One

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to JK Rowling. I write to learn. No money is being made.

Chapter One

As soon as possible, Draco purchased the land around the cliff, covering nearly two hundred acres. It had taken three months for the Ministry officials to survey and clear the land, and extend the anti-Muggle protection of the Forbidden Forest to the newly reshaped stretch of coastline.

He called the cliff the Black Heights after his mother and himself. As he waited to procure the land, he had a small house built on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Once the transaction was complete, he hired a magical contractor to relocate the house to a spot near the edge of the cliff that gave him an unobstructed view of the water. He then Obliviated the workers, as per their agreement, to prevent them from knowing where he lived. The house itself was nothing compared to what he had grown up in...a vast, cold and dark mansion...but then, he wanted nothing to do with the kind of life he had known as a child.

It was a small, empty house with bare white walls.

It had a kitchen, a sitting room with a fireplace, two bedrooms and one bathroom, plus a small laundry area. It was painted grey with a black roof and black shutters and a green front door. All the inside walls were stark white, a blank canvas, much the way he himself felt at the end of the war. He almost felt as though he could start his life afresh. Almost.

The bedroom was sparsely furnished, which suited him because he had learned that one didn't need much in life, contrary to everything his father had ever told him.

He had a place to sleep, a place to put his clothes, a place to put his books and reading light, and a place to sit while reading. He read a lot. People who read a lot said he read a lot, and people who did not read said he read obsessively. He didn't mind...knowledge and power and all that. It was a different kind of power from what he had been taught, though. It was the power to speak, to articulate, to enlighten. Maybe someday he would exercise it.

He occasionally considered purchasing something to hold all the books; the stacks in his bedroom were starting to infringe on his usually meticulously neat and orderly brain. Yes, a bookshelf would be perfectly reasonable and justifiable, he decided more times than he could count. But he always put it off.

The other bedroom contained no furniture at all. He put his broom in there and all the books he didn't read often. They too were in stacks all around the room: neat, logical stacks, of course. Organized by topic, or author, or date of publication or some other obscure method, depending on how he felt that day. It was something he did to pass the time...rearrange the stacks.

The sitting room held a sofa, a chair and a few tables, plus a small writing desk for when he brought work home. There was nothing set out on the horizontal surfaces, no pictures or art on the walls, nothing to indicate the house was actually lived in. Most sitting rooms have at least one picture somewhere, maybe tossed carelessly on the mantelpiece and dusted every other month. This room held nothing but furniture. In this room, he sat to read. During the day, he preferred it to the upstairs because of the large windows that allowed a pleasant breeze though the house when open and provided copious light.

He did not have to work, of course. His mother had left him a considerable fortune upon her death, and he had been given control over his father's assets while Lucius served a life sentence in Azkaban. Draco had lived at Malfoy Manor immediately following the war until the house had been moved to the cliff. During the first few weeks, he had tried not working, electing to leave the running of the family business to the board of directors. Instead, he oversaw the design and construction of his house and rearranged his books.

Very quickly, however, he came to realize that with nothing else to occupy his mind he could only rearrange his books in so many ways before he started dreaming about words and letters and numbers. They had arms and legs, and often took sides and started wars, spilling, instead of blood, black ink.

One morning, four weeks after the war and its hype had ended, he woke fresh from a dream with an idea. Before even eating breakfast, he went to his library and ordered his books by the seventh letter of the seventh chapter in stacks of seven times seven. He placed the last book on the last pile, gave a satisfied smile, walked directly out of the house, past the anti-Apparition wards, and made his way to the London offices of Malfoy Enterprises. He found it terribly amusing to see the reactions of the employees when he walked in the door and announced that he was taking charge.

He worked mostly from the manor even after he stopped living there, holding meetings, throwing dinner parties, and entertaining business clients and important customers. However, he generally preferred to be in the cliff house, and so he often brought work there.

The kitchen was the only room that looked lived in. There were pots of herbs on the windowsill, tomatoes and avocados ripening in a bowl, pots and pans hanging from hooks, cookbooks on shelves, and cutting boards and an assortment of high-quality knives in a block on the counter. It was a little-known fact that he liked to cook and that he was very, very good at it. A table and chair completed the room.

The house also had a small porch out back facing the cliff, with two outdoor chairs. He liked to read on the porch and did so as often as the weather allowed. There were stairs that led to a small entry porch out front. He kept a chair there, too, for reading in the morning. He could read almost anywhere and did. A lot. Read, that is. After all, outside of his business responsibilities and work for the Ministry, it wasn't as if he had a social calendar.

He had been living there for three weeks when two friends came to visit him. "Friend" was a new concept to him. He had never really had one before, not a real one, at least, not an honest, true, loyal, I'd-give-you-the-bigger-piece-of-cake friend. And now he had two.

It started during the war when they'd fought together and sacrificed together and got hurt together and saved lives together, including each others'. A friendship of sorts began then, which only grew once the war ended.

There were two choices of what to do when he realized that everything he had ever believed his whole life was rubbish. One, he could continue to fight for the Dark Side despite his life-altering revelation and watch his soul slowly eat itself away. Or two, he could swallow his pride and throw himself on the mercy of the lions, to be stomped on, ripped apart, chewed up and spat out. In other words, turn himself over to the Light Side and offer his repentance and services. If they would take them.

To his great surprise, they had accepted him, even after two years of service to the Dark Lord. He'd had a sneaking suspicion that she had had something to do with it, but he couldn't be sure. As a general rule, she had not been keen on talking to him, so he had given up hope of ever finding out. Her friends...now his friends...had been angry and reluctant and adolescent. They had not wanted him there and had resented him, for obvious reasons. He'd understood those reasons and done his best to stay away from them.

The adults in the Order, especially those who had been through all of this once before, had seemed almost eager to embrace his turn. He suspected it was because of all they had seen, all the horrible, frightening things they had been through once and now a second time, that they understood what it was like to face impossible circumstances. Anyone who truly wanted to be freed from the Dark life was another reason to keep fighting, proof that even in the Darkest times, within the Darkest people, life and light could still exist.

But he had not been able to stay away from Harry and Ron forever. Because he was pretty good with a wand, he would frequently be sent on missions with one or both of them. Sometimes they'd had to sit on the hard, cold ground for hours just waiting for something to happen. It was inevitable that they talked, or, more often, argued, yelled, and threatened. Once they had almost been made because of the fighting, so they stopped. Then Draco had saved Harry's life. After that, slowly, because he really had changed, they came to see it, and finally, to accept it. After that, they had begun to see and accept him. But it had been slow. Since he had not carried any expectations whatsoever when he had gone to the Order, he counted everything positive that happened to him as a bonus. At the end of the War, he had two bonus friends who had previously been enemies. Sometimes life happens that way.

So the friends came.

Knock, knock, knock.

He opened the door.

"Green door," said Harry with a goofy grin. "You trying to say something, Malfoy?"

"Are Gryffindors even allowed through it?" asked Ron. "I bet it's spelled to only let in Slytherins."

Draco opened the door wide and just smirked, challenging, waiting to see if they would step through.

Ron shrugged and went through the door. He wasn't cursed or hexed; nothing happened. Harry followed, closing the door behind him.

"Didn't actually think the door was cursed," said Ron lightly.

Harry was looking around at the sparse room. "Say, Malfoy, exactly how long have you lived here?"

"Three weeks."

"I don't mean to sound ... poncy, but it's a bit ... empty."

Draco shrugged. "I do not see the point in changing it; I hardly care."

"It's depressing. Ginny's put...stuff...all over, and our walls are all different colors, and..."

"Harry," he said patiently. "You have Ginny. I do not have a Ginny. So my walls are white."

"You need a Ginny, mate," said Ron. "These walls are...painful." Ron squinted and shielded his eyes, grinning stupidly.

"There is only one Ginny, and Harry has got her ... " Draco shrugged.

Ron shook his head. "Not Ginny, Ginny; you need a girl, mate."

Harry laughed. "Malfoy? Ron, haven't you heard? He's...how did you put it, Draco? Unfit for romantic interaction."

Ron laughed. "Unfit? How so?"

"Perhaps we could talk about something else," said Draco.

He never liked talking about himself, especially in relation to the opposite sex. There had been one girlfriend in his life, and the relationship had been mostly a sham. They were friends now. Well, the ex-Slytherin classmate sort of friends, anyway. The kind who invited each other to parties and sent gifts at Christmas. But it had never been much of a relationship. Pansy had just been a distraction, someone to have around to boost his ego and make him look good. He had never been particularly fond of her or even nice to her in school, but she had put up with him because she was vain too and he made her look good as well. After he joined the Dark Army, just before their sixth year in school, he had no time for her and ended things. To say that she didn't take it well was like saying that Voldemort was not an old softie.

He had not had an especially easy time of things that year, but for different reasons entirely. It wasn't anything to do with her. It was as if, that entire year, he had been caught up in a giant, rushing noise that kept getting louder and louder as he waited for the explosion. Every day the sound had grown more powerful, pressing on him more forcefully, until that dark night under a green glow when it suddenly stopped, leaving him in a place of silence where he could not even hear his own screams.

He had left Hogwarts that fateful night, never to return. While in the service of the Dark Lord, there was no possibility of romantic distraction. Such 'lowly' emotions as affection and love were scorned. Not that he cared or wanted to experience those emotions. He could barely remember ever having been happy at all, so he concluded that he was incapable of experiencing that particular emotion. A man who could not be happy could not possibly expect to be capable of making someone else happy.

Draco's time with the Order had been very eventful, yet he had only a handful of truly good memories from the year and a half he had been with them. The earlier months were spent in isolation and introspection, and he did not speak much to anyone until he was befriended by Ron and Harry near the end of the war.

One of those good memories was bittersweet, coming on the heels of his worst memory. After he had learned that his mother had been killed, she had held his hand and sat with him as he sobbed like a girl for an hour. The only link to life he had during that dark hour was her hand, and he had held on tight, afraid if he let go he would tumble downward, unable to stop his fall.

He loved his mother despite the fact that, for most of his life, she had been an elusive figure at best, someone who shared his hair color, but not much more. He didn't know until later... after they started talking and developed an actual relationship...that his father had forbidden her to "have any sort of female influence" on him. From Lucius, that meant that she could not be affectionate or show that she cared about him in any way. When she sent him sweets at school, he had easily dismissed it as an attempt to appear better than other parents and refused to believe that his mother held him in any regard. His father's work had been thorough.

He had seen his mother just once after he joined the Order. It was on her birthday, twelve months after he had changed sides, in a park she loved in the nearest village to her home, the home where he had grown up but no longer belonged. Something told him to go there that night. He was not one to give any sort of credence to divination or Seeing or any of that rubbish, but that day he had experienced a persistent, nagging urge to go there. So he did and she had been there. Each had been surprised to see the other, but Narcissa had embraced him tightly, as though the next moment depended on it.

They had talked for hours. Narcissa confided her fears, her secrets, and her hopes to Draco. She told him she had never wanted that life for him and was thankful that he had left it. If she could have abandoned the Dark Lord, she would have too. Draco pleaded. Narcissa cried, telling him she had made her decision long ago and now she had to pay for it. She told him she loved him, and Draco had cried and pleaded even more earnestly. There was something desperate in the way his mother spoke, something in her eyes that made him nearly frantic. She had smiled, tears in her own eyes, and said goodbye.

Two months later, he received a letter from his father informing him of Narcissa's death. It was a cold letter, absent of emotion, though Lucius did manage to attempt to blame her death on Draco. He told him she had died of a broken heart caused by his defection and shaming of the Malfoy name. If Draco had not seen her that night, he probably would have believed it. While the pain was staggering and overwhelming, it could have been considerably worse.

He felt numb for months after his mother's death. He had continued in his work, fighting for the Order, trying not to disappear into his own despair, but he could barely remember that time; it was just a haze.

ooo

They went outside to the edge of the cliff, brooms in hand.

"So. Jumped yet?" asked Harry.

Harry Potter. He had killed the Dark Lord, freeing Draco from the prison he had locked himself in. It was true he had freed thousands of people from fear, hate and pain at the Dark Lord's hand. But Draco felt that freedom like no other. After all, he was the only successful defector from the service of Voldemort. No one else had managed to stay alive to the end. He alone felt true redemption and release after the reality of the Dark Lord's defeat had time to sink in. At first, he had been numb.

Draco remembered watching the celebration at Headquarters after the final battle as though he were peering through a grimy window. Even though he could count some of the people in the room as friends or at least nearly friends, he did not feel a part of them. He had not been there from the beginning and had in fact spent more time fighting against those gathered than for them. As he sat in the room against the wall, his brain turned off, his thoughts stopped, and he could only stare blankly in front of him. Then a round of hugging started, and when she threw her arms around his neck, he felt his breath hitch in his throat, and he was thrown into another good moment. He didn't respond to her hug, just felt all of his body slowly start working again and the emptiness start to wear off. She didn't wait for him to react, just moved on to the next person. It was only after the fact that the moment sank in, and by then he could only appreciate the memory of it instead of enjoying the actual moment.

ooo

"Harry, if he'd jumped, we'd know about it," said Ron. "For one, he probably wouldn't shut up about it...you know how full of himself he is."

Ron and Harry were something of a two-for-one deal. Amidst all the lifesaving that occurred within the Order over the years of fighting, Draco had saved Harry's life. That started the whole "friends" and "bigger piece of cake" thing. Ron soon became his friend as well and even ended up saving his life at one point. Harry started keeping a running score of who had saved whom and how often.

She was another matter completely. Though she had been one of the first to accept him, to believe in his turn, and had encouraged the others to truly give him a chance, Hermione had never gone on missions with Draco. While no one questioned her skills as a fighter, she was too useful as a researcher and strategist to spend long, boring hours on stakeouts waiting to see if anything would happen. Harry and Ron, on the other hand, were always volunteering for anything that might get them involved in a bit of action, regardless of how much waiting around they had to do first, and Draco simply went wherever he was sent. As a result, they had never really become friends. They were cordial, even friendly, but not friends. He wouldn't expect her to show up at his house, unannounced and uninvited, like Harry and Ron did. It had surprised him to learn that it wasn't a three-for-one deal, as he'd assumed. She didn't come with the package, which was fine. Two friends were enough to deal with, considering he'd never had any before.

ooo

"As soon as I do it, Weasley, you'll be the first to know."

Every morning, Draco stood at the edge of the cliff, looking into the water below him. He'd figured out how tall it was...nearly nine hundred feet. Every now and then, he dropped things, just to watch them fall. The first thing he'd thrown over the cliff after moving in was a dinner plate. It was too thin and light, and he hadn't been able to see the splash when it hit the water. Disappointed, he spent the next few days trying to figure out how he could throw things and be sure to see their impact. The pack that had tumbled over the first day he'd been to the cliff had been bulky and heavy and, even though the distance had been great, he'd barely seen the small splash. Finally, he decided to Charm the objects to spark as they fell and then to emit a pulse of light on impact. It worked perfectly and was actually quite spectacular when he dropped things at night.

He started timing how long it took for them to hit the water...six and a half seconds. It seemed like such a small amount of time, but when he watched rocks or dishes or whatever he dropped, make their way down, it seemed he watched for an eternity. Three full breaths...ten heartbeats...four blinks. He'd become obsessed with six and a half seconds as well, trying to find things that took six and a half seconds to do.

For example, an uninterrupted lift could go from the entrance level of the Ministry of Magic to halfway between the third and fourth levels in six and a half seconds, if the journey was not interrupted. He could boil a large pot of water in six and a half seconds. It took him six and a half seconds to walk from the front door of the house he grew up in to the painting of his great-great uncle in a side hallway, the one with the best, most derisive and cutting smirk of any Malfoy he'd seen, the one after which he'd modeled his own smirk.

ooo

Truth be told, Draco wanted to jump off the cliff and fall toward the tumult below. Of course, he did not want to meet the same fate as his unfortunate dishes. No, his deepest desire was to come within inches of death, only to be whisked from its clutches by the broom he Summoned at some point during his fall. But when would he Summon it? Too late, and he would be smashed by the waves and rocks; too soon, and he would be saved outside of those crucial inches, and what would be the point of that at all?

Watching the various objects fall, he felt envious of the precious seconds when they were free...free to tumble this way and that on any whim or breeze. As each object met its fate...crushed and swallowed by the waves and rocks...he cringed slightly. Once he'd even tossed his lunch. In his mind, it could be him, dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks, if his calculations were off even slightly.

He wasn't ready to try the jump. He had told Harry and Ron about it once and had since come to regret it. They mentioned it nearly every time they saw him now. And he was no closer to jumping now than he had been when he told them.

"Have a go now, mate," said Ron, motioning over the edge.

Draco shook his head. "Uh-uh. No audience."

"Then when are you going to try? Maybe you should just...go for it."

"Not until I have worked all the angles," he said firmly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "By the time you're done with the angles, Malfoy, you won't be able to recognize a broom from a light post, you'll be old and grey."

Draco shoved him lightly. "Sod off, Potter. I'll do it ... soon."

The issue was not that he was afraid of heights. He was a Seeker, after all; he flew as naturally as he breathed. He supposed that what held him back was the fact that he wanted to come close to death, within inches. That did not strike him as the desire of a rational, stable individual. Maybe he secretly wished the calculation would be off just a little bit, maybe even by inches. He did not know why he wanted to jump so badly, so he didn't. He was very logical, very methodical. Almost everything he did was pre-meditated, well thought out and well planned. He didn't like making mistakes, so he did everything in his power to be sure he did things right the first time. He would have adopted the Muggle phrase, "measure twice, cut once" as his own personal motto if he'd ever heard it. Only, he would have said, "measure ten times, cut once." Or, "measure ten times, rethink the need to cut, measure twice again, have a cuppa and a nice lie down, then decide whether or not to cut." So he couldn't very well just jump, could he?

After staring down at the water below and throwing a few rocks down, the three friends went inside. Draco gave them a tour, which took all of five minutes. Ron stopped in the second bedroom...more accurately called the "book room"...and gawked at the stacks.

"Blimey, mate, you have almost as many books as Hermione!"

Harry was frowning. "Why are they all on the floor?"

Draco shrugged, herding them out of the room. "Haven't put up shelves," he mumbled.

"Malfoy, you have more money than you could spend in three lifetimes. Get some bookshelves," said Harry.

"I'm thinking about it," he said as they made their way to the main room. They sat.

"What's to think about?" said Ron.

"I have no great need for them."

"You have hundreds of books in stacks on the floor. I think you're approaching 'need' here," said Harry, trying to be helpful.

"I'm getting one for my room, at least," said Draco, a bit defensively. "I decided this morning."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Well, that's something, isn't it? Alert the media; I can see it now: 'Draco Malfoy, ex-Death Eater-Turned-Hero, Buys Bookshelf.'"

Harry grinned and spoke before Draco could make a sarcastic reply. "Malfoy, how many books do you have, exactly?"

"Five hundred twenty three."

"And have you read all of them?"

"Most of them, four hundred or so. I'm slowly working my way through them, and I cannot buy another book until I have read all the ones I already have. I made a deal with myself."

"What happens when you finish?" asked Harry.

Draco blinked. "I will buy a new book," he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"How long do you think it will take you?" asked Ron.

Draco shrugged. "A year, give or take."

Ron shook his head, chuckling. "You really need a girl, mate."

"You mean, like you've got?" said Draco with a sneer.

"Speaking of girls," Harry interrupted quickly. "Ginny and Hermione are coming over. They should be here soon."

Draco's knuckles turned white around the armrest of his chair. He felt a moment of panic. Ginny. And her.

"Why?" he asked, somewhat warily.

Harry shrugged. "They wanted to see your place."

"Why? It's nothing special," he protested.

"Well, we know that now," said Ron teasingly.

Draco glared at him.

Knock, knock, knock.

Draco closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them he would be all alone with no "friends" in his house and no one else, no one who was unquestionably not his friend, outside his door knocking.

Knock, knock.

Blast.

Draco stood and went to the door. He took a deep breath before opening it. Hermione and Ginny were on the front porch holding piles of boxes wrapped in various shiny papers and adorned with bows and ribbons and the like.

"Green door, Malfoy?" said Ginny, frowning slightly.

"I like green," he replied, peering cautiously at the things in Ginny's arms: three wrapped packages, a potted plant and a bottle of Firewhisky.

"I sincerely hope the rest of your house isn't green. It might make me ill."

"What's wrong with my door?" he asked, slightly irritated. First Harry and Ron, and now Ginny. He glanced at Hermione to see if she would say anything about the color, but she was looking elsewhere. "It had to be a color, so why not green?"

"It's just that it's so ... typical," Ginny said matter-of-factly. "Predictable. Do you keep snakes in a pit in the back yard?"

Draco grinned. "Why...want to see them?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Do you intend to keep us out here all day?"

"Oh, no. Would you like to come in, then?"

"I'm not just delivering this stuff," Ginny said. She held out the bottle. "This is from Ron. The plant is from Neville. The rest you'll have to open to see whom they're from."

Draco accepted the bottle as Ginny passed; 1967, a very good year. Then he frowned at Ginny's back. "But ... why?"

Ginny either didn't hear him or pretended not to and disappeared into the sitting room. When Draco turned back to the door, Hermione was just inside it, her own assortment of wrapped packages in her arms.

"I like the green," she said as she passed him.

Draco's eyes widened, but he said nothing, shutting the door and following her into the sitting room. "Granger liked the door," he announced to the room.

Ron snorted. "She doesn't count."

"Why not?" Hermione asked, rounding on him, hands on her hips.

"You always go for the underdog. Everyone else is highly offended by the door, so you like it. That is typical and predictable."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No, Ron, I just happen to like green."

"Since when?" Ron asked, incredulous.

"Since we haven't been at Hogwarts for three years and have better things to base our life choices on than silly schoolchild rivalries," she replied, setting her pile of gifts on the floor by the armchair and taking a seat on the floor to lean against the wall, as there were not enough seats for all five of them.

Ron mumbled something and sat on the sofa beside Harry.

Draco set the load he had carried on the floor in front of his chair.

"What kind of plant is that?" asked Harry. He was sitting beside Ginny, their hands entwined.

"Oh, you know Neville," said Hermione. "Probably some rare species no one has ever heard of. You might want to ask him if it needs feeding or anything. He tends to forget that the rest of us aren't avid herbologists."

Ron rolled his eyes.

"Well, open one," said Ginny, bouncing a little with excitement.

Draco looked down at the colorful boxes. He frowned. "What is this for?"

"A housewarming," said Ginny.

His eyes widened. "A what?"

"Just open," said Ginny insistently.

Draco looked at his feet. There were seven packages, all brightly and festively wrapped. Seven presents for him to open and pretend he liked. Given to him for a housewarming, as though he really needed things for his house. Granted, it was a bit bare .... He sighed. Better get this over with.

The Weasleys had given him a framed picture of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and himself, taken at Headquarters during the celebration after Voldemort was defeated. He, of course, was scowling, but at one point Hermione had poked him, likely in an attempt to get him to smile and unknowingly hitting him in a very sensitive and ticklish spot. He smiled and started squirming to get away from her. He scowled at the picture, but he loved it at the same time.

"Here, hand it over," said Ginny. "I'll see where it should go." She took the picture from him and walked all around the room, frowning in deep concentration. Finally, something made her smile, and she said, "Ah-hah! There!" She proceeded to stick the picture on the large empty wall opposite the window. She smiled, quite pleased with herself, and returned to her seat next to Harry. "Continue," she said.

Charlie had given him a desk set made of dragon leather. Draco's eyes scanned the blotter; it was a deep burgundy color, almost like blood, and it had pockmarks from the dragon feathers. The rest of the set comprised a cup to hold quills, a small box for ink bottles and quill tips, a letter opener whose hilt was a dragon, and a silver quill-sharpener.

The package from Fred and George had been Charmed so that only he could see its contents. They had given him a few new products from their shop. A short note from the twins read: Use the little bottle on Ron for a laugh.

Harry and Ginny gave him a vase...Ginny's idea to be sure...and a thin black mat for the fireplace, guaranteed to catch all the stray ash that comes from Floo travel. The bright, flashing sticker in the corner said it would even keep ash off the traveler's clothes.

Though he had not expected ... well, anything, Draco was surprised to discover how useful all the gifts would be. Except perhaps that vase. The items from Fred and George would be put to good use, make no mistake. And the desk set he could use for the desk in the sitting room.

Ron's offering was candy from Honeydukes, which prompted Ginny to slap him on the back of the head. "Housewarming, idiot!" she said with a scowl.

But Draco grinned at Ron and ripped open the package, pulling out a few pieces before passing it around the room.

There were now two packages left. They were wrapped in brilliant green paper, almost the color of his door, with lighter green and yellow trimmings. They were almost too perfect to open.

"Guess what Hermione got you," said Ron, smirking.

Hermione glared at Ron.

Draco reached for the smaller package, the one that looked suspiciously like a book. Why was he disappointed that she had only given him a book? He had not been expecting any of this, he loved books, and he knew she always gave books as gifts. It really should not matter. He slowly removed the paper and ribbons to reveal "Crime and Punishment," his favorite novel.

It was a hardback edition in excellent condition. He ran his fingers over the title, then opened the pages. Ah. It smelled like an old book. But he frowned. Because it was his favorite book, he had at least two copies in his possession already. And she knew it was his favorite book, so surely she had to know he already owned a copy. They'd talked very little about actual life things during the War, relegating their conversations to the issues at hand. But books were something they both loved, so on the rare occasions they did talk, books was a safe topic. She didn't have a favorite and told him that she loved them all nearly equally.

He looked at her quizzically.

"Second edition," she said with a small shrug. "I tried for a first, but it was a little hard to find. And out of my price range."

That was different. He looked at the book in awe.

"Hey, Malfoy, it's not a brick of gold, or anything," said Ron. "Come on, you've got one more."

He reluctantly set the book on the table...carefully!...and reached for the last package. It too was wrapped in green paper, and he looked at Hermione, again puzzled. Two?

"Just open it," she said, not quite meeting his eye.

He did. It was a framed painting of the constellation with which he shared his name. The stars that made up the image were brighter than the thousands around them, and all the stars twinkled like tiny precious gems. Occasionally, a shooting star made its way across the sky. He had no words to express how he felt at this gift.

"I thought...for your room," she said, somewhat nervously. "I mean, if you don't like it, then..."

"No, I do," he said, still mesmerized by the painting. Everyone was silent, watching him. "Thanks, Hermione." He paused, still staring. "I mean, 'thanks' isn't enough, really. I...I don't know what to say."

She beamed at him. "I'm glad you like it."

He could only nod.

"So, can we get the tour now?" said Ginny, after a moment of silence.

"Uhm, sure," he said, standing, and putting the painting down...even more carefully! "This is the sitting room. The kitchen is right there," he said, pointing to the room. "There are two bedrooms upstairs. One bathroom, also upstairs." He sat down.

"That's it?" said Ginny, unbelieving.

"That's it," he confirmed.

Ginny gaped at him. "You mean, it really is as small as it looks?"

He nodded.

Ginny shook her head in apparent disbelief and stood to walk around the house. "Hermione. Care to have a look upstairs with me?" she asked, extending her hand to pull Hermione from the floor. She accepted, and they disappeared up the stairs.

Draco glared at Harry and Ron, who were looking anywhere but at him. "Explain," he growled finally.

"Well, Ginny wanted to see your place, and she'll jump at any excuse to go shopping."

"That explains Ginny and you," Draco said with his jaw set.

"She only told her family about it, Draco; she wanted to do something nice for you. They rounded up a few things too ... so ... surprise?" Harry looked like he was trying to be convincing but failing miserably.

"Gifts, Potter? Now what...you going to expect thank-you notes or something? With a little 'M' for Malfoy, and wax seals and fancy parchment?"

"No, of course not," said Harry hastily.

Ginny and Hermione returned after a few minutes; there really wasn't much of anything to see, anyway. Hermione was strangely quiet, and she looked as though she were thinking hard about something. His friends and the girls stayed for dinner. He hadn't planned on guests, but he loved a challenge, especially in the kitchen. Fortunately, he didn't care much for shopping, so his freezer was well stocked. A quick spell thawed a couple of racks of lamb loin chops, which he frenched, seasoned and arranged as a crown roast, and placed in the oven along with a pan of potatoes and root vegetables, drizzled with olive oil. A salad of sliced tomatoes and fresh herbs completed the meal. They nibbled on aged gouda, cambozola and Greek olives while dinner cooked.

Ginny especially made it a point to comment on his cooking and the fact that he, Draco Malfoy, former Man-Priss, not only knew the difference between a spatula and a spoonula, but could cook a gourmet meal without burning down the house. She looked pointedly at Harry when she said this. Harry started talking loudly to Ron.

Draco merely smirked and watched as she devoured the meal.

Hermione, however, only picked at her plate. He really wanted her to like it; of everyone present, she had to be the one who liked his food. But she was just pushing it around and frowning.

Then, about three quarters the way through the meal, when he couldn't stand it anymore and was just leaning over to ask her what was wrong, her head jerked around to look at him, a triumphant sparkle in her eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I've got it!" And she promptly stood up from the table and ran up the stairs.

Harry, Ron and Ginny stared at him. "What?" he said.

"What did you do?" asked Ron, suspiciously.

"Nothing! I did nothing! She just went bonkers on me."

Hermione came noisily down the stairs looking quite pleased with herself and resumed her seat at the table. Then she started eating as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Everyone was staring at her, like she really had gone nutty, while she happily took bite after bite.

"Harry, would you pass the potatoes?" she said, looking up. She frowned when she noticed that everyone was staring at her and no one else was eating. "What?" she asked.

"Erm, Hermione. What was all that about just now?" asked Ron. "You ran up the stairs like a madwoman, and now you're ... eating. Just like that."

"Oh," she said, waving her hand in dismissal. "Nothing." They continued to stare at her. She rolled her eyes and said, "I just figured out the pattern and had to check to make sure I was right."

Draco was glad all eyes were on Hermione because his jaw dropped.

"And were you?" asked Harry.

"Of course."

"What pattern?" said Ginny.

Hermione glanced at Draco out of the corner of her eye. He managed to close his mouth as he watched her return her gaze to her friends. "Nothing. Never mind," she said.

Harry, Ron and Ginny whined and pouted and basically refused to allow the meal to continue in peace until she explained. Hermione sighed and looked at Draco again. He gave her the slightest nod, indicating that it was okay with him for her to divulge what she'd done, to reveal his little quirk.

"The books. Upstairs. They're organized. I figured out the pattern."

She was again met with silence and incredulous looks from her three friends, but Draco couldn't stop a small smile forming on his lips as he watched her eyes, brimming with excitement at her success.

"That's...disturbing," said Ron, shaking his head as if to shake off the feeling he got when thinking about organizing that many books.

Ginny only shrugged and returned to her dinner. But Harry was looking at Hermione.

"What's the pattern?" he asked her.

Draco saw her cheeks flush, and she looked at him again. Now Ginny and Ron were watching too. Draco raised one eyebrow and folded his napkin, giving her his full attention.

"Author's last name," she started, still looking at Draco, only now as if for confirmation that she had been correct. "Second letter from the end, moving backwards if the letters were the same between names."

Ron dropped his fork; Ginny stared at Hermione, eyes as wide as her plate; Harry looked as though he'd seen a ghost; and Draco was calmly eating again. Hermione looked at her plate and set her fork down.

"You two," said Ron, mouth full, "are sick."

"Agreed," said Ginny.

But Draco noticed that Harry was looking at him and Hermione as though he had never met either of them before. And Draco didn't like that look, not one little bit.

Nothing else happened. His guests stayed for dessert and made more ridiculously witty remarks about his glaringly white walls, then left him in peace. But not before Ginny poked her head back in through the door and said, "I'll be back tomorrow with paint samples. Night, Malfoy!" Then she whipped her head out of the doorframe and was gone before he could protest. Oh, well, maybe the walls needed painting anyway.

Draco made his way slowly to his room, taking the book and painting from Hermione with him. He stopped to peer into his book room and frowned at the books. Then he set the painting and book on the floor in the hallway and spent the next five hours rearranging the stacks of books.

At nearly four in the morning, he finished, then resumed his walk to his room. See if she can figure that one out so easily, he thought with a self-satisfied smirk.

Draco hung the picture on the wall opposite his bed. It was only when he stepped back to make sure it was hanging level...precisely two-thirds of the way up the wall...that he saw it.

There, written in silver paint, in the bottom right hand corner, was the artist's signature: H. Granger. Draco stared at the painting with a fresh wave of awe, once again mesmerized. She had done it. Just for him. He didn't know she painted; he really didn't know that much about her at all.

He liked it. He loved it. But that voice in the back of his head he hadn't heard in a few months was suddenly making itself heard again. It told him he'd never been given a gift like that, that it wasn't the kind of gift a friend gives, much less someone whom he could only consider an acquaintance.

The voice insisted that there was more to the gift than just the painting, that she was trying to tell him something and that he needed to find out what. The voice, however, sounded too much like his mother's voice, and she had already completely addled his mind.

He sighed. The last thing he wanted at that moment was to really think about her and listen to the running commentary in his mind. If he were to let his thoughts run amok, to go wherever they might go ... well, he could not be sure of where they would end.

Because what she'd done, what she'd given him, was more special, more ... intimate, than a gift from a mere acquaintance, if he allowed himself to admit it. More than a friend, even. Maybe a very good friend, but they weren't friends. At all. So he was really confused.

And he was sad. He didn't know anyone, really. Not really. Not well enough to know what they were thinking without Legilimancy. And he felt alone, even staring at all the twinkling star-gems surrounding him...Draco, the Dragon.

ooo

Note: I wanted to get the first chapter of this posted before Deathly Hallows. I've been working on this one for a long time, and I really hope you like it. I have a TON of people to thank for their help on this, and I'll go chronologically. First, to Z, for getting through the first draft and whipping the story around. Next to eilonwy, for being a great beta and telling me that the story needed more work and making me keep going. Then to Buzzy, for her excellent beta job, and finally a little thanks to kazfeist, for helping me with Charlie's gift.