A/N: To answer your question, Sever13 (thank you for that helpful and inspiring review :-) ), and to wrap things up. Enjoy this one while you can; it may well be the last for a long while. :-(

Yours forever, Tsona

Draco awoke to the morning sun streaming through the window, diffusing his room in a soft, warm glow. Catlike, he stretched and his lazy gaze seemed drawn to the foot of his bed, almost as if Harry had spoken. The Boy-Who-Lived had vanished, left sometime early this morning, but the memory of his presence, of their concord still brought a smile creeping upon his lips.

"What a strange team we'll make, Draco Malfoy."

A team. A team that included Harry Potter. If only his father could have witnessed their pact.

Still grinning, Draco slipped from his bed, dressed, and padded down the stairs. Already the aromas of Mrs. Weasley's meal wafted up the steps- sizzling bacon, the warm gooeyness of pancakes, the gentle hint of strong, Irish breakfast tea, and coffee- mingling with the warm light of the fire, and the bubbling murmurs of friendly conversation. Draco had never traveled these steps in such good spirits. He even managed to answer Ron's dark scowl with a buoyant grin.

Harry, though, offered him a easy smile as Draco slid into his place beside the twins. "Pancakes?"

"Thanks. I'm starved." Draco took the proffered plate and tipped a few onto his plate.

"Are you feeling better, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she passed him the syrup. Her narrowed eyes spun round to pin Harry. "I hope you didn't keep him up late, Harry."

Ron's fork clattered on the plate as he whipped around to gape at his friend, openmouthed. Draco felt the color creeping into his cheeks and, to save Harry from answering, assured Mrs. Weasley that Harry had not. Ron's glare landed on him, instead. His siblings, too, were casting curious glances between the pair of them- he and Harry. Ginny's eyes were sharp, quick points like needles; he could always tell her gaze apart from the others'. Fred's and George's were lighter, like beaming smirks or carefree laughter. Ron seemed to be working himself up into a state, inflating as his mother did in rage, his ears a dangerous scarlet. Draco, though, didn't want to answer his interrogations, he didn't want Ron's rage to ruin the small effervescence of joy that had captured him. His gaze in his lap, Draco shot Harry a look from behind his lowered lashes. Harry nodded, seeming to have understood.

"I think I'm done, Mrs. Weasley."

Always the Gryffindor, Draco thought, caught between vexation and humor. No subtlety. Jump in and take control with the most drastic plot possible.

"But, Harry! You've hardly eaten anything! Maybe some sausages? Some toast? I'll make whatever you like."

"No, please, Mrs. Weasley. I'm not hungry. Can I go, please?"

Mrs. Weasley nodded, a tad reluctant, and Harry took his plate to the sink. From across the room, Harry shot Draco a significant stare, eyebrows raised.

"Me too, Mrs. Weasley?" There hardly seemed anything for it. It was too late to rein in Harry's too-obvious ploy.

"Of course," Mrs. Weasley wobbled, uncertain.

Draco wished he could have reassured her, explained his and Harry's armistice, but he couldn't do it in front of the others, particularly the incensed Ron, not when his own understanding was so nebulous. Instead, he followed Harry silently to the sink, stacking his dishes on top of his. He could feel Ginny's pins and Ron's daggers upon him, both sharp, both suspicious; Fred's and George's twin grins, and Mrs. Weasley's quavering candles.

"I'll be outside," Harry declared.

After a quick, almost apologetic glance around the breakfast table, Draco schleped out the door in his wake.

Harry was waiting for him with a grin in the yard.

Draco couldn't help it. "Real smooth, Potter. They'll never suspect you left just to talk to me."

"Cut the sarcasm, Malfoy." Harry hesitated a moment, then asked, "Take a walk with me?"

"Where?" Draco was only too eager; he toddled up to Harry and, as Harry moved away toward the low stonewall separating the gardens from the fields, kept pace.

"Just around," Harry told him. "We never really got to finish our discussion last night."

"What more could there be? I told you practically everything I know."

"But I didn't tell you everything I know. Aren't you curious?"

Draco offered him a sheepish grin and admitted, "Well, maybe there were a few things..."

"And if you've been honest with me, I ought to repay you in kind. You were honest with me?" His green eyes were knives, swords, the tips resting poised against Draco, too eager for an excuse to push through, inflict damage.

"Of course!" Draco parried quickly. He forced down a small flicker of fear.

Harry's eyelids fell shut, a veil over that sudden bellicosity. He shook his head, as if the instinct were a midge he could scare off. "I'm sorry," he muttered, his voice heavy. "We've been enemies so long..."

"I know," Draco assured him. He stared out along the horizon. The field where they had played Quidditch not so long ago, where Harry had dropped an apple on his head, pushed him from his broom was visible through the twisted branches. "How did you get into my head, Harry?"

They took a few more steps before Harry composed a response. "It wasn't your head I was in. It was Voldemort's."

Draco flinched back from the cursed name. "How?" Maybe, just maybe, with this new bit of information he could devise a theory, guess how it was possible for the Dark Lord to pull him from the safety of his bed miles away, drag him into his presence.

"Dumbledore says it has something to do with this." Harry touched the scar on his forehead, a too-gentle brush, as if the wound were still tender. "He thinks something happened that night. A... a transfer of powers, I think he called it."

Draco frowned. "So you don't know how he does it to me?" He didn't see how anything like that could explain the connection between himself and the Dark Lord. Harry was, after all, the only known survivor of the dreaded Avada Kedavra.

"Not unless you've got a cursed scar," Harry apologized.

Draco shook his head. "Just the Dark Mark."

"He... he can't do this to the other Death Eaters, then? I mean, maybe it does have something to do with the Mark."

"I've never heard of it." Truthfully, Draco had never thought to ask. He recalled Snape saying that he was not as tightly bound to the Dark Lord as Draco was, that he could escape more easily. Still, he resolved to ask Snape about it as soon as he got the chance.

Harry clambered over the crumbling wall and looked back at Draco, who was climbing more gracefully, more cautiously over the rocks, looking for the next sturdy stone.

"What goes on in there?"

"In where?" Draco asked absently, reaching the uneven height of the wall.

"In... wherever they took you...?"

Draco, standing atop the pile of rocks, looked down at Harry, eyes wide.

"Durmstrang." The answer was leaden, toneless. "We were all taken to Durmstrang."

" 'We?' "

"Sure. Me and all the Death Eaters' children. Crabbe, Goyle, Nott... He's been... training us. Dark magic. Poisons. The kind of stuff Dumbledore doesn't allow to be taught at Hogwarts," Draco added, "for good reason."

Harry hesitated. "Can you teach me?"

"You want to learn Dark magic?" Draco asked as he began the descent to Harry's side.

"I want to know what I'm facing."

Draco was on level ground again. His eyes and Harry's were at exactly the same height. Draco probed the other boy's. They were dark, determined. He'd tipped up his chin. "You're serious." It wasn't a question; Draco could see it written on Harry's open features. Draco turned to regard the dark forest to their right that separated the Weasley's property from that of their Muggle neighbors, but he saw instead only images of his past: Death Eater professors striding through shimmering potion vapors; the Dark Lord's leering visage, glad of the excuse to punish; vivid flashes of emerald green and skidding dead spiders. "I don't like the Dark Arts, Potter. And I don't pretend I'm brilliant at them. I more or less failed out of the course, even without my demerits and treachery."

"I don't call myself a Defense genius, but I still teach."

Draco glanced back at him, curious. "Do you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do a bit." Harry didn't seem entirely comfortable with the topic, but Draco pressed on, too intrigued to drop it.

"Will you teach me?"

Harry looked surprised. "You want to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"Well, yeah. I'm a marked man now, too, Harry. Maybe even second on the Dark Lord's hit list, after you. It's about time I started learning how to defend myself."

"You must know a little. You escaped. You did escape?" he added.

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose." Silently, Draco finished, At least physically. I think. His recent nightmare had cast doubt on even that. "But it was luck," he declared, wanting to make this clear. "You were always better at defense than I was."

"I had to be," Harry reminded him. He cast his considering gaze over Draco, before offering, "I'll talk to the others. I'll do what I can, Draco. And if they won't accept you into the D.A., we'll meet- the two of us- and I'll teach you."

Draco felt a smile spread across his face from the inside. "Thank you." He couldn't think what else to say.

"And will you teach me?"

Draco hesitated. "I don't know that Dumbledore would like-"

"It's not as if I'll use them. I just want to be prepared."

Draco still wasn't sure. "Maybe." He felt that if Harry were going to tutor him, he ought to repay him somehow. A line of text he'd once read rose to the surface of his mind, The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Surely, he should help his friends. "If it's just you."

Harry nodded, seeming to be aware this was the closest he would get to a commitment. He walked on once more, still making for the Quidditch pitch. Draco fell into step beside him. He knew he had let Harry down, maybe even insulted his generosity. He felt he ought to apologize or otherwise make up for the faux pas, but didn't know how to begin. Worse still, he could hear echoes of his own past convictions, of the rumors that had spread throughout the Wizarding World, and the Death Eaters' network in particular, about the Boy-Who-Lived.

"You reckon Potter could be a Dark Lord?" Nott had asked him as they ambled through the maze garden one lazy summer day between first and second year.

"Potter? Please. I can really see him running an army, tossing aside enemies. It always surprises me that that idiot can put his shoes on the right feet, let alone tie them."

"But just suppose-"

"It wouldn't happen, Theo."

"Then how do you reckon he survived that night?"

Draco had hesitated, bought time by dipping down to press his finger gently against one of the large thorns on the rose bushes, testing its sharpness. "Luck, I'd guess. I've always wondered about mirrors, too."

"Draco, a Killing Curse would shatter a mirror, it wouldn't deflect it."

Theodore Nott was cleverer than he was and better read, Draco admitted it, and that had been the end of that theory, and though Draco would never have owned it, it had cast doubt upon his confidence that Harry was not powerfully Dark. How else could he have survived? Draco had watched the Boy-Who-Lived carefully all through the following school year, searching for signs of Dark wizardry, but though the rest of the school had suspected him of opening the Chamber of Secrets, though he had revealed his ability to speak Parseltongue, it could not have been clearer that he despised everything the Chamber, its history, and the Dark Arts they all assumed pervaded and surrounded it stood for. Still, Draco was loathe to present Harry with the temptation. Perhaps Harry was no Dark Lord at the age of twelve, perhaps he'd never shown any inclination to follow in the Dark Lord's path, but Draco couldn't be sure that power, the kind of power that only Dark sorcery offered, would hold no allure for him. The only way he felt he could have been certain was to subject Harry to several years' threat and employment of the Cruciatus Curse, prove personally the effects of the curse, make him ill every time he thought of it, turn him off of ever using it forever. As Draco's father had done for him. But Draco wasn't prepared to do that, and he was certain Harry wouldn't allow it, understand.

They completed the circuit in silence. Draco thought he ought to have explained some of his thoughts, ought to have offered Harry some reason for his refusal, and though he opened his mouth several times to try, each and every possible account seemed lacking, incomplete, calculated to start an argument, to dissolve their newly reached entente.

It was the sight, as they reached the low stone wall into the backyard, of a flaming head of hair that goaded Draco back into speech.

"Which Weasley is that?" he wondered aloud.

"Ron." Harry's answer was swift, confident, born of years' close friendship. Draco chanced a sad, sideways glance at the other boy as Harry sprang over the rocks. Would he ever recognize Draco with such surety?

As they drew nearer, Draco recognized of the fierce, almost feral anger written across Ron's freckled face, in the eyes like ice chips. He slowed his pace, hesitating to approach. Beside him, Draco thought he sensed Harry stiffening, but his voice was buoyant as he hailed his friend.

Ron did not seem in the mood, however, for polite exchanges. His voice was a hiss from an ice chest in the hot summer air. "Where were you? Why are you with him? What the hell is going on?"

Harry glanced at Draco. Draco wondered if he had imagined Harry's earlier apprehension. His eyebrows were raised high in surprise as he silently sought Draco's permission to speak plainly. Draco gave the merest shake of his head.

"We just went for a walk."

Ron's eyes narrowed, if possible, even further. He stared into Harry's face. It was a long minute before he voiced his conclusion, "You don't look Imperius-ed."

"Ron! I'm not-"

"Then why the hell- You sneak off in the middle of the night, no explanation, you don't return for hours- When you finally do turn up, you tell me you're tired, you want to sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning- we never did talk about it in the morning, though, did we, Harry? You wanted to hurry to breakfast, you were hungry! And all of a sudden, you and Malfoy are acting as if the last five years never happened. What do you expect me to think, Harry? You never tell me anything anymore! I'm left to make guesses. Were you ever planning on telling me what happened last night? Why is it I have to come stalking you while you sneak off with Malfoy after you were so hungry?"

Draco watched this exchange with rising alarm. He had always considered Ron and Harry's friendship rather secure. Yes, they fought and when they did, they were overt about it, but the fury on Ron's face now and the fright, real fear, on Harry's forced him to speak.

"Ron-"

"You!" Ron rounded on him, and Draco only just caught himself from stumbling backward. If Ron's eyes had been daggers before, they were now poisoned javelins. "Stay out of this!"

"But if you'd only just-"

"I said, stay out! Well, Harry?"

Harry flinched. "Ron. Ron, I can't- You have to understand, I-"

"Harry, tell him, just-"

Ron dived for his wand. It was upon Draco before he could react, covering him, and those cold eyes adding their force behind the threat. "Traitor!"

"Yes, but, Ron, not- not against us. Draco-"

"Draco? Draco? What's happened to you, Harry Potter? Just last night you were telling me what you'd like to do to this- this rat, this pathetic excuse for a human being. You'd had nightmares about him. Nightmares where he found a way into-" Draco didn't quite catch the word; it seemed somehow silenced "-had turned the Order in, had murdered everyone, had murdered my mum and dad, Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, Lupin, Tonks, Kings-"

"Ron!" It was a warning, but Ron was not listening.

"Moody, Dung, even Dumbledore! We were plotting together, you and I. We were going to find a way to break the charms he's been placing on everyone. You said we'd kill him if it came to it, if that was the only way to save my family. You said we'd go to everyone, Dumbledore, the whole Order, anyone and everyone who might believe that this festering dungheap isn't trustworthy."

Harry glanced back at Draco, stiff and still at wandpoint, trying to apologize silently, to take back the words. Draco gave him a small, quavering smile to say it was all forgiven, forgotten, and a jet of light whizzed past his ear, so near that he could feel its heat, thought he smelt singed hair.

Ron was breathing heavily. He was like an aroused lion, a lion whose pride has been threatened, ready to use teeth, claws, and any other weapon that presented itself to expel the menace, and he was taking aim again, gripping his wand in both hands to try and keep it steady.

Draco's first instinct was to run. His gaze whipped round to Harry. His face an ashen white, he gaped at Ron; his expression echoed Hagrid's numb, horrified disbelief during his Skrewts' first, bloodthirsty rampage.

Draco staggered backward, hands instinctively thrown out in front of him, though he knew they'd be no defense, and only just missed the second spurt of light.

Ron's face was a mask of fury. He seemed to be focusing all his energies into this one final try. The energy was beginning to congeal on the end of the wand, a murderous incandescence. Draco remembered reading about this effect once, remembered the fragile, too thin sheets of molded vellum that he had handled with such fearful care, but had never seen it. 'When a wizard is moste inflamed, his power can nat be contained. Should the wizard seek to contain his power, it shall be expelled in the form moste potent...' When that spell was loosed, it would be nuclear.

"NO!"

Harry darted forward and threw himself in front of Draco, arms outspread. Draco was so stunned, he forgot to watch the growing glow at Ron's wand tip.

"Get out of it, Harry!"

"No. No, Ron, drop it. Don't do this."

The radiation turned a pallid green. Ron wasn't going to be able to hold it much longer, and if Harry didn't move...

Ron's breath was ragged, each word escaped on a puff of air through his bared teeth. "Get- out- of- the- way."

"No."

"Do as he says, Harry!" The pale, sickly green was quickly deepening to emerald.

Harry turned his glare on Draco instead. "No."

"Stop being noble! For God's sake, move, you sodding Gryff-"

Ron's wand was shuddering and he looked suddenly alarmed. "Harry!" The flame erupted from the tip before he could drop the renegade willow. Draco saw the

emerald blaze flying toward him over Harry's shoulder; he had also turned to watch its progress. Would he survive a second Killing Curse? Was that possible? Draco shut his eyes as the rush of wind, the crash of the surf began to tear through his ears.

Something struck him from the side. He was lifted off his feet, tossed through the air. He hit the ground with such force that the wind was knocked from him and he simply lay there, eyes still jammed shut. His only, small comfort was the sharp, ragged gasps beside him of Harry, just audible over the rush, the roar of wind that hadn't yet ceased echoing around them, though the light was gone, or had gone golden at least. His hand felt its way through the air until it made contact with something solid: gloriously warm flesh, shuddering beneath a thin, cotton t-shirt. He let himself breathe.

"You would have regretted that very much, Mr. Weasley."

The voice was slow, calm, and achingly familiar. Draco lifted his head. Dumbledore was standing several feet from the back door, his wand in his hand, raised, but pointed, Draco realized, not at Ron, or even him and Harry, but at a blazing inferno consuming a beech at the edge of the forest. A stream of water shot from its end and the flames vanished in a billow of steam that cleared to reveal the charred, black skeleton of the tree.

"Luckily, I witnessed the casting of your spell and not merely the effect. I know you did not intend to produce a Killing Curse."

"I- I didn't," Ron gasped. "I didn't cast any spell!"

Dumbledore offered him a faint smile. "Your wand has had its say now, Mr. Weasley. You can pick it up."

Draco did not see Ron bend down though as Dumbledore began to walk toward Harry and himself.

"What- what are you doing here?" Harry gasped. Draco was glad; he didn't think he could have spoken; he merely stared up into Dumbledore's calm, cragged face, the crinkled, twinkling blue eyes.

The headmaster chuckled and extended a hand down toward them; Draco noticed, for he thought Dumbledore to be right-handed, that it was the left one and that the right remained hidden in the voluminous sleeve of his peacock blue robe. Harry took it without question and was consequently helped upright. "I came here hoping to speak to you and Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore reached down once more, and after a moment's hesitation, Draco accepted the proffered hand. "You are fortunate I arrived when I did."

"Yeah." Draco's voice was shaky; he didn't like it and shut his mouth quickly.

"Were- were you the one who knocked us out of the way, then?"

"Yes, Harry, that was I."

Draco glanced back toward the house. Ron had still not moved any more than to wrap himself in his arms. From here, Draco thought his pale face had a green cast, but maybe this was the afterimage of the spell.

"I- I can't believe Ron would do something like that." Harry sounded nearly as ill as Ron looked.

"He didn't." Draco surprised himself with this bold defense, was still ashamed of the quaking voice that uttered it. "It was Nimium Vis- the Excess Energy Effect." He glanced toward Dumbledore for confirmation.

The headmaster's thick, white eyebrows rose along his high, channeled forehead. "How do you know about that?"

"I- I read it. In a book."

If Dumbledore wondered where he had come across such a book he did not ask and Draco was grateful. He didn't want to have to admit that he had read Secrets of the Darkest Arts at the Dark Lord's behest. Perhaps Dumbledore already suspected as much, for as he turned his back to them, Draco thought he sensed a certain tension in the set of his shoulders. "Shall we go inside, then?" Dumbledore did not wait for either of them to reply, but strode off toward the backdoor. Harry jogged to catch up, but Draco trailed glumly behind, stewing over whether he'd said too much.

"Will Ron be all right?" he heard Harry ask the headmaster in an undertone as they passed the redhead, still slightly green, very pale, and as rigid as someone Petrified.

Dumbledore walked several paces further before responding. "He shall be."

"I still don't really understand that Nimee- thing. What happened?"

"I shall explain it to you later," Dumbledore told him as he pushed open the backdoor and stepped into the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley was standing in the middle of the floor, waiting for them, her face as white as her son's.

"Ron-" she gasped.

"Will be all right. No one's hurt."

"Oh! Oh! boys!" She scooped both Draco and Harry into so fierce a hug that their heads knocked together as she drew them in. "My God! if something had happened to either of you-"

"They're both fine, Molly," Dumbledore reassured her. "All perfectly fine."

Mrs. Weasley gave a quiet hiccough and drew away from them. Harry massaged his bumped head, but Draco turned to listen at the sound of his name.

"Mr. Malfoy, I think I'd like to speak with you first, if you'll oblige me."

Draco nodded, numbly. For the first time, he was able to wonder and worry over why the headmaster had sought him out mid-summer.

"We'll just be in the living room, then, Molly."

Mrs. Weasley nodded as well. Draco thought she looked reluctant to let him leave her sight again. As he followed Dumbledore into the next room, he saw her drag Harry back into an embrace against his meek protests, though her eyes were for Draco.

The living room was quiet, the grate empty, but the windows shut. Clearly, Dumbledore didn't want to risk being overheard. Draco hovered near the door, still fretting, as he watched the aging professor ease himself onto the couch, again using his left hand to steady himself while keeping the right veiled. Draco allowed him his secrets, though wondered if perhaps he'd come to give him or Harry something, something that had to be wholly secret.

"Sit, Draco," the headmaster commanded when he had settled himself and peered across the room to see Draco, still standing, awkward and silent, by the shut door.

Draco cut his downcast eyes sideways, but did not move toward any of the numerous chairs.

"Surely you don't still fear me? Surely I've proven myself to you by now?" He sounded slightly hurt and it was this more than anything that goaded Draco into speech.

"I don't... trust authority figures, sir. Surely you can give me that liberty?"

The headmaster nodded slowly and then motioned toward one of the armchairs, motioned with his right hand this time. He looked as though it pained him to remove it from the sleeve, to expose it to the open air, to Draco's gawking stare. His right hand was black and dead-looking, a charred, shriveled, gnarled claw.

"My God, sir! What-?"

"Please, Draco. Sit."

This time, Draco did as he was bidden. He fell into the nearest armchair, still gaping at the dead thing at the end of Dumbledore's arm.

"As you see, I have had an eventful summer. And so, I hear, have you."

Draco managed to wrench his eyes away from the hand, looked into Dumbledore's piercing, blue eyes, and nodded once.

"Particularly, the Weasleys tell me of a certain dream that occurred, unless I mistake the date, last night."

Draco felt a great inrush of excited trepidation. If Harry had not been able to explain the Dark Lord's power over him, if the Weasleys had been mystified, it was understandable. But surely, surely, if anyone apart from the Dark Lord himself could illuminate the matter, it was Dumbledore. "It was, sir." Draco didn't realize that his fingers had curled tightly on the chair's arms or recognize the slight tilt to his posture.

Dumbledore regarded him calmly over the rims of his golden spectacles. "How long," he asked, "has this been occurring?"

"Since... since- I don't know, since I left him, I guess." Draco was impatient. Why delay? Had he not waited long enough?

The bushy eyebrows rose. "That long?"

"Yes."

"And you never brought it to my attention? Never once mentioned-?"

"I didn't want you to worry, all right?" Dumbledore's tone was patronizing, scolding, and it irked Draco. He was old enough to handle, to deserve whatever the truth might be.

"It is something to worry about, Draco." Dumbledore's stare was severe.

"Why?"

"You are being taken in the throes of sleep, even from the safety of your bed at Hogwarts I think I am right to assume, and being carried miles to Lord Voldemort's feet. You don't find that worrisome?"

"Of course I do," Draco conceded when he had pulled out of his involuntary shudder at the Dark Lord's name. "I'd have to be an idiot-"

"Then, why did you not bring it to my attention?"

"Because-" Draco swallowed, dropped his gaze to the headmaster's feet where his robe brushed the toes of his purple, dragonhide boots. "Because I worry I might be... of use to him when- when it happens. I was afraid you'd think so, too, consider me too great a liability to harbor at Hogwarts. I don't know how it happens. I can only assume that he's found a way to... enter my mind, control my mind, control my magic, force me to Apparate to him, and if he's burrowed so deeply, who's to say he can't... can't take from me what he wants, whatever he wants. I could be a passage into Hogwarts for him for all I know. I could be spying for him and never even know it. It's too much like the Imperius Curse, what he does to me."

"Yet, you clearly remain yourself during these, ah, for lack of a better word, dreams."

Draco glanced up. He couldn't interpret the headmaster's stone-blank face.

"That is to say," Dumbledore assisted, "that had Voldemort been controlling you, you could not possibly have defended Harry, denied him, he would not have had to have resorted to physical torture to try and win your obedience."

"I suppose so. But if he isn't controlling me, how is it I end up at his feet?"

Dumbledore turned his bright gaze on Draco once again. "I'm afraid there can be no doubt that, on some level at least, he is controlling you. As you rightly say, you would not otherwise go to him. However, he cannot be controlling you as deeply as you suspect. Tell me, has anyone ever seen you experiencing one of these dreams?"

"Blaise did once. He said I was shouting in my sleep. He woke me up."

"Ah." It was a gentle, soft note of interest. "And how did Mr. Zabini accomplish this?"

"He struck me," Draco muttered to Dumbledore's purple boots.

Dumbledore was silent for some minutes. When Draco next chanced a glance up at him, it was to see a smile stretching his mouth. "I have a theory, Draco."

Draco raised his head, gave the headmaster his full attention.

"You know, of course, that Voldemort made you his heir. By Professor Snape's understanding, Voldemort placed upon you more than the usual spells he uses on his Death Eaters. He bound you, as I understand it, quite deeply to himself. Now, no enchantment that I know of allows anyone to inhabit two identical bodies at once. Further, you can be woken by being physically struck, as you put it. It is therefore my assumption that your body could only have remained in your bed at the time of these dreams-"

"But, sir, he broke my-"

"Molly explained this, yes; Voldemort snapped your wrist. But, as I have just reminded you, you and Voldemort, however much you should dislike it, share a unique connection. I do not know what part of you Voldemort bound to himself. I do know that he takes the time to take possession of a small part of all of his Death Eaters' bodies, sealing the deed with the Dark Mark. If Voldemort has chained you more closely to him, then either he has appropriated your whole body- unlikely, as we have already established that your physical self remains when you are transported- or perhaps he linked your mind and his-"

"Which would mean he could use me to spy," Draco lamented.

"Yet, I do not suspect this, because he does not seem aware of your location. Unless you believe he has given up the search for you?"

"No. But, he knew things. Things he could have seized from my mind. He knew I was near Harry."

"Is there no where else he could have gleaned this information, if we have already ruled out your body and I do not suspect him to control your mind?" It was a delicate question. Dumbledore wanted him to think, but was not at all pleased with the obvious conclusion.

"My soul," Draco responded, the answer quiet, tight, forced out on a breath that wanted to be held. "He has my soul, doesn't he?"

"I fear," Dumbledore tiptoed, "he may have some part of it."

"God." Draco himself didn't know whether it was an expletive or a plea. "What do I do?" It was an earnest question and Draco met Dumbledore's sorrowful blue eyes willingly, begging the answer from their clear depths.

"I don't-

"Professor, with all respect, don't give me that. You do know. You always know."

"And with all respect, Draco," the headmaster answered with his bushy eyebrows slightly raised, "you overestimate my knowledge. I'm afraid this is a subject I do not understand."

"So- so, what- what now?"

"I don't know. Keep on living, I suppose."

"With a monster, a parasite living inside me?"

"Or perhaps, you in him, yes."

"God," Draco repeated. His own hands felt clammy clutching each other in his lap. He was afraid if he unclamped them he might claw his way through his own skin, through to dig out the germ. Already his skin was burning, the brand on his left forearm on fire. The smoke from it cast a cloud over his vision so that Dumbledore began to fade from sight.

"I would like to help you, Draco, as much as I believe I can. You understand, it would be without any promises."

Immediately, his vision cleared again and he was staring into the lined visage of his headmaster. "Really? You have an idea?"

"Only that, yes. Would you consent to extra lessons with me?"

"With you? You teach?"

"I have done some in my many years," Dumbledore conceded with a soft chuckle. "Will you meet me, then?"

"Of course! I'd do anything!"

"Yes, that's what worries me a little." His gaze was again softened by sadness. The headmaster stood and Draco, taking his clue, leapt to his feet as well. "Do take care of yourself, Draco?"

"Of course," he repeated. "And" -Draco's gaze trailed to rake the long and concealing right-hand sleeve of Dumbledore's robes- "take care of yourself, too?"

Dumbledore offered him a smile. "I will try. I would shake your hand," the headmaster apologized, "but obviously-" He made a slight, defeated flourish with his deadened right hand. "I look forward to seeing you in September. Be prepared to work when we meet for our first lesson."

Draco nodded to show he understood and would remember.

"Off with you, then, and send Harry in after you."

"Thank you, sir." Draco turned and, as he opened the living room door onto Mrs. Weasley's shout of, "Ron!" he felt considerably better than he had in a long time. He was in a home where there were people who cared about him, he and Harry had made peace at last, and Dumbledore had a idea that might curb his hellish visitations to the Dark Lord. He was even able to conjure a slight smile as he stepped to the side, pressing himself up against the wall, to let a still quite ashen and sullenly silent Ron pass on his way to the crooked staircase. When the flame-haired phantom had gained the first step, Draco continued to the kitchen, where Harry was placating a thouroughly distraught Mrs. Weasley, patting her awkwardly on the back as he stood in her path.

"Just let him go, Mrs. Weasley," he implored. "Let him recover."

"But my Ronniekins! I have to make sure he's all right!"

Draco stepped through the doorway. "He'll be all right," he assured her; Mrs. Weasley stopped fighting Harry to gawk. "He wasn't expecting that kind of effect. He didn't mean for it to happen." Draco transfered his gaze from a tear-choked Mrs. Weasley to Harry. "Dumbledore's ready for you. He's in the living room."

Harry offered him a beaming smile and strode across the room. "Thanks," he grinned as he bounded past Draco and across the hall, flouncing through the door.

Draco moved forward to take Harry's place beside Mrs. Weasley, allowing her to encase him in a bone-crushing hug that was not for his own comfort at all, but rather all for hers. He didn't mind it in the least.

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile, his work to see?

Did he who make the lamb make thee?

-William Blake "The Tyger"

A/N: Oh wow! I love it when my characters take over the plot! I'm giving them all the credit on this one. I just allowed Harry and Draco to talk and that conversation was all them and none of me; Nott and Draco volunteered that little flashback, although J. K. Rowling inspired it (see the Extras: Edits section of her website); I would never have believed little Ronniekins had that kind of power, or stupidity, or audacity in him. I mean, I know he hates Draco, but that! A brief thank you to Dumbledore for his timely arrival. That would have been a most unfortunate tragedy, though admitably, a good plot twist. Happy endings or good fiction, the eternal debate... So, my dear readers, you've come to the end of another of my stories. Alas, for this is the last of this series I will put up for a while, as I intend to return to Death Eaters Don't Cry and go through the series in a fit of editing as my series now has a better plot line and Jo's said all she will. But all is for good. So, keep an eye out for updates, because I promise they'll be better as I get through with them, and meanwhile keep yourselves well. And, oh yeah- please review!

Yours forever, Tsona