On the day he was discharged from the hospital wing, Draco walked into the Slytherin common room to an eruption of cheers and applause.
He had earned their respect once again through his own abilities—not merely his family name.
A faint flush rose to his cheeks. He looked up at them all with a cheerful expression and gave them a lazy smile.
"Brilliant," Blaise said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I can hold this over every dejected Gryffindor for the rest of the year."
"Don't." Draco raised one finger. "Don't make promises yet. There are still two matches to play."
"That's exactly the right attitude," Marcus said approvingly as he passed.
After their first victory, Marcus descended into an even more obsessive frenzy, seemingly intent on preparing the team to face an international side. He drove his players through intensive practice in the cold drizzle, and Draco predicted—correctly, as it turned out—that this madness would continue until December, just as it had in his past life.
It intensified further when Ravenclaw defeated Hufflepuff in November.
"Gryffindor can't afford another loss—they're desperate for a win, and we can't be complacent! Hufflepuff are strong this year—I've watched them train—Cedric Diggory has assembled a proper squad." Marcus paced the tactics room with a furrowed brow. "And Ravenclaw just beat them. Which means Ravenclaw are even stronger."
"Relax, Marcus, we—" Montague began, patting him on the shoulder.
"You don't understand!" Marcus shoved him off. "Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw last year!"
"We've beaten them before," Derrick said dismissively, twirling his Beater's bat.
Marcus wheeled on Derrick, then fixed his gaze on his Seeker. "Draco! Ravenclaw's Seeker is strong this year—Cho Chang—don't laugh, Derrick, I mean it! Cedric's clearly smitten with her. Draco, remember: this is not the time for chivalry."
"Can Malfoy even manage chivalry?" Derrick snickered. "Didn't he shove one of our girls into the wall the other day? Daphne, was it? She was in tears and he just walked off."
"Who told her to ambush me?" Draco said coolly. "She needed to learn better judgement." He turned back to Marcus. "I treat all opponents equally, regardless of gender."
"What about Potter?" Marcus asked, his expression darkening. "You saved him last match."
"I caught the Snitch first," Draco said. "I don't see any contradiction between winning a match and saving someone's life."
Marcus clicked his tongue and turned to discuss tactics with Bletchley.
---
In his past life, the hostility between himself and Harry had been fuelled largely by Quidditch—two Seekers, natural rivals, with old grudges lending an edge that grew sharper with every match until it hardened into something close to hatred.
At that time, Draco hadn't been mature enough to understand that opponents on the pitch could be perfectly normal classmates off it. He hadn't understood that you could respect a competitor. So he had expressed only hostility, by whatever means were available, until he'd finally pushed Potter too far.
That was not going to happen again.
Finding the balance between "close friends" and "rivals on the pitch" was not simple, but it was not impossible. He wouldn't extend the effort to every opponent—Diggory and Cho Chang were strangers to him—but Harry was different. Harry, who had saved his life. Harry, who had lost to him and still reached out a hand. For Harry, Draco was willing to spare a small measure of patience and goodwill.
These days, because Gryffindor's training slot immediately followed Slytherin's, the two teams crossed paths regularly at the pitch. When they made eye contact, Draco greeted Harry instead of provoking him. Harry always responded in kind—smiling, nodding, completely ignoring Oliver Wood's expression of barely-suppressed disbelief.
It was a completely new experience. Not an unpleasant one.
Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood appeared to find the whole arrangement deeply troubling, and exchanged grim looks whenever it happened.
One evening, Draco went to find Marcus and heard the two captains through the door of the tactics room.
"Are you going to do nothing?" Marcus's voice, strained. "Control your Seeker! He keeps grinning at ours!"
"Why don't you control yours? Your Seeker keeps greeting ours first!" Wood shouted back.
"Rubbish. If Potter didn't look at Malfoy, Malfoy wouldn't greet him!"
"Then tell Malfoy to stop looking!"
"Tell Gryffindor to swap out their Seeker before he throws the match, why don't you, Madam Hooch?"
"You're just afraid Malfoy might go easy on Potter. Swap him out yourself, then."
"Draco Malfoy is the best Seeker on this pitch. He's never lost—why would I replace him?"
"Harry is the best Seeker! He had bad luck with the Dementors, otherwise he'd have had the Snitch long before Malfoy spotted it!"
"*Enough.*" Madam Hooch's voice cut through both of them. "What is this? I've watched both these players closely and I've seen no evidence of either throwing a match. Rivalry in the air does not preclude civility on the ground. I suggest you both relax."
Draco didn't go in. He smiled, turned quietly, and flew back out into the wind and rain.
Absolute strength rendered all objections academic. Neither captain was willing to replace their Seeker. It really was that simple.
---
One afternoon, as Draco came down from the pitch, soaked through, he spotted the golden-red of Gryffindor robes assembling at the edge of the field. Slytherin's session was over.
He landed in the mud. And, as had become oddly routine, he found Hermione there—casting a Waterproofing Charm on Harry's glasses before the Gryffindors took to the air.
"Dreadful conditions," Harry said, by way of greeting.
"Can barely see anything up there," Draco agreed, pushing his wet fringe out of his face.
Harry grinned at him briefly, stepped out from under the shelter of the stands, and disappeared into the downpour.
"Harry's lucky to have a friend like you," Draco said to Hermione, watching him go.
Hermione laughed softly—and then, without being asked, cast a brisk series of Drying, Scouring, and Warming Charms on him until he was entirely presentable.
"Thank you." That quiet warmth again, reliable as anything.
He had been watching carefully since the hospital wing, and it was clear she bore him no ill will over his reckless behaviour that night. If anything, her manner toward him had grown warmer. Before each class now, a familiar brownish figure would find its way to his desk, quick-moving and a little restless, and he would look up, smile, and lazily pull out the chair beside him.
Then Hermione would sit down—slightly elevated heart rate, composure perfectly intact—as though it were the most natural thing imaginable.
Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Potions: in any class requiring a partner, they were a pair.
"Why the change?" he asked one afternoon in Potions, turning a beaker over in his hands as she weighed a large crocodile heart. "No more sitting next to students who need extra help?"
"Of course I'll still help anyone who asks—Neville included!" She went slightly pink and tossed her hair aside impatiently. "I just don't want Professor Snape docking points from me every lesson!"
"Naturally," he said, with a quiet laugh, and didn't press further.
He was simply satisfied. She had apparently recognised, at last, who her most suitable partner was.
He told himself firmly that this applied only to studying.
He stole a glance at her flushed profile, watched her wrestle her hair away from the crocodile heart—and spotted a spare elastic band at the corner of the workbench. He picked it up, leaned slightly toward her, and said in an idle tone, "Hold still. I'll tie your hair before it touches that heart."
"Oh—thank you," she said, and bowed her head.
She had made a blunder. Newly returned to being his partner, she'd panicked and forgotten the basic step of tying her hair back before handling wet ingredients. Her hands were already damp. There was no dignified way out of this.
His hands were light, barely there—a dragonfly landing. He gathered her hair from the roots, and as his fingers drew it back they brushed the nape of her neck, softly, like a breath—and a shiver travelled all the way down her spine.
Hermione shut her eyes for a moment and very firmly instructed herself to calm down.
They were at the back of the classroom. No one was looking. She fixed her gaze on the scales in front of her and tried to pretend the crocodile heart in her hand wasn't faintly warm.
Draco was thinking about none of this. He was thinking about timing, contaminated hands, and the fixed end of the lesson. Also—only slightly—about the fact that since waking up in the hospital wing with a fistful of brown curls in his hand, his palms had felt inexplicably empty without them.
This was almost certainly a residual effect of the Dementor attack. Obviously.
He tied the low ponytail carefully and leaned back. "Done."
"It's too loose," she said, touching it. "It'll fall apart before we're halfway through."
"Shall I redo it?" He turned, grey eyes settling on her, with every appearance of genuine willingness.
"No, no—leave it," she said quickly. "It'll hold long enough. Professor Snape is watching, let's start."
---
Severus Snape was in a relatively good mood.
Slytherin's Quidditch victory had lifted the pall of the Boggart incident, and the house gemstones in the entrance hall hourglass were impressively high. Longbottom's cauldron was once again threatening structural failure, but Snape had decided, for today, simply to look elsewhere.
He turned toward his most promising student—the one who had contributed a hundred and fifty points to Slytherin this term—and found that Hermione Granger was standing directly beside him.
Of course she was. She only ever looked appropriately humble and diligent when she was standing next to Draco. Everywhere else, the insufferable self-satisfaction was obvious.
Snape examined the contents of their cauldron. A barely-perceptible nod.
"Draco. I received a letter from Horace Slughorn. He tells me you have an interest in the Wolfsbane Potion." He studied the colour of the brew. "I'm preparing a fresh batch and require an assistant. Potions classroom, Friday evening at eight o'clock."
Draco's interest sharpened at once. He had only managed to learn half the Wolfsbane Potion during the summer, and the gap had nagged at him ever since.
"Could Hermione come as well?" He glanced at the girl beside him, who was maintaining a studied look of indifference while very clearly listening to every word. "Her practical skills are comparable to mine in the preliminary stages. Mr. Slughorn likely mentioned her too."
Snape's expression returned to its customary stoniness. His thin lips barely moved: "Whether she comes is her own decision. If she causes trouble, I'll send her out."
"Thank you, sir," Hermione managed.
Snape swept to the front of the classroom, robes billowing.
"He doesn't like me," Hermione muttered, passing Draco the last of the weighed ingredients.
"I thought you wanted to learn this Potion." He added the ingredients and watched the colour shift. "Wasn't it the one you were interested in all along?"
"Well, yes," she said softly, peering over the cauldron's rim.
"You could have continued with Slughorn after I left in the summer."
"I thought about it." She adjusted the flame to a simmer. "But after you left, I talked it over with my parents, and... my mother wouldn't have felt easy about it without you there."
"I hadn't realised I was such a critical factor." His lips curved. "Your mother thinks very well of me, apparently."
She shook her head at him, smiling despite herself. But she still seemed hesitant about Friday.
"Hermione." He began organising the remaining ingredients. "Think about the way Snape responds to you compared to Neville. When Neville answers a question correctly, Snape looks as if he's witnessed something miraculous. When you answer, he accuses you of reciting from the textbook. Do you understand what that means?"
She held the ingredient box open while he swept the herbs in. "What does it mean?"
"It means his standards for you are higher. He believes you're capable of more than the textbook—that your talent exceeds what you're currently demonstrating." He paused, a note of seriousness in his voice. "He challenges me quite rigorously in private. Harshly, sometimes. It's not comfortable. But the intention is to push you further, not to discourage you."
"Is that what you think?" She looked up, caught off guard. She hadn't considered it from that direction before.
"And consider: if he didn't want you there on Friday, he could have waited until after class and told me privately. Why say it in front of you?"
She went quiet. "…That's true."
"Trust me. I'm a Slytherin. I have some insight into what Slytherins are actually expressing." He tipped a measure of cleansing solution into her palm. "There is a small amount of genuine regard for your ability underneath all that. A very small amount. But it's there."
"His methods are still completely unacceptable," she said—but the fighting spirit had returned to her eyes. "What he's done to Neville's confidence—has that produced any good results? And he is blatantly biased toward Slytherin."
"Agreed. It's a real flaw." He waved his wand and the workbench arranged itself. "But are you certain no other Head of House has ever shown their own students special consideration?"
"Professor McGonagall is completely fair!"
"First year," he said pleasantly. "Harry Potter breaks Madam Hooch's rules and flies without permission. No points deducted, no detention. Instead: the youngest House Seeker in a century. You were quite put out about that at the time, if I recall."
Hermione's expression shifted rapidly. She turned to the stone basin to wash her hands without another word.
Draco followed—as she'd known he would—and reached past her to turn on the tap.
"That said," he continued, his tone gentling, "even accounting for that, I'll grant you that McGonagall is one of the fairer Heads of House. Friday at eight, then?"
The flash of determination in her eyes was immediate. "Friday at eight."
---
Judging by Professor Lupin's condition that month, the Wolfsbane Potion brewed on Friday had been a success. He did not transform during the full moon.
"Professor Snape was satisfied," Draco told Hermione afterward. "He's asked us to brew a complete batch on our own next month and bring it to him."
"All right," she said, and went back to her work.
He'd found her in the library at a large table by a window he hadn't seen her use before, surrounded by an impressive sprawl of books: *A Compendium of Magical Runes*, *Phonology of the Wizarding Tongue*, *Spells for Confounding Muggles*, *Domestic Life and Social Customs of British Muggles*, and several annotated diagrams of Muggle methods for moving heavy objects.
"Why aren't you at our usual corner anymore?"
"I love this window." She glanced up briefly. "You can see almost all of Hogwarts from here."
He walked over and looked. She was right: the nearby grounds, the Black Lake, the fringe of the Forbidden Forest, a corner of the Quidditch pitch. Hermione Granger, wanting to see everything that happened at Hogwarts at all times. He had his own version of that same instinct.
"Not a bad spot," he said, and sat down beside her.
She didn't look up. Her quill kept moving.
"With this many subjects," he said, studying the shadows under her eyes, "are you actually managing? You've got dark circles."
"Is it that obvious?" She reached for a hand mirror, looked with dismay, then put it down. "I can't help it. There's too much work."
"You could drop a course."
"I can't drop any of them!" She looked up briefly with the expression of someone who had been startled, then went back to the books.
"You have to make choices. You can't hold everything without losing your grip on all of it." He watched her search the pile—she was looking for the *Runic Dictionary*—then lazily reached over, found it, and placed it in her hand. "No one has ever learned everything."
"Students have earned twelve O.W.L.s before!" She opened the dictionary with a defiant snap. "I'm simply following in their footsteps."
Draco's lips twitched. He said nothing. He knew of two Weasleys who had managed it, and wasn't going to mention them.
He studied her profile quietly instead. In the timeline he remembered, she'd sat nine O.W.L.s and earned Outstanding on nearly all of them. Already staggering—the sort of result that had made Lucius and Narcissa go tight-lipped with the specific fury of people who refuse to be impressed by someone they've always dismissed.
If she had been their daughter, they would have celebrated it for years.
"Besides," she added, slightly defensively, "these subjects are genuinely interesting. It isn't only about the grades."
"What about Divination?" He pulled *Seeing the Future Through the Fog* from the bottom of the stack and looked at it, then at her. "You've said you don't believe in Trelawney's methods."
"Since other people can manage it—" A complicated expression crossed her face. She went back to scribbling furiously. "I'm not the sort to give up."
*If others can do it, why can't I.* That was the rest of the sentence, he was fairly certain.
He watched her for a moment—focused, stubborn, quill barely pausing—and thought: there is probably no more determined person in the world than Hermione Granger. He also thought, without having quite decided to, that the concentrated expression was really quite captivating.
He tried several times to draw her into conversation. She was immovable.
Then the library window opened, and Crookshanks stepped through it.
The ginger cat moved with an oddly dignified confidence across the windowsill, stepping over the tower of books as if they weren't there, and arranged himself on the empty section of table directly in front of Draco.
He sat. He stared.
Draco looked back. The cat had a spectacularly grumpy, flat face.
He reached out to pet it. Crookshanks stood up and showed his teeth.
"Crookshanks, don't," Hermione said, finally surfacing, her tone shifting at once from harassed to fond. "He's my study partner. Be polite."
Crookshanks regarded Draco with large yellow eyes, conducting some evident internal deliberation. Then he lowered himself back down and went still.
"He does this regularly," Hermione explained, reaching across to scratch behind one ear. "Climbs in through the window to check on me. When I'm just reading, he'll let me pet him."
Draco scratched the cat's scruff with mild interest and flipped one ear back to look at it. "Where did you get him?"
"A magical creature shop in Diagon Alley." She glanced up. "Why?"
"He's not an ordinary cat." Draco turned his grey eyes toward her. "He's a Kneazle cross—part Kneazle, part Persian. Exceptionally intelligent and very loyal."
This captured Hermione's full attention at last. She looked at Crookshanks with delight, then scooped him up entirely. "Really? Crookshanks, you clever thing!"
Crookshanks accepted this with great serenity, abandoned Draco without a backward glance, and settled into her arms.
"Disloyal creature," Draco muttered.
"When I bought him, the shop assistant said he'd never been sold before," Hermione was telling the cat, in the particular soft voice people use for animals. "Isn't that right, you poor thing?" She grabbed his face with both hands and touched her nose to his.
"Don't rub your face on him," Draco said, in a tone that came out rather more offended than he'd intended. "There's grass in his fur."
Crookshanks turned a sharp yellow eye on him. Then he yawned, hopped off Hermione's lap, and departed through the window.
"He's another problem, actually," Hermione said, picking up her quill again. "He disappears constantly. Every time he comes back, his paws are covered in mud and fallen leaves. I think he might be going into the Forbidden Forest. Is he safe there?"
"Broadly speaking, yes." Then, before he could stop himself: "Just keep an eye on him around the full moon."
She looked up. "What?"
He hesitated, then said, with a half-smile—Madam Pince, passing nearby, shot him a warning look—"The Forbidden Forest isn't always peaceful. Parents in wizarding families warn their children about it—there may be werewolves. During the full moon, you should never howl." He gave a brief demonstration. Hermione covered her mouth to muffle a laugh.
"Draco, are you seriously worried? You begged me to take you into the Forbidden Forest in first year—you were extremely enthusiastic."
There really are werewolves at Hogwarts, he thought. This is not an exaggeration.
"Could you try being a little braver? Take some Gryffindor courage from me, just this once," she teased.
"I've never had any and I've never wanted any." His voice was mild, but there was an edge underneath it that wasn't quite casual. "Slytherins don't put themselves unnecessarily in danger. I've always disliked risk."
The smile faded from Hermione's face. She studied him with her perceptive eyes. "You're being serious."
He stopped himself.
He always kept a careful distance from Lupin—a Slytherin's instinct for avoiding unnecessary complications. He'd never wanted to cause rumours or alarm. And Lupin, whatever else he was, had never harmed a student at Hogwarts. He had no right to influence someone's fate through careless talk.
But Greyback was a different thing entirely. The memory of those greedy, filthy eyes—
He stopped. Greyback was nowhere near her. Lupin had the Wolfsbane Potion. She was safe. He was constructing disasters from a future that had not yet happened and might not happen at all.
He was being completely irrational, and he knew it, and he couldn't seem to stop.
"Forget I said anything." He stood up abruptly, and left.
The girl who had stopped writing remained at the window long after his footsteps had faded, her quill motionless in her hand, staring at the empty doorway.