The If Sieve (2/5)

[cest_what]

Back to Part I

Part II

About the last person Draco expected to drop to the grass beside him on Saturday morning was Ginevra Weasley. He gave her a sideways glance, wondering whether she'd actually noticed that he was there.

"I can't believe," she said, not looking at him, "that the person I have most in common with at the moment is Draco Malfoy." She cradled her chin in her hands and stared out over the lawns towards the lake.

Okay. Knows it's me, then. What the hell?

"I'm sorry, what are you doing here?" he asked. "Did you need tutoring or something? Because whoever told you that I'm kind to younger students was lying through their teeth."

She shrugged. "Actually, I think the last thing somebody told me about you was that you were the spawn of You Know Who and a Kneazle."

Draco blanched. That was just ... eww.

"... you must have interesting conversations," he managed.

She didn't answer for a moment, still staring moodily out over the grass. When she spoke again it was obvious that she'd changed the subject.

"You're watching him," she said. "I think you're the only person in the school who's been as pathetic about Harry Potter as I have. Well, us and Colin."

His eyes flicked up to the small figure circling and swooping against the blue of the sky. It dove as he watched, heels skimming the top of the lake at the moment it pulled out. An irritable tentacle broke the surface for a moment, then subsided again.

"I'm not watching anybody," he said. She snorted.

"Wait," he said, "did you just compare me to Potter's sycophantic little photographer boy?"

She sighed. "I bought so many of his photographs off him in first year. Well, before ... other stuff happened. Mum kept wanting to know what I was spending my allowance on."

He shot a sideways look at her again, wondering whether she'd go away if he stopped answering.

"I just ..." He was horrified to see a tear leak out of her eye. She blinked it away. "I just didn't expect it to turn out like this, you know? Hermione kept giving me advice but I didn't seriously think he'd ever see me at school. I had these fantasies, about us running into each other years after we'd graduated. He'd notice me just as I was doing something cool and incredibly sexy as a curse breaker - I've always wanted to be one. Ever since I was five and my brother came home with a bandage round his arm from where a vengeful cat mummy had taken a chunk out of it."

The little figure over the lake was doing loops, now, taking its hands off the broom at the top of the loop and then grabbing hold again for the descent.

"I never expected that he'd notice me in fifth year and that he'd still not see me properly. I never thought he'd put me away when the real world intruded again, as if I wasn't even real."

There was a pause. Draco looked at her again. "Seriously, why are you telling me this?"

"I have PMS," she said flatly. "It makes me talkative and not very choosy about my listeners."

He edged away a little, because honestly, who said that?

She finally looked at him. "I'm really glad I don't care what you think, Malfoy. Because - god, you must think I'm the most pathetic person on the earth right about now."

And you think I'm the love child of Voldemort and a cat, he thought, but didn't say.

"I'm dating Kevin Entwhistle now, you know." She shrugged, looking away again. "I had to do something to keep face. Do you have any idea how ego-crushing it is to be dumped by the Boy Who Lived?"

"I could guess," he said after a moment. "But I really would prefer it if you went away now. It's nothing personal but being so close to a Weasley is bringing me out in a rash."

She gave him a dangerous smile. "That's funny," she said. "Hermione's Kneazle never liked any of my family either."

*

"I've thought of another If," Draco said as soon as he found Crabbe and Goyle that afternoon. They were sitting on the steps in the courtyard, waiting for him.

Goyle looked up from his comic book, blinking. "Are we doing it tonight?"

"Yes." He scowled. "A Weasley tried to bond with me while you two were gallivanting off to Hogsmeade today. I need something to distract me from thinking about it."

Goyle's eyes widened and he looked at Crabbe to see if he had any clarification.

Crabbe frowned. "A Weasley?"

"Never mind that," Draco said. "Will you two get the sieve and meet me in the library? We can fit it in before dinner, I think."

The courtyard was empty as he recrossed it; the day had got late and dark. A vicious little wind blew, rippling his robes and numbing his ears. He couldn't see anybody out on the lawns anymore either, except that ... he squinted. Did something rile up the Whomping Willow?

The light was fading rather badly but he could definitely see something thrashing about near the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

He hesitated for a moment, as it really was cold. Curiosity won out.

It was definitely the willow, he saw as he got closer. He turned his collar up a little higher, hunching his shoulders against the wicked cut of the chill air, and walked nearer.

Now he could hear voices.

"Can't you bind the others, Hermione?"

A sound of frustration. "They won't hold still! Hang on, I'll try a Petrificus."

That seemed to rile up the tree even more; the branch movements became even wilder. A leafy limb smashed down near Draco's feet, immediately whipping up again. There was a cry of alarm and then a curse that sounded Weasley-ish.

He moved cautiously around the perimeter, peering into the dusk-lit thrashing shape. They had to be in there somewhere but he couldn't see them.

Ah! There!

There was an agonised sort of quivering near the centre of the commotion and what looked like two branches that didn't move, other than to shiver and groan. It looked as though someone had bound them to each other and to the ground to form a makeshift kind of shelter when the tree became homicidal. Draco could see a flash of red hair and then a glint of glasses as Potter raised his head for a moment and then dropped it beneath an onrushing branch.

Draco couldn't imagine what they'd thought they were doing walking into the Whomping Willow, but they were obviously stuck.

"Oh, I keep missing!" Granger cried again, flustered and upset.

"Um. Alright, I'll see if I can ..." Potter trailed off and Draco squinted into the gloom again. He seemed to have his broom with him; as well as Draco could see, he was flat to the ground between the bound branches and inching it bristles-first towards the trunk. It was obvious that it wouldn't reach.

"Argh!" Potter wriggled back, muttering language Draco was a little surprised to find that he knew.

"Wait, how about this?" Draco thought that was Weasley. He didn't hear the spell cast but he guessed it was Wingardium Leviosa when small pebbles began to fly through the air and dash against the trunk of the tree.

He shivered into the collar of his too-thin school robes again. The pebble thing was ... bizarre. They were like children kicking the knees of a giant. Unless there's something there on the trunk? He tried to remember what he'd heard about Whomping Willows. Hadn't Sprout mentioned once that they were often used as burglar alarms? Presumably there had to be some way of deactivating them, then, or you'd never be able to get at whatever they were protecting.

He squinted again. There was an odd sort of knot low down on the trunk, maybe a little too regular to be accidental. It was nearish to where the stones and - well, that looked like a shoe, actually - were hitting. It looked as though they kept just missing it, in fact.

Draco didn't let himself think about it too long. Didn't I want McGonagall to give me something to do? He saw a break in the wildly swinging branches and dived.

His shoulder hit the grass and he rolled, stretching his fingers out. Something bashed to the ground inches from his knees and he twisted reflexively out of the way. His knuckles brushed a rounded bump on the trunk. For a half second the tree continued to move, nightmarish around him. Then it stopped. Creaked.

There was absolute silence.

He rolled to his feet and ran back out from under the overhang of the branches. There was dirt in his hair and now the sweat of adrenaline was drying on his neck and making him even chillier. His shoulder ached; it felt bruised.

Potter was shuffling out from between the two bound-together branches. He was a lot scruffier than the dive had left Draco, with smears of dirt over one cheek and his hair in an even worse state than usual. There was a long rip in his trousers over one knee, crusted with dirt and what looked like beaded blood on a scrape, and he hugged one arm to his chest. Granger and Weasley came after him, a little more slowly. Granger was supporting Weasley with an arm around his waist as he limped over the churned up ground.

They stopped. Granger put up her free hand and pushed the bushy hair out of her face, squinting.

"Malfoy?" Potter's voice was blank.

Draco scowled, because he was dirty and cold and, fuck, he'd just thrown himself at a murderous tree.

"Didn't you learn about the Whomping Willow in second year, Potter?"

Potter shook his head, his forehead creasing unhappily.

"We ... but Malfoy?"

Draco looked at them for a moment longer, dirty and torn-up and suspicous. Then he turned and walked away.

*

Crabbe and Goyle had given up and gone to dinner, of course. Loyalty only took you so far and Draco had had to go back to the dorm after the willow incident to change his clothes.

They tramped off to the library after dinner, though. Draco had been thinking and he'd come up with a moment where he thought, much as his pride objected, that there could have been a modicum of understanding between Potter and himself, if he'd reacted more sanely.

So this time he wrote: If Draco Malfoy chose not to hex Harry Potter when he discovered him sobbing in a bathroom in their sixth year at Hogwarts.

He touched his wand to the silvery surface and the sieve tipped him into the scene.

If

The scuffed tiles of the boys' bathroom were instantly familiar. It was clean, of course - the Hogwarts elves would never have let it become unclean - but the snitch pattern at the centre of each wall tile had faded and scuffed almost to invisibility and the tap fittings had the green sheen of corrosion. There were discoloured cracks in the porcelain of the sinks, too.

He concentrated on the room so that he wouldn't have to look at - himself. In front of the cracked mirror, his head bowed and his hands clutching the sink so hard that his fingers had whitened at the joints. His white-blond hair was mussed and teased in tangles, as though he'd clenched his fingers in it.

His shoulders were shaking.

It was horrible.

The dead girl's ghost was hovering in one of the cubicles, looking simultaneously sympathetic and - just a little bit gleeful. Draco had had an idea of how lonely she was when he talked to her in the bathroom last year but he hadn't picked up on the macabre enjoyment she got out of these meetings.

He supposed he'd been a little wrapped up in himself.

"I don't ... I don't know what to do," Sieve Draco was saying, his voice wretchedly uneven. "I can't ... I think he's actually insane, you know, and I know my Aunt Bella is and it's not going to be okay." There was an audible sob, then, breaking past the pale lips. Watcher Draco looked away again. He was in time to see Potter carefully push the door open. He stopped, blinking in confusion as he took in Draco at the mirror.

"Don't," the ghost said softly. "Don't ... tell me what's wrong ... I can help you ..."

Sieve Draco shook his head, over and over as though he'd forgotten when he was supposed to stop.

"No one can help me. I can't do it ... I can't ... it won't work ... and unless I do it soon ... he says he'll kill me ..." Gulping sobs made the end of the sentence unintelligible.

Draco was still resolutely watching Potter rather than his own crying form and he saw the realisation of what he was watching break over Potter like a wave. He looked gobsmacked.

Watcher Draco wondered how often he'd see that expression on Potter's face today.

Then the Draco at the mirror looked up. Tear-wet eyes widened in horror.

There were always two distinct approaches to choose between when you were faced with a threat; Draco had thought about that when he chose the If.

The sieve Draco spun around - and bolted.

He shoved Potter aside in a blur of robes and made it out into the hallway. Potter seemed galvanised by the movement. He stumbled, righted himself in a second and tore after him, catching his own shoulder against the doorframe on the way.

Watcher Draco reached the doorway in time to see Potter bring his younger self down in a tangle of limbs and jarred knees. He stopped, wincing in sympathy, and approached more slowly.

Potter was sitting up, dazed. Sieve Draco untangled himself but didn't bother trying to stand up. He drew his knees up against himself in a huddle and glared at Potter.

"What is wrong with you?" His voice was weak and scratchy from the tears.

"Er ..."

Potter didn't usually let his general inarticulateness stop him from talking anyway. Usually he kept talking even when any normal person would have known it was time to shut up. Apparently he'd learned to shut up now, though. He didn't seem to have a clue how to explain his chase and flying tackle. He rubbed at his shoulder.

"Is this some sort of Muggle thing?" Draco asked, looking at his knees. "I heard they have games where they jump on each other."

"No. You were ... you were crying."

"I was fucking not."

Potter looked at him carefully, taking in the tear-tracks and squinted eyes.

"Um ..."

"Oh, fuck off, Potter."

Potter reached out a hand, cautiously, and touched his shoulder.

"Malfoy, it's ... uh, okay to cry."

Draco shot him an incredulous look.

"Are you comforting me, Potter? And I'm not bloody well crying."

He wasn't anymore, either. He scrubbed at his cheeks to brush the tear marks away but he didn't seem aware of the mussed condition of his hair, or the reddened, worn state of his eyes. He hunched down a little further into his huddle against the corridor wall.

Draco didn't think he'd ever seen himself look either so bad-tempered or so vulnerable and depressed. It wasn't an attractive look but something about it seemed to be affecting Potter in an unusual way. He wasn't reacting to Draco's insults the way he usually did.

There was a disgusted sniff and he looked up, startled. The dead girl was hovering at the doorway of the bathroom but she didn't seem to want to come out. She looked directly at the real Draco and pouted.

"I thought you were going to fight," she said.

He glanced quickly back at the two boys on the floor but they still couldn't see him.

"Er. We did," he said. "In the real world, I mean. You screamed murder about it."

"Ooh." Her eyes widened. "Was there blood?"

There was that cold lurch in his stomach and - the chilly tiles underneath him and the pain like nothing and his robes bloodstained and sodden and he was god so scared.

"Yes," he said shortly.

She nodded her head, sadly.

"I wish I'd been there," she said. She trailed back into the bathroom.

In the corridor, Potter tried the shoulder thing again. Draco shot him another look.

"It's just that ... I've never seen you cr - er, upset, before."

"Oh, sorry," Draco said. "I didn't realise you ever looked up from your Gryffindor fanclub. Do you mean to tell me you actually notice people who aren't trying to get your autograph?"

Potter sucked on his lip, as though he was trying to hold in a frown, or maybe a smile. "You've made yourself pretty noticeable, Malfoy."

Draco didn't answer for a moment. He stared down at his knees again, although he mustn't have been able to see much of them through the fine pale fringe hanging over his eyes. "I'm going to go now," he mumbled.

"No, wait!" Potter grabbed his shoulder this time, even though Draco hadn't made any move to get up. "Malfoy, it's ... I know you've got something to do for Voldemort. And I thought you were ... only what you said to Moaning Myrtle ... and so I just thought maybe you -"

"For god's sake, Potter, can you not actually talk?"

Potter flushed. "You don't have to do it," he said.

It looked as though for a moment Sieve Draco didn't understand what he was talking about. Then he did. He laughed; a loud, startled sound.

"No, listen, Malfoy. Whatever it is - I don't know what it is but I know it's something bad, because Voldemort's never had a plan that I know of that involved flowers and kittens. Unless maybe he was ritually sacrificing the kittens on a field of burned flowers, I suppose. But that's, um. Look, whatever it is - it didn't sound as though you wanted to do it. On the train, I mean, it did, but not ... not just then."

Draco hunched a little further. "No shit."

Potter had been twisting the hem of his robe between his fingers. Now he dropped it in favour of taking hold of Draco's shoulder again. He looked determined and painfully earnest. It wasn't an expression he'd ever turned on Draco before and Watcher Draco sort of wished the Sieve version of himself would look at Potter so that he could see it too.

"You should go to Dumbledore."

Draco shrugged out from under his shoulder and turned to stare at him, for just one moment completely terrified. Watcher Draco could almost see his thoughts printed across his face: Tell me he doesn't know.

"He's the only one Voldemort's ever been afraid of, everybody knows that. If you ask him to, he'll protect you. He's been protecting me since I was a year old."

Draco looked at him. "He has?"

Potter rolled his eyes. "Come on, Malfoy, you don't think there weren't plenty of pissed off Death Eaters who wanted me dead after Voldemort fell? He's always protected me."

He hesitated, as if unsure whether to say the next bit. "It was ... I mean, I wasn't happy where he put me. I was miserable, actually, and I grew up thinking I was, you know, basically unlovable. But he had to leave me there. I know that he did, to keep me alive." He said the last bit with absolute conviction.

Watching, Draco found himself overcome by a confused mess of guilt and dislike. He had an idea that he wasn't allowed to be angry at the Headmaster; not when he'd ...

"I need to go," Sieve Draco said again.

"Malfoy -"

"No! Look ..." he raised his head. "I just need to ... I might think about it, alright." He hesitated halfway to rising. "Don't even think about spreading this, Potter. I swear, if you tell ..."

"I won't."

Draco gave him a distrustful look but finished standing. He paused for a moment, as though he was considering saying goodbye, then he shrugged and turned to walk away. He walked quite quickly.

Watcher Draco felt the world darkening around him.

Surely that isn't IT? I still don't know what happens!

But there wasn't that tilt around him that meant he was being tipped back into his bedroom. It was more of a very short slide and then ...

*

Oh. It's a multiple-scene If. Huh.

Sieve Draco was walking down a different corridor with Crabbe and Goyle. It was the one on the way to the Potions classroom, if you were coming from Charms via the South Eastern Staircase.

"... and it looks just like Martin Miggs', it even has a gold and red face, only it's even better because look, it tells the time and date in the centaur calendar ... and in Veelish ... and in the bunyip swamps ... and in Mermish ..."

Goyle angled the new watch further towards Draco.

"Goyle, the merpeople have exactly the same calendar as us; and there's no time difference because they live in the lake."

"But it comes up in blue and there are these little bubbles, look. And it works underwater. And at one hundred degrees celcius. And, look, there's a Catch-the-Snitch game you can play with the hands."

He demonstrated, pressing little gold levers on the sides of the heavy wrist watch to make a tiny snitch dash out and bounce between the three hands. He was concentrating on it so fiercely that he missed it when the corridor turned a corner.

Crabbe swung out one hand and halted him with an audible thwack inches from the stone wall. Goyle glanced up briefly, changed direction, and went back to the watch his mother had had delivered by owl post for his birthday the day before. He'd sat up, Draco remembered, almost the entire night before, working out all of the special features. Everyone's sleep had been disturbed with cries of "Hah!" and "Ooh, ne-e-e-a-at ..." and little whirring and beeping noises. After throwing a pillow at him three times Draco had finally zombie walked - still achey from his stint in the hospital wing - out of bed and cast a sloppy silencing charm around him. He'd been woken an hour later by Goyle shaking his shoulders, his face and anxious eyes eerie in the wandlight, mouthing that he needed Draco to help him turn the numbers back from Chinese because he couldn't tell the time anymore.

Crabbe made sure Goyle wasn't going to walk into a wall again and then caught up to Draco, who'd pulled ahead.

"Malfoy, Goyle and I were wondering: how much longer do you need on the, um, project? Will we have to ... with the dresses, again?"

Whatever Draco might have answered to that was lost, because they turned another corner and Potter was leaning against the wall ahead, waiting for them.

He raised his head.

"Malfoy."

"Potter."

Crabbe looked between them, his brow furrowing. Watcher Draco couldn't blame him for being confused. This was about the time when usually one or the other of them would say something hugely insulting, Draco would sneer, Potter would clench his fists and then one or both of them would get badly hexed.

Potter looked awkward.

"Can I ... can I talk to you for a minute, Malfoy?"

Draco broke eye contact with him to look at his friends.

"Crabbe. Goyle. Go on ahead."

Goyle looked up again, blinking, his mouth open to say something - probably something else about the new Super Watch. He closed it when he saw Potter and cast a confused glance at Crabbe. Crabbe shrugged and took his elbow.

Potter watched them out of sight and then took a couple of steps towards him.

"Have you thought about what I said?"

"I'm not sure," Draco said.

Potter blinked and then looked irritated.

"How can you be not sure whether you've thought about it or not?"

"Have you told anyone?"

"About you - no. Of course not."

Draco sneered. "What do you mean, 'of course not'? I'm not your friend, Potter."

Potter drew himself up. "Yeah, well, I don't spread gossip, and I don't kick people when they're down, either."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Right, it must have been somebody else laughing his arse off while I was being bashed up and down against the ground by a Death Eater."

"I didn't -! Oh, yes, alright, I did. That looked really funny, though. And anyway, you tried to hex me when my back was turned."

"You insulted my mother," Draco said dangerously.

Potter sneered back. "Because you haven't been calling my mother a Mudblood since the day we met."

Draco hesitated. "I'm pretty sure I didn't actually know the word 'Mudblood' until I was twelve," he said. "It's pretty foul. I think my mother would have washed my mouth out if she thought I knew it."

Potter let out his breath and leaned back against the wall. His fringe needed cutting; it was hanging in shaggy locks into his eyes, with one bit sticking up the wrong way. He never cut his fringe in time. He seemed to imagine that he could make people forget about the scar if he covered it up well enough, which was fifty different kinds of stupid as far as Draco was concerned.

"Have you really thought about what I said?"

Draco leaned against the other wall. He scuffed one boot back against the wall, looking determinedly into empty air.

"Would Dumbledore actually protect me? I'm not admitting anything, but - say you're right and I agreed to do something really ... something not nice for the Dark Lord. Wouldn't Dumbledore just throw me in Azkaban if I went and talked to him?" He snuck a look at Potter's face and then looked away again.

"No," Potter said. He said it forcefully, as though he was trying to inject as much certainty as possible into the word. "He wouldn't. He hired Snape, remember, and he was a Death Eater. And a git, so it wasn't as though he did it because he liked him."

Watching, Draco thought it looked as though his younger self was struggling between the usual urge to pipe up in his favourite teacher's defence and the anger that he'd felt towards Snape for most of sixth year. Either way, the real Draco wasn't really all that impressed with the Headmaster's ability to judge character. Given that Snape is still a Death Eater and killed Dumbledore himself. Sieve Draco must have been thinking something along the same lines - Snape had told him about the Unbreakable Vow, after all - because his lip twisted in a bit of a sneer.

"That's only one example, Potter," he said.

"He kept Hagrid too, even though he'd been expelled and the Ministry believed he'd been opening the Chamber of Secrets."

Draco's mouth fell open. "Hagrid?" he said. "That's what he was expelled for? Oh, no way."

Watcher Draco entirely agreed. How could anyone imagine that a half-giant had been opening the Chamber of Secrets? He'd have to have had a death wish! That was just imbecilic; he couldn't even imagine who'd be stupid enough to try to frame a mixed-blood student.

"Well, obviously he wasn't," Potter said, frowning. "But look, Malfoy - Dumbledore would protect you. I know he would."

Draco was silent for an eternally stretching minute. He looked at his hands. Potter shifted.

"... and my family?" Draco asked eventually.

Potter's face hardened some. "Your dad's in Azkaban. I don't think Voldemort's going to get him there."

Draco sneered. "Like you care," he said. "You put him there, you wanker."

Potter glared. "Your dad stood and watched while Voldemort tortured me, Malfoy. Excuse me if I'm not all eaten up with worry about him."

Watcher Draco admitted that Potter did have a point. And Lucius probably was safe in Azkaban. A whole lot safer than Draco had been that year, anyway.

Sieve Draco paused. Then he seemed to concede much the same thing.

"What about my mother?" he asked.

"Um. Probably."

"Probably?"

Potter scowled. "Your mother's not very nice either, Malfoy. My godfather died because of her. She can probably look out for herself."

Draco didn't react to the second part of the sentence. His face twisted, angry and white.

"You don't talk about my mother, Potter." He shook his head, getting a hold of himself. "Just tell me whether she'll be protected. Have you already talked to Dumbledore about this? Did he mention her?"

Potter shook his head. "No, I haven't. Look - she probably will be. I'm almost sure she would be. Dumbledore's ... he's not like anyone else. If she ... as long as she wanted to be protected - and not work for Voldemort anymore - then he would let her."

Draco didn't say anything.

Potter stared at him, as though he could will the right response out of him.

"Just ... come with me to his office. Or tell me what's going on, you must ... you haven't even told Crabbe and Goyle, you must want to tell someone. I know you want to stop."

"Tomorrow," Draco said abruptly. "I'll decide tomorrow. Meet me at the statue of the hump-backed witch after dinner."

"Okay." Potter sounded happy, as though he hadn't expected that much. "We're going to be really late for Potions," he added.

Draco scowled. "As if Slughorn would take points off you anyway. He practically drools over you. I think he wants to have little Potter babies."

Potter looked nauseous. "Ew, Malfoy. And anyway, it's nothing to how Snape fawns over you. I'll bet you never lost a point in Potions class before Slughorn."

Draco shrugged. "I was just good," he said. Potter rolled his eyes.

The scene faded as they began moving off down the corridor. They were walking just a little bit too far apart to be said to be walking together.

There was darkness and a short slide.

*

Light came back accompanied by a cacophony of clattering and talking and laughter. The domed roof above showed a pale pink and blue sky, partly clouded.

Breakfast in the Great Hall.

Draco had never watched breakfast from the outside before. It was a bit of a pantomime. From across the hall, Potter was watching Sieve Draco in a way that was probably supposed to be subtle. He wasn't very good at subtle; he was being completely obvious. Nobody at his table paid any attention to his staring, though, and Draco supposed they were all used to Potter stalking him in sixth year. Not even Granger and Weasley seemed to be interested in where his eyes were fixed. That was a bit of a surprise, actually. Had he not told even them about the conversations he'd had with Draco?

That was an oddly warm and squiggly feeling that he did his best to banish.

At the Slytherin table, sixth year Draco was eating his breakfast with an unusual amount of attention. He avoided even looking in Potter's direction.

Goyle still had his eyes glued to his new watch. His other hand ferried food to his mouth but for once he didn't even look at it. By the expression of concentration on his face, Draco assumed that he was playing the Catch-the-Snitch game. Draco wasn't even sure that there was a way to win that but even now Goyle never seemed to tire of playing it.

Crabbe was pouring most of his energies into eating. Every now and then he snatched a look at Padma Patil at the Ravenclaw table. He seemed to be checking that she was still there. He had the most angst-free crush Draco had ever come across. He had no intention of ever talking to her and no jealousy of anybody she did talk to. He simply thought that she was the best thing ever.

Nott and Zabini were arguing about something. There was a piece of parchment shoved into the space between the plates in front of them, on which a rough map or diagram had been sketched. Nott kept breaking off to add something to the parchment. Pansy was down the far end of the table, surrounded by her pack. There seemed to be a fair amount of hilarity involved in the group; Draco could see her pink hairgrip securing the spray of feathery dark hair bobbing as she let out a scream of laughter.

The owl post swept in. Sieve Draco started when Echo, his mother's snowy owl, dropped an envelope into his breakfast, splashing him with milk droplets. He fished it out, passing a piece of bacon up to Echo as she circled on her way out of the hall, and slit the flap open with his breakfast knife. Watcher Draco moved closer so that he could read over his shoulder.

My dear Draco,

I trust that you are well. I visited your father yesterday. He is still arguing for an appeal. In the meantime, in the absence of the Dementors, he is moderately comfortable.

Bella tells me that she was in contact with you one week ago, at which point you were still unable to tell her when you expected to complete your task. I beg of you, my dear son: if you are lost in any way, turn to Professor Snape for advice. I don't understand why your letters have been so scathing of him. He was your favourite teacher in past years.

Your loyalty to Professor Snape has, I believe, prevented Headmaster Dumbledore taking too keen an interest in you over the years. For that I am glad. The Headmaster is a very clever man, despite his apparent lunacies. He has a surer hand in manipulation than almost any man I have met. It was a great mistake on somebody's part to allow him to gain such a stranglehold over the Potter boy's heart. But the evidence that he could leave a boy with Muggles for ten years and still gain his loyalty instantly at age eleven is a testament to his powers. I believe he has Potter so tightly bound to him now that nothing could turn him away. I am glad, despite your danger, that he never had that chance with you.

Act quickly, my son. Turn to Professor Snape; every day you delay only adds to your danger. I know that you will not think I speak metaphorically when I tell you that the wolves circle the manor every day now.

Your loving mother,

Narcissa

Watcher Draco read quickly, worried that his other self would finish before him and put the letter away. Sieve Draco showed no sign of finishing, however. He seemed to be reading it over, unable to put it down.

He hadn't got this letter last time. Instead there had been one while he was in the Hospital Wing; full of frantic worry, reassurance about the pale network of scars on his chest and dark references to Harry Potter's psychotic tendencies.

"Draco!" Pansy startled both of them when she dropped an arm around Sieve Draco's neck. Neither had heard her approach. "What's that? Does your mother send you piles of love?" She dropped into the space next to him, casting a self-conscious glance at Nott on her other side and then looking determinedly away. She reached over Draco and pinched one of his pieces of toast, then stared at his letter as she munched, an intense expression on her shadowy little face."I swear, I envy you your mother," she said. "Mine sends me reference books and Study-Ease quills. I think," she added, "that she wanted a Ravenclaw daughter."

Draco shoved the letter face down on the table.

"Yes. It's from my mother."

She stretched her hand towards his plate again. "Can I have ...?"

"You can have all of it, Parkinson. The letter - I have to go."

"Er. Your mother said that?"

Draco got to his feet without replying.

Crabbe and Goyle made to get up as he rose but he shot them scowls so fierce they dropped again immediately. Pansy watched him with a startled, speculative expression on her face as he walked quickly towards the doors, leaving his bag and books on the seat.

Seventh year Draco caught him up at the statue of the hump-backed witch. He was slumped against the carved grey folds of her skirt, the letter crumpled between his hands. He smoothed it out again as the real Draco watched, reading it over once more. From the way he was holding it it seemed to be the last half of the letter that he was fixated on.

Footsteps rang on the stone corridor. Potter rounded the corner at a cautious pace, although his breath was coming fast as though he'd run most of the way here. Draco stood up.

"I'm not doing it," he said. "I'm not going to Dumbledore."

"Malfoy ..."

"No! You can't even guarantee that my mother will be safe. Do you know what she's ... do you know the kind of danger she's in? As if I would put her in more danger. You can just ... run to Dumbledore, whatever, I don't care. I won't tell him a thing, or you either."

Potter's face darkened. "I'm not just going to let you do whatever it is Voldemort wants you to, Malfoy. I'm going to find a way to stop you, you know."

Draco gave him an incredulous look. "You really think you can stop me, Potter? You think you can stop him? You're crazy if you think you can stop the Dark Lord. I must have been crazy to even think about listening to you. You can just go back to Dumbledore and tell him to stop using you to try to get to me. I'm not going to fall for it."

"I told you Dumbledore didn't ..."

"Oh, please, Potter. You expect me to believe you just offered to help me out of the goodness of your heart? Because we're such good friends? You'd do anything for him. You named a fucking vigilante group after him. You've been his little dog since first year."

Potter flushed with anger. "It's better than being Voldemort's dog, Malfoy."

"Well, except that the Dark Lord's actually going to win. Because he's not a dotty old man who relies on a schoolboy to fight his battles for him."

"He won't."

Draco raised his eyebrows.

Potter bit his lip. "I'm going to find out what you're doing."

Draco sneered.

Potter turned and stormed back around the corner. His stomping footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Sieve Draco slowly lowered himself back down against the base of the statue, his head in his hands.

The world tilted and darkened and Draco was in the library again.

He dropped into a seat at the desk the sieve rested on and buried his face in his hands; just like the Draco in the If.

Part III