The remainder of the summer term passed in bright sunshine.
"Chess, Blaise?" Pansy said, with the particular air of someone who had already won. They were sprawled on the grass beside the Black Lake, and she was watching him with obvious ill intent.
"I will never play chess with you again, Pansy Parkinson." Blaise set down his book and adopted an expression of supreme smugness. "Unless my hair catches fire, you are the last drop of water in the Black Lake."
"Oh, is that so?" Pansy lifted her chin. "I have no interest in playing chess with you either, Blaise Zabini—unless I was starving and you were the last Cauldron Cake on the Hogwarts table!"
Blaise looked at her for a moment, then smiled slowly, and gestured toward her with his chin. "We could have a picnic instead sometime."
Pansy appeared briefly offended, made a sharp noise of disdain, and turned to walk away—though there was a distinct warmth at the corner of her mouth. "In your dreams."
Blaise followed at a leisurely pace, his voice carrying on the breeze behind her. "Midnight snack?"
"Shut up." She walked faster.
"They eat together every single day," Crabbe said in a low voice, watching them go. "Are they fighting?"
"They're flirting," Draco said, with the resigned patience of someone who had explained this before and expected to explain it again. "Leave them to it. Go find something else to do."
Crabbe exchanged a mournful look with Goyle, and the two of them trudged off toward the castle.
With the Slytherins dispatched, Draco turned and walked along the edge of the Black Lake, hands in his pockets, enjoying one of those rare afternoons when there was genuinely nothing that required his attention.
Hogwarts had settled back into itself. All the Petrified students had been revived.
Across the lawn, Colin Creevey—apparently having learned nothing whatsoever from being turned to stone—was trotting after Harry again with his camera, pleading for a photograph while Harry fled with his hands over his face.
In one of the corridors earlier that week, Draco had passed Justin Finch-Fletchley stammering an elaborate apology to Harry in a tone that bore an unfortunate resemblance to Professor Quirrell's. "I should never have doubted you, Harry, I'm terribly sorry—"
Nearly Headless Nick had resumed his favourite habit of demonstrating his near-decapitation at the Gryffindor table during meals, each performance earning a fresh round of horrified delight from the first-years.
Even Filch seemed altered. The Marauder's Map confirmed it: he was no longer lurking like a statue in his preferred corner on the third-floor corridor. He could now be found making his rounds with Mrs Norris in a manner that could almost be described as pleasant, strolling past blatant rule-breaking with an expression of distant benevolence.
Draco had barely looked at the Marauder's Map lately.
Since handing the Horcrux matter to Dumbledore, he had finally recovered something he hadn't realised he'd lost—the ordinary, unencumbered days that a second-year student at Hogwarts was supposed to have. He slept well, which was more effective than Occlumency. He was eating properly, training regularly with the Quidditch team, and the pallor that had become his habitual complexion had, in recent weeks, given way to something approaching colour.
Time had passed, and with it, some of the weight.
He walked in the sunlight with the faint scent of roses on the air and the sound of his classmates laughing somewhere behind him, and the memories that had sat so heavily on his chest for two years seemed, for once, far away. He was nearly thirteen. He had made genuine friends. He had, against all reasonable expectation, something that resembled a life—and the seven years he had previously lived through, years in which he had watched himself lose everything that mattered piece by piece, felt in moments like this as though they might only have been a very precise, very terrible dream.
It was, in fact, his birthday.
Students were taking turns on brooms over the Quidditch pitch or chasing one another across the grass. The house-elves had already packed the trunks, and in a few hours they would board the Hogwarts Express. The school year was over.
Almost everyone was in high spirits. Harry was the exception.
"I hate the holidays," he said, staring out at the Black Lake from beneath the shade of a large oak tree, watching the occasional ripple that marked the giant squid moving somewhere in the depths.
Draco leaned against the trunk beside him, half-listening, half-lost in his own thoughts. "Your aunt and uncle's house is hardly a pleasant prospect, I'll grant you that," he said. "What I've never understood is how you managed to grow up there and come out of it as well as you have."
"Probably because they didn't care enough to ruin me. Look at what they managed with Dudley," Harry said darkly.
Draco had been listening to complaints about Dudley for a full hour.
The longer he listened, the more an uncomfortable, private guilt settled in him—the parallels between Harry's description of how Vernon and Petunia doted on their son and how Lucius and Narcissa had raised him were difficult to ignore. He'd never considered it before. Looking back now, he could see it plainly: children raised without limits, without being told no, developed particular deficiencies—a certain narrowness of feeling, an inability to manage their own impulses, a difficulty understanding that other people were real in the same way they were.
He didn't resent his parents for it. They had done what they knew. No one handed new parents an instruction manual and expected perfection.
But if he had been Harry—if he had watched that boundless indulgence lavished on someone else while he slept in a cupboard—he thought he might genuinely have hexed the house to rubble.
"What about your godfather?" Draco asked, his gaze moving briefly to where Ron, Fred, and George were engaged in some chaotic game near the water's edge, then coming to rest on Hermione, who had arranged herself in the shade of a nearby tree and was working through An Introduction to Ancient Runes with an expression of serene concentration. He made a practical decision and redirected the conversation. "Has he been in contact?"
"A few times, actually." Harry hesitated. "He's invited me to spend the summer at Grimmauld Place. His family home. I haven't decided whether to say yes."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"I've never actually met him in person. I don't know what he's like. What if he doesn't—" Harry stopped.
"What if he doesn't like you?" Draco said.
Harry gave a small, rueful nod.
"He cannot possibly be worse than your aunt and uncle. He's your godfather—he chose to be. Your parents chose him. How could he not like you?" Draco said, with brisk certainty.
Harry is worrying unnecessarily.
Draco knew what their relationship would become. He had watched Harry in his previous life after Sirius died—had seen that grief, raw and particular, the way Harry had carried it for years. That kind of loss only came from that kind of closeness.
"I know all that," Harry said. "I'm just—"
"—You feel nervous the closer you get to it, because you actually care what happens," Draco said. "That's not a flaw. It means the outcome matters to you. Just go."
Harry smiled sideways at him, a little sheepish, and nodded.
"And you won't be stranded there regardless," Draco added. "Sirius Black and I are practically related by blood, given how intertwined the old pure-blood families are—though I wouldn't call him uncle if you paid me. If Grimmauld Place doesn't suit you, you can ask Ron, or you can ask me."
"Thanks, Draco." Harry looked considerably lighter. He reached into his robes and produced a small wrapped box. "Happy birthday, by the way. Hermione told me."
Draco accepted it with a slightly surprised expression and turned it over in his hands.
"May I?"
"Go ahead," Harry said, watching with poorly concealed anticipation.
Draco opened it. Inside, half the size of a regulation Snitch and already straining to escape its box, was a miniature Golden Snitch. The tiny golden wings snapped open the moment the lid came off, and it shot upward, circling Draco's head in cheerful, tireless loops. "I thought—since you're a Seeker too—" Harry said, looking a little uncertain.
"This is a good gift," Draco said, watching the miniature Snitch dart and wheel overhead. He meant it.
Boys' friendship was uncomplicated that way. A shared interest, a thing well-chosen—and the understanding required no explanation.
He hadn't expected anything from Harry at all. He had come into their friendship with calculations and ulterior motives, and somewhere along the way had ended up with something genuine. The Horcrux was destroyed, Pettigrew was caught, and whatever debt Draco had told himself he was repaying had long since dissolved into simple regard for a boy who was, beneath the legend attached to his name, straightforward and kind and—it had to be said—occasionally quite foolish.
Harry, satisfied, grinned and jogged off toward the lake to join the group clustered around the giant squid's latest appearance.
Draco carefully wrapped the Snitch back up and tucked it into his robe pocket.
He'd lost count of how many gifts he'd received today. It had started at breakfast—he'd woken to find his bedside table buried under chocolates and parcels, which had startled him significantly before he remembered what day it was.
The Order of Merlin, and the business with Pettigrew, had shifted something in how the other Slytherins saw him. During the Chamber of Secrets, their house had been under suspicion; he had cleared that cloud at some personal cost, and they remembered it. Other students had taken notice as well. The result was that people from all four houses had taken to greeting him warmly in the corridors, with an ease of familiarity that he had done nothing in particular to encourage.
The birthday gifts reflected this. Most were sweets—Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's, sugar quills—the established currency of Hogwarts friendship. A few were more particular.
Ron's contribution was a volume titled Two Hundred Ways to Make a Witch Happy, accompanied by a handwritten note: "Stop making Hermione angry. She always takes it out on me and Harry." Draco was both amused and mildly offended.
The Weasley twins had given him something more interesting: a pair of Extendable Ears, two long flesh-coloured strings that, according to the instruction card, could be used to listen through closed doors—one end placed near the speaker, the other fed under the gap at the bottom of a door, producing a remarkably clear transmission. They noted, with apparent regret, that the device would not function against doors reinforced with Anti-Eavesdropping Charms. Draco filed this information away. He had a feeling it would prove useful.
The afternoon light shifted through the branches above him, dropping dappled patches of gold across the grass. He was leaning against the oak tree, eyes half-closed and pleasantly idle, when he became aware of a presence beside him.
Hermione had put down her book and was standing quietly at his shoulder. Her cheeks were faintly flushed—from the sun, or from something else, he couldn't tell. Her right hand was held behind her back.
"I got you a birthday present," she said. "I don't know if you'll like it. I found it at an antique market with my mother. When I saw it, I thought of you."
That was enough to make him properly curious. He turned to look at her. "Now I'm genuinely interested."
"It's possibly a bit—unusual—for a birthday gift. I mean, it might not be what you'd expect—" She was talking quickly, which meant she was nervous.
"Show me." He nodded toward her hand.
"All right, but don't laugh—I genuinely couldn't think what else to get you—" She kept talking as she brought her right hand forward, covering her eyes with her left in an expression of someone bracing for impact.
Slowly, she opened her palm.
A silver ring lay there, formed in the shape of a serpent. In the afternoon light it caught the sun with a quality Draco couldn't quite name—cool and precise, but not cold.
He reached over and lifted it from her hand. She felt the brief contact of his fingers against her palm.
Then silence.
She didn't lower her hand from her eyes. The silence stretched until it became unbearable, and she finally parted her fingers and peered through them.
The platinum-blonde boy was leaning slightly forward, the ring already on his finger, his pale grey eyes meeting hers through the gap between her fingers with an expression of quiet, undisguised amusement. He tilted his hand so she could see it, and said, with deliberate composure: "This was not what I expected. I like it very much. Thank you."
"Then why didn't you say something straightaway? You frightened me half to death," she said, bewildered.
His expression eased into a proper smile. "I was waiting for you to open your eyes yourself. Gratitude should be given face to face—otherwise it doesn't count."
Hermione pursed her lips, suspecting she was being teased and finding it difficult to mount an objection to the logic. She held out for a moment, and then laughed in spite of herself.
"Fine," she said, and retrieved her book, hiding her smile behind the cover of An Introduction to Ancient Runes.
Neither of them noticed that in the castle behind them, in the tall bright windows of the Headmaster's office, two figures had been watching the scene on the lawn for some time.
"Draco Malfoy." Dumbledore stood by the window, the light catching the silver of his hair. His blue eyes were thoughtful. "There's a quality in him, Severus, that puts me in mind of you."
"Don't be absurd," Snape said, with the tone of a man deeply insulted. "I see nothing of the Malfoys in it. And based on everything I know of Lucius, the idea that his son would ever align himself with us is a fantasy."
"We shall all grow old, and none of us will be here forever. Our hopes are necessarily placed in the generation after ours—in Harry." Dumbledore smiled. "And, if my eyes haven't failed me, perhaps also in a certain Slytherin. I find myself seeing new possibilities."
"Remarkable," Snape said acidly. "A thirteen-year-old boy will single-handedly reform one of the oldest pure-blood families in wizarding history and bring his Death Eater father to repentance." He hissed, very like an offended snake. "Justify that for me."
"I made a promise, and I cannot tell you the details." Dumbledore turned from the window, a quiet sharpness entering his eyes. "Tell me—how are you and Flitwick progressing with the Quirrell situation?"
Snape's expression became serious. "Poorly. We cannot safely undo the Petrification charm, and we cannot destroy the body with the Sword of Gryffindor without risking the soul's escape—assuming it doesn't simply dissipate on its own, which seems unlikely given everything. No one has encountered a body housing two souls before, and we still cannot determine with any confidence why Voldemort's fragmented soul remains contained by what should be a standard Petrification. The only thing we've been able to do is store the body properly in the lower dungeons."
"Because it is not a standard Petrification acting alone," Dumbledore said with certainty. "Something else was cast—something more advanced—and it is that combination holding the soul in place."
Snape frowned. "That's impossible. The only students present were two first-years, both Muggle-raised, with no access to higher magic. Miss Granger would have done exceptionally well to cast a basic Petrificus at that stage."
"There was someone else in that room," Dumbledore said, with quiet certainty. "A third party, whose presence Harry couldn't confirm and Miss Granger declined to mention. She told us something less than the whole truth—I am fairly certain—to protect someone. Someone she holds in considerable regard." His gaze returned to the window—to the two figures on the grass below, the open book, the silver glint of a ring in the sunlight. He settled back into his chair and reached for the dish on his desk. "Lemon drop, Severus?"
Snape stared at him in eloquent silence.
"I know what you're suggesting," he said at last. "Draco Malfoy. Also a first-year at the time, also not someone I would previously have credited with that level of knowledge." He paused. "But he subdued Peter Pettigrew—an unregistered Animagus—and extracted Ron Weasley from the Chamber. He brewed the Mandrake Restorative without instruction. He identified the diary as a Horcrux." Another pause. "That last point in particular."
"Precisely." Dumbledore unwrapped his sweet, untroubled. "A boy with that understanding of the Dark Arts would not find a binding containment charm beyond him. I am merely keeping my eyes open." He smiled. "The enemy of my enemy is, after all, someone worth knowing."
Snape snorted from somewhere deep in his chest and returned his gaze to the window—to the pale head catching the light below, impossible to overlook, bright as a lighthouse across dark water.
"The other Horcruxes," he said, after a moment. "What progress?"
"Some." Dumbledore's tone was as unhurried as if he were discussing the weather. "I've spoken with Caractacus Burke—Borgin and Burkes' former proprietor—and I've made contact with Bob Ogden, who retired from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement some years ago. Both have histories that touch on Voldemort's early life."
"I fail to see what either of them can tell you that the Gaunts couldn't," Snape said.
"They are pieces of a larger picture. As for the Gaunts—I've already secured a portion of Morfin Gaunt's memories. The Azkaban guards required some persuasion, but it was worth the effort. He is, as far as I can determine, the last of that line." Dumbledore's expression settled into something graver. "His memories alone are not sufficient. We approach this from every angle we can—every connection to Voldemort's history, no matter how slight, is worth following. We cannot afford to overlook anything."