Potter only had the one broom.

"Alright, so you and I could fly and Weasley can walk," Draco said, back at the base of the tower with Potter in tow. Weasley was still nowhere to be found, despite Potter's earlier assurances. "We'll just let him know when we've gotten far enough away that he can't object."

"We can't leave Percy alone in the middle of the Forbidden Forest," Potter disagreed, shifting the broom on his shoulder as he crouched down in front of the snake pit. One of them slithered up his arm and he smiled at it. He began to hiss, then paused and refocused his eyes on Draco. "Molly and Arthur wouldn't be pleased at all."

"Are those like pets to you?" Draco asked, staring as Potter let the snake wind through his fingers and around his wrists.

"Not pets, exactly," Potter said, shrugging. "Friends, maybe. I could just take the broom and you could both go back the way you came."

"We walked," Draco said pointedly. "And I don't think the quest is fulfilled if you wander into the Ministry alone a full day before our glorious return."

"You really walked that whole way?" Potter asked, blinking behind his glasses. "Why didn't you just bring your own brooms?"

"I'm told it's part of the requirements of a Requaero," Draco said, sneering at the very notion. "According to the Ministry, efficiency isn't heroic and honorable enough."

The corner of Potter's mouth curled upward. "The Ministry doesn't think you're heroic and honorable? I am shocked, Malfoy. Shocked."

Draco raised a censorious eyebrow. "Keep talking like that and I'll put you right back up in that tower where I found you, Potter."

Potter grinned widely at that. "See? You're just bursting at the seams with honor and heroism."

"Shut up," Draco grumbled, ignoring Potter's amusement. He looked back into the trees with a frown. "Who takes the broom is sort of a moot point if we never find Weasley, you know."

Potter's smile dropped and his gaze followed Draco's, into the trees. "I honestly didn't think he'd run off," he said, chewing on his lip as he squinted. The bright sun in the clearing contrasted with the total shade under the leafy canopy, and made it difficult to see more than a few feet into the forest.

"Potter, you set a dragon made of snakes on him," Draco pointed out, shielding his eyes with his hand and trying to remember which direction Weasley went. "I don't think I'd have come back yet either."

"Yes, but he's Percy," Potter said, turning around and walking over to the spot where Weasley left his parchment and quill. "He wouldn't abandon his assignment, he's way too..."

"Sycophantic?" Draco offered, watching Potter pick up the parchment. He shrugged and started to skim Weasley's writing.

"Something like that," he said. Whatever he was reading caught his attention and he began to read more slowly. His lip curled and he dropped it back to the mossy ground, where it burst into flames. Draco bit back a smile and followed him when he marched past and into the forest.

"Where are we going, specifically?" Draco asked. Potter's stride looked purposeful. Draco imagined that after spending a year out here, he might know the area.

"Er, just to the river," Potter said, glancing back at him. "It's the safest route to get anywhere."

"And you think Weasley suddenly figured that out and beelined over there?" Draco asked. Potter rolled his eyes.

"No, I don't think he thought at all," Harry said. "Which is why we're going to the river."

Draco opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but Potter started hissing at the snake on his arm. Draco fell silent and listened, unwillingly fascinated. The short bursts of parseltongue he'd heard so far didn't compare to the lengthy slur of esses that Draco was suddenly witness to. It sounded like... Draco had no idea, to be honest. The tone was impossible to interpret. Potter could be chatting about the weather, or telling the snake to murder Draco, or describing his morning wank, and Draco would never know.

When the snake dropped to the forest floor and slithered away, Draco cleared his throat.

"Er," he said, then cleared his throat again. "What did you tell it?"

"I told him to send the others out to search for Percy," Potter said, ducking under a low hanging branch that Draco would probably have chosen to walk around. He turned around and lifted it for Draco, who nodded and ducked under after him. Better to trust Potter's route than find out why he'd chosen it.

"Ah, yes, he'll love that," Draco commented. Potter glanced at him and shrugged.

"He doesn't have to love it, he just has to get found," he pointed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Draco followed with his wand drawn. He decided as they walked that there was something very particular about Gryffindors that made them think it was alright to stroll casually through a terrifying forest of death with nary a thought to the dangers around them. Draco was betting on lead in the paint up in their common room.

"Can you explain again why we're going to the river?" Draco asked, glancing over his shoulder at a rustling from a nearby bush. He crossed his fingers for some kind of harmless rodent and took a deep, nervous breath.

"Advice from the naiad that lives there," Potter said, glancing over his shoulder at Draco and then beyond him. His eyes swept the area, then he turned back around and kept walking. Draco followed, frowning.

"Naiads don't like men," he objected, and watched Potter's shoulders lift in a shrug.

"She's never objected to me," he said. After a brief, thoughtful moment, he added, "Though maybe it's best if you wait somewhere else while I talk to her."

"I don't think so," Draco responded firmly. Potter glanced over his shoulder again, gave Draco a brief once over, then shrugged.

"Alright," he agreed, and kept walking.

The naiad didn't like Draco.

"She wants you to stand a bit further back," Potter said, his brow wrinkled in apology. Draco glanced behind himself and took a large step back.

"Better?"

Potter glanced at the naiad, then made another sort of scrunched, wincey face and said, "Further."

Draco rolled his eyes, turned around, and walked back to the tree line. "How about that?"

"That's better," Potter said, after consulting with the naiad. She spoke in a voice too low or too exclusive for Draco to hear, but Potter's responses were perfectly audible, and Draco listened in shamelessly.

"We're searching for a redheaded man," Potter told her. She replied and he shrugged. "I didn't ask them to. If you tell me where he is, I'll get them out of your hair."

Whatever she said in return made Potter sigh and scrub a hand through his hair. "That's not really an option." A pause. "Because I won't... look, it's not like that."

Draco's eyebrows went up.

"No, not as often, but... you like saltwater fish, I know you said that once."

Eavesdropping wasn't turning out to be as fruitful as Draco had imagined. Potter's words were gibberish to him without context.

"Look, Syké, he's family." Potter went faintly red at her reply, and responded, "No, I've told you about them. The redheads. ...No, he's not. ...I don't think that's such a good idea."

As Potter attempted to cajole the naiad into cooperation, Draco leaned his shoulder against a tree and watched until he grew bored. He should have kept his guard up; he should have turned around in the absence of anything interesting happening with Potter, and watched the forest. Instead, because he was a bloody idiot and lead paint poisoning was apparently contagious, he let his thoughts drift, admiring the way the sun filtered through the leaves in the small clearing they'd come to. The stream widened into a deceptively deep pool here, if the size of the naiad gave any indication, and the light sparkled off the water ethereally as Potter knelt at the bank to speak to 'Syké'.

Even Potter seemed different in such an idyllic scene. His hair was shinier, softer looking than Draco remembered from under the shelter of the forest canopy or in his tower, and he looked less like a weary hermit and more like a forest creature himself, exotic and unpredictable. He was calm but alert, intent on the naiad's words but poised to leap into action at a moment's notice.

With such a diverting view to distract him, the damp brush of a muzzle against Draco's neck nearly shocked him out of his wits.

"Potter!" he cried, leaping away and stumbling back toward the water. The naiad gave a screech of her own and vanished into the depths of the pool with a splash. Draco realized what he'd been fleeing from not a moment later and fumbled frantically for his wand until his back hit something solid.

"It's just a thestral, Malfoy." Potter's voice was bemused in his ear, and Draco reached back and grabbed his arm, moving so that Potter wasn't hiding entirely behind him.

"Just a thestral, is it?" Draco demanded, his voice high pitched. He knew what those bloody creatures would do given a drop of blood and an opportunity, even if Hagrid had apparently corrupted the minds of every Gryffindor to pass through Hogwarts since he became a teacher. "They're still classified with an XXXX rating until that infernal committee makes a decision, you know!"

A small smile flickered at the corners of Potter's mouth, but he sounded entirely serious when he said, "I'll protect you, if you like."

He picked at the damp material of his robes to get at his pocket, which was about the same time that Draco realized that Potter was soaked to the skin from the naiad's exit. His glasses were in his free hand, spotted with water, and his hair dripped into his eyes as he dug through his pocket for whatever he was intending to use to slay the beast.

When he produced an apple, Draco was sorely tempted to push him in the pool and let the naiad have her way with him. Instead, he was treated to the sight of Potter carefully approaching a wild thestral and having quite a bit more success than Draco would have expected in feeding it.

"You know," Potter said, watching the thestral as its skeletal nose prodded his pockets for more treats. "Thestrals are quite intelligent. I once asked one to take me to the Ministry, and it flew straight-"

"No," Draco said, taking a short step back. "Absolutely not."

"But it'd be so much faster-"

"No," he repeated firmly. Draco remembered the panic he'd felt yesterday, cornered by a whole herd of those eerie, reptilian creatures hell bent on eating him alive. He wasn't about to mount one like it was a sweet little baby Abraxan. He gave the thestral a wide berth as he stepped around it and Potter, back into the forest from the direction they'd come. "Did the naiad tell you anything useful?" he asked, raising his voice pointedly as Potter continued to pet the hateful dragon-horse.

He heard Potter heave a large sigh, and ignored it in favour of his own relief as Potter abandoned the thestral, muttered a drying spell, and caught up fast enough to catch his undamaged arm.

"She told me a bit before you interrupted her with all your shrieking," he said, tugging him away from the path they'd created already and in a different direction. Draco hesitated, but better to be lost with Potter than on a path in this forest without him.

"I wasn't shrieking, you wanker," Draco responded as he allowed himself to be dragged, nettled by the suggestion. "I was warning you of impending danger."

"Of a thestral," Potter corrected. He hadn't let go of Draco's arm yet, and the look he cast in Draco's direction suggested it was because he was worried that Draco might spot a bunny and go dashing off into the woods alone, shouting for help. Draco scowled.

"Four X's and you act like I'm picking on a toothless kneazle," he muttered. "I suppose if we ran into a werewolf, you'd pull a little ball out of your pocket and play fetch?"

"Werewolves prefer to play fetch with small branches," Potter replied without missing a beat. "Feels more like bones snapping between their teeth."

"I stand corrected," Draco grumbled, ignoring the return of Potter's smile. "Where are we going?"

"Skyé said Percy's headed toward Hogsmeade," Potter explained. "If he has any idea where he's going... which I doubt... and if he continues in the right direction... which again, I doubt he will, considering..." He hesitated again, looking worried. "Then he still won't make it to anywhere familiar or safe by nightfall."

Draco remembered last night with a grimace. "Fine. Let's go find the idiot before he comes across a nundu that doesn't like Celestina Warbeck."

"There are no nundus in the Forbidden Forest," Potter pointed out, just to ruin Draco's joke.

"Yes, and all the other dangerous beasts want her cauldron," Draco agreed, rolling his eyes. "Let's just get this over with before one of us dies horribly. Probably me."

"I won't let you die," Potter said, his sincerity entirely opposed the blasé, unconcerned state of mind Draco was attempting to cultivate. He was making it rather difficult for Draco to pretend at the kind of Gryffindor bravery that clearly got him and Weasley through this sort of adventure unscathed.

Draco sighed loudly. "That's appreciated, I assure you," he said, and stomped off in the direction Potter indicated. Potter rushed after him and ended up proving his point less than two minutes later by extricating Draco from a hidden patch of Devil's Snare.

It was nearing nightfall, and neither snake nor naiad nor Chosen One had managed to track down their redheaded quarry. Draco had made himself useful earlier by requiring that Potter set up a warded perimeter before he would share his lunch, and was currently on the lookout for a comparatively safe spot to set up camp for the night.

"Up this way," Potter said when Draco paused at a neat little clearing part of the way up an incline. "Those are mooncalf markings. The wolves will be sniffing around if we stay."

"It's not the full moon," Draco objected, though he followed as Potter set off up the hill again. "Mooncalves and werewolves won't be out right now."

"No, but normal wolves will, and the ones in this area will be looking for a mooncalf nest," Potter explained. "I'd rather they didn't get us confused with one."

"If you put it that way," Draco said, grimacing. Potter paused at the top of the incline, near a sharp drop. "Here?" Draco suggested instead. When Potter agreed, he dropped his bag on the ground and transfigured a chair from a few branches.

"Why can't you cast the wards?" Potter asked, having already taken several steps back to begin creating their perimeter. "You must know the spells."

"Those spells are not in my lexicon," Draco parroted in his best impression of Weasley. Merlin knew he'd heard enough of the git's voice over the past couple days to manage a good one. "Parolee Malfoy's revised lexicon in its entirety consists of one hundred and thirty three spells, only six of which are even remotely useful in offensive situations. Seven of the spells in Parolee Malfoy's revised lexicon are not useful in offensive situations, but are restricted because permission should be received in triplicate before a parolee can be allowed to heal himself or conjure anything that might, on the Janus Thickey Ward, be considered a weapon."

When Draco finished his recitation, he looked up from where he'd been idly summoning firewood to find Potter staring at him, wand clenched in his hand, wards forgotten. "Yes?" Draco asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"They sent you out here with six offensive spells?"

"I'm including the depilatory charm in that list," Draco added, wondering what the almost blank look on Potter's face meant.

At Draco's words, the blank expression faded into confusion and Potter's stance shifted into something less offensive. "Er, why?"

"It works on the giant spiders," Draco explained. "I didn't expect it to at first, but suffice to say it ended up better than any of my other options."

Potter nodded once and went back to the wards, his back still stiff. Draco was ready to be offended until Potter sat down next to him in front of the fire he'd started and said, "That's clever."

"What's clever?" Draco asked, having long since moved on to sorting through his bag to untangle his tent from a bit of cord attached to one of his robes. "The fire?"

"The depilatory charm," Potter corrected, holding his hands out to the fire for warmth. Draco rolled his eyes and picked up his wand to extract everything from his bag in the hope of making the detangling easier.

"Well, when scourgify didn't work to defeat the horde, it was the next obvious choice," he said sarcastically.

"No, I mean it," Potter said, turning his head and watching Draco pack things back into his bag. "I would never have thought to try that sort of spell. It was creative."

Draco paused with the offending robes in hand and lifted his gaze to Potter's to find that he looked entirely in earnest.

"Thanks," Draco said slowly, frowning. He finished putting his things away, leaving the tent and the food parcel out for later. "It was a bit, wasn't it?"

Potter grinned at him. "It was. So... is this a good time to ask if you're going to share your dinner, too? I didn't think we'd be out wandering this long, else I'd have brought my own."

After dinner, Draco set up the tent with a few flicks of his wand and considered their situation while Potter finished off the tiramisu. Manners dictated that Draco give Potter the bed, considering that Potter was technically a guest. But then, wasn't Draco also a guest of a sort, in the forest Potter had called home for the past year? So he should get the bed. Especially since he'd had to share his meal again. He was starting to feel that he hadn't eaten properly in far too long. It must be bad for him. Surely a good night's sleep was warranted?

But no. Making Heroic Harry Potter sleep on the rug at the foot of his bed would cause the wizarding population in general to frown on him upon his return. The honorable thing would be to let Potter have the bed despite Draco's various aches and injuries, he assumed. It seemed like something a Gryffindor would do, in any case, and didn't everyone just love them?

Then again, knowing Weasley, no one would hear about his noble sacrifice upon their return. Though they'd certainly hear about it if he didn't kowtow to Potter, Draco was certain.

Bloody Weasley had somehow managed to ruin his night even when he wasn't present.

"I suppose you can take the bed for tonight," Draco said grudgingly, after Potter set the empty plate down on the forest floor and leaned back in his transfigured chair. He narrowed his eyes and thought to add, "But if we're still out here looking for Weasley come tomorrow, we're switching."

Potter looked up from the flames, eyebrows lifted. "Malfoy, I'm not going to take your bed. Where are you going to sleep?"

Draco scowled. Where, indeed? "I'll conjure something up," he said instead. Potter sat back and gave him a long look.

"No offense," he said eventually, and Draco bristled, quite ready to be offended. "But are you allowed to transfigure something that large? From what I remember, you wouldn't be allowed to use that much power on one spell."

Damn Potter and his Auror training. Draco decided that he probably wouldn't buy that the rules had changed in the last year, and glared into the flames. "Fine, Potter, since you're such a bloody stickler for the rules, I suppose I'll be sleeping on the floor. Is that what you were going for?"

Potter sat up straight in his seat. "No! I just meant... I mean, you should have somewhere to sleep that won't aggravate your shoulder, and-"

Draco's eyes snapped up to Potter's face. "How do you know about my shoulder?"

"You've been favouring it all day," he explained, shrugging and gesturing vaguely toward the offending shoulder. "Your arm, too. I'm not very good at healing or I would have offered to fix it. What happened? Was it the spiders?"

Draco hesitated, but Potter watched him without a hint of mockery for long enough that he felt obliged to reply honestly. "It was. I believe I explained how that ended."

Potter's eyes narrowed. "Right. I assume that's what you meant about not being allowed to heal yourself. I'm going to punch Percy on the nose when we find him." Draco blinked and glanced away into the darkness of the forest, but when he looked back, Potter still looked almost... angry, on Draco's behalf. It felt strange, to see that look on Potter's face for Draco instead of because of him.

"I know this is where I'm supposed to tell you that it's no big deal and you shouldn't," Draco said slowly. "But... I'd really like to see you punch him."

Potter laughed, and Draco smiled to himself, his gaze going back to the fire as some of the tension he'd been carrying since sunset disappeared. Potter fell silent, and the two of them listened as the crackle and pop of the fire contrasted with the rustling of dead leaves and the occasional cry of whatever vicious, nocturnal beasts frequented this part of the wood.

"Honestly, Malfoy," Potter said, long minutes later. His voice was low and serious. "I'm impressed. You've done a proper job of all this. I feel very... rescued."

Potter's words only made the strangeness of the situation intensify, and Draco couldn't help but look at him again, if only to assure himself that it was really Harry Potter speaking.

'Make sure you mention that to the Wizengamot, would you?" he requested, a touch of bitterness tinging his words. "Weasley's going to do his best to make every damn thing I did on this quest sound as ignoble as possible. He'll probably claim I coerced you out of that tower. And blame me for the snakes, if he can manage it."

"I won't let him," Potter said, not meeting Draco's eyes. "When you first got here, you annoyed me, harassed me, and even tried to emotionally blackmail me. But that's not what made me follow you." Potter examined an old scar on his hand with far more intensity than the mark deserved as he continued speaking. "I came down from that tower because you forgave me. I thought that was perfectly noble of you."

The response Draco had been formulating stuck in his throat. He watched the flames as he gathered himself, his face deliberately blank against the sheer force of Potter's candor.

"Well..." he managed after a long, heavy silence. "Be that as it may, you'll still have to explain about the snakes."

Draco caught the edge of Potter's smile with a quick glance. "Absolutely," he said. Draco nodded, more to himself than anything else, and continued contemplating the fire. How was it that even when playing the role of damsel, Potter still managed to make Draco feel like he was back on that broom in the Room of Requirement, clinging to Potter's waist and urging him to fly faster, get them out, save them both? All three Malfoy trials had been the same. Potter stood in front of the Wizengamot and explained how Draco had saved his life, and then Narcissa after him, but it had been Potter saving them, no matter how he framed it.

He only realized how long they'd been sitting in silence when Potter broke it by clearing his throat and making a rather abrupt suggestion. "We can just share the bed, if you want. It's big enough."

Draco blinked and looked at him properly. "Share?"

"Yeah, if, er..." Potter scratched his nose, shrugging. "I mean, I don't really want to sleep on the floor either, and my transfiguration isn't all that good-" Draco frowned. Potter did just fine transfiguring a chair for himself earlier. He was sitting on it right now, even. Potter continued, his words punctuated by another shrug. "It's not like it's that big a deal, is it?"

Draco paused, still frowning. The bed was, in fact, large enough for two people, and sharing seemed to be the most efficient solution. And maybe Potter wasn't as good at larger transfigurations. Some people weren't. "I suppose it isn't," he said, tilting his head as Potter nodded along immediately. "Yes, alright, we'll share. As long as you don't snore." He paused, then added, "And if you kick me in your sleep, I'll be changing my mind about you and the floor."

"I'll keep that in mind," Potter said, grinning. He sat back in his seat, cheeks still flushed from leaning so close to the flames during their conversation, and said, "There's no more of that cake, is there?"

"It wasn't 'cake', Potter," Draco replied, rolling his eyes even as he reached for the food parcel.

Going to bed was both more and less awkward than Draco had imagined it would be. He went straight for the shower, grimacing at the memory of his blood and gore soaked sheets from the night before. When he returned in his pyjama bottoms, toweling his hair dry, he found Potter hovering in essentially the same spot Draco had left him twenty minutes ago.

"Did you want to-" Draco asked, gesturing toward the bathroom. Potter started as though Draco's voice had been unexpected, and nodded, beelining for the bathroom. Draco suspected he'd been staring at the fresh bandages on his shoulder and arm, and decided he didn't care enough to ask.

He spelled new sheets onto the bed and crawled in, exhausted and uninterested in having an argument over which side of the bed they should each sleep on. By the time Potter returned, Draco was already settled under the blankets on his stomach, dozing. He was briefly startled awake when the bed dipped under new weight. Potter settled on his side facing Draco, and only seemed to realize Draco's eyes were open and watching him when he'd finished settling in and happened to glance at him.

"Alright?" Potter asked, his gaze cautious and his voice nearly a whisper. Instead of responding, Draco let his eyes drift shut again. After a moment, Potter seemed to decide that was that. "Good night, Draco," he said in the same low tones, and presumably went to sleep himself. Draco wasn't bothered either way.

"-CO MALFOY!"

"-ME DRACO MALF-"

Draco lifted his head groggily, his eyes half squinted shut, and mumbled, "What, Potter?"

Potter, who had moved closer at some point in the night, lifted his hand vaguely and let it drop at Draco's waist, still mostly asleep. "M'na... nothin'."

Draco let his head fall back against his pillows, closing his eyes again until a few moments later, when he heard someone shout, very distinctly, "POINT ME, DRACO MALFOY!"

"Potter," Draco said, sitting up this time and letting the blankets (and Potter's arm, which hadn't moved) fall into his lap. "You heard that, right?"

Draco's sharp tone roused Potter this time, and he sat up himself, yawning and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Heard-?"

"Someone calling my name," Draco said, positive now. He pushed the blankets away and got out of bed, digging a robe out of his knapsack and tossing it on haphazardly. Potter still looked rather disoriented, but he shifted to get up as well.

"D'you think it's-"

"Sounded like Weasley," Draco called back into the tent as he ducked outside. Their fire was nothing but coals now, a bare glow in the black pitch of the night. He cast a distracted incendio at the embers to give them more light, and glared at the wall of wood and leaves that loomed into view.

Potter emerged from the tent a few seconds later, his robes wrinkled and done up wrong. Draco glanced at him and spelled them right, which earned him a bemused look in response.

"POINT ME, DRACO MALFOY! PAROLEE MALFOY, I KNOW YOU'RE HERE, LET ME IN!"

Potter's eyes widened. "It is Percy," he confirmed, turning in place as he tried to decide which direction the shouting was coming from. "I'm going to lower the wards," he said, lifting his wand. Draco nodded his assent and drew his own wand, bracing himself. Weasley wouldn't be screaming his head off like that if he were alone, after all.

They waited a tense ten seconds or so before Weasley's pale, freckled visage came barrelling into the circle of their firelight, breathless and terrified.

"GET IT!" he shouted, racing right past them and tucking his shoulder in time to dive neatly into the safety of Draco's tent.

'It' was revealed a split second later to be a very angry bicorn. Draco had never seen a bicorn outside of books before. It was a huge, solid, bovine-like creature that somehow moved with the grace and agility of a panther, all topped off with two huge horns coming out the top of its head. Potter barely missed being gored by the right horn as it lowered its head and charged him, snarling. From the way he yelped a second later, it couldn't have missed him entirely.

"Defodio!" Draco shouted, just for something to do to distract the beast from Potter. He'd been knocked to the ground and was taking his time about getting up. The spell worked. The bicorn's angry roar near deafened Draco, who backed up and leapt out of the way just in time to avoid being impaled himself. A shield charm saved him from getting a chunk taken out of his injured shoulder when the bicorn twisted back to catch him. Only the creature's forward momentum saved Draco from being pounced on immediately.

"Get up, you need to get up," Draco urged in a frantic undertone, falling to his knees where Potter was currently leaning up on his elbow and examining his ribs. They were bleeding, and Draco blanched. He'd never been very good with the sight of blood, especially other people's.

"Working on it," Potter gritted out. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and flinched. Draco winced in sympathy and slid an arm around his waist to support him. The bicorn had finished its charge and was circling back around, snorting and growling. They didn't have time for kindness, so he stood as fluidly as possible, dragging Potter up as well and trying to brace his injured chest against Draco's own side. Draco forced himself to ignore the hitch in Potter's breathing as they straightened, and the blood that flowed onto his robes from Potter's wound.

"What sort of creature is that?" Potter asked, which answered the question of whether Potter knew any effective tactics for fighting bicorns before Draco could ask.

"It's a bicorn," Draco said shortly, tugging Potter around the tent to give them a few more moments before it spotted them again. The flicker of the fire worked in their favour, in that it made it harder for the beast to spot them immediately. "They're man-eaters. The only thing I know about them is that their horns are harvested for potion making after they fall off, when the bicorn isn't paying attention."

A huff of air gusted against Draco's neck, meaning Draco felt more than heard Potter's laugh. "So what you're saying is no one thinks it's worth trying to take one of these down even on a good day."

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Draco agreed, his eyes riveted on the edge of the tent, where he expected the bicorn to appear at any moment to finish them both off. He was sure he looked and sounded terrified, but it was only accurate. Frankly, he didn't have the mental capacity for prevarication when he was about to be mauled to death by something that deserved more X's than the Ministry had accounted for even on their most cautious day. Action needed taking, and with haste.

His grip on Potter's waist tightened, but he could think of no better options. "I'm going to get you into the tent," he told Potter. "If you stun Weasley and keep your mouth shut, I can probably do something to at least convince it to go looking somewhere else for its next meal." He'd managed it with the spiders, after all, even with Weasley screaming in his ear.

The grip Potter had on Draco's arm became almost painful. "Malfoy, no," Potter said, stiffening his spine to stand more firmly on his own two feet. "You're not doing this alone, I'm not going to let you. I'm not- I'm not Percy-"

"No, you're injured," Draco said, his voice shaking. He dragged them back to the far edge of the tent when he heard the rumble of a growl closing in on their position."You'll be of no use to me dead, Potter."

"I'm not that badly injured," Potter protested. "Look, just cast ferula and-"

"Not in my approved lexi-" Draco began.

Potter cut him off with a sharp gesture that visibly jarred his injury. "Fuck your lexicon, Draco. I won't tell anyone."

Draco exhaled. He knew he shouldn't allow it, but Potter's determination to stay and help strengthened Draco's nerve unreasonably. "Fine. Ferula." Bandages flew from Draco's wand and wrapped tightly around Potter's ribs. Shouting from within the tent had both of them straightening, Potter managing it without Draco's support.

Potter cast a spell Draco didn't recognize. His eyes widened. "It's gone into the tent. It's after Percy again. We need to get it out of there."

Draco followed Potter as he launched himself around the corner and neared the tent flap. "Or!" Draco said, grabbing Potter's arm and holding him back before he could throw himself inside. He'd had an idea. "We could leave it in there."

"With Percy?" Potter asked, rounding on Draco with some of that old, familiar outrage.

"No," Draco snapped, scowling. "Get him out instead. Then I'll fold up the tent. Problem solved."

Potter blinked. "You'll fold up the..."

"With the bicorn inside, yes," Draco explained, pushing Potter out of the way so he could peer through the tent flap without being spotted. "Avoiding a battle can still count as a victory, even to you Gryffindors, can't it? We won't be dead, anyway."

He took a deep breath as he spoke, aware that they'd been talking a bit too long. "WEASLEY! ARE YOU DEAD YET?" he shouted. The response came immediately.

"PAROLEE MALFOY, EVERY MOMENT I SPEND IN THIS WARDROBE IS ANOTHER MARK AGAINST YOU!"

Potter interrupted Draco's response with his own. "THEN GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WARDROBE, PERCY!"

"GET OUT OF THE TENT, HE MEANS!" Draco added.

"I CAN'T, IT'LL EAT ME!" Weasley bawled. "IT'S ALREADY TRYING TO GET INSIDE!"

"He's got a point there," Potter admitted. Draco agreed and opened his mouth to shout, but Potter's hand on his arm stopped him. "We're going to have it after us in a second," he pointed out. Draco subsided with frustration.

"Trust Weasley to ruin a perfectly good campsite and a perfectly good tent by being a bloody idiot," he grumbled.

"This is stupid," Potter decided, lifting his wand. "I'm going to Summon the wardrobe." Draco nodded and lifted his own wand, and Potter glanced sideways at him. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to give it a distraction," he said. Potter's unexpected response was to grab Draco's arm and hold on tightly. He scowled. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

"You're not going in there by yourself!" Potter ordered, and now that Draco looked at him properly, he came off a bit frantic.

"Are you mad?" Draco demanded, wrenching his arms away. "I was going to transfigure a deer or something out of one of those branches and send that in there. I don't have a death wish, Potter."

Potter let go, abashed. "Oh. That's... actually rather a good idea, yes." He waved his hand vaguely. "Go right ahead."

"Just don't tell Weasley," Draco tossed over his shoulder. "I'd have you do it, but you're shite at Transfiguration, so..."

"I'm-er... right," Potter said, and fell silent. Draco cast the charm and turned out a fairly acceptable deer, if he did say so himself. It stared at him and at Potter, wide eyed, until Draco snapped out a spell to its left that made it startle and run right- directly into the tent.

The noises from within the tent didn't bear thinking about. Draco was very relieved to be standing outside with Potter.

"Accio wardrobe," Potter intoned, wand raised, and Draco lifted his own in preparation.

The wardrobe came sailing haphazardly out through the flap, and Draco shouted, "Pack!"

The tent folded neatly into the small square of fabric that would fit right at the top of Draco's knapsack, and the two of them stared at it.

"Is it... dead, then?" Potter asked, stepping toward it when Draco did and frowning.

"No," Draco said, crouching down and tilting his head to examine the folded up tent, his heart still pounding. Some irrational corner of his mind screamed at him to back up, that the bicorn could come leaping out of those cloth folds at any moment to devour him. He forcibly shoved the thought away and stood again, dusting his hands off. "It's in wizard space. If we ever open that tent back up, it'll be waiting."

"If?" Potter echoed, and Draco shrugged.

"I was thinking of donating it to the Ministry," he said. Potter laughed, then cut himself off guiltily. The two of them looked to the wardrobe, now nothing more than splinters and failing magic that sputtered and dissipated into the darkness. Weasley's head was only just lifting from the piles of cloth and wood to glare at the pair of them. Scratches and bruises littered his face and neck, and his Ministry robes were torn in several places. He still looked better than Draco felt.

Draco lifted a fist to the sky, as was the old tradition upon completion of a Requaero. "Cumulatus," he declared, though it came out less confident than he'd intended. He glanced at Potter, who was giving him a slanted eyebrow, and let his fist drop.

"This is going in my witness testimony," Weasley muttered, beginning the long, slow process of extricating himself from Draco's robes and old wardrobe. Draco winced at the sound of silk ripping and bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from doing something ill-considered.

"That he saved both of our lives?" Potter asked, his tone cutting. Weasley glanced up with surprise, and Potter scowled at him. "Good. Be sure it does. And be sure to mention that he did it despite the odds being intentionally stacked against him, because I know I'm going to."

Draco bit down on his smile when Weasley looked at him. It wouldn't do to look too smug. Instead, he said, "We should figure out sleeping arrangements for the rest of the night, now that my tent is out of service. Do you still have yours, Weasley?"

Weasley stood and shrugged the last of Draco's sadly abused robes from off his shoulders and around his ankles, and reached into his pocket.

"I only have room enough for one in my tent," he pointed out stiffly, retrieving his knapsack. "In any event, the retrieval of the prize means that my duties are completed. I will be returning to the Ministry to file my witness testimony."

"At four in the morning?" Potter asked, scowling at being described as 'the prize'. "How do you intend to get there?"

"By broom, of course," Weasley said, drawing one from his knapsack. "I trust you both brought one?"

Draco's forward movement was halted by Potter's arm against his chest. Probably Potter was right. Probably for the best if he didn't strangle Witness Weasley right after completing his stupid quest. Probably it would look bad.

But still.

"We have a broom," Potter said, one hand still firmly on Draco's chest, the other wrapped tightly around his wrist and hidden in their robes so Weasley wouldn't see. He seemed to realize that Draco hadn't quite talked himself out of physical violence yet. "We'll meet you there, how's that?"

"The Ministry is currently closed," Weasley sniffed, eyeing Draco with disdain from the safety on the other side of Potter's arm. His eyes said things like 'Restrain yourself, Parolee Malfoy', and 'This will be in my witness testimony'. "I will meet both of you at six am precisely in the Atrium."

"Right," Potter said. He glanced at Draco, who met his eyes with a tight smile, and added, "Er, cumulatus."

"Cumulatus," Weasley echoed, mounting his broom. With no further fuss, he kicked off and maneuvered carefully through the branches of the canopy to open air.

The noise that came out of Draco's throat sounded alarmingly like a snarl, even to his own ears, and he took a deep breath. He shouldn't want to murder Weasleys. He was better than that these days. The world was better than that, after the war. He wasn't like his father or Grandfather Abraxas, slipping sneakily disguised Dark artifacts into shopping bags in Diagon Alley in the hopes of ridding himself of insurmountable, freckly annoyances, no. He was, dare he say it, more of a humanitarian than that. Even though-

"So... since we have to be at the Ministry in two hours..." Potter began with uncharacteristic hesitance. Draco halted his Weasley-centered internal diatribe and looked at him. He was holding his own broom now, fidgeting with the handle. "I thought maybe we could... get something to eat together?"

"At four in the morning?" Draco asked, confused. "Nothing's open at four am."

Potter looked sheepish and bizarrely hopeful. "Well, nothing in the wizarding world. You could get that full meal you've been talking about."

"You want me to go to some seedy muggle diner with you in the middle of the night?" Draco summarized, still baffled. "Why?"

"Well," Potter said. He was turning inexplicably red, which meant Draco was now staring. The scrutiny only increased Potter's embarrassment, and his next words rushed together. "Nothing else to do, right? We could go somewhere nicer next time."

"Ne-" Draco stopped and blinked. Tilted his head. "Potter, is this-?" Potter glanced away, shrugging, and Draco began to smirk. "You're asking me out to dinner, aren't you?"

"It's really more breakfast at this hour-" Potter hedged, still flushed. Attractively flushed, Draco decided.

"The sentiment is the same, I think," Draco told him, charmed. "Is this what it's like to be a Gryffindor, then?"

Potter's brow furrowed. "Pardon?"

"You know," Draco said, warming to his topic. "I saved the damsel from the tower, and at the end of the quest, I got the... well, the boy, in this case, but you'll do." He slid his hand into Potter's as he spoke. "Very Gryffindor, all of it."

The pleased expression on Potter's face lasted only so long as it took him to register Draco's words. "Malfoy, if you call me a damsel one more time-" he warned, but Draco stopped him with one lifted hand.

"Alright, alright, I understand." He turned his head and spoke directly into Potter's ear, his lips deliberately brushing skin. "Allons manger mauvaise cuisine, mon demoiselle," he said.

Potter's expression was torn between intrigue and suspicion. Draco smiled innocently back.

He didn't expect Potter to respond with a long, drawn out hiss, but Parseltongue would admittedly probably win him this particular battle.

"Er, what did you say?" Draco asked, blinking rapidly. He cleared his throat and ignored Potter's satisfied smile.

"I said, 'shut up and get on the broom,'" Potter told him, swinging one leg over it himself. Draco secured his knapsack and followed suit, settling his hands at Potter's hips. He ignored the small hitch in Potter's breathing when one of his fingers found bare skin, and did it again.

They took off, leaving their disaster of a campsite behind them and narrowly missing a wide branch when Draco leaned in closer and spoke into Potter's ear, saying, "Next time you can cook me breakfast yourself."

A/N: The French Draco speaks means, 'Let's go eat bad food, my damsel.'
This story kicked my ass. I got to the halfway point, thought I was finished, then abruptly realised there was a whole other part of the story I hadn't told. I hope you enjoy it! I should warn curious bystanders that I have never written romance before, let alone drarry. Feedback is incredibly welcome!
(It also bears mentioning, to those of you who will be quite unhappy with me for posting this instead of a new chapter of either of my WIPs, that I'm almost there! This helped get me out of a writing funk. So it's a good thing!)