Later that day, the Wolfsbane Potion — which had so untimely put an end to Draco's plans — was dispensed into several crystal vials and delivered to Remus Lupin by the Weasley twins, who had conveniently misplaced their timetable.
"How has Draco seemed lately?" Lupin asked, accepting the vials.
"Seems fine, far as we can tell. That Slytherin young master strides around Hogwarts like he owns the place — what could he possibly have to worry about?" George shrugged. "Though when he handed these over just now, he was a bit short-tempered. Rather like Percy when we interrupt whatever report he's obsessing over."
Lupin raised an eyebrow with interest. "And how's Harry getting on? The third task preparation?"
"He's been drilling the Stunning Spell lately," Fred said, with a particular grin. "We were actually planning to Incarcerate Mrs. Norris for him to practice on —"
"— He refused, unfortunately," George added, affecting great regret.
The brothers laughed and headed up the stairs.
Lupin smiled to himself.
The last of the evening light moved through the window like a slow, honey-coloured tide, settling over the room. He held the sealed vials — still warm from the heat-preserving charm — up against the diminishing glow, and found, without quite meaning to, that the Weird Sisters' new song had started playing on repeat somewhere in his head.
He tried whistling it. He hadn't gone far when an unexpected voice appeared behind him:
"Bravo, Remus!"
Lupin turned in surprise to find Sirius Black's head floating in the embers of the Weasleys' kitchen fireplace. Sirius caught his friend's brief, startled expression and gave a lazy tip of the chin. "Nice whistling."
"Sirius!" Lupin crossed to the fire in a few quick steps, the vials set aside, and smiled warmly at him. "I thought you were far too busy for anything!"
"My acting career comes to an official close tonight. Alastor is finally returning to Hogwarts. I plan to base myself at Hogsmeade for a while," Sirius said brightly. The elegant, guarded air had entirely gone from him, replaced by the cheerful expression of someone about to go on a rather good outing. "Same as always — drinks tomorrow evening?"
"Of course," Lupin said. "I've been meaning to tell you about the interview —"
"Ah. What's your impression of the young Auror? Suitable candidate for the Order?" Sirius asked idly.
Lupin summarised their meeting in a few short sentences. "No concerns," he said at last. "She has a strong sense of justice, clear conviction. Her opposition to Voldemort and the Death Eaters is genuine — I could see it."
"She?" Sirius honed in on the word immediately.
"Yes — she. She's young, only a few years out of Hogwarts, turning twenty-two in a matter of days." Lupin's expression softened slightly as he spoke of her. "She's a rather... rare and interesting person."
"'Interesting.' High praise from you." Sirius said dismissively, then shifted. "This is apparently the first time an interviewee has ever asked the interviewer to find them."
"She was probably setting us a small test," Lupin said, unsurprised. "Talented people often have a certain confidence. She presumably wanted to see whether we were worth her joining."
"What's her talent?" Sirius asked.
"She's a natural-born Metamorphmagus," Lupin said, with genuine interest. "I think if we apply some imagination to how her abilities might be used, there could come a day when she makes a remarkable contribution."
"You sound fairly confident in her." Sirius looked at him steadily. "You don't genuinely praise many people. I'll take your word that she has real ability."
"She's not a difficult person to get along with," Lupin said simply, thinking of her pig nose.
"And her background?" Sirius asked. "Clean history?"
"As clean as yours, I'd say." Lupin's mouth curved slightly, recalling Tonks's specific request that he "keep this from Sirius for now."
"I'm planning to transform into my mother when I meet Sirius Black and give him an absolute fright," she had said with a wicked grin. "I can't wait to see his face."
He continued to Sirius, "With Alastor vouching for her, what more do you need? She's very close to him. I think part of her reason for coming at all was to find out what was really behind his injury — she'd already concluded there was more to it than the official story."
"She's right about that," Sirius said.
"She's perceptive. Carefree on the surface, but actually very alert and questioning. She asked me a great deal about the Order's philosophy and current work. I covered what I could without revealing core details, and she was very engaged." Lupin said. "The core content I'll explain once we formally confirm her membership."
"If there are no problems, bring her in. Quickly. We're running short-handed," Sirius said, his attention drifting. He waved a hand.
Then his grey eyes settled on Lupin with a more thoughtful expression. "Speaking of which, Remus — I'd almost forgotten how good you are with people. Prefect at school, always managing whatever the younger students got themselves into. This kind of work — initial meetings, drawing people out — it comes naturally to you. Perhaps I should have given you more of the recruitment work."
"Please, Sirius," Lupin said, pained. He uncorked one of the small vials and began sipping it. "Don't forget the difficulty of my position. It's a risk for both parties when I deal with too many people at once."
As he said it, the flicker of old awareness moved through him — the slow-burning weight of what he was, the moonlight that never quite left his bones.
Sirius looked at the crystal vial and understood without asking that it was Wolfsbane brewed by a certain Slytherin boy.
"Remus, don't underestimate yourself," he said, quietly serious. "Have more confidence. The Order needs people, and it needs what you can do."
Lupin didn't reply directly. He said, with a subdued expression, "The full moon is in a few days."
"I know — you'll need a bit of time to deal with your 'little fluffy problem,'" Sirius said, his usual lightness creeping back in. "But that's three-quarters of the month sorted. You don't have to spend all of it locked away in the corner of a joke shop. Aside from tinkering with prank products, you should get out. Why keep yourself under such constant strain?"
"You don't quite understand it, Sirius." Lupin held the empty vial to the fading light — it caught the last warm colours of the evening in its glass — and said softly, "This job matters to me. It's an extraordinary opportunity. My life has only recently started to feel like it's back on track, and I want to take care of that more than anything."
"As you like," Sirius said, with a meaningful smile. "I'll wager your employer will be very pleased with what you bring. Right then — I'm off. I need to see Alastor, let him know about the new recruit. He'll be glad; he's been pushing for her for a while."
After Sirius withdrew from the fireplace, he didn't immediately head to the Floo Network to visit Alastor, who was recuperating at Grimmauld Place.
He stood for a moment staring out over the Hogwarts grounds in the grey evening light, watching the Whomping Willow trembling faintly in the distance.
Then he returned to his desk and stared at a piece of parchment — dense with a mixture of French and English.
Fleur Delacour. She really did know how to make his life difficult.
Why was he the one translating and organising her interview questions? As though he wasn't occupied enough. Sirius frowned at the parchment for a long moment, then picked up his quill with grim resolve, determined to leave no line unfilled.
As he wrote, he couldn't help but remember the tone she had used when she'd delivered the parchment.
Yesterday, right here at this desk, she had stood over him and slapped it down in front of him, saying: "I don't accept excuses. What, a Hogwarts professor can't manage this kind of work? I was under the impression your French was supposedly the finest among British wizards, but you seem to be a rather half-baked amateur."
Sirius had looked up at her with barely concealed displeasure.
She was utterly spoiled by the admiring attention her looks invited, and acted as though requesting a favour entitled her to be as rude as she liked.
Look at her — that silver-blonde hair still perfectly composed, those blue eyes still infuriatingly clear, as though every word she said was perfectly sincere.
And those beautiful lips — the things that came out of them were arrogant enough to unsettle any Englishman who wasn't completely blinded by her face.
He had studied her. Fleur had met his stare with composure, not backing down.
Sirius frowned, examining that self-possessed face for a long moment, turning over her tone — and a strange possibility had occurred to him:
"Fleur Delacour, do you not realise how your English comes across to people?"
"Haven't you noticed how much my English has improved? Compared to how I was before?" Fleur asked, looking genuinely thrown. "I've put in enormous effort."
"I don't mean your grammar. Though, speaking of which — you do stumble considerably less than before," Sirius said, momentarily surprised. "Actually, your English has come on remarkably quickly."
"That's more like it," Fleur said, satisfaction briefly replacing the edge in her tone. "Don't change the subject. This interview is your responsibility. If they write something completely wrong, I'll come to you."
"How exactly is that my responsibility?" Sirius asked, perplexed.
"Because you're a professor —" she said, with a very particular emphasis, as though the word were a card she'd been holding, "— at this school. Which is where the reporter interviewing me studies."
Then she gave him a charming smile.
What Sirius didn't know was that she wasn't threatening him this time.
The reason Fleur was smiling was because she was remembering having overheard him speak to Colin Creevey — a dressing-down delivered with quiet, principled gravity. She had found herself admiring the beliefs behind it.
From that incident, she had sensed something in him that she rarely encountered: genuine respect for women. Not the performance of it. The real thing — without the sly, entrenched condescension she had learned to read in most men.
That quality gave her an odd confidence. Sirius Black would not sit quietly by if a thoughtless or fabricated piece about a woman ended up in print. If he had any say in what reached that reporter — then the question of "giving an interview" was perhaps more negotiable than she'd thought. Fleur had walked out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts office feeling quietly satisfied.
Sirius, unaware of the winding logic that had brought him this responsibility, nonetheless found himself feeling a faint sense of it as he worked. He sighed, wrote furiously, and thought of the direct, infuriating French girl until moonlight had crept to the tips of the willow tree.
Under the moonlight, the parchment — dense with flourishing English handwriting — found its way back to her.
"I've done you a clean copy in proper English." Sirius produced a small roll of parchment from his pocket and handed it over. "I expect the original was beyond most of our school's reporters."
"Very good." Fleur's lips curved in a satisfied smile, as though Sirius ought to be thanking her for having given him the opportunity.
"I'll say, I'm slightly surprised — you actually agreed to an interview from a school paper." Those grey eyes were watchful. "You sent Creevey packing quite firmly last time. How did he change your mind?"
He had expected her to look imperious. Instead, she looked unexpectedly warm, and her next words came with none of the sharp edge he'd been anticipating.
"I'm not an unreasonable person." In the rippling moonlight near the willow tree, she scanned the English-only copy with swift, practised eyes. "The way to earn my cooperation is simple — sincere recognition, genuine and original ideas, and a little real respect."
"That's not as simple as it sounds," Sirius said, amused. "Not everyone can manage all three."
"I think I deserve all three," Fleur said, without qualification.
"An arrogant girl," Sirius remarked.
"It's called confidence," Fleur said smugly, putting the parchment away with care. "I deserve the best — or I'd rather be perfectly well on my own."
"I entirely agree with that," Sirius said.
"Better nothing than something wrong" had always been his way of thinking — in how he conducted himself, in work, in friendship. He hadn't expected to find it stated so plainly by someone else.
Fleur said nothing more.
She stood gracefully, hands behind her back, head tilted — like something out of a folktale — and studied him with frank, curious eyes.
"Fleur Delacour — the real Alastor Moody returns tomorrow." Sirius looked at her for a second or two, then told her the truth. "You can't march up to him and ask things of him the way you might have done with me. He'll be cold — he doesn't know you, and he won't make exceptions."
"And where will you be?" She didn't ask why the real Moody was returning. Just as she had never asked why Sirius was impersonating him in the first place.
She only wanted to know where he was going.
"I'll be staying upstairs at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade for a while. Come and find me if you need anything," Sirius said.
He looked at her red lips and beautifully angled cheek for a moment, trying to work out where she'd hidden the Mandrake leaf, and asked, "How is the leaf holding up?"
"Well enough, so far," Fleur said, then added with some concern: "Will you still come to assist me on the night of the full moon?"
"I will," Sirius said quietly.
He looked up at the stars and the slow drift of cloud for a moment, and said, "You're fortunate — next week looks very likely to be a clear full moon."
Fleur brightened considerably.
She counted on her fingers: "The ingredients are nearly all ready. You promised to collect dew from a spot untouched by sunlight or humans for seven full days — don't forget."
"Obviously," Sirius said.
Her sudden smile was startling — almost too much to look at directly — so he kept his eyes on the ink-dark sky. "Rather than worrying about that, you'd do better to think about the Hawk Moth chrysalis."
"I've already obtained it through — certain channels," Fleur said smugly. "Madame Maxime's contacts."
"Not bad," Sirius said.
Fleur smiled and asked, "I remember you said the mixture for Animagus transformation needed to be stored somewhere quiet and dark. Do you have any suggestions?"
"Wait —" Sirius turned to look at her, a crack forming in his smug composure for the first time. "Fleur Delacour, tell me you didn't complete all the preparation without thinking through this step. Do you understand what it means for the mixture to need a quiet, dark location?"
"Quiet means completely undisturbed — once buried, it can't be moved until the storm arrives. Dark means no light," Fleur said calmly. "What about it? The storm won't be long."
"It's not that simple. How can you guarantee when the storm will arrive?" Sirius interrupted. "The weather is entirely different in different regions. If you bury it here in Scotland, you won't be able to go back to France, or even to London, until everything is finished. You'll have to stay, to make sure you don't miss it."
"What's so difficult about that?" Fleur smiled airily. "Doesn't it rain all the time here? Ever since we arrived, we've felt nothing but damp and cold — terrible weather."
"Have you not noticed that it's been much milder and calmer these past few months?" Sirius said, watching Fleur's smile gradually freeze. "Scottish autumn and winter are reliably wet and cold, yes. Spring is a different matter entirely."
"Oh, Merlin — you're right..." Fleur's eyes went wide, and she murmured to herself. "This is a problem."
Sirius rubbed his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. "I assumed you'd worked through this already."
"Of course I thought about it! But how was I supposed to know about Scottish spring weather? I'm an international visitor — a little clemency, please?" Fleur pursed her lips. "And who could have predicted the first attempt would go so smoothly? I was planning for two or three tries at minimum."
"Two or three tries?" Sirius said scornfully. "That would be the crowning insult to any Animagus instructor worth the name."
"I acknowledge that you're very capable," Fleur said, with great sincerity. "But you can't control the weather, can you?"
"Don't despair yet. Summer is arriving, and the chance of a proper storm increases from June onward." He glanced at her, thinking that her worried face was no less compelling than her smiling one. He softened his tone. "There's no use lamenting it now. Given your limited range of movement, the only practical answer is to bury the mixture here at Hogwarts."
"Merlin, I hope a storm comes soon. And I hope it doesn't storm during the maze task, or I'll be trapped in there while the sky does what I've been waiting weeks for," Fleur muttered, directing a fervent prayer at the pale, half-visible moon.
"There you go — pray to the moon. I have an old friend who does exactly the same thing." Sirius made a face at the moon, a peculiar smile on his lips. "Your concern is valid, by the way. If a storm breaks out during the task, you can hardly sprint out of the maze halfway through to go and become an Animagus."
"But if I miss this storm, I'll have to start from scratch," she said, looking genuinely bleak.
"That's exactly right. Which is precisely why I always say that becoming an Animagus isn't difficult in principle — it's the process that's complicated, and it requires exactly the right conditions." Sirius said, with the ease of someone who had thought about it a great deal. He found her worried expression both unusual and rather endearing. "As for where to bury it — let's say beneath the Whomping Willow for now. Nobody in their right mind will go digging around there. It's perfectly safe."
Fleur felt somewhat more settled, seeing how calm he was.
"Very well," she said, making up her mind.
The next moment, however, a stream of further anxieties surfaced: "But how do you plan to get onto the Hogwarts grounds on the night of the full moon? Hogwarts isn't generally open to visitors. And that Willow — how do we intend to get near it without being thrashed?"
Sirius smiled in the way of someone with a plan they have no intention of sharing. "That's exactly the right thing to ask. Don't worry about it. Just be ready when the time comes."
Fleur looked him over with frank suspicion. "Sirius Black — don't you dare deceive me or leave me waiting. If you do, I'll find you, and we will have words. Are we clear?"
"I would never do something so poor-mannered," the dark-haired man said, dismissing the possibility entirely.
Fleur very much wanted a specific answer — she liked to settle things in advance.
But no matter how she angled her questions, he remained serenely evasive, deflecting everything with a calm shake of the head.
She finally abandoned her dignity and made her frustration plain. "Can't you just tell me the whole plan now?"
"Allow me a little mystery," Sirius said, with the faint air of someone enjoying himself.
After one evening of observation, he had understood something: you couldn't only listen to what Fleur Delacour said. You had to watch her face — which was the difficulty, given that sustained attention to it tended to create problems for most people.
But once you made the effort to observe her calmly, another Fleur Delacour appeared. Yes, she was proud — always had been. But she was nowhere near "arrogant and rude."
The misunderstanding seemed to come from something almost laughably simple: her personality was entirely direct, and her spoken English had been in urgent need of improvement. She had absolutely no feel for the subtle, indirect manner of speech that British wizards relied on, and had not the faintest idea how blunt she was coming across.
Watching the haughty girl's thoroughly un-haughty expression of exasperation, Sirius Black felt a strange quiet satisfaction, as though he'd glimpsed a small, true corner of the universe.
So, amidst her running complaints in fractured English and fluent French, he smiled and looked back at the stars, turning his thoughts to the timing of storms.
The following afternoon, Draco Malfoy discovered that Professor Moody had been given a new core.
When he entered the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the real Professor Moody cast the same wary, sweeping look over him as over every other student — no feigned animosity, no attempt to signal recognition — treating him as an unremarkable fourth year.
The professor's scarred face still bore the shadows of recent illness, yet his Magical Eye darted rapidly and with great intensity beneath his grey-white hair, as tireless as ever. His good eye was mostly fixed on Harry.
When Harry walked in — wand casually tucked in his back pocket — the real Professor Moody launched immediately out of his chair. "Don't put your wand there, boy! What if it Sticks? Wizards older and better than you have lost a buttock that way!"
"I want to know who that wizard, better than Potter, is," Draco heard Blaise say to Pansy behind him. "Could it be him?"
The immediate cascade of Pansy's giggling lasted until Draco turned his head, at which point Professor Moody's board rubber cracked smartly against the desk in front of them. Pansy stopped, with effort.
Draco brushed a faint film of chalk dust from his shoulder with total serenity. He privately thought Blaise might have stumbled onto something — but he also considered another explanation: Moody was quick to correct Harry's careless wand handling because he vividly remembered the consequences of it at the Quidditch World Cup.
It had been the wand left carelessly in Harry's back pocket that Barty Crouch Jr., concealed in the top box, had acquired to cast the Dark Mark that night. And Barty Crouch Jr. was the very person responsible for Moody being trapped in his own trunk.
Harry startled at Moody's shout and had his wand out immediately.
"About time," Draco thought, relieved, watching the shock on Harry's face. "Finally, a proper adult wizard has arrived to teach him how to handle his wand correctly."
The words of a seasoned, still-formidable, battle-hardened Auror were always going to make more of an impression than the words of Sirius — the questionable godfather — or the words of someone who merely seemed like a peer.
"How's the third task coming along?" Professor Moody beckoned Harry to the front of the classroom and asked gruffly, scanning each student who entered with his Magical Eye while scratching at Harry's stubbled, scarred chin. "I heard Professor McGonagall's given you access to her Transfiguration classroom over lunch for practice."
"Yes," Harry said quickly. "She's been very kind."
Professor Moody yawned massively, his scars pulling tight, and Harry could count the missing teeth clearly in the crooked lines of his mouth. "Fine. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't win. Stay alert, Potter. Stay alert."
Harry nodded at him with the vigour of a very dedicated woodpecker.
When Harry sat down, still slightly startled, Draco asked across the aisle, "Harry. How's the spell practice coming along?"
"It's dreadful. Hermione gave me an entire parchment list of spells to learn!" The exhaustion in Harry's green eyes was absolute as he counted them off. "Locking Charm, Barrier Charm, Severing Charm, Finite Incantatem, Disarming Charm... and I've been drilling the Stunning Spell and Shield Charm on top of that... I have no idea where she finds half of these."
"I contributed a fair amount to that list," Draco said, with quiet satisfaction. "If I recall correctly, you'll also want the Incarcerous, Impediment Jinx, Liberacorpus, the Reviving Spell, the Fire-Making Charm, the Engorgement Charm, the Shrinking Charm... and a handful of useful little jinxes. I originally included the Disillusionment Charm, but since you have the Invisibility Cloak —"
"An Invisibility Cloak can't be used in a competitive task," Harry said.
"Then add the Disillusionment Charm back in," Draco said easily. "Rather a useful little spell."
"Draco, I'm very grateful to you, I am —" Harry said, through his teeth, "— but do you know what the phrase 'forced development' means? What is a 'minor' charm? These are harder than you seem to think."
"This is the same person who conjured a fully corporeal Patronus in third year," Draco said, showing him no mercy. "A Patronus that would make most adult wizards envious, I'd add. Harry, I've never doubted your talent for learning spells. Don't doubt yourself either."
He glanced at Harry's suppressed yawning and asked, "You're less panicked now than you were going into the first and second tasks, aren't you? Even accounting for the work involved?"
"No, because I don't have time to panic," Harry said. "But you're right. I think these spells will matter."
"That's the attitude." Draco said. "Also — a small suggestion. Think back over everything Hagrid mentioned this year that he found particularly interesting — especially the things you and everyone else strongly advised him against bringing into a lesson. I'd wager he's already arranged to include at least some of them in the maze."
Harry's face paled slightly. The complete seriousness on Draco's face confirmed he wasn't joking.
"A very... constructive suggestion," Harry said carefully. Then he remembered the extinct Blast-Ended Skrewts and breathed out a little. "There's presumably a Sphinx somewhere, if he can get one."
"Don't forget the Sphinx — he mentioned it once in class," Draco said. "Exceptionally dangerous. Don't underestimate it."
Since June had begun, nearly everyone seemed to have taken on some personal investment in the outcome of Harry's third task.
In the corridors and classrooms of Hogwarts, Draco had witnessed at least three or four professors — Flitwick, Sprout, even Trelawney — enquire with great interest about Harry's progress. He was confident many more such conversations were taking place in places he couldn't see.
More than that: Professor McGonagall had provided Harry training facilities without hesitation, and even Professor Snape had ceased his usual pointed commentary on Harry and adopted a policy of studied, deliberate indifference in Potions.
As Friday's Potions class wound toward its end, Draco turned on the dripping stone tap in the sink and — while rinsing the sticky ginger juice from Hermione's hands — said under his breath, "Professor Snape has been behaving oddly. Have you noticed?"
"He hasn't really gone after Harry in several classes in a row," Hermione murmured, letting him fidget with her hands.
After a moment, she realised the boy's long warm fingers were moving over hers with quiet care, the soapy water and his manner creating something unexpectedly soft between them. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. The way he looked down, watching the running water, with his eyelashes cast low, had a particular, almost unbearable quality.
She said, somewhat weakly, "He clearly doesn't want to disrupt Harry's training."
"He doesn't want to disturb Harry's preparation," Draco agreed. He lifted her fingers, sniffed them to check for any remaining ginger, found them clean, and pressed a quick, unhurried kiss to her damp knuckles. A faint smile appeared.
Hermione's cheeks went pink. She glanced around sheepishly and said in a rush, "Maybe you're right. Professor Snape cares about Harry in a very uncomfortable kind of way."
Under his amused gaze, she stole a quick look at the expressionless Snape across the room. "If only he could be slightly less brutal about showing it. If he'd just be a little kinder to Harry —"
She looked back at Draco's profile. "Speaking of which — is being perpetually stone-faced a formal Slytherin requirement? I remember you used to be expressionless quite often too."
Draco ignored the question and dried her hands with calm focus.
"Granger, what are you on about?" Pansy passed them, rolling her eyes. "He has not 'often' had a good expression on his face. He's got one now more than he used to. Draco Malfoy's pleasant face has always been in limited supply within Slytherin."
"Really?" Hermione looked at him. "I thought you'd gotten better at showing goodwill... In any case, couldn't you be a little nicer to people generally? Why keep so cold?"
"Weren't we discussing Harry?" Draco said, with measured patience. "Are those students still giving him grief?"
"Just the opposite — they've swung to the other extreme. They're constantly ambushing him in the corridors to shout encouragement at him. They want him to bring glory to Hogwarts, apparently." Hermione said. "Harry isn't exactly enjoying it."
"Difficult to imagine he would," Draco said.
"It's better than the 'Potter Stinks' badges, but it adds a different kind of pressure," Hermione said thoughtfully. "As though he'll have let everyone down if he doesn't win."
Draco shrugged. "That's the dilemma of anyone who wears a crown."
"Which he never wanted to wear in the first place," she replied with a tired resignation.
"That's often how it is. Nobody gets everything they want." He paused, then said, more casually, "Are you coming to the library with me after? Surely you should be preparing for finals."
"Sorry, Draco — I've got to go and practice with Harry," Hermione said quickly.
"Being his sparring partner again?" Draco scoffed. "Can't he manage on his own?"
"There are too many spells to absorb quickly. Having sparring partners means someone can point out a technique or flag a weakness he's not seeing. Besides —" Hermione said, "— he needs the atmosphere of a real duel, and he needs his friends there."
"But I haven't been alone with you in ages. Since we brewed the Wolfsbane —"
"It's only been a few days!" Hermione flushed, stuffing her Intermediate Potion Making textbook into her bag. "Must you always exaggerate?"
"I am objectively the primary victim of Harry's spell training programme. I have been systematically deprived of time with my partner. I reserve the right to register a complaint." Draco watched her leave with a sulky look, and called after her retreating figure: "I expect Harry to have those spells mastered before I run out of patience entirely!"
"Good afternoon, Draco," Hermione said cheerfully, waved without turning, and disappeared through the door.
Draco sighed with great feeling.
No one understood better than Draco, who had seen it at close range, how much time and energy Hermione had poured into Harry's preparation. Ever since learning the nature of the third task, she had been combing the library for every relevant spell she could find. Once Harry had taken the training seriously, she and Ron had spent nearly every free moment at his side, drilling seriously advanced magic.
As the sole aggrieved party in this matter, Draco had no real grounds for complaint.
In some ways, he wanted Harry to master those spells more than anyone. He wanted Harry to walk into that maze and come out the other side, unharmed, regardless of whatever scheme the Dark Lord had laid.
So he had given Hermione a great deal of spell advice. He had, from the very start, firmly declined the role of "sparring partner" on principle — Harry needed to build these abilities through his own effort, not have someone else rescue him from every difficulty.
As always, Draco had stated, quite openly, "I am a selfish person," and reiterated the Slytherin position: "Don't do things that don't serve you."
"I know, I know," Hermione had said, not remotely bothered by any of it. "You've already contributed an extraordinary number of excellent spell suggestions. Harry will be very grateful. As for the sparring — I completely understand. You have your own things to manage: final exams, the shop, the potions, and those Muggle letters that keep arriving..."
She had finished all his arguments for him, and added several he hadn't even thought of. Draco stared at her with profound suspicion, trying to determine what was actually going on in her mental cauldron.
"Do your thing, Draco. I completely respect your choice, and neither Harry nor I will take it to heart." The clever girl gave him a serene smile. "But I choose to help my friends, and you'll respect that too — won't you?"
Draco was left without a word. He could only wander the corridors of a pre-exam Hogwarts in a dark mood, sending icy looks at any couple unfortunate enough to cross his path.
He had, he realised, finally come to understand Professor Snape's feelings every time he encountered a young couple in the Rose Garden on Christmas Eve. He understood the logic behind the stern face and the point deductions. Those contented pairs were an eyesore beyond description to Draco Malfoy without his girlfriend beside him.
By Monday noon, gripped by a separation anxiety he could no longer dignify with patience, he found himself pacing the corridor twice before sheepishly pushing open the door to the Transfiguration classroom.
He was greeted by Ron lying flat on his back on the floor, looking utterly destroyed. "I've been knocked down and Enervated five times. I'm in agony."
"You keep landing off the mat!" Hermione said, impatient, from a chair in the corner. She flicked her wand with a neat, practised Jelly-Legs Jinx that broke the Shield Charm Harry had just cast.
"You've arrived at exactly the right moment, Draco! I'm going on strike!" Ron announced, spotted the visitor, clambered onto the mat, and refused to move.
"Draco! What brings you here?" Hermione turned around, and the smile that appeared on her face was genuine and unguarded. "I didn't expect this."
"I was passing by and thought I'd look in," Draco said, with studied nonchalance. "Harry — how are the Stunning Spell and Shield Charm holding up?"
"Not well." Harry limped over to him with a gloomy face. "Your girlfriend is too fierce. I'm half afraid Hagrid is going to throw her into the maze instead of me. No one could beat her."
Draco raised an eyebrow and cast "Finite" on him. Harry stopped limping, lay down on the cushions beside Ron, and exhaled deeply.
Hermione looked helpless but pleased, while running her quill through the spells Harry had just worked through.
Draco looked at the slight tiredness in Hermione's face and felt a quiet, irritated concern. He moved to her chair, rubbed her shoulders, and addressed Harry with a mild smile: "If you suggest that to Hagrid, I might Transfigure you into a moth."
"Kidding! Completely kidding!" Harry said, catching Draco's expression and moving quickly to clarify.
He had forgotten, again, that Draco didn't find jokes about Hermione particularly funny.
"I know, relax," Draco said, glancing at the spell list in Hermione's hand. "Harry — you should absolutely have the Shield Charm. It won't block the heaviest magic, but against most things it will deflect or slow the spell enough to matter. There's also an advanced version: the Protego Totalum. That one is genuinely worth learning..."
"Another spell?" Ron let out a faint moan. "Have mercy."
"I'll do it," Hermione said. She produced her vine wand, set the spell list on the chair, and began to stand. "Let me be your partner."
"You rest," Draco said immediately, pressing her back into the chair. "I'll do it."
"But didn't you say —" Hermione smiled up at him, triumph not quite hidden in her eyes.
"Since I'm here," he said, shaking his head, hands still resting on her shoulders, managing what he felt was a reasonable smile, "I'll make an exception. Temporarily."
Hermione's eyes crinkled.
"Shouldn't you be revising?" Harry said, with genuine guilt. "I can manage on my own for a stretch."
The fact that he was exempt from end-of-year exams as a Tournament Champion didn't mean his friends who'd been staying late to train with him weren't sitting them.
And yet, as the exam dates grew closer rather than farther, the group training him had become more enthusiastic, not less. Even the number of people turning up had grown.
"Don't worry about that," Hermione said contentedly, feeling the comfortable knead of Draco's hands on her shoulders. She looked toward the centre of the room. "At least the Defence Against the Dark Arts exam will be kind to us. We're learning more spells here in an afternoon than in a full term."
"It's excellent preparation for Auror training, honestly," Ron said. He was lying on his back, absently pointing his wand at a wasp that had found its way in. "Impedimenta," he said, and the wasp froze in mid-air.
"Good aim," Draco said.
Ron went faintly pink with pleasure at the rare compliment. He was on his feet in a moment, grinning down at the still-horizontal Harry. "Right? My Defence should be an Outstanding now. Come on, up, let's go again."
"You have one week until finals," Harry said, looking at Ron's outstretched hand with worry.
"Harry," Draco said, with the patience of someone addressing a point for the second time. "As the top student in our year, suggesting I might be concerned about my exam results is a mild insult."
Hermione beamed. "Yes! Who could be a better sparring partner? He's exceptional with these spells, Harry."
Draco stopped moving. He stood perfectly still behind her chair for a moment, then put her assessment aside. He stepped around to face her, blocking Harry and Ron from view.
He lowered his head. His fingers slid slowly from her shoulder — around her collarbone, across her neck — and gently, quickly tilted her chin.
He smiled at the girl whose eyes had gone wide with surprise, and said in a voice only she could hear: "I know exactly what you're doing, Hermione Granger, you devious creature."
"Enthusiastically helping friends, enthusiastically offering yourself as sparring partner, so enthusiastically that you can't spare a single moment —" He held her gaze with something between amusement and the faintest reproach, and traced her lips softly with one finger. "I think you did that on purpose."
Hermione blinked, attempting an innocent expression. It was entirely undermined by his unapologetic finger, which sent her composure into disarray and brought a guilty colour into her cheeks.
"I'll remember this," Draco said, with great meaning. He put his hand down and left the girl — whose face was quietly becoming a lovely shade of pink — to her chair.
He turned, strode to the centre of the room, and faced Harry as he drew his wand. "Harry Potter," he said, with precision, attention, and finality. "Get up. Take out your wand. Duel."
Faced with this suddenly resolved friend, Harry had no choice.
He pulled himself together, was dragged from his cushion by an overjoyed Ron Weasley, took a breath, stepped forward, and — facing Draco Malfoy's expressionless, focused, utterly relentless advance — cast "Protego" with everything he had.