A/N: trying to get some chapters out so when school starts hopefully the story will be further along.

Super excited for my new drarry's that I'll be posting at some point. I was thinking that I should post them after I've finished the fourth book in this series (the last) but I don't know. Tell me what you think, maybe?

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

******

February. The snow had melted away, the sun beginning to shine down upon Hogwarts again. No longer were the grounds covered in the ugly brown snow that had become of the once fluffy white.

Harry was sitting by the window in Draco's room, looking out across the darkened grounds. The memory he'd been told to retrieve had been one of the only things on his mind.

He'd been constantly on alert for any Slughorn parties that he could use to his advantage, and had been overly nice to the man as of late. He was simply awaiting the right moment, where he'd corner the man and pounce. One way or another, he was getting this memory.

Draco was fast asleep in his bed, chest rising and falling with every breath. Harry cast him a worried gaze.

Draco had been hunting through the library at an alarmingly fast rate, searching for any sign of the term 'horcrux'. He hadn't found anything, but wasn't prepared to give up yet. Harry could see that he was tiring himself out, spending his days struggling through classes and his afternoons either off doing something else, reading in the library, or doing homework. Before, all he had wanted to do was sleep, and now he was lucky when he got the chance to.

Harry hated seeing him in such a state or perpetual exhaustion. Remus was worried sick, he'd been writing to Harry a lot recently. Harry had been to everyone that he could think of; Snape had no idea, Newt was confused as well when Harry had sent him a letter. And if those two didn't know what was going on, then Madam Pomfrey or St Mungos would probably be just as useless.

Harry sighed, standing up and closing the curtains of the window. Trying not to disturb the werewolf too much, he climbed into the bed next to him. He wrapped his arms around Draco, who unconsciously snuggled up against him.

******

A few days later...

******

Draco awoke, blinking open his eyes and groaning in pain. He'd fallen asleep on the floor of the Room Of Requirement, and was now regretting ever being born. His head pounded like someone had smashed it in with a hammer, eyes stinging with tears. His hair was a wild mess, back aching horribly as he sat up.

He was surrounded by mountains of books and parchment, glaring hatefully at the black cabinet. He'd made progress, sure, but it wasn't enough.

He heaved himself to his feet, trying not to cry. He wouldn't cry, this was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. He felt stupid, trying for so long when the outcome was inevitably going to either kill him, or leave him completely drained of magic.

After composing himself slightly, he found a mirror and tried to fix his hair. He grabbed his bag, trotting down the many staircases from the seventh floor to the dungeons. He would be late for his potions class if he didn't hurry up. Thankfully, he wasn't amongst the latest, and found his spot next to Harry.

"You look awful," Harry said worriedly, locking eyes with Draco. "Where were you last night?"

"Library," Draco half lied. With the hysterical amount of books he now had in the Room Of Requirement, it was kind of true.

"Your wearing yourself down, go back to bed for gods sakes. In fact, I don't want to be here either, so I'll come with you-" Harry started, intending to to their dorm when Slughorn walked in. Harry cursed under his breath.

"Now, today class, we will be studying Galapagotts theory for antidotes! Can anyone tell me what it is?" Slughorn asked loudly. Hermione's hand shot into the air, as per usual. She recited off the law that in Harry's head was just a jumbled up bunch of large words that he didn't care about.

"Very good, Ms Granger! Now, today, using Galapagotts theory, we will be making an antidote for the poison provided. Begin!"

Harry flipped through his potions book, hoping that there'd be some notes left by the Prince that'd help him through this. Sadly, there was nothing there. He groaned in despair. In the top left corner, the Prince had simply scribbled: 'just shove a bezoar down their throats.' A bezoar? Wasn't that the thing Snape had mentioned in his first year?

"Don't worry, I'll help," Draco yawned, lighting the fire underneath his own cauldron. Harry smiled thankfully at him. Obviously Draco knew what he was doing; potions was the only class he wasn't failing right now.

The room was filled with the bubbling of cauldrons and multicoloured smoke, students talking and Slughorn giving advice. Harry copied everything Draco did, his potion going well so far.

Up until one point.

Harry lay eyes on three of the ingredients and swore again, embarrassingly loudly.

Garlic, which was deadly to him. The leaves of the juniper plant, which blocked all of his powers. Ash of the aspen tree... which would make him violently ill. Draco saw this all instantly, Harry nearly swaying in spot as his senses were blocked and he fought the urge to vomit.

"Okay, okay, okay," Draco said, immediately extinguishing both of their cauldrons. "Sir?" He asked, Slughorn coming over. "Harry's not very well."

"Ah," Slughorn said worriedly. "Take him to the hospital wing, would you?"

"Of course," Draco said, grabbing his and Harry's bags, steering the vampire out of the room.

Harry looked like he was about to throw up, face a pale shade of green. "I can't be sick today," he mumbled sluggishly. "I've got stuff to do. Talk to Slughorn and apparation lessons..."

"Yeah, well, you can do all that later," Draco said, grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him down the corridor. The further away they got from the room filled with aspen tree ashes, garlic and juniper leaves, the better. Of course Draco wasn't going to take Harry to the hospital wing, that'd be the end of it all, it would take Madam Pomfrey ten seconds to realise that Harry wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating.

Harry stumbled along, leaning heavily on him. Clearly being in a room full of traditional vampire repellents wasn't doing very good things. Draco dumped both of their bags by the coffee table in their dorm, falling onto one of the couches. He was relieved that he got to skip out on class for the morning, but then simply confused as Harry fell into his lap.

He looked fine.

"Are you serious?" Draco deadpanned.

"Well, I did feel sick, but then we left the room... so..." Harry said, grinning as he wrapped his arms around Draco's neck.

Draco frowned at him. "You little liar," he growled, but couldn't hold back an amused smirk.

"Oh, don't give me that," Harry purred, running a hand through Draco's hair, leaning in. "You love me."

"Sadly," Draco whispered back, Harry rolling his eyes at him before pressing their lips together, Draco closing his eyes.

Despite being one of the most dangerous things on this planet, Harry made him so incredibly comforted. Even though he was a complete carnivorous monster, Harry was being so gentle with him when he knew that Draco wasn't well. Instead of the fiery fits of passion and teenage hormones that had previously caused their intense make-out sessions, now he was caring and loving, giving Draco ample time to breathe between kisses.

Harry pulled away slowly, eyes fluttering open, revealing the deep crimson beneath. He lifted a pale, grey skinned hand, trailing his cold fingertips down the side of Draco's face and making the werewolf shiver. Harry felt like he could lose himself in Draco's eyes, spotting specks of pale blue amongst the stormy grey and silver. "I love you so much," he whispered, threading his fingers through Draco's soft hair, nuzzling into his neck.

"I love you too."

******

Apparation. That sickly, whirly, weird, drunken flying around thingy that Harry hated with a passion. Sure, being able to basically teleport was kind of cool, but it would be a heck of a lot cooler if it didn't make the vampire want to throw up his lunch.

Harry sat with the other students in his group. The students had been split into two groups, and the other group's lesson was after lunch. Lunch, which Harry was going to go and hunt down Slughorn during.

Ron was in Harry's group, but sadly, Draco and Hermione weren't. Harry and Ron were... kind of talking again. Ron was edging away from Lavender, very slowly, but Harry could still see it happening. Hermione was still as resentful, and downright refused to be in Ron's company most of the time.

"Are you excited?" Ron asked, looking excited to be here himself. "I mean, Fred and George don't even have to walk anymore, they just Apparate to the fridge and back to the couch again."

Harry snorted. "Not really. Apparation feels pretty awful."

"Oh," Ron replied, but he didn't look too disheartened.

The doors opened to the hall, and in walked Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and a Ministry wizard Harry didn't recognise. He was an oddly wispy man, seeming slightly transparent in an odd way.

"Good morning," said the wizard after everyone had arrived and the teachers had called for quiet. "My name is Wilkie Twycross, and I will be your apparation instructor for the next twelve weeks. I will be preparing you for your apparation test in this time. As you may know, it is impossible to Apparate or disapparate within Hogwarts walls, but the headmaster has lifted this enchantment on this room for an hour only. It would be unwise to try and Apparate outside of this space."

Harry was half expecting Newt to appear in the room and joyously disprove this theory, but sadly the magizoologist didn't appear and Harry was forced to carry on listening to the old man.

"Right, now I'd like you all to stand up and make sure that there's five feet of space in front of you."

There was scrambling as people got up and tried to get spots near their friends. Harry just aimed for the darkest corner, furthest away from the windows. Large, wooden hoops that Harry vaguely recognised as hula hoops appeared in front of everyone, five feet away.

"Right! Now, the main thing you want to remember are the three D's-" Harry snorted loudly. "Destination, determination, deliberation! Step one, fix your mind on the desired destination, so, in this case, the interior of the hoop."

Harry gazed, bored, at the dusty patch of floor inside the round hoop. He tried to block everything else out of his mind, but that proved to be quite difficult. What if you tried to Apparate, at exactly the same time as someone else, to the exact same spot? Would you merge and become one weird person? Had that happened before? Wait, could he Apparate through time as well? Wouldn't that be fantastic!

"Next, focus your determination to occupy that space!"

Harry glanced around. Neville was looking terrified, and Ron was concentrating so hard on the hoop his face had gone red and it looked like he was straining to lay an egg. Harry had to stifle a laugh, returning his gaze back to his hoop.

"Step three! And only when I give the command, turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation! On my command, now, one, two, three!"

Harry sighed, but did as he was told on the command. Nothing happened, as expected. People staggered around, falling over. Neville had fallen flat on his back, and Ron had done some sort of odd, pirouetting twirl into his hoop. He looked positively thrilled until Dean Thomas started laughing hysterically at him.

The second attempt was fruitless, as was the third. By now Harry was contemplating making a loud cracking noise with a spell and simply turning into a cloud of smoke and flying into the hoop. It'd certainly save time for him.

Not until his fifth attempt did anything actually happen. A loud crack echoed, and Harry recognised that strange and nauseating feeling of being tugged and pulled into one hundred directions at once. Then suddenly he was sitting on the floor inside the hoop, aware that he now had a huge headache... and the right side of vision had completely cut out.

For a moment he panicked, wiping off his glasses, but realised that it wasn't them as he could still see from his left eye. Looking over, what was left inside the hoop five feet away made him cringe.

His right eyeball had been left behind.

For a split second he snorted in laughter. Really?! He'd left his eye behind? Now his sight was even more pathetic. The hall was so full of people that no one had noticed, so he got to his feet, still shaking out of shock. He picked up his eye (whilst cringing) and hid the now blood covered half of his face as he walked towards McGonagall.

"Erm," he began, McGonagall frowning at him. "Yeah, professor, I did the thing, but uh-"

"Oh dear," she said, but she looked proud of him nonetheless. "Are you in a particular amount of pain?"

"Not really."

"Well then, go sit over there. Eyes can be fixed, not to worry, you'll just need to go to the hospital wing at the end of the session with the others who will no doubt be splinched."

Harry nodded, sitting down on a bench. He'd been the only one to Apparate which made him happy, but at the same time he was a little disheartened. Harry splinching himself was the most interesting thing that happened that lesson.

"How'd you do?" Ron asked excitedly, having not noticed his missing eye, or the wad of bloody tissues Harry was holding. "I think I felt something on that last one, a sort of tingling or something."

"Yeah, I apparated, but-" he turned his face, Ron yelping in fright at the dark hole in Harry's face. "Left an eye behind." He held up his eye, studying it with slight disgust.

"Does it hurt? Also, that's disgusting."

"Yeah, it hurts," Harry replied, standing up. "I have to go to Madam Pomfrey. Might freak out some first years on the way."

Ron grinned at this. "I'll join you, then."

Leering at the first years whilst missing an eye was absolutely as hilarious as you'd expect. They shrieked in fright, and even some of the students from second, third and fourth year cried out in fear and disgust.

Madam Pomfrey fixed it with a wave of her wand, and Harry hurried out quickly so she wouldn't have a chance to figure out he was dead.

Right. Now that his eye was back in his head and functional, he had to go and find Slughorn.

He'd already decided he was going to replicate the same conversation that Tom Riddle had with Slughorn. If Tom got the information out of him using those words, then it might work again.

He arrived at Slughorn's office and drew in a breath, composing himself quickly before raising a pale, black finger nailed hand to the door and knocking. "Come in!" Time to turn on the charismatic charm and use his pretty face and cleverness to his advantage.

Harry pushed open the door, seeing the Professor sitting by the fireplace, and uncannily, like in the memory, he was eating some crystallised pineapple. "Ah! Harry! Nice to see you!"

"Same to you, Professor. I wanted to apologise for this morning, I don't know what came over me, I suddenly just wasn't feeling well," Harry said.

Slughorn waved it off. "Absolutely fine. I know you'd be more than capable of creating the antidote anyways," he held up the box of crystallised pineapple. Harry sighed inwardly. It begins.

"No thanks," Harry said, trying not to be freaked out whilst trying to remember what Riddle had said. This was more than a little unnerving, after all, he was going to be acting like the man who'd killed his parents. "You see, Sir, I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away."

"I wanted to ask you if you perhaps knew anything about... horcruxes?"

It was the same as in the memory, as if someone had flipped a switch. Slughorn's once pleasant expression turned darker.

"Dumbledore sent you, didn't he?"

"I, well," Harry said before sighing. "Yes."

"I have nothing to say to you, I'm afraid," Slughorn replied harshly. "Now out, you're going to be back in class soon."

******

"How'd it go?" Draco asked as they walked into the library.

"Well, I didn't get the memory, but he didn't yell at me, so..." Harry trailed off. "I got splinched today, though."

"What did you leave behind?"

"My eye. Freaked out loads of people."

Draco frowned in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, took a few seconds to fix it," Harry replied. "Did you find anything else?"

"No," Draco scowled, Harry sitting down, Draco beginning to pull books off the shelves. "I think we're looking in the wrong place. I need to get a note from Severus to get into the restricted section, or I'll just forge one I suppose."

Harry snorted, opening one of the books. They'd been here for half an hour when Ron walked in, sitting down next to Harry and dumping his head on the desk. Harry stared at him for a few seconds.

"Uh, Ron, you okay?" Harry asked, poking the redhead's shoulder.

Ron just groaned loudly. "She won't leave me alone."

Draco rolled his eyes, going back to the book he'd been flipping lazily through. "Just dump her already."

"I can't," Ron said miserably. "She won't let me."

The next half an hour was spent with the three theorising ways to get rid of Lavender. "I could just kill her," Harry suggested.

"Yeah, probably not for the best," Ron sighed. "What if you just-"

"Uh, hi, Harry!" A female voice interrupted the redhead, who turned, seeing a girl he vaguely recognised there. Harry frowned, trying to recall her name, and Draco simply glared.

"Hi, Romilda," Romilda Vane, that was her name, right? Harry swore that he could remember Hermione saying something about her, but he couldn't quite remember.

She smiled, looking pleased that he knew her name. "Er, well, I know it's late, but I haven't been able to find you around the castle since Christmas, so," she pulled a box of what Harry recognised were chocolate cauldrons. "Merry Christmas."

By now Draco was suppressing angry growls as Harry thanked her and took the box. She blushed furiously and disappeared around the corner.

"Well that was rather pointless," Harry said, frowning at the candy. "It's the middle of February, and I can't eat these anyways." Ron grinned, pulling them towards him instead.

"See, Harry, can't you just seduce Lavender or something and I can just rightfully dump her for cheating?"

Draco did growl at this point. Ron gave him a weird look, but Draco pretended to be clearing bis throat. "Probably not a good idea." Harry rolled his eyes, going back to the book. Silence descended on them for another few minutes as they read, Ron stuffing his face with the chocolate cauldrons.

"Harry!" Ron gasped after a while. Harry looked up, wanting to know if he'd found anything about horcruxes. "I think I love her!" He blurted.

Both the werewolf and vampire stared at him incredulously. "We've been discussing ways to get rid of her all evening and now you love her?"

"Get rid of her?!" Ron asked, as if it was the most horrifying thing his mind could conjure up. "Why would I want to get rid of her? I love her!"

"Alright then," Harry said, rolling his eyes and turning back to his book.

"You don't get it!" Ron suddenly cried, shoving Harry dramatically. "I love her!" The vampire fell onto Draco, who helped him sit back up.

"Watch it, Weasley," Draco growled angrily, eyes narrowed.

"Okay, you love her, we get it," Harry huffed, shifting away from the redhead who was now staring dreamily at the wall in front of him. "You've been snogging her for the past few months, so-"

"Who are you on about?"

"Your girlfriend, Lavender," Harry said, frowning in confusion.

"Lavender?" Ron asked incredulously. "I'm not talking about Lavender."

Draco's glare deepened as his eyes found the box of chocolate cauldrons. "Romilda Vane, of course!" Draco nearly face-palmed. Of course she wasn't here to just to try and win Harry over with some stupid candy, she'd tried to drug him. Draco had to repress the urge to go and hunt down the idiotic girl and rip her head off, but instead he grabbed the box. Sure enough, he could smell traces of amortentia there.

Harry seemed to realise. "Oh, great," he growled.

"Harry," Ron whispered, wide-eyed. "Do you think you could introduce me? You know her, don't you?"

Harry thought quickly. Although this could be rather amusing, Ron couldn't stay like this. Was there any way he could use this to his advantage, by any chance?

Of course, Slughorn! They'd take Ron and ask Slughorn to fix him. Harry could apologise and try to get on his good side, and perhaps pry a bit more. "Yeah, sure. How about we go and introduce you now?"

Draco glared at Harry now, to which Harry replied with a smirk. The vampire, while listening to Ron prattle on about if he looked okay and how nervous he was, scribbled down Slughorn's name on a spare piece of parchment. Draco caught on, standing up.

With Ron babbling happily about Romilda, they led him down to the dungeons and to Slughorn's office, knocking on the door.

"Yes, what-" Slughorn opened the door, but when he saw Harry he abruptly tried to close it. Harry didn't let him, shoving his foot in the door.

"Sorry to bother you, professor, but it's rather urgent," Harry replied.

"Is Romilda in there?" Ron asked stupidly, trying to peer into the room.

"Er, love potion," Harry said. "Someone slipped it to him."

"Oh," Slughorn replied, looking regretful as he opened the door to let the three inside, Draco guiding Ron over to the couch. Slughorn tried not to meet Harry's gaze as he walked over to a cabinet of potions, sorting through it.

"Where's Romilda?" Ron asked groggily, looking around.

"She'll be here in a moment," Draco sighed, wondering why on earth he was here in the first place. Oh, that's right, someone tried to drug my mate so I'm here helping fix up this idiot.

"Professor, I wanted to say sorry for what happened earlier, it was tactless-"

"No, no, it's fine," Slughorn said, looking rather flustered as he found the potion he was looking for. "A misunderstanding, that's all."

Harry nodded slowly. Not really a misunderstanding, but as long as it was behind them. He'd find another way to get that memory.

"What's this?" Ron asked suspiciously, glaring at the potion Slughorn was holding, taking it.

"Er, something to make you more handsome for when you go and see Romilda," Slughorn tried hopefully. Ron seemed to accept this explanation, and downed the potion.

Harry sighed in relief as the lovesick look Ron had been wearing melted away. Now he just looked rather pale and sick, eyes wide. "W-What happened?"

"Love potion," Harry answered, yawning.

"I don't feel great," Ron mumbled, holding a hand to his head.

"Love potions do that to you," Slughorn said, walking over to another cabinet. "No worries, you just need a pick-me-up. How does a glass of mead sound? I was supped to give this to Dumbledore as a gift, but you know," Slughorn popped open a bottle of aged mead, pouring four glasses. He handed one to each of the boys, Ron downing his immediately.

Draco's eyes, however, were locked on the bottle. Something was wrong here, very, very wrong. He recognised that bottle from somewhere.

Harry merely stared at the golden liquid in his own glass. Perhaps if he could get Slughorn drunk, he'd get the memory-

Harry's train of thought was abruptly cut off as Ron began to choke. His face was paler than Harry's, eyes wide as saucers. He clearly couldn't breathe. Slughorn dropped his own glass out of shock, Draco slamming his down on the table as he put two and two together, running to one of the ingredient cupboards.

Harry was panicked, wondering what the hell was going on. "Ron? Ron, what's happening?"

Draco let out a growl if frustration. He knew what he was looking for, and if it wasn't here, then this evening would end in disaster. Finally, he found a small box, and tore the lid off. Inside were several odd looking stones. He grabbed one of them, and quickly made his way back over to Ron, who's face had now gone a chilling shade of blue.

Slughorn was panicking, having no idea what was going on. Harry, too, looked like he was having a minor panic attack. Draco tried to stay as calm as he could, shoving the small stone into Ron's mouth and holding his mouth shut until he swallowed.

Finally, the choking stopped, and he began breathing shakily. Harry and Slughorn stared at Ron, and then Draco. Draco didn't say a word, eyes flickering to the bottle before he turned on his heel and left the room.

Draco's emotions were practically exploding as he ran through the halls, dashing up the stairs to the seventh floor. It took him seconds to open the Room Of Requirement, slamming the door behind him, collapsing to the floor. Harry couldn't find him here, so he'd be alone for a while.

That bottle had been from Grimmauld Place. He'd seen it while in the wine cellar over the holidays, when he was exploring different parts of the large house. The bottle hadn't seemed particularly interesting then, of course, but he knew that he'd seen it down there.

He couldn't remember poisoning the bottle... but who else could have done it? It was addressed to Dumbledore, and with what had happened with the necklace... was it really such a stretch to assume that he'd done it?

What scared him most was the fact that he couldn't remember doing it. Did that mean he'd already tried to kill Dumbledore in many different ways already? Had he done something like this, and it simply hadn't gotten to Dumbledore yet? Was the headmaster in danger because of him again?

Draco pulled his knees to his chest, holding back tears. Now he couldn't even trust himself. He felt like he was going insane, tears slipping down his cheeks. Yet instead of washing away his problems like he wished they would, they seemed to be washing away his soul instead.