When Sirius Black woke up in his bed in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, he found a platinum blonde boy standing by the window.
He stood with his hands behind his back, facing the view outside the window. His back looked thin, and he seemed somewhat preoccupied.
"Draco Malfoy," Sirius said, unsurprised. "What a rare visitor!"
"I believe you have already heard." The boy turned around, his face rather pale.
"Are you referring to Peter Pettigrew's death? Or Quirrell's escape?" Sirius leant back against the pillows on his bed, his lazy tone suggesting they were discussing nothing more than what to have for supper.
"You do not seem in the least bit frightened," Draco said, a hint of surprise in his voice.
"Frightened?" Sirius laughed loudly, saying haughtily, "Does being frightened solve anything?"
"No. But you might at least take it seriously," Draco said coldly. "Behind Quirrell's head is the Dark Lord's soul, which is no laughing matter."
Sirius lazily raised an eyebrow, refraining from any more vigorous movement. He was wrapped in bandages, which made moving rather difficult.
"More to the point, I am curious how you know all this." He looked at the boy with a probing gaze. "After all... I thought only Harry and the others knew about these things."
"I have my own particular sources," Draco said briefly, clenching his jaw.
"Ah, right, you do seem to be growing rather close to Hermione Granger." Sirius said, as though recalling something, glancing up at him with a half-smile.
"None of your business," Draco replied coldly.
"Of course, it is none of my business. But I do wonder whether Narcissa and Lucius will scold you as an ungrateful son, sucking up with a Muggle-born witch, once they find out." Sirius's lips twitched slightly. "Just imagining the scene rather cheers me up."
"I thought I was here to discuss serious matters with you," Draco said, his own lips twitching.
"All right, all right." Sirius smoothed his dark hair and said casually, "My answer is that we have achieved a partial victory. We have removed Peter Pettigrew, that Death Eater, and Voldemort has lost one of his filthy followers. Is that not a good thing?"
"Do not say that name!" Draco said, instinctively.
"As for Quirrell, and Voldemort's escape..." Sirius continued, quite undeterred, insisting on using Voldemort's real name with a haughty air of "what can you do to me?", "I must say, I have no particularly good solution to offer there either. But I imagine their bodies must be dreadfully weak by now.
Quirrell already needed unicorn blood to survive, and he has been petrified for two whole years. It is a marvel he has not simply crumbled away. He will not last much longer."
Draco had initially been quite resistant to hearing him use Voldemort's name so freely; however, Sirius's analysis had quickly drawn his attention elsewhere, and he sank into deep thought.
"Yes, I agree, Quirrell is doomed. But that does not mean the Dark Lord is doomed with him." Draco frowned. "Once Quirrell dies, the Dark Lord could simply bewitch some other wizard into hosting him, and carry on with his old tricks..."
"I am afraid his situation is not quite as promising as you think," Sirius said casually. "Voldemort may not die, not before every Horcrux is destroyed, at any rate; but at present, he certainly cannot have much magic to spare."
"What do you mean by that?" Draco asked, puzzled.
He set aside, for the moment, his habit of correcting Sirius for using Voldemort's name.
At present, Sirius's notion of "magic to spare" interested him rather more.
"For Merlin's sake, I thought you had a proper grasp of this business. Have slugs got into your brain?" Sirius glanced at him, gesturing with exasperation, arms spread wide. "That wand! The wand!"
This left Draco utterly baffled.
"Neville Longbottom's wand! Why did he not take it with him, and leave it behind instead?" Sirius grinned, a look of triumph on his handsome, gaunt face.
Draco stared at him, wide-eyed.
"Because he cannot control that wand! To him, it is nothing more than a stick! His magical power is so weak just now that he cannot even manage an ordinary wand!" he announced, triumphant.
Draco's spirits lifted at once. He had never imagined anyone could approach the problem in such an unconventional way... Sirius Black really was rather brilliant.
But looking at it more closely, it made perfect sense.
When he had woken, he had had nothing with him. His one life-saving wand had been cast aside, untouched. He had not even killed Neville Longbottom, who had come running at him; he had merely knocked him senseless before slipping away quickly and quietly.
Given the Dark Lord's cruel nature, his failure to use the Killing Curse suggested extreme weakness.
After a long pause, Draco finally found his voice.
He asked, with little real hope, "Will he stay like this forever?"
"Of course not!" Sirius sipped his hot tea and grinned wickedly. "He will do anything to find a way to recover as quickly as he can! What we need to do is find that method first, and either destroy it, or lie in wait for it."
Sirius, this dangerous, arrogant man, Draco found his charm rather striking, just then.
He was sharp, clever, perceptive, and from a very distinguished family besides.
Had he not gone to Azkaban at the age of twenty-two, how far might he have gone, how much might he have achieved?
He was bound for great things, Draco thought.
"That is quite plausible." Draco leant against the windowsill, lost in thought for a moment. "But is there any way to reverse it?"
"That will take some serious investigation. I suspect it involves some very dark magic indeed, the sort you certainly will not find in the Hogwarts library." Sirius stroked his stubble-covered cheek, thinking hard.
After a while, he made up his mind. "I shall go and speak to Dumbledore. I want to play my part. I need to tell him I know about the Horcruxes. Do not worry, I shall not give away your little secret, I promise you that. Our arrangement stays between us."
"As you like," Draco glanced at him and said slowly, "one more thing... who exactly are Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?"
Sirius suddenly broke into a grin.
"You have got it all worked out, have you not? That is right, it was a nickname I used when I was younger, along with James and Remus. I am Padfoot, Remus is Moony, and Prongs is James... Harry's father."
He did not mention Wormtail, but Draco could guess well enough who Wormtail had been.
"Are you all Animagi? Did you go and keep Lupin company during the full moon?" Draco could not help asking.
"That is right. Any more questions?"
"Why does Professor Snape loathe the Shrieking Shack so much?" Draco went on.
"Ah, that would be my doing." Sirius scratched his nose, though he did not look terribly sorry about it. "You see, Lupin used to hide in the Shrieking Shack during the full moon. I was a bit of a troublemaker back then, rather reckless, and I wanted to play a trick on him... lure him down there to give him a fright, or something of the sort... and very nearly got him killed. James stopped it just in time..."
"That is rather more than mere recklessness; someone could have died, if things had gone wrong." Draco's face darkened quickly.
How could he even have considered luring a fellow student to the Shrieking Shack to face a werewolf!
No wonder Professor Snape seemed to have such a severe aversion to the Shrieking Shack, and grew angry at the very mention of it.
No wonder Professor Snape had seemed so afraid of the werewolf Lupin became, and his fighting had been so poor that night!
In his previous life, his fighting had not been nearly so poor when facing Greyback!
Draco could not believe he had come away from that old business without some lasting scar upon his mind.
Draco knew all too well how long, and how persistently, the pain of such old wounds from one's schooldays could linger.
It made perfect sense that Professor Snape should be fearful, wary, and less capable in a fight.
Draco even found himself wondering why Professor Snape had never quietly poisoned Sirius.
Sirius Black... arrogant to the point of disregarding the lives of others... rather like Draco Malfoy in his previous life... was a heedless troublemaker indeed.
"So, I am very grateful to James." After a pause, the carefree troublemaker said, with real feeling, "He has always come through for me, whenever I have needed him."
This was the first time Draco had seen Sirius wear such an expression.
He had been apathetic, weary, down on his luck; he had also been lazy, arrogant, and unruly.
But Draco was surprised to see him show such rare tenderness now.
Sirius and Harry's father, James, must have been very good friends indeed, he thought to himself, as he hurried towards the hippogriffs' paddock.