Draco decided that he'd spend a week supervising Potter and accustomising him to the plants, and if, after the week was up, Potter appeared competent enough to not kill his plants when he wasn't there, he would comply with Potter's idea of splitting the care of the plants. McGonagall gave her permission after a glance at Draco's tired eyes and demeanor, and it was settled.

Potter, it turned out, was surprisingly competent at looking after things.

Perhaps it was his heroic streak that refused to allow anything to die, but he seemed to almost intuitively know what the plants needed and when; a few days into the supervision, Draco actually left the plants with Potter to go and eat lunch with his friends. When he returned, the plants were quiet, and Potter was sat in- was that a rocking chair?- holding a plant pot like a baby. Draco recognised the plant as the Vivere Planta Amoris; the most high-maintenance plant he had, and the most likely to cause a problem, especially with Draco away. While most of his other Living plants had taken to Potter after a day or so, the Vivere Planta Amoris had stubbornly refused his care, always wanting for Draco instead.

Potter looked up from where he was rocking the plant, and, seeing the look on Draco's face, said, "Don't. I didn't know how to keep her quiet, and she reminded me of a baby, and, well, this is a popular Muggle method for calming babies. Hey, it worked. I think she's asleep now, though, and my legs are falling asleep. Could you- help?"

Draco cocked his head to the side and smirked. "Hm, no, I don't think I will. Oh, Potter, by the way- she?"

Potter blushed. "Yeah, well, I- she seems like a she."

Draco's smirk widened. "Don't tell me you've named her, too."

Potter's blush deepened, and Draco raised an incredulous eyebrow- and started laughing.

"At least tell me you named her something good."

"Er... Viv, short for Vivian."

Draco looked at him in astonishment. "Only you, Potter," he exclaimed. "Only you would name a plant and- and rock it to sleep! Wait- Potter. Don't tell me." Draco had spotted something at the foot of the chair; his gaze fixated on it, and Potter's drifted down to see where he was looking. Potter groaned. "Potter! Oh my Merlin, were you reading my plant- bedtime stories?"

"She wouldn't stop crying for you!"

Draco laughed harder, doubling over and wheezing.

"Gentlemen?" asked a voice behind him. Draco spun around, attempting to quench his laughter (and failing, quite badly) to see McGonagall, one eyebrow arched inquisitively, looking on at the scene; Potter, sat in a rocking chair, holding a potted plant; Draco, laughing; a pile of children's books on the floor.

"I came to come and see how you were doing and make sure neither of you were dead, but... I believe I should be more concerned that neither of you are, nor any of your plants."

Potter started defending himself from the suspicions clearly forming on McGonagall's face; she'd seen Draco in the Great Hall for lunch, and was absolutely observant enough to figure out what had happened.

"Mr. Potter," she said, and Potter groaned again, hanging his head in defeat, "Have you- adopted this plant?"

Potter didn't even try to deny it. Draco started laughing again. McGonagall turned on him.

"Mr. Malfoy, you have been caring for these plants for over a week now; staying up at night for them and everything, I believe, quite akin to how a parent would."

Now Draco flushed, stuttering out excuses and denials. At that moment, Viv started wailing, apparently woken from her nap by the clamour the three were making. Almost instinctively, Draco strode over to Potter, who handed over the plant carefully. This had happened multiple times, and the two had slowly developed a routine. When Viv had calmed down, a snort reminded the boys remembered they weren't alone.

McGonagall was laughing.

Full-on chortling.

"Never thought I'd see the day," she gasped. "You- you two- you look like parents! Like two parents looking after their child! Oh, this is brilliant. Pomona, Albus and Severus all owe me twenty galleons each!" She declared, leaving the room still laughing, unaware of the two mortified boys she'd left behind.

Draco turned, very slowly to face Potter, McGonagall's words ringing in his head. Look like parents. Parents. And he realised, with a shock, that they were. Potter seemed to realise this, too, because he turned and met Draco's mortified gaze with one of his own. "Dear Merlin," Draco breathed. "What's happened to me?"

"Me, too," Potter murmured. "I hate you, Malfoy," he said, but it seemed like he was trying to convince himself; none of his usual vigor or passion was really there. When he realised this, his face drained of colour.

"Potter," Draco spat, the way he always did; but it was lacking in its hatred, its disgust. It sounded half-hearted, and- forced.

"Oh my Merlin," the boys said together as realisation flashed through their eyes. Horror followed immediately, for both had read the realisation written across the other's face as they came to a conclusion themself.

The words were left unspoken, but they hung heavy in the air; I don't actually hate you.

. . .

The next day, Potter arrived before Draco did; when Draco found him, Potter insisted Draco go to classes and catch up with friends, saying he was good enough to look after the plants. Draco hesitated, but the lure of company other than Potter's and plants was irresistible; he left with a quiet "Thank you," and went to join his friends for breakfast.

Upon arrival in the Great Hall, he was ambushed.

Two ginger-haired menaces flew at him, both talking over each other, shouting questions and accusations at Draco. Behind them, Granger watched on in amusement; Pansy and Blaise, who had been sat next to her (since when did that happen?) stood and joined her, smirking. This wouldn't be good.

"Malfoy, what have you done with Harry?" demanded Weasel- Weasley- one. His voice was full of hatred and disdain for Draco, and it made him realise just how pathetically lacking in malice Potter's voice had been yesterday.

The smaller Weaslette asked, "Where is he?"

"Yeah, Malfoy. He got up at three in the morning- maybe earlier- from a nightmare, and left bed immediately. Didn't even try to fall back to sleep. Didn't come back to bed, either. I checked the Map this morning and it said he was in Snape's old classroom, which could only be your fault, it's where you've been keeping him these last few days, what have you done to him? He can throw off Imperius, it couldn't be torture-" his eyes narrowed- "Could it?"

Granger stepped forward, finally, and pulled back Weasley. The Weaslette had been detained by Lovegood, and was now eyeing Draco dangerously from the Gryffindor table, where Pansy and Blaise had seated themselves to wait for Draco to defuse the threats.

Draco decided he'd deal with the immediate threat first.

"Weasley, I haven't done anything. Potter's probably rocking plants to sleep as we speak and reading them stories. He's fine. Go check on him if you want; you know where he is. He offered, himself, to take care of my plants I need for my project so I could sleep and eat and all that other mundane stuff necessary for living. Terribly inconvenient, but we all need to do it. In any case, he's fine. Say, Granger, how are you?" he added.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked; but she wasn't just asking exasperatedly like normal people did. She knew that he wanted something specific. Clever.

"Well, Potter told me that you take good notes, and we have all the same classes, so..."

"And why should I let you borrow my notes?"

Draco pulled his Hail Mary. "Granger, don't you remember what I'm making?"

She hesitated, then sighed. "Oh, alright. But you can't keep them, only copy them out. Alright?"

Draco smiled. "Alright."

He sat with Pansy and Blaise at the Gryffindor Table. "What are you doing here?" he asked them.

Pansy gave Blaise a triumphant look. "Pay up, darling, pay up." As Blaise reluctantly gave her a few galleons, she said, "Honestly, Draco, you disappear for a week, then you steal Potter from the Gryffindors, and you don't even say hello?"

"I didn't steal him-"

"But to answer your question: Blaise and I found that the Slytherin gossip is all rather old, the usual scandals and such repeating themselves. Meanwhile, over here, we can create gossip by socialising with lions, and we can also get on McGonagall's good side about all that inter-house friendship stuff. Besides, it's boring without you, and the Golden Trio were missing their dear Potter while we mourned our loss of you. So we bonded together."

"Right... So you joined the Gryffindors because you missed me and they missed Potter?"

"Pretty much," Blaise said.

Just then, a wail echoed from the corridor and the doors to the Great Hall slammed open; in strode Potter, attracting the attention of every eye in the Hall. He paused for a moment, oblivious to the attention on him, and scanned the hall. When he spotted Draco, he immediately headed towards him. He looked distraught.

He didn't say a word, only handed Viv to Draco with an easy, fluid motion. A ripple of gasps echoed across the hall at this simple, obviously parental motion. Draco stood abruptly, bid Pansy and Blaise goodbye, and hurried out of the hall, rocking and comforting Viv, Potter hot on his heels.

Viv still hadn't calmed down by the time Draco and Potter had reached the Potions room. It took half an hour of both boys fussing over her to get her to calm down. When she finally stopped crying, Potter sank down into the rocking chair, looking utterly exhausted. Draco remembered what Weasley had said earlier.

"How long did you sleep, Potter?"

"A couple hours."

"Weasley said you woke up from a nightmare."

"Yeah, I did. Really early in the morning. I knew I wouldn't be getting back to sleep, so I came down here early."

"Huh. Say, Potter, do you know what Occlumency is?"

Potter scowled. "Yeah, I do, but Snape tried to teach me in Fifth Year, and he did such a terrible job that my Godfather ended up dead."

"Right. I think even I could teach you better than that; the bar's pretty low. And now there's no stress of anyone dying, it's just to stop nightmares until the potion's ready."

Potter hesitated. "Ask your question, Potter," Draco said.

"Well- er- it's just- what is Occlumency?"

Draco stared at Potter. "How- did Severus not even teach you the basics?"

"The first thing he did was perform Legilimency on me and told me to break out of it."

"Oh, Merlin. He did hate you, didn't he? If you managed that even once with that little instruction... Okay. Let's start from the basics.

"Occlumency is the act- or the ability- of having complete control over your emotions and your mind, as a general definition. You can use it to repel Legilimens and other mind-infiltrating powers; others might use it as a method of meditation or to control anger or fear or sadness. It's a way of defending your mind and emotions.

"I'm going to teach you the more meditational way of using Occlumency; it's far easier than learning to defend against Legilimency, and you should only need to learn this to stave off nightmares. Also, you can use this knowledge to apply to stronger Occlumency; and should you ever need to use Legilimens on an Occlumens, you would, theoretically, know the weaknesses of Occlumency to exploit them.

"Let's start with more traditional meditation methods to try and get you to understand what sort of thing we're hoping to achieve with Occlumency. This will also help you with identifying and ignoring emotions you don't want to remain calm, which can be incredibly useful in many situations in the Wizarding world." Draco tried to recall how Severus had done this for him; he made his voice low and quiet, as soothing as he could make it. Soft, almost, except Malfoy's didn't do soft.

"Lie down, and close your eyes." Potter obeyed. "Good. Now, you can cast a Patronus. You know the process of casting one. Think of your happiest memory. Think of it now. Picture it as well as you can; were the people there? Who? Were they smiling? Do they have freckles? What colour are their eyes? Where are you? What's the weather like?" Each question Draco asked brought forth an element of the memory; as he prompted more details from Potter, Potter began to smile. Good.

"Keep that in mind. I'm going to walk you through some breathing techniques. Keep your eyes closed, and remember that happy memory.

"Breathe in for a count of four- one, two, three, four; now hold your breath for a count of seven- one, two, three, four, five six, seven. Now out for eight- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight." Draco was careful to keep his voice slow and steady, counting a beat for Potter. "Good. Do that twice more, thinking of your happy memory as you do." This breathing pattern released calming chemicals in the brain; it showed Potter what sort of emotion he would be hoping to provoke with Occlumency. Thinking of his happy memory as he did would hopefully associate the memory with the breathing exercise, and therefore the emotion the memory provoked as a result.

"Now, think of your unhappiest memory. That could be something to do with Voldemort, or your nightmares; it could be sad, or angry. Imagine it in as much detail as you can, even if it hurts to. This has to be your worst memory.

"Now, try the breathing pattern from earlier. Remember your happy memory. I'll count. One, two, three, four. One, two, three four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, four, five six, seven, eight. Very good.

"Okay, you're doing brilliantly. How do you feel?"

"Really good," Potter said. His voice was quiet; almost subdued. "Calm, and happy, too."

Draco smiled. It was working! "Alright, I've got some work for you. Every night, before you go to bed, try this exercise to calm you down. When you're doing the breathing exercise, think of your happy memory. If you wake up from a nightmare, try this, too; it might help you get back to sleep."

"Thank you," Potter said quietly.

"You're welcome," Draco replied.

. . ,

A/N: The breathing technique Draco uses actually works; some sciencey stuff makes it release calming chemicals from the brain. It's good to help calm yourself down; just repeat the exercise a few times over if you're stressed.