THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

Disclaimer: Not mine, not yours…complete and utter lack of monetary reward.

Personal Disclaimer: Movie, not book based. Inaccuracies abound…please do count them under your so much...:))

Rated R for language only.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Poetic, yes? It was from a Muggle book. And how did I know that, detester of all things Muggle that I am? Dumbledore had told me last year in an oh so private and mysterious meeting, the same type he usually had with Potter. Snape had been there as well, to protect my interests, but it was Dunbledore’s show. I truly had to wonder what made Potter so fond of that senile old sot. On every occasion that he went up to that lofty office you could bet your best broomstick that the Boy Who Never Sodding Learned would end up in the Hospital Wing within a week. If it had been me, you would’ve seen nothing but the flap of my school robe around the corner every time Dumbledore took to the halls. At least that’s what I had always so smugly thought.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Perhaps I was lucky, knowing my time and purpose. How many can say that? To be sure most think that they do…but they don’t. Clueless and unfettered, they drift about like ships from port to port, always seeking the right one. Even the most driven, like that know-it-all Granger, at least get the scenic journey as they speed through the waters straight to their destination. Yes, it could be that I was lucky, not even needing to step aboard because I was already there. But I didn’t think so. And if I shared anything with arch nemesis Potter, it was that I would wager he didn’t think himself so fortunate either.

I could whinge on and on about the unfairness of it all, but truth be told…I had chosen this. I might want to twist Dumbledore’s beard in a knot for pointing it out and giving it official sanction, but in the end there was no denying it. I had made the choice. Gradually and at times without even realizing it, but I had made it. And a Malfoy stood behind his choices, right or wrong. We stood behind them until the dying breath escaped our lungs. Just ask my father…

The next time you happened to have a Ouija board handy.

The hall was empty except for me. A rarity, but when you rise at dawn I suppose it could be expected. It was our first full day back….first day of our last year. Classes hadn’t commenced yet and every sane member of the school was still curled up in jammies and blankets, sleeping the sleep of the un-purposeful. Damn them. I’d given sleep up as a lost cause and decided a little pre-dawn Quidditch practice was the best way to rein in a black temper. It wouldn’t do to beat Crab and Goyle to death on the very first day. Slytherin would be in negative points before Snape even was awake to dress us down.

Deciding to grab a bite of breakfast before hand, I had but to slide into a chair before a house elf came skittering out to see what I desired. It wasn’t Dobby…a good thing considering for the past five years he’d spent a good deal of his time trying to poison me. I was nothing but a Lucius junior to him and that pop-eyed Muggle of the Rings reject could hold a grudge like no one’s business. You had to respect that. Dobby tainted or no, apparently I wasn’t as in the mood for a bite as I thought. Poking viciously at the disgusting plump yellow of my egg, I watched as it burst and slid across the plate.

“If you’re picturing that as my eye, you might want to grab some licorice. Making spectacles for it would make it all the more convincing.”

And there he was. I hadn’t seen him at the train station because this year I hadn’t taken the train. There were other ways to arrive at Hogwarts besides trains, flying cars, and impossibly filthy chimney travel. Some were a little more pricey, but it was all for the Cause…capital C. Snorting in irritation, I gave the egg a decent burial under a piece of toast as a hummed the notes of an appropriately solemn dirge. Potter didn’t take the hint. He never does.

Sighing, I looked up and drawled, “Perhaps a comparison is in order, Potter. Care to volunteer?” I waved the fork with narrow eyed menace. That was me…all about the scientific methodology. Anything to further my education.

“Maybe later.” Remarkably unoffended…in fact, offensively unoffended, he sat across from me and studied me silently. I knew what he’d thought when I hadn’t been on the Express. I knew what everyone thought, that I’d gone where all Malfoys before me had gone. They thought I’d taken the Dark Mark and would be more involved with killing and torture than returning to school. Of course on some of my better days in school, the difference would’ve been negligible. Regardless, I understood the expectations…what I didn’t understand was the wholehearted relief I saw in Potter’s eyes. A little bit of relief, yes, that I could’ve wrapped my mind around…after all, we are defined by our enemies. How would Potter know good from evil if I weren’t around? But this amount of emotion…it was a bit unnerving. And that wasn’t a word I used lightly.

Contrary to popular belief, Potter and I hadn’t been constantly at each other’s throats in a while. It was simply too exhausting. So, with an audience it was the same as always. Unceasingly on the edge of blows, mayhem, or grisly death. Alone…well, alone we kept to a quieter, energy-saving loathing. I think it happened when I wasn’t paying strict attention. It just goes to prove, boys and girls, cultivate that hatred or your little garden of darkness will begin to droop on you.

“You’ve changed your hair.” The green eyes had given up a good portion of relief to accommodate a gleam of worry. Curious or annoying, I couldn’t decide which. Potter himself, suddenly the hair care expert of the Wizarding world, hadn’t changed much over the summer. Still with the brown hair that hung over his forehead covering his scar…I’d always thought that telling. He had exchanged his black rimmed Muggle spectacles for an identical pair in a dark coppery metal. He was taller, the git, towering over me by a good two inches. It was enough to make one grit their teeth, if only they didn’t want to mar teeth so perfect. Carefully relaxing my jaw, I took in the Muggle clothes. He’d finally given over the hand me downs and bought clothes of his own. Brown slacks and a forest green turtleneck, the boy had finally discovered fashion. I wondered who had this particular date in the pool.

“Your powers of observation floor me, Potter,” I sneered. It wasn’t much of one, half hearted at best, but this early in the morning what could one expect. I had indeed changed my hair. I’d let it grow…correction, I’d made it grow. Never to forget, there is a spell for anything and everything. Long now, it almost skimmed my shoulder blades. I kept it pulled back at the nape of my neck with a thin black band and ignored the fact it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds more than hair ever should.

“It’s long.” His lips tightened then relaxed with an obviously conscious effort. “Not as long as his, but….” And then he wisely shut up. The last words had been a slip, I could see that. I could also see that he regretted them. Why he regretted them, therein lay the question. Did he regret the reminder for his own sake or for mine?

“It’s a Malfoy tradition.” I could feel the smile on my face. A faint curve of lips, it was cold, frozen and utterly false. “Our trademark if you will.” Which was why I’d kept it short for so long. But now...now I needed all the props I could get. Dropping my fork carelessly on the table, I stood. “It gives the Muggles something to spot in the distance and run for their mudgrubbing lives.”

It was meant to distract him, the comment. Similar ones always had in the past. This time it was as if he’d suddenly gone deaf. As I started to take a step away from the table, his hand flashed out and caught my wrist. His other hand he used to push up the sleeve of my robe. And there it was…my pale forearm as clean as a sweep of pristine snow. “Disappointed, Potter?” I asked with lethal quiet. “Looking to get the Death Eater trainee expelled? So sorry I couldn’t help you.” He’d never find a fresh Dark Mark on me so easily. I’d had mine since before they’d wiped the birthing blood from my newborn body. Father had had a long time to figure out an impenetrable spell to hide it. Fortunately said spell had lasted when Father himself had not.

“You helped me.” He pulled the sleeve down and released me. “Despite yourself, Malfoy, you did help me.” And then he smiled. It wasn’t his old smile. The one that had been as pure as summer rain and shining with an inner light that would’ve had vampires diving for their crypts. That one had been quite enough to make one vomit. No, he’d outgrown that smile about the time Diggory had died. This one was more mature. Wiser in the ways of a not always friendly world, Potter gave me a smile that was both rueful and accepting.

And that’s when I left. Accepting…Potter, what the hell are you doing? The egg I left in his hair was so far below my wicked standards that it wasn’t even laughable, but on the up side it might cure a few split ends. Draco Malfoy, humanitarian to the hair challenged. Outside a wind hit me, far colder than the beginning of Fall warranted. I hated the cold, and I hated the stinging bits of frigid rain that hit me in the face.

Honestly, could the year have started off any less to plan?

I blew up Professor Snape in Potions class the next day.

It’s never good to ask yourself metaphorical questions…the answers always tend to be much more concrete. When the smoke cleared I was somewhat relieved to see there were no body parts splattered on the walls. All the other Houses lived in fear of the infamous Severus Snape, and on occasion so did the odd Slytherin. He was a ‘man with a history’ as they say. But he was also a man who stood up for the House he headed. When other teachers were quick to view us with suspicion, he was even quicker to our defense and to later secretly congratulate us if the accusations were true. He was our advocate, our only vocal one at any rate, and while we might have quaked at his wrath we were also fiercely devoted to him. As he was to us. At least he was until the explosion.

“Oh, bloody hell,” I muttered as I took in sooty Snape in the midst of acrid billowing fumes. Singed robes, nonexistent eyebrows, and lank hair that had turned what could only be called a life altering shade of red. “Bloody hell.”

Crab and Goyle had crawled under our table with a speed that would’ve been impressive if they’d ever bothered to use it in a Quidditch match. Around me I could see students scattering to the far corners of the room, and it wasn’t from fear of poisonous fumes. Snape’s mouth worked for several seconds before words actually came out. Speechless, he was actually speechless with fury. If that wasn’t a first in school history…yet another brick in the Draco Wall of Legend. People were going to remember this fair forever…I was just hoping to survive long enough to appreciate it.

“Mr. Malfoy,” the hiss was more serpentine than Parseltongue ever dreamed to be. “Step away from the cauldron.”

Seconds later I was discovering someone else had noticed my new hair length. Snape used the pony-tail to drag me from the classroom. In the half hour that followed I learned just how devious Snape truly was. That didn’t surprise me, really. The dedication, however, did. I doubt I’d have been hot on clandestine maneuverings whilst looking like a Weasely gone horribly wrong. If a Weasely could go more wrong than he already was….

Not that I didn’t suffer for the accident…or as Snape put it, ‘mindless bungling the likes of which will desecrate the name Slytherin until the sun tumbles from the sky.’ One hundred points were deducted from the House, putting us as I’d so blithely prophesized the day before into negative points. And I was given detention for two weeks, provided it didn’t interfere with my other task.

He also cut off my pony-tail.

What I had left now barely reached my shoulders, but at least it wasn’t red. Snape had scowled as he’d conjured the scissors, saying perhaps I’d pay more attention to my work if I weren’t quite so ‘pretty.’ It was quite impossible for me to not be, but I had enough sense not to say that aloud. Walking down the deserted corridor towards the dungeons, I grinned darkly to myself and pulled what I had left back with the band. It made for a stubby little tail, but all in all I didn’t mind so much. If anything it was something of a relief. Tradition would simply have to bite my ass for a bit.

“Draco.”

I recognized the voice instantly. What I didn’t recognize was my given name coming out of those lips. It was enough to make me miss a step as I stumbled to a halt. There he stood, Potter, looking for all the world concerned. A little pale, dark brows drawn into a furrowed V, he was obviously waiting for me. There wouldn’t be any other reason for a Gryffindor to be this close to Slytherin territory. “Potter,” I said annoyed. “I assume you do have classes on occasion. And I’m even willing to wager they don’t involve following me around.”

“I came to tell you….” His voice trailed off as he moved closer in the gloom. Whatever he saw, aside from my staggering good looks, had his jaw clenching with impotent anger. “He hit you. That son of a bitch hit you.”

What was this? “Are you smashed, Potter?” I asked, too surprised to even whip up a good glower. “Because that would quite blow your goody goody rep to pieces.”

Pulling a handkerchief, shabby and worn, from his robe, he folded it into a pad and pushed it into my hand. “You’re bleeding,” he said quietly, pointing to the left side of his own jaw. “There.”

Startled, I touched a finger to my skin. It came away sticky and red. I was bleeding…or had been at any rate. Not that Snape had anything to do with it. Without thought, I pressed the cloth to what was probably no more than a cut. Now that I thought on it there had been a small sliver of pain during the explosion. I’d no doubt been side-swiped by either blackboard shrapnel or a flying bit of Snape eyebrow. Unpleasant anyway you looked at it.

“He can’t do this. He can’t just go around hitting….” It was another sentence he didn’t manage to finish as he swallowed hard. His eyes had gone dark with frustrated rage. I’d heard rumors of how Potter’s life had gone before Hogwarts. Obviously, some of those rumors were true. And there it was again…the reluctant empathy for someone who shared more with me than I cared to acknowledge. “I’m going to Dumbledore.” The fact that he’d unconsciously reached for his wand said there was someone else he’d like to take his complaint to. Potter with a streak of vengeful if righteous violence, it boggled the mind.

“Don’t go spare,” I ordered with a derisive snort. “Snape doesn’t go about hitting students. Turning them into a carnivorous blancmange maybe, but he certainly doesn’t hit them. Where would be the challenge in that?” I finished cleaning the blood off as best I could before wadding up the handkerchief.

“Then what?” He tilted his head, frowned, then moved even closer. This time he reached over my shoulder to gather a shortened tail of hair in his hand. He blinked and I was unsure what I saw reflected in his face…outrage or relief.

“It was an explosion,” I answered impatiently. “It doesn’t take a rocket magician to figure out this one, Potter. Things explode, people get hurt.” Hair turns red and Houses lose points.

“Oh.” He dropped my hair as if it burned his palm. This emotion I recognized clearly. Guilt, pure and simple. I’d wondered how I’d managed to flub a potion so thoroughly. Top in Potions class since I came to the school, even over porcupine haired Granger, I’d never screwed up anything close to what had happened today. And here was the shining truth. I hadn’t screwed up at all.

“Sabotage, Potter?” I lifted a scornful eyebrow. “On the first day of class too. Maybe we should tell Dumbledore. You growing a set should be news for the whole school to share.” I tossed the bloody ball of cloth at his feet. Damn it, why hadn’t I thought of the cauldron trick? That would’ve been brilliant. Snape would’ve hung Potter from the nearest turret until supper-time at the very least, I thought mournfully. I was off my game in a big way. I had excuse a-plenty, but that didn’t mean the Malfoy ancestors weren’t howling wrathfully in the back of my brain.

“I came to tell you.” The guilt was still there, but a stubborn glint was now sharing space. “That’s why I was waiting. It was just a joke. I never meant to hurt anyone.” He pulled off his glasses suddenly to pinch the bridge of his nose as he finished quietly. “To hurt you.”

True, of course. Savior of the Wizarding world…the Boy Who Wouldn’t Say Shit if He Had a Mouthful. He didn’t have it in him. A prank? Yes. Out and out pre-emptive strikes? No. But I had a reputation to protect, if nothing else. “Never meant just cost Slytherin a hundred points,” I spat. “Not to mention my hair, two weeks detention, and Snape about to be adopted into the Weasel clan.” It started off self righteous enough, but I felt my lips twitch as I came out with the last. The scarlet hued, bald-faced Snape in his natural habitat…it was almost worth the consequences.

He replaced his glasses and echoed my twitch with one of his own. “Yes, Ron is none too pleased already with the jokes. Crab and Goyle hit him with one in the first five minutes.”

“Loyal henchmen. You have to spend a little extra, but they’re worth every penny.” I started to grin, actually grin, but then quickly turned away to make my way towards Slytherin. Malfoys did not grin. They leered, sneered, scowled, and smirked…you name it. They might give frozen and cutting smiles or the wolfishly predatory baring of teeth, but they did not grin. “I’d pick out a nice pair of knickers, Potter. When I tell Snape the true culprit you’ll be showing them to the entire school.”

His voice came from behind me, unconcerned from what I could tell. “I am sorry, Malfoy. I was just playing our game. I didn’t mean to do…well, whatever it is I did.”

Whatever it was he did…Potter hadn’t ever been the best student under Snape. “You always were a hopeless prat at Potions,” I grunted before relenting. “It had to be Bleeding Heart. That color…the explosion. Double it next time and you can take out the whole school.” I looked at him over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows in superior smirk number five. “There’s one test question I like to think you’ll get next time.” I didn’t wait for a reply. Turning the corner, I walked on trying very hard not to think of two words.

Our game. Shit. Our game. When had Potter figured out something I only had at the end of last year? It was a game and had been for some time. About the time hatred had gone to comfortable old slipper loathing, out and out attempts of violence had became a game. You can take a wolf cub out of its environment and it’ll still never be completely tame. But it’ll be changed. It will see different things and different ways and it’ll change. It might take years and the change could be for better or worse, but it will happen. It was inevitable.

Stopping at the portrait, I said the password, “Hairy Pooter.” Of course, too much change was a lot to ask for.

I retaliated of course. Game or not, there were rules. As much as I loved to break rules, this one was sacrosanct. Never mind Potter had confessed and Slytherin had gotten our points back. And never mind that detention was now heaped on the shoulders of one unbearably wholesome Gryffindor instead of my manly ones. I hadn’t, however, gotten my pony-tail back, but I hadn’t much cared about that.

Potter had also received a lecture from Dumbledore in front of the entire school at lunch the next day. There were all sorts of good phrases, gravely disappointing being my favorite. Not that the old bastard didn’t manage to toss in a ‘don’t sink to the levels of others.’ Couldn’t let pass an opportunity to put Slytherin in its place, now could he? A time and a purpose, he’d said. I understood it much more now…the things he said and did. But I still didn’t much like it.

Mostly good stuff, yes, but that didn’t change the fact. There must be payback. Across the tables and sea of food I could see the glitter of green eyes aimed in my direction. Potter knew it too, and surprisingly enough he seemed almost to be anticipating it. That is, he was until he saw his bird.

Mail call came as we were well tucked into shepherd’s pie. Mine had what appeared to be a human eye in it. I sighed and tossed the orb over my shoulder. Dobby was on chef duty today apparently. Leaning back, I watched as a clutch of poisonous black widow spiders crawled from beneath the crust, steaming only a little. I pointed my wand at them and muttered, “Flagrare.” The spiders burst into tiny green flames. If Dobby didn’t stop pissing me off, he might soon be flagrare himself. If he wanted revenge, he was perfectly welcome to find the crusty cinders of dear old dad and stomp on them. I had no problem with that at all. As for me, I was starving and this shit was getting old.

Packages began to fall from the air above us. I used the opportunity to swap my plate for Blaise’s as he looked up trying to spot his. I didn’t look anymore. Unless I sent packages to myself I wasn’t going to see anything. Father had sent me things when he was alive...nasty, awful things which at the time I’d quite appreciated. Mother hadn’t sent me anything that I could recall…ever. Not sure I blamed her too much…she wasn’t a Malfoy. She was a broodmare for Malfoys and she’d understood that from the beginning. That isn’t something that leads to maternal bonding. She’d made a bargain, kept it, and gotten the things she’d desired that her aristocratic but genteely poor family couldn’t give her. It was merely business. How could I blame her for that?

My white knuckled grip had jammed the tines of my fork so deeply in the table that I gave up and used my spoon on Blaise’s pie. That had irked me from day one. Poor Harry Potter, the orphan. His parents killed by the big boogety, You Know Who. His mother died to save him. Wah wah wah. Feel sorry for the poor, big eyed orphan boy. My mother didn’t even know where the nursery was, and my father would’ve served me up to Voldemort with a big red bow and a side of chips.

Had served me up.

Dark thoughts, darker than a bottomless well reflecting an endless night. But they didn’t last. They were interrupted by the infuriated shouting of my name and a hand twisted in the robe at my neck. I raised my head and smiled with the innocence of a baby…a baby not born in the Malfoy manor. “Something wrong, Potter?”

He was on the table before me, like a common ruffian. Crab or Goyle could’ve been giving him tips. Crouched on his knees in the splattered remains of shepherd’s pie, he glared down at me and shook me. Actually shook me. Potter was shaping up to be a wolf cub too…only in reverse. He’d been taken from the cage and tossed into the wild. It finally looked like he might be adapting. “You bastard.” It was a respectable snarl…not one worthy of a Malfoy, mind you, but still I give credit where credit is due.

His bird, an owl named Hedgehog or something, was perched on his shoulder rather forlornly. I’d left the wing and tail feathers so it could still fly, but the head and body were as nude and smooth as a baby’s bottom. I pursed my lips and considered it for a moment. “I thought that only happened with male owls. Genetically inherited baldness and all.” Before he could give me another shake, I waved my wand imperiously at the bird. “Vestire. See, Potter? All better.” I thought the small green and black sweater vest emblazoned with the Slytherin S looked quite dashing on Hedgehog, but naturally Potter didn’t seem to agree.

That was how we both came to be sharing detention. Oh joy. The first night was in the library. Some might think that better than the Forbidden Forest. They would be the ones unaware that flesh eating books awoke after ten and began to scour the repository for anything edible. How did I know? Well…let’s just say it wasn’t my first detention, believe it or not.

But it wasn’t ten yet and I leaned back in my chair, propped my shoeless feet on a table and decided to take a nap. I didn’t like the cold, but I did like naps. Enough so that last year I’d been given double honors…voted Most Likely to Turn Harry Potter into a Furball and Most Likely to Sleep Through the War. Ironic, that last one…ironic enough to be carved on my tombstone. Exhaling, I closed my eyes. What would be would be. They didn’t sing that stupid song without reason, now did they?

“Malfoy.”

“Bloody Baron save me.” Opening one eye the barest of slivers, I could see that determined Potter gaze aimed at me from across the study table. “What now, Potter? Do my feet smell?” I snapped with automatic bad humour. It was unlikely, considering my rigorous hygiene. As a matter of fact they probably smelled like soap or baby powder through my socks. I’d showered before detention and after an exhausting not to mention painful practice on the field. “Sniff away then. I hope it rots your one lonely brain cell. It’ll be a mercy killing truly.” I closed my eye again. “Now, shut up. I need my beauty sleep.”

“No argument from me there,” he murmured, raising challenging brows as I opened both eyes at that affront.

Sitting up, I fixed him with a look of my own, not a pleasant one either. “You’re playing with fire, Potter. You do realize that, right?”

Once again, he ignored me. He was getting far too good at that. “I just wanted to let you know we fixed Hedwig up. She’s all feathers again, no thanks to you.”

I snorted, sat up to swing my feet to the ground and reluctantly reached for a textbook. “Well, of course you did. It’s a simple enough spell to reverse. A third year could do it.” Flipping pages idly, I added slyly, “So, I’m guessing Granger cast it.” Harry Potter was many things…annoyingly good, disgustingly wholesome, disturbingly even insanely brave, and the best Quidditch player Hogwarts had seen…aside from my self naturally….but an excellent student he was not. However he was supposed to dispose of Voldemort once and for all, it obviously wasn’t going to involve potions, transfigurations, spells, herbology…etc etc.

He flushed lightly over his cheekbones then amazingly enough laughed. “Yeah, it was Hermione. Ron had disappeared into his room trying to figure out the one you used. I think he wants to de-feather Hermione.”

I couldn’t help myself. The laugh was out before I could stop it and I swallowed a groan as my head throbbed. “De-feather? Don’t you mean deflower?”

Grinning me without insult, he put his own feet up on the table. “Hope springs eternal for poor Ron.”

Discarding the textbook, I gave a mental shrug and put my feet back up beside his. No way a Potter was going to out blasé a Malfoy. “Something springs all right, but I doubt it’s eternal.” I made a face. “At least I hope not.” I slouched further down in the seat. “I’m going to sleep now, Potter. Don’t get any ideas. I still hate you. I’m just going to hate you while sleeping. So keep it down.” Eyes closed, I was drifting halfway between sleep and waking when he said it. And damn if it was the very worse thing he could’ve said.

“Malfoy, why did you hate me?”

Oh damn. Damn.

Maybe something could’ve been salvaged if he’d asked ‘why do you hate me?’ But, no, he hadn’t said that, had he? He’d definitely spoken in the past tense. Screwing my eyes shut tighter, I said flatly, “That’s not how we play the Game, Potter.”

“Maybe I don’t want to play anymore.” There was a pause, a mind clicking gears. “Maybe we haven’t been playing for a while now.”

I kept my eyes shut and crossed my arms reflexively. “You’re insane, Potter. I detest and loathe you, same as always. If you want me to prove it I’ll remove portions of you far more valuable than the feathers were to your bird.”

A hand wrapped itself around my socked foot. “It’s been six years,” he said earnestly, my threats less than moonbeams in his eyes. “I’ve known you six years, Malfoy. In some ways you’ve been a bigger influence in my life than my best friends. Did you think I wouldn’t notice this? I’ve changed since that first day at the station, but so have you. I thought about it lot this summer. I thought about it a lot today…after lunch. Three years ago you would’ve served Hedwig up as soup. The bottom line, Malfoy, is…well….you’ve…mellowed.”

Outraged, I jerked my feet off the table and stood. “Mellowed? Mellowed?” If there were a worse insult known, I couldn’t recall it. I fumbled for my wand with every intention of melting him to a puddle of purple goop. The hell with choices and the hell with Dumbledore. Mellowed? I simply couldn’t live with that attached to my name.

“Oh leave off, would you?” Unimpressed, he waved his hand at my chair. “Sit down and just tell me why you hated me and I’ll leave you alone.”

That would be the day. But I was tired and I was sore from practice during which I’d had my teeth rattled but good by a stray bulger that had clipped my head. All I wanted was sleep and short of paying for it I wasn’t going to see it. I knew Potter...he could be relentless. This could go on for hours, and I simply wasn’t up for it. So...I paid. I paid and ignored an inner voice that whispered mockingly, ‘Excuses. Excuses.’

“Because my father told me to,” I said bleakly, the humor of a naked Granger long gone. “And if you should know anything, Potter, it’s that my father had ways of getting what he wanted.” And in the beginning I’d done my best to disobey him, but one rejection at the train station had made my rebellion useless. I turned my back on Potter and made my way across the library to large leather chair. I thought I heard him say something behind me, but he wasn’t the only one who could ignore. Settling in the chair, I curled up and tried to sleep. It was a long time coming as I considered this new turn of events with not a little horror…mellowed…but finally I slipped away.

“Malfoy.”

I swear to the House founders, he was more devious and unholy than I’d ever dreamed of being. With a voice thick with sleep, I muttered, “Also because you’re holier than thou little prat. A teacher’s pet. And you have the fashion sense of troll. Good enough? Now leave me alone.”

“Draco,” more insistently. “Wake up.”

I had no intention of obeying. After all, since when had I listened to Potter? But there was something so desperate in his voice that I sighed mightily and opened my eyes. There was a book balanced on my chest. Innocent enough to the eyes…as if I’d fallen asleep reading. But I hadn’t. And if I had I wouldn’t have been reading a book with teeth and foaming saliva. “Well, fuck me.” Not my usual eloquence, true, but appropriate for the situation at hand. Apparently, I’d overslept. It was past ten and the books were on the prowl. Of course, Potter couldn’t have warned me sooner because he didn’t know anything about them. He so rarely got detention, Mr. Prim and Proper. I shifted my eyes from the vibrating predator on my chest to Potter who stood on the table nearest me. Books were leaping, trying to maneuver their way up the wooden legs.

A slightly more frightening sight was the wand in Potter’s hand. It was pointed at the rabid volume on my chest…consequently it was also pointed at me. And there was no way Potter was accomplished enough to take it out without taking me out as well. “Did I say hate, Potter?” I gritted as my fists clenched on the arms of the chair. “Maybe hate is too strong. Point the wand someplace else, all right?”

“Quiet,” he rapped and for once, against my better judgement, I obeyed. Eyes to narrow slits, he extended the wand and whispered under his breath. There was a miniature explosion, the smell of burnt paper, and my hands slapping against my chest looking for the hole. To my everlasting surprise my robe wasn’t even singed. Someone had been practicing.

Jumping to my feet, I launched myself through the air and tackled Potter off the table just as ten page-flapping little monsters dropped from the shelves high above. They hit the table as Potter and I hit the floor. I heard the air burst from his lungs as I landed on top of him. Grabbing a handful of his school robe, I yanked him to his feet and towed him at a dead run to the huge double doors. We made it, just barely, and I heard hundreds of tomes hit the doors as I slammed them shut behind us.

Potter slid to the floor, wheezing painfully for breath. Coughing, he managed to choke out, “Never…was…much….for…book-learning.”

I slid down beside him, bemused. Potter saving me and now demonstrating a sense of humor, what was the world coming to? Maybe that bulger had hit me harder than I’d thought. “That is the rumor.” The floor was cold beneath me, the flagstone blocks sucking the heat from my body. Wizards galore in this place and they couldn’t whip up some shag carpeting, I’d never understood it.

“You saved me.” Still hoarse but steadier, Potter had gotten his voice back. Just in time to say something else to piss me off. He had talent, all right. It lay in strange areas, but he had it.

“Oh hell.” Pulling up my knees, I rested my forehead on them. I’d been so preoccupied with the peculiar concept of him saving me, I’d forgotten the little fact that he might realize that I had saved him. If that got around school, I’d never be able to show my Greek God features again. Not to mention the withering stare Snape would give me as it became glaringly apparent I would never be half the double agent that he was. “Potter....” It had to be a good threat, an utterly believable one to shut his mouth fast on this.

I was still frantically searching for just the right thing when he said quietly, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.” Eyes alight, he added, “Who would believe me anyway?”

Relieved, I turned my head to look at him. “You’re right. No one would.” Everything was going to work out, more or less, as it was supposed to. Potter would keep quiet as he’d said because it was inconceivable that Muggley Do-Right would break his word. It was all going to proceed according to plan; I simply had to maintain the status quo. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could do it. I’d given my word...even only if it were to Dumbledore. It would work, I repeated to myself, and I kept thinking that right up until Potter made his next move.

Lifting a hand, he tugged a long pale strand that had pulled free from its confinement to fall past my cheek. Rubbing it carefully between his fingers as if testing the tensile strength of a strand of silk, he stated with absolute assurance, “I’m going to figure you out, Malfoy. It’s only a matter of time.”

I froze, staring into green eyes that were both warm and unyielding. He’d grown up. No longer the nervously stubborn boy he had been. Events of the past years had tempered him into a confident steel. He was still Potter in the more fundamental ways, crusading, giving, protective, but now he had the bedrock to support it all. That was going to make him trouble.

The thought broke my reverie. My mouth tightened and I said without emotion, “Do that and you will find out things you’d sooner not know.” I stood, not caring if I lost a hair or two. He let go in time however and looked up at me with an odd flash of something close to compassion that shimmered across his face and was gone. At least it wasn’t pity. No matter what I’d revealed in the library, that would’ve earned him a foot in the gut before he could take his next breath.

“Play the game, Potter” I ordered flatly. “It’s there for a reason.” I walked away leaving him behind still sitting on the floor, and, I was sure, still thinking about me.

It wasn’t a comforting thought...on any level.

He kept his promise. Unfortunately, he kept them both. He didn’t tell anyone I’d saved his Gryffindor ass. In fact, he told everyone whose path he crossed that I’d set the books on him. It was gratifying to get credit without doing the actual work. But the pleasure of that didn’t last when I realized Potter wasn’t one for idle threats either. He was bound and determined to delve beneath the gorgeous Malfoy exterior. Let me say that a bound and determined Potter was right on the same level with Voldemort for sheer unadulterated terror.

And he wouldn’t play the game anymore.

Don’t think I didn’t try. I wreaked the sort of havoc on Gryffindor house the likes of which hadn’t been seen since Salazar Slytherin. The five hundred conjured serpents I sent into their common room was inspired. At least it was until Potter sat down with them and cheerfully parsel’ed at them for hours. It was a regular party, I’m sure. Password? Please. Longbottom would give up his first, last, and middle born at the mere mention of a wedgie. If he’d ever caught sight of the far more lethal things my father had sent me over the years, he would’ve pissed himself and anyone else in a five kilometer radius. The pear shaped coward...how he made the brave, bold, and utterly clueless Gryffindor I’ll never know.

After the snakes took on Potter as their new teddy bear, I tried a different approach. I turned every broom on the Gryffindor team sentient, and if that weren’t enough, I unionized them. No Pay, No Play could be heard chanted on the field for two days before Dumbledore himself had to change them back. I was proud of that spell and I gleefully watched as teacher after teacher failed to counter it. It was a Slytherin special lost in the mists of time until I’d rediscovered it over the summer in the manor library. It didn’t work with anything but brooms and consequently wasn’t too useful, but amusing? You’ve no idea.

I sat in the stands with mead disguised as butterbeer and watched the dog-and-pony show for hours. Team Gryffindor running this way and that trying to catch their rogue and rather foul mouthed brooms, it managed to soften my failure with the snakes. At least it did until Potter chose a seat on the bench beside me. He could ruin a good time like no one’s business.

“Good one, Malfoy,” he said matter-of-fact. He turned his face up to catch the rays of a weak autumn sun. “Did you make the signs too? I mean they have no arms and all.”

“I do my best to support the common worker,” I said smugly. Each broom had a shiny white placard threaded over its handle. I was especially fond of the one that read ‘we die before we fly’. Potter’s broom though...that had been a special project. It was sporting a pink tutu and a sign that read ‘Brooms rule, Muggles drool.’

“Sure, you’re all about the plight of the downtrodden,” he shot back blandly. Straightening, he leaned against my shoulder to peer into my mug, took a whiff, and shook his head. “You won’t have to worry about me not playing your game if you get expelled for drinking.”

“Your concern is heartwarming. I can’t even begin to tell you.” Shifting my shoulder, I shook him off and brushed at my robe with exaggerated distaste. If I were still eleven I might have wailed about Gryffindor cooties. Ah, youth. Below I heard an outraged yell. Red hair blazed and two fists waved in fury. “I think your pet weasel is looking for you,” I drawled. “I wonder how he would look in a tutu.”

His hand stopped the surreptitious raising of my wand. “His name is Ron,” he corrected firmly. “After six years, even you should be able to remember that.” Blinking with owlish innocence, he added, “Unless it is true what they say. That the bleach has begun to seep into your brain.”

I narrowed my eyes and used my free hand to notch a finger in the air. “I think the sorting hat was right. Underneath it all, Potter, you were born to slyther.”

He tightened his hand on mine. “You....how did you know?”

“Get that hat drunk and you’d be amazed at what it spills.” I curled up the corner of my mouth with chilly cheer. “Or horrified. Your call.” I handed him the mead as he dropped his hand from mine and groaned wholeheartedly. “Don’t worry. It will never pass my lips. I wouldn’t want to bring that shame on my House.” I wondered...if Potter had gone Slytherin, would the hat have re-sorted me Gryffindor? Terrifying thought.

He took a drink, a good one...it could be this wasn’t his first time with alcohol despite his advice to me. “I don’t even want to think about it,” he avowed fervently. Weasely was pounding his way up the stairs to our perch, his shouts getting louder with every step he took. Potter sighed and gave me the mug back. “I better go or we’ll all be losing points. Ron loved that broom of his.”

“Look on the bright side,” I said in a voice loud enough to carry to Weasely. “Now at least he has a date for the Halloween dance. Put it in a wig and a dress...they’ll be quite the couple.” That had Potter rolling his eyes and leaving in a hurry, dragging that red haired squawk beast behind him. I waved cheerfully at them as they went.

And still the son of a bitch wouldn’t play.

It was the first Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor and I’d come to realize it. Potter simply wasn’t going to let it be. Bulldog tenacious, he spent detention with me for two weeks. When I refused to respond to his conversation, he shrugged and we spent the time in oddly companionable silence. He volunteered to pair up with me in any class we shared, causing Snape’s new grown peach fuzz eyebrows to rise nearly to his lank widow’s peak. Throwing discretion to the wind, I’d enacted so many schemes and plots against him and Gryffindor that I’d lost every point Slytherin could possibly gather for the entire year, and he still refused to retaliate. And it was all for nothing. I would’ve been persona non grata in my own point-less House if I hadn’t been feared like the little tin god I was.

Lips twisting at my last thought, I watched for the glitter of gold as I hovered far far above the ground. He’d wished me luck before the game. He’d wished me bloody good luck behind a concealed grin, knowing that he was driving me all but insane. Helping Potter was turning out to be much more difficult than hurting him. Catching a snitch with my toes would’ve been infinitely easier.

Speaking of....

I took my broom into a dive that had Gryffindors scattering as I pulled up inches from the sand. Lowering my feet, I sent up a cloud of the grit as I zoomed along. Hearing a coughing behind me, I allowed myself a faintly triumphant smile. This game, Potter, you do have to play. With in short seconds I’d lost sight of the snitch and rose to circle overhead while muttering curses. Just as quickly I spotted the gleam of metal again. Frowning, I studied it. It wasn’t gold....no, more of a dark silver, but it was moving as fast as any snitch. Maybe faster. And it was headed straight for Potter. Like me, he was circling trying to regain the snitch. Eyes intent as he scanned the lower arena, his hair was dark and blown by the brisk and bitter wind. With lean face flushed, he was in his element...the game the only thing on his mind. This game was the only one he would play now, and it was one that could well kill him.

There was no time to yell a warning. Certainly not one that would be comprehended. But my broom was fast and I’d made it faster with upgrades thoroughly illegal. Rules had been broken, and thanks to that maybe Potter didn’t have to be. I slammed into him hard, knocking him completely from his broom. I had a flash of second year deja vu. I saw his lips shape my name as he grabbed desperately at the handle and swung from beneath the broom as if it were a trapeze. As hard as I hit him, the force that hit me was even harder. I was thrown far enough from my broom that there was no hope at gaining a handhold. Tossed over Potter and his broom, I fell. Fell far.

It didn’t hurt.

Funny, that. To fall from the height of the highest stands and not feel a thing. On my back I watched a sky the cloudy white of a freshwater pearl. The sun was the same color only a shade brighter...milky glass held to a fire. Birds flew in the sky...red and gold, black and green. Beautiful. Strange and beautiful.

There was a thump beside me and hands on my face. “Draco?”

Green eyes stark in a white face. Dark wind tangled hair. Slytherin colors. How had I not noticed that before? The hands left my face and I felt my upper body lifted up. A rhythm, hard and fast, beat against my back. “Draco, can you hear me?”

The numbness began to fade. There was a band around my chest, tight and implacable. My fingers found a handful of cloth to grip tightly as I coughed once. There was the bright taste of copper in my mouth and a spray of scarlet on the smooth white sand beside my leg. “Watch....” I gasped for the next breath, pulling it through lungs filling with cloying liquid. “Watch...the...sky.” Watch it for the next rain of lethal metal.

Did he listen? Of course not. The great and noble Harry Potter demonstrate an ounce of sense or self-survival? Now there would be an unlikely show I would pay to see. Instead he pulled my robe back to see what I had until now only felt. Four inches of steel was buried between my ribs. The hilt, black and ornate, was something I’d seen a thousand times in any magical supply shop. It was an athame...created for the cutting of spiritual bonds, but if well sharpened it worked just as well on flesh.

I felt my head drop back involuntarily against Potter’s chest. “Who...won?” Each word tasted of blood and I hoped, as the world began to darken around me, that Dumbledore got off his wrinkled ass long enough to give Slytherin double points for this.

There was no Quidditch score, only a warm breath against my cheek as his head rested against mine. “If you die, Malfoy...,” he said in a voice thick with anger. “If you die because of me, I’ll bury you in a pink tutu, you son of a bitch. I swear it.” There was fear too, hand in hand with the anger. It was a fear that amazingly enough didn’t surprise me as much as I would’ve thought.

As threats went, it was fairly well done. I didn’t blame him for it. Quite a few people had died because of Harry Potter, and that was a weight no one should have to bear. Not even a do-gooder Gryffindor. Malfoy etiquette forgotten, I grinned. It couldn’t have been much of one, bloody and twisted with a burgeoning pain, but there was no denying that’s what it was. “Leave you...Crab...and...Goyle.” If only I’d thought ahead, I would’ve done it too...left him my slow witted cronies in my will to follow him twenty-four seven while moping and wailing for their lost leader. It would’ve been absolutely brilliant....almost worth dying for in fact. Almost.

I was fast losing my grip on consciousness. Ragged and tattered, the bright edges of it slipped through my fingers like the will-o-wisp hem of our resident phantoms. It was Potter’s more solid robe that I held in hand as if it were all that was holding me above the abyss. Who knew? Maybe it was. I yanked at it with all the strength I had left. It wasn’t anything to write home about but it captured his attention. Tightly shut eyes opened to meet mine. The whirl of emotion behind them had turned the green to black. “Tell...Snape. Came...from...east.”

Potter wasn’t precisely president of the Severus Snape fan club, but he nodded instantly nonetheless. “I will. Now quiet. Help is coming.”

It was good advice. And contrary Slytherin to the end, I refused to take it. The black of his pupils began to spread like ink until I was drowning in it...the oxygen sucked from my lungs. But I couldn’t let go, not yet. I had more to say, one more thing to push between numb lips. I wasn’t positive that the words made it out as sounds were drifting away as quickly as the light, but I gave it my all. It was important. “Watch...your...back...Potter.” I hoped he was listening. I hoped he heard.

Because my days of watching it for him appeared to be over.

It was raining when I woke up. I could hear it drumming steadily against window glass. I luxuriated in it for a moment. There was nothing more satisfying in the world than to lie in a tangle of warm blankets and hide from a wet and dreary morning. And it was morning, wasn’t it? Didn’t I have Herbology in less than an hour? Man eating plants that had the smell of rotten meat and spoiled cabbage…that was on the schedule for today.

Wasn’t it?

Confused, I frowned and turned my head into the pillow. The coarse feel of cheap low thread count cotton against my skin as well as a firm warmth and pressure wrapped around my hand let me know I was wrong. This wasn’t my bedroom with silk sheets and the cool weight of Lilith, the Slytherin constrictor mascot curled against my hip. This was something else altogether, and I didn’t have to think twice to know I probably wasn’t going to like it.

Opening bleary eyes to a soothing shadowed gloom, I saw that it was worse than I thought. Groaning, I mumbled, “It’s a curse. No other explanation.” At least that’s what I said in my mind. What came out of my mouth sounded more like the bubbling of the Fire Swamps to the south.

Seated in a straight-backed chair by the bed, Potter leaned forward. “You’re awake.” There were sleepless smudges behind those glasses, and that let me know it’d been some time since I’d fallen from the sky like an arrow shot pigeon. I remembered now…the athame, the fall, all of it.

Working up enough saliva for understandable words this time, I said hoarsely, “Once again…with…those powers of observation.” Licking dry lips, I narrowed my eyes as I saw what was holding my hand prisoner. “Potter….”

Looking down, he seemed to just notice his hand closed around mine. “Sorry. You’ve had nightmares. Real corkers. I think you have more of them than I do.” Tucking my hand back under the blankets, he relinquished it without fuss or awkwardness…as if he found it quite natural to sit at my sick bed, hand in hand with a Slytherin. Perhaps I had died after all. And this was Hell…Harry Potter nursing me back to health. Time for your gruel, Malfoy. Let’s just slip this bib on you. Does your nappy need changing? Gah. I gave an inner shudder.

Scowling, I gathered the blankets to my chest and demanded with a weak shadow of the normal Malfoy hauteur, “What are you doing here anyway, Potter? Isn’t torturing the wounded against the Gryffindor bylaws?”

Eyes inscrutable, he responded quietly, “I’m watching your back, Malfoy. Just as you have been watching mine, correct?”

“I have no idea what you’re blathering about,” I dismissed loftily while mentally I gave my unbelievably dashing backside a swift kick. “Where’s Snape? Surely the head of my House has a duty to keep you from smothering me in my sleep.” Not to mention extricating me from a situation that was rapidly deteriorating through only partial fault of my own.

“You saved my life,” he went on inexorably. “You very nearly died for me. You can’t deny that.”

Couldn’t I?

“I did no such thing,” I protested instantly, widening my eyes to show how even the thought of such an act horrified me beyond measure.

He wasn’t buying it. Gaze locked on me, he folded his arms and settled back as if he had all his life to wait me out. “Oh, really?” He cocked a skeptical eyebrow in a move I that knew…knew…that he had stolen from me. Mocking bastard.

“I was merely in the wrong place at the absolute worse time.” I tried to sit up, and hissed in discomfort as pain lanced dully through my side. “I was trying to toss you over, have you eat sand. I had no idea someone was trying to puncture your holier-than-thou ego. Anyone who was there will say the same thing.”

Suddenly, hands were behind my shoulders helping me to a sitting position. Potter stuffed the pillow behind my back to support me, rearranged my blankets, and had a glass of water in my hand…all before I knew what had hit me. Sitting back down, this time on the edge of the bed, he gave a faint, tired grin. “Actually, half the school does think that…that it was accidental and purely bad luck on your part. The other half is entertaining the notion that you’re a hero.”

“Bloody hell.” I’d been saying that quite a bit in the past three weeks, and Potter was invariably behind every syllable. Glumly, I leaned my forehead against the glass, a cascade of loose hair falling about my face. Then sighing, I straightened and took a sip of water. Bendy straws…it was the closest thing to magic a Muggle had ever managed. After a few throat cooling sips, I asked morosely, “What does Slytherin think?”

“They’re firmly of the opinion it was unintentional at best and that at worst I stabbed you in a fit of jealousy over your unmatched charisma and movie star-like hair.” His smile spread. “They’d rather think you clumsy as a mudwog than even remotely involved in helping me.” The smile faded as he said solemnly, “But I know better. How long has this been going on, Draco?”

There it was again…my given name, same as when I’d been coughing blood onto the Quidditch field. “I’m quite sure that I don’t know what you mean,” I said stiffly.

“Awfully correct for an evil genius.” He took the cup from my hands. “And I think you know exactly what I mean. How long have you been acting as a bodyguard for me? How long have you been on my side?” Putting down the cup on the bedside bureau with a thump, he demanded, “How long?”

“Since last year, Mr. Potter.”

Potter twisted around to see what I did. In the doorway Snape and Dumbledore stood shoulder to shoulder. As Snape’s poisonous voice still hung in the air, he folded his arms and gave me a look of disgust. He added with curled lip, “Not that he was as discreet as one would hope.”

“It’s true, Harry.” Dumbledore entered the room, a gnarled hand unhappily stroking his beard. “Mr. Malfoy volunteered to assist Professor Snape and I in certain matters. I had hoped it wouldn’t end as it so nearly did, but here we are. And now we must determine how we are to go on.”

“Now that a cover has been so casually discarded.”

“Not necessarily,” I disputed, meeting Snape’s scowl with one of my own. My side ached and I felt as weak as a newborn kittlefetch, but was not going to lay here and have my cunning questioned. “It only requires a new twist. Perhaps the entire Quidditch incident was staged on my part for the sole purpose of gaining Potter’s trust. Fake blood. A glamour to make a paltry wound seem much worse than it really was.” I gave a superior smirk. “Tell me it wouldn’t work.”

Dumbledore and Snape exchanged glances and the latter said slowly, “Yessss, simplistic but mildly devious. It has potential. Perhaps you won’t be bring shame to Slytherin after all, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Excuse me.”

“Later, Harry.” Patting the air in a hushing gesture, Dumbledore ignored Potter. That had to be a first. “Yes, indeed. Quite clever, Mr. Malfoy. In some ways this attack could work to our benefit.”

“Excuse me.” Apparently later wasn’t good enough for Potter. He had stood and maneuvered himself between the professors and me, standing tensely by the foot of my bed. “I want to know exactly what’s going on, and I want to know now. I also want to know how you could possibly think that Malfoy almost dying works to anyone’s benefit.” I’d seen this protective streak in Potter a hundred times, most always with Granger, Weasely and his clan, or anyone else weak, helpless, and good. I never would have imagined it would spread to include me. And I wasn’t sure that I was at all comfortable with it.

“Wasn’t so long ago, Potter, you’d have seen the benefit quickly enough.” I could feel my eyelids drooping heavily, spoiling my dry sarcasm. Moving down into bed, I closed my eyes and mumbled, “Wake me when it’s over.” I’d heard the immovable quality in Potter’s voice. He wouldn’t give in until Dumbledore and Snape told him the truth. Let them….I was taking a nap.

I rolled over and burrowed under the covers. I was right, of course, as I nearly always was. Things could work very well, even now…as long as two things turned out. First, that the athame hadn’t been courtesy of Voldemort. Second, that Potter cooperated. I had an unsettling feeling that the first would be quite easier than the second. I didn’t let it keep me from my sleep. I had no doubt than I was going to need all I could get.

When I awoke Snape and Dumbledore were gone. For a moment I thought Potter was as well. I was wrong. What is it that the Muggles say? If it weren’t for catastrophic luck, I’d have no luck at all. He was standing across the room, looking out of the rain lashed window. From the looks of the dim light outside, I hadn’t slept too long. Shifting in the covers, I blew a stray strand of hair from my eyes and said peevishly, “I know you have a House to go to, Potter. Why are you hanging about, then?”

He turned. Arms folded as if he were slightly chilled, he gave me a brooding look. “I won’t stand for it, you know.”

“Won’t stand for what?” Cautiously, I lifted my arms to pull back my hair. Maybe I would cut it all off. I felt like nothing more than a sheepdog, peering through a curtain of pale hair. “I’m not in the mood for riddles, Potter, and this isn’t the Tri-wizard. Speak plainly, would you?”

Moving back to my bedside, he fished in his pocket and handed me the tie I had used on my hair that morning. At least I thought it had been that morning. I really had no idea how much time had passed. Giving him a sideways glance, I took it and finally got my hair sorted out. One had to suffer for truly devastating looks, I was aware, but this was getting tiresome. Still, it did speak of me following in Father’s footsteps, so best I keep on struggling with it.

“I am not about to let you stand between me and Voldemort.” His face was suddenly close to mine and full of temper. “I’m not going to let you play double agent while I cross my fingers and hope that evil bastard doesn’t catch onto you. And I’m not, repeat, not allowing you to assume your life is worth less than mine. Are we clear on all of that, Malfoy?”

Funny. Everyone else assumed my life was worth less than Potter’s; why would he feel any different? “Potter….” I sighed, unable to produce even the baby spawning of a sneer. I was simply too tired for it. “In war there is the King and there is cannon fodder. That’s it. You’re the King. I don’t know why or how, and quite frankly, I think it bloody unfair to you. But you are the King in this battle. The rest of us are only here to keep you alive long enough to do whatever it is you must do. I don’t like it anymore than you. I’d much rather be at the beach, tossing pebbles into the waves.” I rubbed my aching side. “With my family’s history I can either stand between you and Voldemort or at the side of Voldemort. My choices are limited.” And if Snape didn’t discover how to get my Dark Mark off but soonest, those limited choices might very well be cut in half. With reluctant sympathy, I added, “And so are yours.”

The anger continued to simmer under his skin until suddenly he dropped bonelessly to sit on the edge of the bed. “You nearly died, Draco.” He removed his glasses and rubbed weary eyes. “Right there on the field. I could feel your blood soaking my clothes. It was warm, you know. Almost hot…but you were cold. So damned cold.” I could see the blood was still there. He’d removed his Quidditch robe, but the shirt underneath was also stained. Dark and dry…Potter hadn’t even gone to go change during his long sick watch. Before I could say anything, he replaced his glasses and fixed me with an unbreakable gaze. “I won’t go through that again, and if I have to leave school to ensure that, I will. You can’t get in the way of any more blades if I’m not around. If you can’t find me then you can’t throw your life away to save me.”

Stubborn. So very, very stubborn. It was a quality in him that used to annoy me beyond all measure. When had I started to respect it instead?

Exhaling harshly, I raised a hand and opened the front tie to the infirmary robe. Pulling it open, I said a word. It was an ugly word, sharp and full of angles that should’ve cut the mouth that said it. It wasn’t Latin; as far as I knew, it wasn’t even remotely human. It did its work, however. The Mark flared to life on my chest over my heart. Black and red, as repulsive and predatory as a black widow spider, you could all but see it pulse with a gloating evil.

“If you leave, Potter,” I said softly…inexorably. “Then who will save me?”

End Part One