against Draco´s own, which tingled at the touch.

His own.

At this point the dream had shifted. Now, instead of being the onlooker, the third person watching, it was Draco himself doing the kissing. He would not have known that except for the warm breath of someone else on his lips and he leaned forward into them. An immensely pleasurable shock infused through his body as he touched the other person and his eyes widened with the unexpectedness of this.

It most certainly was not Pansy.

He could not see anyone there. He was blinded by...something and tried to pull away, shutting his eyes. Whatever Draco was kissing sensed this and moved their lips across his ever so lightly and sweetly that Draco felt his pulse race with pleasure. He deepened the kiss, wanting more and the other responded, tugging at his bottom lip with their teeth. He felt himself moan in pleasure before the other being repeated the process, nipping at his upper lip this time.

Draco felt hands run through his hair, and knew that they were slim like his own. The hands toyed a strand out of place, leaving it to hang over his ear. A second hand wound around Draco´s back, pulling him in closer. Frantically, Draco grabbed at the blank space in front of him and when he came in contact with something tangible, something like a Hogwarts wool cloak, he closed his eyes in reassurance.

There was someone there, even if he could not see them.

Draco was too afraid now to open his eyes, for if he did, he knew the other person would vanish and he desperately wanted to know who it was, to continue the kiss. He ran his hands along the chest of the other person and felt...flatness. Smooth and supple and very much male.

Well, okay, that was...all right, he supposed. The kiss was too nice to worry about such trivial details.

Draco sighed in contentment into the other boy´s mouth. With this new information, he plunged his tongue boldly into the mouth connected to his, claming it for his own. Running his tongue over the other boy´s, Draco was determined to taste him fully. He tasted of chocolate and pumpkin juice, so familiar, and spicy, but mostly sweet, though not sugary, and had faint hints of peppermint. Draco ran his tongue over and in-between the moist crevices of the other boy and the Slytherin´s hands groped and kneaded the taut and thin chest harshly, causing the other boy to let out a strangled moan, muffled by Draco´s own mouth.

The other boy pulled away sharply from Draco´s lips to rain kisses along his jawline. So quick and deft that Draco could never his presence. The mystery boy´s kisses were saccharine and hot and sticky, like melting ice cream from Florean Fortescue´s, and Draco wanted more. He moved his own mouth along the Braille of the other´s face, kissing a cheekbone, an eyelid, anything his mouth could reach. He cupped a slim and toned buttock with one hand, the other still clutching the leveled chest of the other boy forcefully.

"Don´t. We cannot let this happen again," the other said lowly; Draco could almost recognize the voice, but he could not put a face to it. The dream refused him that luxury.

"Third time´s the charm. We´ll fix it." He heard the words pour from his mouth unobstructed, his voice strangely calm.

The other boy moaned in agreement.

At that moment, Draco needed to know who this boy was. Needed to know what caused his own body to respond to the other boy like that. He was scared stiff to open his eyes, knowing that the other body wouldn´t be there, wouldn´t be tangible and all would be forgotten with the passing dream in consciousness. Draco knew the other boy would not be there and that the Slytherin would never again see him or feel quite this way again. This knowledge was nearly unbearable.

Control. He told his dream-self. You are still a Malfoy.

Stormy grey eyes, now alive with both desire and fear, shot open to meet, for the shortest of moments, the same green eyes that the strange girl had first possessed. They were green, dark with unknown depths, flecked with silver and gold and black and emerald, most of all emerald. Draco saw himself reflected in their chasms...

Then nothing.

The boy was gone. Faded with the dream.

Draco arched up in his bed with a strangled gasp. He was awake now and breathing very rapidly and very deeply. He was wrapped up in a tangle of limbs and sheets and sweat, burning with a feverish lust- or perhaps desire- that still lingered. He blinked in the shadows of his dorm, which was faintly light with the early dawn (mostly reflecting from the clouds from the night´s rain), relative to the contrasting black blindness of his dream.

Which he still remembered.

So clearly that he was shaking.

Draco sat up in his bed and unwound the sheets from his limbs, pajama bottoms clinging and bunching and twisting around his legs. He was motionless for a moment, listening to the loud snores of Goyle across the hallway in the sixth year boys´ dorm.

God, he´s louder than the Hogwarts Express.

Draco flopped back onto his pillows and listened to the snoring. Some minutes later, he decided that it was useless attempting to return to slumber. His heart was beating erratically, his hands futilely covering his ears, not even considering in his state to use a silencing charm on his room. His heartbeat alone was nearly shattering his ribcage with its brute force and his breathing was still too ragged. His cheeks burned with the kisses the ghastly-eyed boy had left there. Draco could feel their brand under his palm when he brought his hands up to cool them.

Nope, he was much too awake to sleep.

Draco rolled over and glanced at his clock. 5:07am it read, and had a little figure of what might have resembled himself, a silver-haired boy, staring at him, tapping its foot in sync with the seconds ticking away restlessly.

"Fine." He growled and rolled out of bed onto the thick rug on the floor, fumbling in the muddy shadows en route the bathroom, still not awake enough to think of bringing his wand or untwisting his one pant leg from his knee.

Draco held onto a sink for solid support as he staggered into the black marble room, the silver specs of galena glittering throughout the walls and the floor and the countertops. The taps and the sconces on the wall were silver, which automatically lit up in eerie green flames as he entered. His body flushed feverishly hot then chillingly cold and he shivered fitfully.

His image in one of the mirrors above a sink that he clutched blue (beyond white) knuckles to, drawled: "What is wrong with you? Go take a shower. You look awful!"

Draco sneered at the mirror, but it fell short and came off as more of a grimace. The reflection swore back at him for spite. Draco did, however, decide to take the mirror´s advice and stripped his pajamas carelessly in the middle of the room before stepping into a hot shower (again, automatic for convenience´s sake). The water pelted over his body like hot hailstones and he welcomed it, drenching himself and washing away most of the burns the boy in his dream had caused.

Most, but not all.

Draco had planned on crawling back into the comforts of his bed after what had turned out to be quite a long shower, but decided not to when Crabbe began to grunt out Tracey Davis´ name and thrash around in his bed. He was still irritatingly loud despite the fact that Draco had closed his own door and the sixth year boys´ dorm room door was also shut. He almost had pity on the three other boys that still shared the dorm with Crabbe. Draco, thoroughly not wanting to listen to Crabbe´s dream, dressed in his school uniform insanely quickly and nearly ran into the Slytherin Common Room.

Crabbe´s dreams were notorious for being very vocal and very graphic.

Settling down, wide-eyed, on a leather couch, Draco resolved to do some long-neglected Charms homework. He hated Flitwick as well, though not with the same animosity as Hagrid or grudging respect he gave McGonagall. The thought of the aggravating little pipsqueak that bounced merrily around his classroom made Draco briefly forget the passions of his dream and the Slytherin began to plot more devious deeds to try out on Potter and his fellow Gryffindorks.

Pansy was surprisingly one of the first Slytherins to rise that morning; she noticed Draco in the Common Room and walked over behind him, draping herself like a bony feline across the back of the couch.

"What are you doing up so early, Draco?" she cooed, rubbing her hands into the stiff muscles of his neck.

He leaned forward to give Pansy a better angle with which to massage. He groaned in assent as her hands kneaded with more force. "Couldn´t sleep," he muttered.

"Mmph...Crabbe wanking? Neither could I." She continued to massage his neck.

Draco half-turned to Pansy, her hands still working into his knots. "Oh?" He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"If one more `O Vincent! O Crabbe! O God, I´m gonna come!´ wakes me up at an ungodly hour in the morning again, I will use an Unforgivable on Tracey Davis!" Pansy sneered. "Honestly, someone needs to tie those two together in all their unrequited `love´." She leaned in closely to Draco´s ear and whispered, which really was a low shriek. "Besides, then they could finally use their personal practicing on each other."

Draco laughed coldly. "Have they no shame?" he asked rhetorically.

Pansy snorted. " Speaking of which, when´s your free period, Draco? I can´t recall."

"This afternoon."

Pansy´s hands flew from his neck, and Draco, annoyed with her fickleness, scowled.

She winked at him, crawling over the couch to settle down by his feet. "We´ll continue that then. In the meantime, you can help me with my Arithmancy homework." She smiled at Draco, her jaw and mouth both a little too large for her face. "After all, you are the top student in the class. I´m hopeless!" Pansy sighed with an air of melodrama. "Utterly hopeless!"

Sometimes the girl reminded him far too much of his mother.

He and Pansy worked on her Arithmancy homework until Crabbe, Goyle and some of Pansy´s friends woke up then they all made their way up to the Great Hall for breakfast. Draco led the way, as always, flanked by his cronies and Pansy clutching at his arm, as always.

They passed Potter in the Great Hall and Draco led his Slytherin group in a mass-sneer at Potter. Potter ignored this for the most part, as always, and turned to talk with the Weasel and the Mudblood.

"Ignoring us again, Potter? You seem to do that every morning," Draco drawled happily.

Pansy laughed shrilly. "Yeah. Afraid of Draco?" She grinned and wrinkled her already up-turned nose. "I sometimes am, in bed, of course. He´s so scary!"

Draco growled, baring his teeth (which were perfect, unlike the Mudbloods, or any of the Gryffindolts) and curled his hands up into claws. "Grr...arg..."

Potter rolled his eyes. "You´re such a twit, Malfoy. Go away."

Draco smirked. He had hoped Potter would say that. "Well," he smirked widely, "a twit who´s had some, mind."

Potter turned red, and matched the Weasel´s hair.

Humiliation was the perfect shade for a Gryffindor after all.

Draco stood back and admired his work. "Good. I feel better now that I´ve gotten my daily rise out of you, Potter."

He waltzed away, over to the Slytherin table. "And by the way, Scarface," he yelled back, "you stink!"

Potter frowned, his dorky glasses sliding down his nose, as always.

Draco deposited himself at the Slytherin table, taking his usual seat near the Seventh Years´ end, surrounded by his court, but something felt...odd. He glanced around the room himself, not noting any unusual difference in the environment, until-

His eye settled on something vividly green.

Or rather, his eyes gravitated towards it.

The necklace in his dream.

The same necklace Hannah Abbot had dug out of the dirt. That he had flung down towards the lake in Herbology.

He lifted his head up and met the eye of the person who had the tarnished silver chain hanging from their neck, a slim and golden neck. Whose hands were fingering the smoothly polished jade-green stone that hung from the claws that fit poorly.

Who had the same green eyes from his dream- ethereal, timid, strong, beautiful liquid emerald irises that captured an array of colours.

It was Harry Potter.

And he was staring back at him.