The boy was trapped by nightmares again.
In the dream, it was the long-lost Astronomy Tower. In the sickly green light of the Dark Mark, an unarmed Dumbledore looked at him calmly and said, "Draco, Draco. You are not a murderer."
His face was deathly pale. He said to Dumbledore in despair, "I'm going to kill you—I have no choice. I have to do it. He'll kill my whole family."
"You caused no lasting damage. You hurt no one. You are very lucky—those you accidentally harmed survived." Dumbledore was still smiling. "I can help you, Draco. Get back on the right path. You are not a murderer."
His wand hand trembled. The wand slipped, just a little.
That's right. He wasn't a murderer. She had said so too.
He hesitated.
He wanted to give up.
He remembered her eyes—bright and clear—and her wand lowering.
But then—"Avada Kedavra!"—Snape arrived, the curse left someone else's wand, and Dumbledore's body was blasted into the air—
From that point on, everything was beyond repair.
I did not cast the spell. But he died because of me.
Draco Malfoy woke with a start.
He seized his wand from under his pillow and sat upright, chest heaving, staring at the boy in the full-length mirror across the room. The boy in the mirror was as pale as the one in the dream.
He fixed his gaze on the dark green curtains of his four-poster bed, drew one long, controlled breath, and turned his mind to Occlumency—pressing the panic down, smoothing it out, steadying himself the way he had practised.
"It's all right," he said quietly.
"It was a nightmare," he said, though his voice shook.
"Dumbledore is not dead." He held onto the thought like a handhold on a cliff face.
"You didn't kill anyone. You didn't." He whispered it to the pale boy in the mirror, lips trembling, attempting a smile and failing.
The images came anyway. Frozen, lifeless eyes. Bloodstains across the floors of Malfoy Manor. Students who had not survived the Battle of Hogwarts.
Her silent tears, dripping into him, burning hollows where they fell.
Those memories moved through him like something venomous—lurking in the ruins of his mind, coiling, waiting. They tore at him.
The wall clock ticked slowly, marking the hours between now and dawn. Draco lay back down. Sleep did not return.
Eventually, he reached for the Muggle headphones Hermione had given him.
He fumbled in the drawer of his bedside table until he found the cassette—still in its wrapping. He peeled the plastic off slowly and stared at the word printed on the case: Dookie.
He could hear her voice with perfect clarity.
"It's a new album by an American Muggle punk band called Green Day." She had worn that particular look—the one she deployed when she knew something he didn't and was delighted about it. "I'm not sure if it's your style, but why not try it?"
Punk. Green Day. Both terms had been entirely meaningless to him.
"Who names a music album after something so unpleasant?" he had said, looking at it as though it might bite. "Do Muggle teenagers actually enjoy this sort of thing?"
"It's quite popular, apparently. I imagine Muggle teenagers are under a great deal of pressure," Hermione had said, with a shrug and that same insufferably knowing smile. "Try it. It won't bite."
Famous last words.
He had tucked it into the very back of his drawer and forgotten about it. He had never intended to listen to it. He certainly didn't consider himself the sort of person who would stoop to enjoying whatever passed for music among Muggle teenagers.
He put the headphones on and pressed play.
Merlin's beard.
The sound that erupted in his ears was an assault—crashing drums, a screaming guitar, a vocalist apparently unconcerned with volume—Hermione Granger, that devious girl, had warned him it wouldn't bite, and that had been an outright lie.
"Now I understand that smile," Draco muttered at the ceiling.
He had been about to pull the headphones off entirely when something strange happened.
Beneath the noise—beneath the sheer, relentless, senseless energy of it—his mind went quiet. Not his ears. His mind. There was no space left in it for anything else. The memories couldn't get a foothold. The dread had nowhere to settle. The music simply occupied everything.
He let it.
He even began, against all expectation, to appreciate the craftsmanship of it. The ungovernable confidence. The way it didn't apologise for itself.
By the time the album ended, there was a faint smile on his face—and before him, in the flickering darkness, he could see the shape of Hermione's pleased expression the moment before she handed it to him.
---
"All right," he told her in Potions class the next day, selecting mistletoe berries with unnecessary care. "I listened to that dreadful album."
"And?" She raised an eyebrow, watching his face with undisguised interest.
"Tolerable," he said briefly.
"You listened to a little of it?"
"...From beginning to end." He did not meet her eyes.
"I knew it." She was radiant with smugness. "Which song?"
"Basket Case," he said, at exactly the moment she said, "Basket Case?"
"Of course," she said, in the tone of someone whose hypothesis has just been confirmed. "Draco, you have to admit—sometimes you don't know what you want until you try it. Like Muggle punk music."
"Perhaps," he said, and did not argue.
He thought he must be going quietly mad. Even now, the melody was playing somewhere in the back of his mind, on a loop, entirely uninvited. He had certainly not listened to it too many times. That was not what was happening.
The music was still running beneath his thoughts when he found himself standing at the door to the headmaster's office, having walked there mostly on instinct.
---
Draco harboured a deep aversion to meeting Dumbledore alone. Each time, he left feeling wrung out by the particular combination of guilt, wariness, and something uncomfortably close to respect that the old man seemed able to conjure in him without trying.
"Oh, Draco—I believe this is yours." Dumbledore pushed the Invisibility Cloak across his desk with a casual air, as though returning a borrowed quill.
Draco didn't move. "Is this a way of getting me to admit I've been breaking school rules?"
"Obviously not—particularly if you've only been using it to visit the house-elves in the kitchens," Dumbledore said, with a smile that suggested he found this rather charming. "I understand you've been calling in on them from time to time."
Draco picked up the Invisibility Cloak—the Malfoy family crest was still embroidered in the corner—and tucked it into his pocket without comment.
---
This was Draco's first Saturday since the capture of Barty Crouch Jr.
The castle was bathed in peaceful autumn sunlight.
Without any significant coverage in the press or intervention from the Ministry of Magic, the incident in the stands—where Hermione Granger had hit the fake Professor Moody with a Body-Bind Curse—appeared to have been quietly set aside. The Daily Prophet, for its part, seemed entirely preoccupied with speculating about the romantic lives of the Triwizard champions. Draco had begun to suspect it was being edited by someone who had confused it with a gossip column.
What he couldn't work out was why Dumbledore had summoned him here—and he was still more baffled by what the headmaster said next.
"I can see you have questions," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "Please, ask."
"The man who appeared as Professor Moody in the corridor yesterday—he looked perfectly normal," Draco said carefully. "I had thought Moody was still in the hospital wing."
"Ah, yes." Dumbledore's eyes crinkled. "Sirius was kind enough to take on the role of Professor Moody for the time being. If anyone notices anything inconsistent, the story is simply that Moody is being eccentric—having someone stand in for him to keep the students on their toes."
Draco gave a small nod. He still couldn't entirely forget the expression Dumbledore had worn when facing Barty Crouch Jr.
"And your longer plan?" He wasn't going to let the question drop. "Are you following Sirius Black's suggestion? To wait and watch?"
"It is a tempting approach," Dumbledore admitted, pressing his fingertips together. "The difficulty is this: if the Ministry captures Barty Crouch Jr. now, Rita Skeeter will have a front-page story within the day, and the news will reach Voldemort's ears before we have time to act. Whatever small advantage we currently hold would be gone." He gestured for Draco to sit and conjured a cup of hot tea with a wave of his wand.
"Thank you," Draco said, sitting on the edge of the chair without drinking.
"By the way—you and Miss Granger are to receive a special commendation from the school for your role in capturing Barty Crouch Jr. We cannot announce it publicly until the situation is resolved, so I'm afraid it must be awarded quietly for now," Dumbledore said.
"It was Hermione's doing, more than mine," Draco said.
"Miss Granger rather insisted on that point herself," Dumbledore said, with a look of mild amusement. "She refused to accept the commendation unless your name was included. She was, I must say, surprisingly firm about it."
"In that case—" Draco felt something loosen in his chest, and did not press the matter further. He took a small sip of the scalding tea, then became aware of Dumbledore studying him with that particular gaze—calm, unhurried, and uncomfortably thorough.
He deflected with a question. "Professor Dumbledore—can we be confident that Barty Crouch Jr. is fully contained? I have some concerns."
"We have applied Miss Granger's method—a complex variation of the Body-Bind Curse—along with a Binding Charm, a Repelling Charm, a Concealment Charm, and a Shielding Charm, all on the place of imprisonment. I think we may trust Professor Flitwick's recommendations on that front," Dumbledore said.
Draco's eyes drifted to the far corner of the office. "Where is he being held?"
"I borrowed Alastor's trunk." Dumbledore's gaze moved to the large seven-locked trunk standing against the wall. For just a moment, something cold crossed his face. "Given the degree of resistance he has shown to both the Imperius Curse and Stunning Spells, I felt it necessary to keep him where I could watch him."
"And what about the house-elf—Winky? If she runs to Barty Crouch Senior, or attempts to free the boy herself—"
"Sirius raised that concern as well. As headmaster and direct employer, I've given her very clear instructions to ensure that her... considerable loyalty does not interfere with our plans," Dumbledore said, with a slight sigh that suggested he found the necessity of it uncomfortable.
"And Sirius as Moody," Draco said, choosing his words with some care. "He is quite different from the real Moody. He can be—bold. And the hospital wing isn't a particularly secure location. The deception will only hold for so long."
"Sirius only needs to maintain the role for a few days. After that, Professor Moody will be transferred to a private ward at St. Mungo's to recover from a teaching-related accident—something that, given the nature of the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, should raise few eyebrows. The post has historically been... eventful." Dumbledore paused. "Conservatively, Alastor will need to rest until at least Easter."
"Won't that look suspicious to Voldemort?" Draco asked. "If his man embedded at Hogwarts suddenly meets with an accident—"
"There's no way around it, I'm afraid. And we do have an advantage: Barty Crouch Jr., for his own safety, severed direct communication with Voldemort. The only way Voldemort can locate him now is through summoning his Death Eaters—and we have a means of monitoring that." Dumbledore said this carefully, without elaborating.
He didn't need to. Draco's eyes dropped briefly to where the Dark Mark would sit on a man's forearm, and he understood perfectly well what "channel" Dumbledore was referring to.
Professor Snape, then, was entirely on Dumbledore's side.
"So—as long as Moody is back at Hogwarts before the third task, Voldemort won't suspect anything has changed," Draco said slowly.
"Precisely. And in the interim, I intend to have Sirius serve as the acting Defence Against the Dark Arts professor—primarily to ensure Harry's safety. He is deeply worried about his godson and unwilling to tolerate the possibility of another Death Eater finding a foothold here. Frankly, I am not certain there is anyone alive who would work harder to protect Harry than Sirius Black." Dumbledore's expression softened, just slightly.
"Harry will be delighted," Draco said, and meant it.
Dumbledore studied him for a moment. "You care for Harry, don't you?"
"He's—" Draco stopped. "He saved my life," he said finally.
"You mean the water-tank incident in Defence Against the Dark Arts?" Dumbledore asked, with an air of polite curiosity.
Draco had always privately thought the opposite was true—that he had pulled Harry out of more than Harry had pulled him out of. But he said only, "Something like that," and looked at his tea.
Dumbledore waited, as though expecting something more. Draco kept his eyes down and said nothing.
The old man did not press. Instead, he reached for a small dish of sherbet lemons on his desk, popped one into his mouth, and said, "Now—the reason I asked you here today. I'd like to show you some memories I've recently obtained. Hokey's memories."
Draco looked up. He had assumed that Dumbledore, burdened as he was, wouldn't take the time to bring a student into this kind of confidence.
"Why tell me, sir?" he asked.
"Because you keep asking exactly the right questions," Dumbledore said, with a chuckle. "And because sometimes one needs a second mind to help sort through things. You can't very well expect Fawkes to weigh in on Dark magic theory."
Draco was not entirely convinced—he knew his place in the larger scheme of things—but he didn't argue.
"Why not Harry?" he tried. "He's the one this concerns most."
"Harry has more than enough to manage this year between the Triwizard tasks," Dumbledore said gently. "The second task involves the Black Lake. The third, a maze. These are not small challenges, Draco. I will not add the weight of this to his shoulders before he is through them. He will know everything—I promise you that—but the time is not yet right." He paused. "On that subject, I must ask you to continue keeping the matter of the Horcruxes from him for now."
Draco glanced at the ceiling.
There it was. Dumbledore's trust, such as it was—a trust that kept its own counsel and rationed out information like a miser with gold.
"Once Harry has come through the Tournament, I believe he will be ready to hear everything," Dumbledore added. "He is braver than you may think."
"I know how brave he is," Draco said, with slight edge. "That's not the point. You're treating him like you're sharpening a weapon—calibrating him, protecting him from the very information that might help him protect himself. Preparing him perfectly and leaving him blind at the same time."
Dumbledore was quiet for a moment. "You are not the first person to express that concern."
"Who was the first?"
"Professor Snape." Dumbledore turned a small crystal vial over in his fingers and glanced at Draco over his half-moon spectacles. "Are all Slytherins so consistent in their observations?"
"Perhaps it's because we're stating the obvious," Draco said coolly. "Harry isn't safe. There could be other Death Eaters here that we don't know about yet. He should understand exactly how dangerous his situation is. The wisest option would be to remove him from the Tournament entirely."
Dumbledore shook his head.
"Keeping him in the competition draws out his opponents," he said. "If there are still agents of Voldemort lurking in Hogwarts, Harry is the surest bait we have."
"He's a fifteen-year-old boy," Draco said flatly. "Not a piece of meat on a chopping board."
"Now you sound like Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore said, with what appeared to be genuine approval. "You're a boy too, Draco—not much older than Harry. Yet look at what you've accomplished. I don't think we should underestimate him. This is a challenge he must face; retreating from it will not make him safer."
Draco glared at him in silence.
There was no way of explaining that he was, in certain important respects, considerably older than Harry.
And what kind of educational philosophy was this, exactly? Toughen the student through suffering and hope they come out the other side whole?
"Professor Snape agrees with me that the situation is manageable," Dumbledore said cheerfully, appearing not to notice the glare. "And Sirius's presence here further ensures Harry's safety. He is not alone—he has friends who are worried about him. Including you."
Draco had no interest in being described as a mother hen perpetually fretting over Harry Potter's wellbeing. He grumbled about this inwardly, got up from his chair, and walked over to where the Pensieve waited.
"We must be quick—there are several memories to review," Dumbledore said, watching him with an expression of mild interest.
Draco frowned, suppressed the old crawling dread of deep water, and stepped into Hokey the house-elf's memories.
---
When he emerged, his face was carefully composed.
"Hepzibah Smith died two days later," Dumbledore said quietly. "The Ministry concluded that Hokey had accidentally poisoned her mistress's cocoa."
"Very similar to what happened with Morfin," Draco said. He did not believe the Ministry's verdict for a moment.
"Yes. My own belief is that Voldemort altered her memories before he left. She confessed at the time, and the Ministry saw no reason to look further. They were already inclined to suspect her." Dumbledore's voice was heavy. "In the end, they ruled it accidental—she was elderly and confused, and Hokey was a house-elf."
"Which meant the verdict could be handed down without much scrutiny," Draco said, his voice clipped.
He understood Hermione's feelings about SPEW far more clearly in this moment than he ever had before. This wasn't simply a matter of denying house-elves their rights—it had actively allowed the Ministry to close a case that should have led to Tom Riddle being identified, arrested, and locked away in Azkaban. If they had looked more carefully, if they had bothered to consider a house-elf's account worth investigating—
How many years of war and bloodshed might have been avoided?
He was suddenly very tired.
"Yes," Dumbledore said softly, seeming to interpret his sigh correctly. "When I obtained these memories, Hokey was very near the end of her life. There was little left to draw from her. But we can confirm that Voldemort knew of both the cup and the locket. After that, Tom Riddle vanished for some years."
"He's guilty. He was like a magpie even as a young man—hoarding other people's treasures, without a shred of conscience about how he came by them," Draco said.
The madness had been there from the start, even when he'd still had the decency to look like a person.
"You view him with a rather detached eye," Dumbledore observed. "Many young wizards—particularly those from certain families—would find that difficult."
"You might as well say what you mean: it's difficult for a young wizard from a Death Eater household," Draco said.
"That is exactly why I find it remarkable," Dumbledore said simply.
Draco tucked his chin in and said nothing. He was aware that he had said considerably more than he'd intended to, and that Dumbledore had a habit of collecting these unguarded moments like pressed flowers.
Dumbledore refilled his cup with a quiet Refilling Charm and said, "Back to the matter at hand. The two treasures disappeared after that until last year, when they resurfaced—the cup in the Lestrange vault, the locket in a cave by the sea. You know all of this. There are two more memories to review, both my own. I'd like a second opinion."
Draco grimaced and plunged back into the Pensieve.
The first memory: a young Dumbledore, visiting a young Tom Riddle in a Muggle orphanage, offering him a door into the wizarding world. The second: Tom Riddle arriving at Hogwarts to apply for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, already looking considerably less human than he had as a young man working at Borgin and Burkes.
---
When Dumbledore drew him out of the Pensieve for the fourth time that evening, he looked at Draco with quiet attention. "Are you all right? Did you notice anything?"
"He was collecting trophies since childhood," Draco said, sounding more exhausted than he intended. "And he was never ashamed of it."
"No."
"The seaside cave where the orphanage children picnicked—is that the same cave Sirius visited with the locket?" Draco asked.
"Almost certainly," Dumbledore said.
"Then at least one thing is clear: he is deeply attached to places that carry personal meaning. He doesn't hide things arbitrarily—he hides them somewhere significant." Draco turned this over. "You should search the Gaunt shack again. I don't believe he would have overlooked somewhere that symbolic to his own lineage."
"That is my intention. And Little Hangleton." Dumbledore set down the vial he had been examining and sighed—a rare, unguarded sound. "You are probably right that he genuinely wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, though I suspect his reasons were not purely academic. He knew I wouldn't give it to him—and yet he came anyway. That has always puzzled me. There must have been a secondary purpose."
"I think I know what it was," Draco said. His mind had landed on the Room of Requirement—on the eighth floor, near the headmaster's office, used for centuries as a hidden place to store things that should not be found.
He reached into his bag.
What he placed on Dumbledore's desk was a shattered, blackened tiara.
Even a wizard of Dumbledore's experience could not entirely conceal his reaction. He was on his feet.
"This is—"
"Ravenclaw's diadem," Draco said. "There's no longer any reason to hide it. I destroyed it some time ago, using a Basilisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets. It was concealed inside Hogwarts—which is, I believe, why Riddle had to return here. He needed access to the school to hide it. I came by it through certain means that I cannot discuss."
He could not betray the Grey Lady. Her secret was not his to tell.
"Draco." For the first time in the conversation, Dumbledore looked at him with something that was not calculation or careful management. "You are extraordinary. I must say—you are a remarkable keeper of secrets."
"I had some concern," Draco said, with studied lightness, "that destroying a Founder's artefact might see me expelled. But now that the golden cup and the locket have both been accounted for, I imagine the school won't single me out." A faint suggestion of smugness crossed his face.
He had not produced it because Dumbledore's words about trust had moved him. He had certainly not produced it because the thought of his name and a certain girl's name being recorded together in the school's trophy room had anything to do with it.
It had simply been an impulse. A recklessly Gryffindor impulse, and he had acted on it before better sense could intervene.
"Remarkable, remarkable," Dumbledore murmured, studying the ruined diadem. Then he looked up with a gleam of warm mischief. "I believe a second special commendation is in order—for this contribution alone."
"Thank you," Draco said. "However, I'll ask you to include Hermione Granger's name on it. Otherwise I won't accept it."
Dumbledore laughed—a genuine, full laugh, the kind that reached his eyes.
"I see," he said, looking at Draco with great interest. "Is that what prompted you to produce it now?"
"I have a good relationship with a great many people," Draco said carefully.
The small measure of trust he had built with Dumbledore was not sufficient to make him expose his feelings for Hermione to scrutiny. Not yet. It wasn't safe—not until Voldemort was gone entirely. Even Dumbledore wasn't necessarily a safe repository for that.
"And yet the only person for whom you require joint recognition," Dumbledore said, with the manner of a man simply observing a fact, "is Miss Granger."
"Because she deserves it," Draco said, with perfect sincerity. "None of this would have been possible without her. Her intelligence should not go unacknowledged."
"Of course," Dumbledore said warmly. "A genuine compliment from Malfoy. Rarer than dragon eggs."
Draco cleared his throat. "Professor—what we should be discussing is the total number of Horcruxes. I am tired of this particular guessing game."
"The diary, the golden cup, the locket, the diadem—four confirmed and destroyed," Dumbledore said, settling back into his chair. "If we find the ring, that may be the fifth."
"Is that the last one?" Draco asked, his voice quiet and grave.
The Dark Lord—he had always shown a clear preference for objects that carried weight and history. Founders' relics. Family heirlooms. Things with meaning.
Was there anything else of equivalent significance left?
"I hope so," Dumbledore said. "Five is already an act of madness." He looked at Draco steadily. "Keep a close eye on Harry, Draco. Whatever comes next, he will need rational people beside him—people who understand both the enemy and the stakes. You and Miss Granger are that, for him."
"I know," Draco said. "I will."
He pushed open the door and walked out into the corridor.
---
The question of the Horcruxes continued to preoccupy others as well.
That afternoon, Sirius said to him in the temporary office that had become his—still half-Moody's, still smelling of that awful potion—"I think the ring may be all that's left. If we could only locate it—"
"Where does one even begin to look?" Draco said.
Sirius glanced at the real Moody, whose injuries had left his expression even more ravaged than usual, and seemed to choose his next words carefully. "There's no need to look as though the world has ended. Dumbledore won't stop searching. And you've already done far more than you should have had to."
"I just want it to be over," Draco said—and he meant it in a way that went deeper than the words. "I want to find it. I want to end this."
As 1995 drew on, the urgency in him only sharpened.
In another life, the Dark Lord had been resurrected this year.
In this one—could it still happen? Had he done enough to close off that path, or only to narrow it?
"We all want that," Sirius said calmly. "And we will find it." A pause, and then, with the directness that was one of the things Draco had grudgingly come to respect about him: "Think about it this way. If there is only one person left alive who knows where that ring is hidden—it's the man who hid it. And we're going to make him tell us."