Exam day arrived quickly, and the questions were exactly as he remembered. It reminded Draco, again and again, that the gears of fate continued turning along their appointed track.
Professor McGonagall, just as he recalled, had them transform a teapot into a tortoise; Professor Flitwick, as usual, tested them on the Cheering Charm; Professor Snape, stony-faced, had them brew a Confusing Concoction, and Draco noticed his manner towards Harry remained just as harsh as ever; Professor Binns had them write an essay on medieval witch-hunts; and afterwards, the students had to sit their Herbology exam in the greenhouse under a blazing sun, Draco feeling rather as though he were about to be dried into a herb himself.
Naturally, some of the exam content differed from what Draco remembered. The Care of Magical Creatures exam was not about tending Flobberworms, but instead required taking a small sprig from a Bowtruckle's tree, offering the creature fairy eggs or ground beetles as payment.
Only a handful of minor mishaps occurred:
Hermione ran shrieking from the Defence Against the Dark Arts exam room, where her Boggart had turned into Professor McGonagall, telling her she had failed every subject...
"I did tell her so already," Draco said innocently.
Seamus Finnigan blew up his cauldron during the Potions exam, sending shards flying into the cauldrons of the students beside him and setting off a chain reaction that left Professor Snape's face as black as the bottom of a cauldron.
During the Arithmancy exam, Ernie Macmillan entirely overlooked his middle name while working out his own numerology, arriving at a set of thoroughly wrong personality, psychological, and social numbers.
When Professor Vector pointed out his error, he said despairingly, "Oh no... I have always thought those were my numbers... Merlin..."
During the Transfiguration exam, Neville Longbottom once again could not find his wand... this time, it did seem a genuine accident... Draco heard Professor McGonagall sigh outside the exam hall, "Mr Longbottom..."
Apart from that, everything went off relatively smoothly.
On Hogsmeade's final open day, Draco and Hermione did not join the crowds along the high street. They chose instead to spend a quiet while beneath the great oak tree by the Black Lake.
"Be careful!" The brown-haired girl looked up at the oak tree with concern... the platinum blonde boy was crouched on a thick branch, trying to settle a turquoise-tinted bird's egg into a nest half-hidden among the leaves.
"Do not worry, it will only take a moment," he called down, his voice full of laughter.
When he dropped down from the tree, dusted himself off, and grinned happily at her, she said, in a sweet voice, "Draco, thank goodness you were here, or that egg would have been in real trouble."
"You are not wrong about that." He raised an eyebrow smugly. "But I am sure you would have managed something, even without me. With that brilliant mind of yours, would you not?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and gave him a knowing look, as though she had some alternative plan all worked out already.
With a rather mysterious smile playing on her lips, she settled back into the shaded meadow beneath the oak.
Then, just as in the garden of that spa in Bath during the last holidays, he lay back on the lush grass reading a newspaper, while she swung her legs and lay down beside him with a book.
They would sometimes murmur a few words to each other, and sometimes fall silent altogether, closing their eyes to listen to the oak leaves rustling in the breeze.
Time seemed to have wound itself back to some distant yesterday, and stretched forward, too, into a long tomorrow.
"Oh, by the way, was Peter Pettigrew truly able to escape Azkaban simply by turning into a rat?"
Hermione turned a page and said casually, "I cannot believe he was the only Animagus in Azkaban. I have never heard of anyone else escaping that way."
"The important thing is keeping one's mind clear. Dementors cannot tell an Animagus from an ordinary animal; so far as they are concerned, an Animagus is not human at all. They only attack humans," Draco said. "That is how Sirius Black, who can also become an Animagus, managed to keep his sanity."
"I see. It must be terribly difficult, to master becoming an Animagus?" Hermione asked.
"Extremely difficult," Draco said. "My father has not managed it yet, and it has been a whole year."
Hermione sighed.
"It is quite all right," Draco smiled, reassuring her. "Have you not already mastered your Patronus Charm rather well?"
"That is true." She looked at his face with some concern. "But yours has still not taken corporeal form, has it? Draco, think of something happy, and try again, will you?"
Draco took out his wand, held his breath, and searched through what few happy memories he could summon.
A wisp of silvery-white mist swayed from the tip of his wand, then vanished without a trace.
"Not happy enough," he said quietly, holding up his newspaper again to hide the shadow on his face. "Still not quite enough."
Just as Hermione was wondering why Draco was never quite happy enough, her trunk had already been neatly packed once more.
The Hogwarts Express, puffing out great clouds of smoke, sped off towards the long-awaited summer holidays.
They sat side by side in a compartment on the train, trying out the birthday present Hermione had given him: a Muggle Walkman, complete with headphones.
"I remembered you liked this sort of thing, so I asked Mum to get me the newest model," she said hesitantly.
"I can listen to all sorts of songs just by changing the cassette inside, but do you even know where one buys them?"
"Never underestimate a Malfoy's resourcefulness," Draco said, leaning back in his seat, his head against hers as they listened to the music, forests, winding rivers, and dark green hills rushing past the window.
Harry and Ron were noisily playing some sort of wizarding card game on the seats opposite.
Quite oblivious to their surroundings, the two of them were absorbed in a song called "Bressanone," moved by its calm, wistful, gently unfolding melody, their hearts full of the sadness of parting.
Through the train window, Hermione could see the plumes of steam rising from the roof of the train, left billowing behind them as it sped along.
The scenery outside gradually changed as the sun sank lower, from bare fields to neat farmland, and then to fields dotted with cattle and sheep.
London was drawing close.
"Promise me you will write more often, will you?" Draco said, looking down at her, before stepping off the train.
Hermione's cheeks coloured.
He had started giving her that same intent look again, no longer looking away as he once had.
"Whenever I have the time," she said to this "ordinary friend from the House next door," half in jest, "you know how busy I am."
Draco watched her walk away, a wry smile on his face, feeling an odd sense of familiarity in those words.
Was that not exactly what he had said to her, at the end of their first year?
A typical Hermione Granger, always one to have her revenge.
He stepped off the train and walked proudly towards his parents across the steamy, dusty platform, exactly as he remembered doing.
To some of the girls on the platform, he was, without question, one of those dazzling figures in the crowd, whether for his hair, his looks, or that innate charisma of his.
They watched him surreptitiously.
Draco admitted that, in his past life, he had felt rather smug about such attention, believing himself the centre of the world; but now, his mind remained quite unmoved by it.
He was long past that age of foolish arrogance.
He had come to realise they were not truly looking at him as a person at all, but at his surname, and his looks.
They were nothing like her. Few people would ever be as willing as she was to look past all that, into the true nature of his soul.
Lucius and Narcissa were already waiting on the platform.
They were every bit as striking as he was, young and proud, elegant and noble.
Draco hoped they might stay exactly like this forever. He hoped he might protect that brightness in them.
And in her, too.
She had already walked off some way with Harry and the others.
Following silently behind his parents, Draco turned to look at her retreating figure, a strange feeling stirring within him.
He suddenly recalled the brief exchange he had had with Professor Lupin, just after finishing his Defence Against the Dark Arts exam.
"Mr Malfoy, your Boggart was rather surprising. I must say, I never expected it to take the form of Miss Granger."
That had been Hermione Granger, dead, "Mudblood" carved into her arm, tears in her eyes.
This was Draco's Boggart, his most secret fear, his deepest present worry.
"I had no idea you took such an interest in other people's secrets," Draco gave him a cold look, trying to hide his surprise and unease.
"You know, though I cannot control my thoughts while I am a werewolf, I do remember everything that happens afterwards. That night, once I had changed back, I understood one thing: you and she are very close indeed," Lupin said gently.
Draco said nothing.
His cold mask cracked at Lupin's words, revealing something uneasy beneath. He watched Lupin's lips move, quietly laying his thoughts bare.
That was the very truth Draco had wanted to escape, the thoughts and unspoken feelings he had tried so hard to seal away.
Remus Lupin, with that unsparing, perceptive gaze of his, looked straight at Draco Malfoy and said, in a firm and unmistakable tone:
"You love her. You love her so much, you would even be willing to die for her."
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