It was just nearing the end of lunchtime when Draco was finally coaxed away from his work by the thought of a crisp green apple and something warm to drink. He made his way through the masses of students to the Great Hall and took his usual seat, expecting Pansy and Blaise to be there already. However, when he spotted his seat through the throngs of students, he saw that the seats surrounding it were empty; although food was already piled high on the plates before them.

He scanned the room for Pansy's short black bob, listening for Blaise's baritone voice or either of their sassiness. He began to frown as his eyes passed over the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables with no result. He almost didn't look down Gryffindor- what would Blaise and Pansy even be doing at a table of lions?- but the internal need to sit with other company he could talk with was too strong. He just glanced over the table, and had to do a double-take when he spotted Potter's nest of black hair.

There were two heads of black hair there, and they were far too close together.

One face was -flustered? The other was smirking successfully.

Draco knew this from years of observation and seven years of friendship, respectively; for the first, slightly flushed cheeks, almost indistinguishable from their usual shade from the dark skin; fidgety, fiddling hands and a tapping foot; eyes darting nervously around; pushing round glasses up a nose, and chewing on their bottom lip were all obvious tells for Draco.

For the second, the smirk was wider than the usual sardonic one; the right side pulled up ever so slightly more; the chin was tilted up defiantly, to look down the nose at the other even though they were several inches shorter.

What in Salazar's name had Pansy done to fluster Potter?

Why did she look so triumphant?

Why was Blaise with her?

She could handle herself, and she must have known she could, walking into a den of lions to make one of them bloody flustered. And while the Weasel looked a little on-edge, the mu- Granger and Potter didn't look terribly uncomfortable in the presence of two Slytherins. Strange.

Draco seated himself, grabbing an apple and resting his chin on his hands while he continued to observe. People-watching was one of his favourite pastimes.

After a few minutes of Potter getting increasingly uncomfortable and Pansy getting more and more amiable with the Gryffindors, she spotted Draco. She said her goodbyes and made her way over to Draco.

Before he could get in a comment about spending time with Gryffindors lowering her intelligence, she sat down, put on her "I'm a little worried but don't want to show a human emotion in public" face, and asked quietly, "Are you alright, Draco?"

A little startled, he replied, "Yeah, why?"

"Well, your- your apple."

"My- apple?"

"It's red."

Draco looked down, horrified. He'd thought it tasted bitter!

He resisted the urge to spit out the chunk he was chewing, and swallowed with distaste. Blaise was chortling beside him at Draco's reaction. "Eugh. Didn't notice. You wanna finish it?"

She looked truly surprised. "You didn't notice it wasn't green? Draco, you never eat red apples."

"Yeah, you have a temperature?" Blaise asked jokingly.

"Blaise! I was just wondering- almost nothing short of, perhaps, Potter-"

"Hey!"

"-can make you eat a red apple. How distracted were you to pick one? And to eat half of it without noticing?" Draco could tell she was about to pick up on the fact that he'd been people-watching her; she hated when he did that. He knew her far too well already, she said. So he changed the subject.

"What were you doing over at the Gryffindor table, Pans? Blaise?"

Pansy took on the same look she'd had when she's asked Draco if he was gay.

And if he was stalking Potter.

And- nearly every time he talked about Potter, actually.

This face was worn rather often around Draco.

"Well, this morning-" she began, but Draco didn't really want to hear now. She was surely going to try and embarrass him somehow, and, knowing Pansy, it was going to work. The hall had gone quieter- almost tense, Draco thought. Perfect opportunity to embarrass him; when the whole school was listening. Thankfully, someone else cut in at that moment.

"About that," came a voice from behind Draco. Which was strange, because he was sat with his back to the wall, so whoever it was specifically didn't want Draco to know it was them. Unluckily for them, Draco knew their voice far, far too well for them to escape identification. And Draco suddenly understood why the hall had gone quiet. They all wanted to hear the exchange between the most prominent self-proclaimed arch-nemesi of the school. He turned around with a sigh.

"Yes, Potter? What do you want?"

"Well, I was looking for you this morning, and I couldn't find you. I need to ask you a question."

"Well? I'm waiting."

"Er, you might want me to ask it in a bit more of a- secluded place." Draco raised an eyebrow and shot Pansy a glance. She had on that infuriating look again that she got when Draco talked about Potter. Oh, well. Better to get this over and done with; if he didn't do this, Potter would track him down at some point and ask him then. Better on his terms.

"Alright, Potter. Lead the way." He grabbed another green apple for the journey before he left, and put another in his expanded potions satchel. And it was a satchel, not a handbag or- anything like that, no matter what Pansy said. A satchel. Potter was halfway to the doors; he turned and waited for Draco.

With an exasperated, very much put-upon sigh, Draco followed.

Potter led him to the Black Lake- to the spot he went to when he had nightmares, Draco noticed. The path was slightly worn; Potter must come down here a lot to have made such a prominent path, as only one person.

There was one large, flat rock that Potter sat down on. Draco would not sit on a rock; not as a Malfoy, a pure-blooded, skilled wizard. He transfigured a smaller rock into a chair, and took a seat on that. "So, um," Potter began.

"Very eloquent, Potter. Please enlighten me as to why you have brought me out here."

"Well- er- you see,"

"I'm waiting,"

"Alright! It's just-"

"Yes?"

"You might get mad." Draco raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yes, because you've never made me mad before. Please, Potter, continue, I beseech you."

"Okay. So. I saw on the- actually, it'd be easier to show you." He withdrew from his back pocket a weathered piece of parchment, yellowed and slightly wrinkled. He opened it, and ink spread out over the pages, creating a message that read,

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs proudly present to you: The Marauder's Map".

Potter pointed his wand at the parchment and said, "Mischief Managed." The parchment unfurled, ink spreading across it, painting a labyrinth of lines across the parchment. Draco watched it form a map of- of Hogwarts?

"But- Hogwarts is unplottable!"

"My dad never did like the rules," Potter said in response. As if that explained everything.

"What do you mea-"

"So, Malfoy, look. These footsteps represent one person. Like, here, this big black mass-" He pointed to what was indeed, a big black mass, with indecipherable scribbles and scrawls shown at its edges. "That's the Great Hall, with everyone in it. Up here is the teacher's table," He pointed to a rectangle, where a row of footsteps were individually labelled with names. "And we're over- here." He showed Draco two pairs of footsteps, still by the water's edge. The labels read Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Potter stood up and took a few steps away from the lake; his footsteps on the map moved, too.

"Impressive. Why did you bring me out here, though? To show me a map?"

"No. Well, see, I was just- looking at the map the other night, and I saw you were down in Snape's old potions room and- well, I didn't- I just wanted to know why you were awake so late, and not in your dormitory. So I came down looking for you-"

"Hold on, Potter. You stalked me on a map- and when you saw I wasn't in bed, you came looking for me?" At least he had the decency to look ashamed.

"Um, yeah. So I came into the room and watched you a bit- you were brewing some kind of potion-"

"Potter," Draco said, becoming dangerously suspicious of something. If what Potter was saying was true, he might've seen Draco brewing the Dreamless Sleep potions... And no one was supposed to know about those! He was keeping them a secret so that if they did end up working, he could have someone distribute them and people would actually drink the potions and stop their nightmares instead of being so distrustful of Draco they refused to drink- if Potter knew who made the potions when they were done, he'd go and tell everyone, and all Draco's hard work would go to waste! "When, exactly, was this? And how did you get into my room? I put wards up. And I didn't see you."

"Well, I, er, I have this invisibility cloak... I guess it protected me from the wards, too. I brushed past you at one point; you went and closed a window." Draco's eyes widened. Potter had seen him brewing the Dreamless Sleep! Oh, no, no, no, no- "I also saw this- you wrote in a notebook of some sort and you were writing about dreamless sleep and death. And I just- I was wondering... What was that?"

Draco was shaking his head before Potter even finished his sentence. "No, Potter. Go to McGonagall if you want confirmation I'm not trying to poison anyone, but I'm not answering that question. I can't afford to let any information out at all, especially not to people who would tell their friends who would tell the rest of the school. So no, I won't answer your question. Sorry." He stood, returned his chair to a stone, and turned to leave. "Don't go jumping to conclusions, though. Really, you can ask McGonagall. I don't have some- some nefarious plan or anything, Potter." And with that, he turned and strode away from Potter without even a glance back.

If he had, he would've been able to tell that Harry was feeling rather confused, a little hurt, and ever so slightly suspicious. He did end up going to ask McGonagall; she told him all about what Draco was planning to do with the altered versions of the Dreamless Sleep. His lingering suspicions were all but eradicated, although he was still incredibly confused about why Malfoy had reacted the way he had; when he related the story to Hermione later, Ginny interrupted halfway through to let Harry know he looked like a "kicked puppy".

But Draco hadn't looked back.

He had, instead, gone straight back down to his potions room to have a look at his mandrake samplings. The one with the normal Dreamless sleep had awoken; it was writhing around again, and would be able to be reused for another test. It would be slightly altered, though; it would always want for more dreamless sleep. Addicted to the unicorn's blood.

The second, however, which had received the potion without the unicorn blood... Well, it was still limp. Draco frowned; he'd given it plentiful time to reawaken. He decided to run a few tests to check it was still- you know, alive. Tarantallegra didn't work. Neither did Rennervate. Eventually he cast the diagnostics spell.

The mandrake was dead.

Why?

He scanned through his notes again, looking for anything that might have killed it. When he got to the unicorn blood, he barely resisted smacking his head against the desk. So much time wasted waiting on a dead mandrake because he'd forgotten what the unicorn blood did. It created the addiction, yes, but it also counteracted the fatal components of the potion. By taking out the unicorn blood, he'd taken out the addictive part... And also the part that prevented death. Ah, maybe this was why there wasn't a non-addictive Dreamless Sleep potion. No one had figured out how to counteract death.

But hadn't there been something first year? A... a stone? Someone Flannel- no, Flamel.... Rick? Nick?

Nicholas Flamel! That was it!

But what was the stone?

Oh, it would take forever to search the library...

Maybe- no, he couldn't stoop that low. Preposterous! Asking for help from a- but she'd probably read every book there already and stored its contents in her brain... It would be like asking a house elf for help! They were supposed to help!

He started making his way up to Gryffindor tower.

. . .

Harry had barely finished telling Hermione his story when there was a knock on the portrait, followed by the Fat Lady's squawking. "Neville's probably forgotten the password again," Harry sighed.

"I got it," Hermione said, already moving towards the portrait.

"Neville, it's 'Bumpernuggets'. Honestly, this is the third time this week!" Harry shouted at the portrait.

Neville, however, was asleep in front of the common room fire.

Hermione opened the door to Draco Malfoy, holding a- a bouquet?

What?

Hermione seemed just as surprised; she was so shocked, she didn't move to stop Malfoy from grabbing her arm and pulling her outside. Harry, obviously, followed- after a moment of shock. Who knew what Malfoy could be up to now? The flowers could be poisonous!

. . .

Draco drew Granger outside with surprisingly little commotion; no one else had seen him in the portrait-hole entrance to the lion's den. Then she started struggling. "Malfoy! Let go!" He looked down and realised he was still holding her wrist, where he'd grabbed her to pull her outside. He let go like she was burning him, wiping his hand discreetly on his robes. Maybe he didn't think mud- muggleborns were below him fully, as he'd previously thought, but they were still rather repulsive. It was hard to make new opinions that went against all he'd ever known. He was trying, though. And then there was the fact that on top of the blood status, this was Granger! But he didn't want to offend her; he needed her knowledge.

"Right, so, have you ever heard of Nicholas Flamel?" he began. He didn't at all expect her to physically jerk back away from him.

"What do you want with him? And me, for that matter?"

"Well, you're a fountain of knowledge. I'm- working on a project for McGonagall. For the students who were part of the war." Granger looked incredibly suspicious and nervous and incredibly distrustful and ever so slightly curious, so Draco decided he's have to tell her everything. "Alright. Well, you know the dreamless sleep potion? It's a variant of that. I- the survivors of the war all get terrible nightmares really often, right? I do, and I know Potter does, and you probably do too. But Dreamless Sleep is addictive, and too much of it can build up a tolerance, and then you have to resort to more severe drug-type potions.

"Okay. So.

"I got McGonagall's permission to use Snape's old potion room and ingredients and cauldrons to try and make a non-addictive dreamless sleep potion for the war survivors. I think I've figured it out- the potion uses unicorn blood, and I think it's to counteract the fatal ingredients of the potion. But in the Monster Book of Monsters, it says if you drink unicorn blood, you live a cursed life. In the Potter History book, it says the Dar- Voldemort drank unicorn blood in first year in exchange for a 'Half-life'. I think in the potion, it causes the addictiveness instead of taking half of your life. 'Cause that's the biggest downside of the potion, really. But it also saves your life; Voldemort drank it to preserve himself, to survive.

"In the potion, I think it acts as a healing ingredient to combat the deadly ingredients. So, since I'm making a potion of Dreamless sleep that isn't addictive-" Draco saw the Gryffindor portrait swinging open and nobody stepping outside; he remembered Potter telling him about his invisibility cloak. Oh, well. Telling Granger meant Potter would find out one way or another, anyway. "I decided to take out the unicorn blood. That, obviously killed the subject-"

Granger looked horrified. "You're testing this on- on living things?!"

"Oh. Yeah, but it's just mandrake root clippings. They react nearly the same as humans would; going to sleep, being poisoned, dying."

Granger didn't look very mollified at all, and to stop her lecturing him about mandrake root rights (Granger was infamous for her lectures) Draco hurried to distract her with other bits of knowledge and theories. "So, my Mandrake root clipping died; I figured it's cause I can't replace the unicorn blood. You need something-"

Granger, who was nodding along now, successfully distracted, finished, "Something strong to use as a healing combatant to the deadly ingredients. Right. So- how did you get to the Philo- Nicholas Flamel?" She paused. "And what's with the flowers?"

"Oh, yeah. These are Valerian sprig-"

"I thought so! ...Sorry. Just recognised it, but wasn't sure I was right."

"Well, they're used in the Dreamless sleep potion. Closest thing to flowers I had on hand, and I wanted something to distract you so I could get you out here to talk about Flamel."

"Slytherin cunning," Granger muttered under her breath.

Draco grinned. "So, yeah. I remembered something about Flamel making some really strong healing stone, and I was wondering if you knew anything, cause it'd be far easier to ask you than to go search the library. So, d'you know anything about the stone thing?" He paused, and then turned to where he believed Potter was standing, looking at what would have been his general eye-level if he were visible. "Or you, Potter. Yes, I know you're there. You yourself told me about your invisibility cloak and map thing. I saw you come out." He frowned. "Or, rather, I didn't see anyone come out. But I know you're there. Do either of you two know anything about the Flamel Stone?" Potter's head appeared, followed by the rest of his body. He looked slightly sheepish as Hermione turned to him, shocked.

"You told him about the invisibility cloak?! And the map?! How could you be so foolish?" Potter blushed; Draco watched on in slight amusement, slight pity as Granger continued to berate him. When she got close to revealing stuff she'd proceed to then threaten Draco to forget or possibly end up obliviating from his memory, he butted in.

"So, Granger," he said, pulling her from her rant. "What do you- and you, Potter- know about Nicholas Flamel's healing stone?"