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Of the 116 Hogwarts students who took part in the final battle May 2, 1998, only five are officially invited to the Ministry's first anniversary memorial. Those five receive engraved invitations and VIP treatment, because they are officially acknowledged heroes and where would the world be without their contributions, but relatively speaking, the numbers are off and everyone with any sense at all knows it.
The Ministry appears unaware of it.
No one at Hogwarts has that luxury.
So while the select five—and Potter's obvious plus-one—spend their Saturday night glad-handing at a gala and smiling tightly through obscene displays of gratitude from the doyens of society, the rest of the school finds other ways to spend their time.
For the lucky, there's the chance to go home, to spend the time with family. For the exceedingly lucky, there's an entire family to return to, no empty chairs at the dinner table and no one missing.
For the rest, there's the Pensieve Project.
::
Project organiser Draco Malfoy—mastermind, Finnegan jokes agreeably—is prepared to handle up to 50 students in the reclaimed basement classroom repurposed as D.A. headquarters this year. That's actually 30 more than he's been lead to believe will be coming, but he likes to plan big. Tends to fail big, as well, obviously, but he's trying not to think about that.
Instead, he focuses on what he might accomplish, if it all turns out as it should. Heady stuff, that.
Everyone knows Potter's side of things, it's been everywhere in the press for ages, and that's not what the Pensieve Project is about. Actually, Potter's lamentable ubiquity is the reason there's a Pensieve Project at all, because it's not like the rest of them lack stories.
Christ Merlin, Potter wasn't even there for the worst of it, the thickest, messiest bits no one from the outside ever really acknowledges about that Lost Year.
Draco hates that, and he means to change it, one stored memory at a time. Fifty students, three memories apiece, that's only going to scratch the surface, probably, but it's still bloody more than anyone else has done for them.
He sets out drinks and snacks and chairs, lines row on row of empty phials waiting to be filled, and runs through the spell again to be sure he's got it perfectly.
For all he's practised, it's no surprise that he has.
And when the first students start trickling in, curious and wary, dressed for the better places they'll go when they're done here, Draco finds himself slipping into character, part well-bred host, part security measure. He reminds himself of his father in their better years, though he doubts anyone would appreciate how.
And when Dean Thomas tips his wand to his temple and draws the first silver thread of memory under Draco's worried watch, it's not victory Draco feels so much as it's sweet, blessed relief.
If nothing else, he can console himself that he hasn't spent four months making a Pensieve for nothing.
And when Thomas tips the phial into the bowl and Draco finds himself invited into Thomas and Finnegan making a complete mockery of detention, baiting Carrow flat-out in defence of a pair of wide-eyed third-years, all Draco feels is pride.
Really, the Outside has no clue what they're missing, how incredible these students are.
::
Thomas isn't the first person to set aside a memory for the Pensieve Project, though Draco's not sure Longbottom counts. It's partly his idea, for one thing, so of course he'd participate, and for another, it's only just the one at first, because he swears he's coming back, but more than that, it's that it's Longbottom, who's had Draco's back since partway through that Lost Year and who is the closest thing Draco has to a best friend at this school without Blaise or Pansy.
Draco's not certain he can call it friendship, what's between Longbottom and himself, but it comes close enough. Just, sometimes the word friendship pales, because they understand each other better than Draco thinks either one of them should and they get on better than anyone expects, and really, if he were a swoony-eyed second-year, he'd probably think it a terrible tragedy that Longbottom's straight. Probably for the best he is, though, because look how well that's turned out.
The whole Pensieve Project thing threatens to be overwhelming, more difficult than even Draco's considered, and he'd give every last Knut in the vaults he doesn't have anymore to have Longbottom here with him for it, only in truly Ministerial fuckwittery, Longbottom's one of the five who gets an invitation. Draco cannot be the reason he doesn't go, either, because if anyone at this school deserves to have the Ministry and society and, just, the whole of Britain kissing their arse, it's Longbottom, who's being recognised for his actions in battle but who'd done so much more that Lost Year.
Leave it to the Ministry to recognise the right wizard for all the wrong things, Draco thinks, and he's pulled out of his own thoughts by a sniffling third-year having trouble with her wandwork, a fat swell of memory threatening to splatter on the stone floor if she doesn't get a bigger phial to contain it quickly.
::
He gets a fair few of the D.A. stopping by, mostly out of curiosity at first, because Pensieves are expensive and generally impossible to find. He's had to make this one, so he gets a few older Ravenclaws who stop by to talk Runes because now they think he's an expert and it's incredibly tempting to pretend he is, that he's not in that class almost purely because nothing else would fit his schedule properly.
He doesn't tell them the Pensieve's not actually a NEWT Runes project; that it's his answer to the Remedial Muggle Studies practical and that it might well be what gets him off parole permanently if it all works out. It's no secret he's not allowed to take NEWTs-level Defence Against the Dark Arts this year, or that the Ministry's got a class running for the select few who aren't, unofficially weekly parole sessions at best to be sure they're all fit to rejoin society once they leave the school, but Draco's fairly sure his Auror-Professor wouldn't appreciate Draco discussing the details outside the classroom.
He's not hiding who and what he's been—he really can't at this school—but that's not what tonight's about. Not precisely.
Because there'd been that point last year, between the start of the detention squads and when everyone had grown the calluses they'd needed to get through it, where it hadn't mattered which particular side you'd been on, only just that you were stuck in it, that you couldn't escape, either.
And maybe Draco hadn't been Longbottom organising his underground to freedom, maybe he hadn't been Lovegood in the dungeons arsing off his aunt in sweet, sing-song mutiny, but he'd been a visible target in these corridors, one with the ability to talk down the detention squads sometimes, constantly aware he was living on time borrowed from the second coming of Merlin.
Survivors' guilt is such a small phrase, and such a massive obligation.
Yeah, Longbottom can't get here quickly enough for Draco's peace of mind, because he needs a moment to compose himself before the next wave of curious students comes in.
::
Mill arrives 45 minutes after the doors opened and she stays, just settles into a chair and puts her feet up like she means to root herself just where she is forever. He's had maybe 20 students so far, with another hour or so left before he can even start assuming anything about attendance, and when he's done explaining how the Pensieve Project works to a lone and skittish sixth-year, Draco finds himself abandoned with only Mill for company.
She smirks at him and chews her biscuit slowly, eyeing the crate he's packed with memories.
"Decent turnout?" she asks, like she knows.
"Decent enough, considering." It's not an official Hogwarts event, not even a party as such, and he's trying not to take it personally. There's still time, he thinks, and that might be the new bloody motto of this school, that nothing's set in stone yet, that there's still possibility everywhere.
She hums agreeably. "They're putting on a spread in the Great Hall, if you want to pop up for a nibble of something." She looks around the empty room. "I think I can hold down the fort for you, if you're quick."
"No, thank you," he says flatly. "Were you here for anything in particular, or did you want a phial?"
"Just one?" She blinks at him with an innocence she cannot possibly mean. "But I've heard we get three each, don't we?"
"That's the plan, yeah." Then, because he knows Mill's in Remedial Muggle Studies for a reason, he says, "More, if you want. I mean, there's no shortage of them, yeah, so I'm somewhat flexible on numbers."
She nods like she understands. She's Slytherin from his year; quite possibly she does. "Nice touch. Makes it a bit more comprehensive, I'd imagine, the more you have in your archive."
"Something like that."
She stares at him for a long while. Draco's not nervous, not with Mill, because even at her worst she's only ever been patient, but it gets harder to keep his shoulders squared, to keep his posture confident.
"You really toss Potter out on his ear?"
It's a loaded question, Draco just can't see how or why it is, what she expects to get from his answer. How much she knows and how much she's guessing about exactly how that non-ear-tossing might have gone. "I made it clear this is for Lost Year survivors only, yes, which is by definition Potter-free."
As far as he knows, he's not allowed to admit to anything else. Not publicly, anyway, not yet. It's still early days yet, and things are...tenuous.
He can't be imagining the way her eyes gleam, but she doesn't respond quickly, just resumes her patient biscuit-nibbling, gazing contemplatively at the door. When she's swallowed, she says, "Then you might want to brace yourself," and Draco's still frowning over that when he hears someone squeak out from the doorway, "Wait, you meant that?"
And oh, lovely, there's a trio of first-wave first-years standing there, wide-eyed and gaping in a way he's sure he would have mocked two years ago. He grits his teeth at the trap Mill's lead him into and forces a soothing smile.
"Well, to be fair, Harry Potter wasn't here for the school year I'm collecting," he tries, and two of the three nod vaguely.
"Go on," Mill prompts from behind him. "Tell them your theory on how everyone already knows Potter's side of things and how we're a whole school of heroes who won't ever get our due in history."
For a moment, Draco misses the days when this was a school that encouraged random jinxing among students as a means of social control, because he's got a Bat Bogey with Mill's name on it just itching to fly. Then he thinks about seeing her face on the wrong end of his wand, and how very badly it's gone for them, familiar faces on the wrong ends of wands, and he takes it back with a shiver. The first-wave first-years can't possibly know a time when Hogwarts hexing meant anything but pain, even if he can, and this is not the night to try to teach them any different.
The dark-haired first-year on the left screws up her courage. "Well, that's true enough," she says. "Mum and Dad said I was lucky Headmistress McGonagall got us out in time and I wasn't to be worried about coming back because Hogwarts is the safest place of anywhere." She scowls the way only first-years can. Draco thinks he's going to miss that when he leaves, the certainty-uncertainty of the younger years, the way every year thinks it knows everything. "Shows what they know."
The first-year on the right reaches out, fumbles for a hand-squeeze. "My Mum says I'm making it up, about detentions. Because Cru—the bad one, that's an Unforgivable, and they can't use those on us no matter how bad we are." His face twists with resolve; Draco might have called that Gryffindorish, once upon a year, but he knows better. "I don't think we were bad at all, really." Then the first year on the right stares Draco head-on. "So if we do this, can our Mums see, maybe?"
Draco nods. Has to, uh, has to clear his throat, actually, before he trusts his voice again, because it's been so easy to lose himself in the organising that he's forgotten why he's doing this at all. "That's the point of it, actually. It's, uh, Hogwarts isn't usually like that, and so people who weren't here for it probably aren't going to understand unless we show them."
The middle first-year nods decisively and takes the first step into the room. "Right then, how does this all work?" she asks, bright and sure, and when Draco's got the three of them in chairs for the spell, phials clutched tight while they choose which memories they want to add to the archive, he finds Mill watching him with those gleaming eyes again.
And when he thinks to ask them why they're here and not home like the whole rest of society, the smallest one says, "Where else would we be tonight?" like the answer's in the question.
::
The brace yourself comment only really makes sense about ten minutes after they've gone, his trio of first-wave first-years and their tight, brave smiles, and by the time it occurs to Draco exactly how Mill's set him up, he's already run off his feet trying to herd everybody into some semblance of order.
He's expected that he'll need to handle the actual spell-casting himself for the younger years, that he'll need to be close at hand in case there's an incident of any sort, because they're dealing with a range of touchy subjects as it is and it's a precarious time of year. On one hand, it's been 365 days exactly since the school was an unacknowledged prison camp; on the other, it's only been a year. Flashbacks are a regular occurrence and this, he knows, is triggering as hell.
The trouble is, they start coming in volume, great swarms of students packing into the room, and while it expands easily to accommodate everyone with room to move around and all, there's only one of him.
Draco can't be everywhere. He's known that for a while, thanks, but he could do without the reminder just now.
As it turns out, he doesn't have to be; there are plenty of students willing to pitch in, make the Pensieve Project theirs, and while he does a fair bit of spellwork demonstrating and organising phials, he's not the only one who does. Three sixth-year Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff volunteer to take over the archiving bit, setting names and years and notes to the phials as they're stored, seeing everything's properly stoppered before it's set to a crate. It's incredible, actually, that there'd be enough work for four people on just that part of things, but Draco discovers very few are restraining themselves to only just three memories by now.
More, several students show up with their own phials. He's not sure whether they expect a run on the ones he's set out or whether they just don't trust his, but whatever, it all works out.
At least, he hopes it does. There won't be any way to know for sure tonight.
There are tears and sniffling every time he turns around, students grabbing hold of each other, touching temples and speaking soft. It's been the bloody year of Inter-House unity because McGonagall's made a point of blurring House lines as much as she can—the Great Hall's a mess of intermingled House crests at every meal and most classes have prohibited same-House pairs—but seeing them now, like this, feels like more somehow, like maybe it's become something they just do, a part of school culture they won't have to regulate next year.
Organic, he thinks, and he's not sure why that makes him proud.
Which isn't to say the whole night goes as smoothly as all that: digging up old memories is bound to hurt, he thinks, and everyone's served their time on a detention squad, though not everyone to the same extent, and it gets uncomfortable, near-untenable, when a few of the sixth-year Slytherin boys find themselves face-to-face with a cluster of fourth-year Hufflepuffs.
Draco's almost certain he doesn't want to know why the punch gets thrown, exactly, but it speaks volumes that the punchee doesn't hit back.
He expects he'll have to step in then to keep the peace, only the nearest D.A. members do, instead, separating sides and talking tempers down. They've learned loads from Longbottom this year, picked up a few of his more subtle mediation tricks, and Draco watches sort of boggled as things ease off. There are still cracks there, he's sure of it, but there's probably always going to be; somewhere in the phials already archived, half the population of this room is probably doing unthinkable things to each other. He suspects the rest are crying, though he's tried to encourage them to leave at least one good memory of the year, as well.
Even living bloody nightmares aren't entirely bad.
That part, the good memory, that's been Thomas's idea, because even at their worst, they could all cast a Patronus. Besides, leaving nothing but shit memories of horrible events means ignoring rare bright points in their year, the hope they'd clung to and the connections they'd made.
There's really no understanding any of it or how they've all turned out without understanding that.
::
When he'd started this, he'd understood that there'd be some measure of selectivity required in choosing memories, because there's a permanence to the archive that will last beyond their years here. He'll be gone soon enough, another month of classes, then a month of N.E.W.T.s, but even the second-wave first-years only have six years left before they're out and inside of a decade, no one's going to know anything about that Lost Year save the staff.
And half of them are new this year.
Which makes leaving memories here the rough equivalent of leaving one's mark on the school, there to be seen and judged by people who might never know anything else about this group. So yeah, choosing memories is no easy task.
Still, he's not expecting the sort of cottage industry that springs up in the line for phials, the sheer volume of debate about what moments to leave and which to hide. There's a perfectly understandable reluctance to leave anything indicating poor behaviour on the part of the memory-leaver, which turns into frequent detention squad enthusiasts—for lack of a better term—trying to influence frequent detainees. Draco has to wonder how well anyone understands the concept of Pensieves, which by definition render events objective and connect conceptual ties: most of the debates are moot before they're started.
You can't leave subjective impressions, only particular events. He thinks maybe he needs to go through that with them again.
Thinks maybe quite a few of them might be surprised by what they see when the archive's ready, because even now, it's difficult to look back with anything but emotion.
Similarly, he hears plans and schemes to manufacture memories, to present themselves as heroes regardless of how their time had gone, and he's not all that surprised to hear the middle years in particular talking heroism in the Potter-esque ideal. Standing up to Alecto, laughing in her hawkish face, is the sort of fantasy Draco can imagine they've all got in common but in reality, wouldn't have ended well. He wonders how many of them know just finding things to laugh about that year, just coming back from detention relatively intact, is heroic in its own right.
Probably not many. Another reason Draco hates the intense focus on how Harry Potter spent the war, because even Potter's more than his bloody Horcrux hunt and everyone's always so quick to discard the subtleties. It's sickening, really, that it's come to this, that almost no one seems to know how to value their own accomplishments.
Sickening, but not much of a surprise.
The rather earnest discussion about how to handle Headmaster Snape, though, that is surprising. The first-wave first-years, the ones who didn't ever know Dumbledore, seem to think that's how headmasters are meant to be, stern and grim and solemn all the time, off quiet in the office and relatively nice. For obvious reasons, the every-other-years disagree, but it seems the first-wave first-years are under the impression it's better to be called to the Headmaster's office than it is to have detention.
So probably Headmistress McGonagall's had a rather trying year.
The things Draco wants to leave to history about Severus Snape aren't really things he can add to the archive, because they aren't coming from that year in particular, and he's worried over it, Snape's piss-poor reputation following him through time. Draco can't even add any of the Death Eater meetings, really, Snape pulling him aside afterward for a terse reminder to keep his head, because those hadn't happened in the school and if he's not careful, Draco's going to have the whole of the war in his crates.
He's set the guidelines as he has for a reason and he can't start making exceptions now, not even for himself. Even if he thinks privately that his own life in the tail-end of sixth year had had a lot to do with how that Lost Year had gone.
::
Draco's pulled from his own head again—Muggle fuck, this has been a night for overthinking everything—by an arm slinging around his neck, tugging him in for a rather slimy clutch. He glances over and finds Finnegan beaming at him through a smear of green paint, hair all wild from his wicked Muggle plans, unmistakable glee in his eyes.
Draco's spent enough time around his Gryffindors to be wary of Finnegan's glee. The bigger that smile, the worse the plan.
"See, I'd say you should have come with, only it looks like you've been busy." Finnegan nods at the Pensieve, which is—wait, why are there students poking giddily into the Pensieve, there isn't meant to be anything set out in it yet.
"Yeah, just a moment," Draco says and tries to slip free of Finnegan's arm, which is doing terrible things to his robes with the paint and which, apparently, isn't going anywhere just yet.
"Calm down, it's fine," Finnegan dismisses. "Mill said they're playing in the good memories."
"What part of that's meant to calm me down?"
Finnegan shrugs. His paint smears up Draco's neck. "None of it, really, just thought you'd want to know. On account of your incessant micro-nannying."
Fuck Merlin, that's Finnegan's scheming smile. Draco's yet to see that look in Potions class without Potter needing a visit to the Hospital Wing, and while he's ordinarily impressed with Finnegan's creativity in Potions fouls, just now Draco's also alarmed. Seamus Finnegan's not a bad sort, really, but probably he's spent too long trying to live up to his heroes, the Weasley twins.
He's probably done more for school spirit than all of the Ministry's reconstruction efforts combined, in his way. They'd all been so quiet when they'd come back, just so contained, and Finnegan is a one-man anti-quiet campaign.
"Micro-managing," Draco corrects absently. "When you say playing in the good memories..."
"They're laughing, no one's crying, and no one's going to hurt your Pensieve. If that's not a win, it's close enough."
"Good memories?" Thomas asks, coming up on Draco's other side painted a very fetching eye-peeling red. "So that caught on? Good." Thomas nods once, decisively, and leans in for a quick, congenial shoulder-bump. "See, I told you, Seamus. We should have stayed."
"Yeah, but flaming Muggle orgy," Finnegan counters, scoping out the room. "How often d'you get one of those, I ask you? And I answer: not nearly often enough."
"Do I want to know?" Draco murmurs in Thomas's direction, because there's no spending time with these two without learning where the sensible answers are coming from.
"Probably not, no."
"I'm telling you, Draco, next year you're with us," Finnegan lays down like law and Thomas groans and says "We're not seriously going again next year, Seamus, why?" and Finnegan says "What is this treachery, Dean, of course we're going back. That one in white was giving me the eye, I know it," and Thomas plants a painted palm on his painted face with a wet smack and mutters "Merlin save me from Beltane, I swear to fuck," and Draco laughs.
Because this is his life now, herding younger years and thinking too much and getting caught up in the insanity of people he wouldn't have thought twice about two years ago.
All things considered, not bad at all.
Then Thomas makes the mistake of musing aloud "Wonder how Ginny's making out at the Ministry" and Finnegan's off, crowing and whooping louder than the kids by the Pensieve, and they're both batting at each other, Finnegan and Thomas, and Draco's just never going to get the paint out of his hair, he'll have to be splotched red and green forever.
There are oh-so-many worse things to be.
::
Draco couldn't actually say when the mood shifts in the room, when it turns into a party proper with students spilling out into the corridors, though he feels the arrival of Finnegan and Thomas—and Finnegan's best foil, Daphne Greengrass—is likely key. Daphne, who clutches Mill's sleeve sometimes when she's unsettled and who takes perverse glee in setting Finnegan off.
Privately, Draco thinks the two of them could take over the world if they put their minds to it. It's the best rivalry Hogwarts has going for it now that Draco's made his peace with Potter, though he allows the possibility that this, too, is just another baffling courtship. Wouldn't be the first time, is all.
Finnegan lights right up when he sees her, which Draco takes as a good sign.
"Daphne, my lovely," he declares, loud enough to have the students around them snickering and looking at them oddly. Daphne looks all three of them over and bites down on a smirk. Draco doesn't need a mirror to know his robes are a complete loss; the paint's already proven impervious to standard cleaning charms.
"Touch me with those hands, Finnegan, and I will slap your teeth straight," she counters, getting a finger up to point, and because Thomas groans "No, no, you'll just encourage him," Draco decides it's time to take his leave.
He says as much and gets Daphne's softest tsk, which isn't really all that soft at all. "Not back from the Ministry yet, then? Don't worry, Draco, Longbottom's not about to stand you up. I mean, if he's not sick of you by now, he isn't ever going to be, is he?"
"Yeah," Finnegan snorts. "Because he's waiting for Neville." Thomas lands a sturdy thump against Finnegan's back, which earns him an indignant squawk. "What? I'm only just saying, his other half's off on enemy territory. I'm sure Draco wants to know they're all back safe."
Political correctness sits so awkwardly on Finnegan's tongue. It's a joy to see. Draco's probably always going to understand practised liars better than most, because he's known so many of them so well, but having this kind of blunt, well-intentioned honesty is more than worth a few paint smears every now and again.
"On that note, I think I really will take my leave," Draco says as blandly as he can, and he hears Daphne and Finnegan bickering about little pictures and big ears as he walks away.
::
"Gone a bit overboard with the House colours, haven't you?" he hears while he's trying to sort out where his volunteer archivists have gone, and when he turns around, there's Longbottom grinning at him and holding up the wall.
"Ran into Finnegan and Thomas," Draco explains. "I look like a Quidditch hooligan now, don't I? I'm sure I do."
"I dunno about that, but it's a good look for you." Draco can hear the laughter in Longbottom's tone, which sets his mind at ease. Obviously things couldn't have been a complete loss at the Ministry, if Longbottom's laughing already. "Nice touch with the red. Really suits."
Longbottom winks. Draco lifts a brow. "I'm sure he's around somewhere. Probably still tacky enough to smear. I could call him over, get you prettied up, as well..."
"Think I'll pass, thanks." Longbottom wrangles something near solemn onto his face but there's no mistaking it for grim. "At least, until I've done my bit. No point getting paint all over the chairs, yeah?"
Draco gestures grandly at the scavenged rows and crates of phials. "Help yourself."
"Three, is it? And at least one good?"
Draco snorts inelegantly. His father would be so annoyed; Longbottom's blandish smile doesn't waver at all. "As many as you like."
"Another new rule? Draco Malfoy, what's become of your micro-nannying?" Longbottom tsks him fondly.
"Micro-managing," Draco corrects, because the whole of the D.A. executive just isn't ever going to get that right. "And I haven't been, really, and anyway, it's not my fault I've had to be flexible with the plan. There were first-years. And Mill. And, you know—" he takes a breath, shoves his hands into his pockets and remembers too late that now he's wrecked his trousers, too. "—things got a bit wild there in the middle."
Longbottom nods sagely. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for it. If it's any consolation, the Ministry thing was fuck-awful. Who plans those things? Honest to Merlin, I've been shaking hands for ages."
"But was there at least an open bar?" Longbottom snorts again, so probably there was, but it's all-too-easy to imagine how very little the Hogwarts lot got to use it. Probably tied up making nice all night, all of them itching to escape. "I will take that as a yes." Draco plants a hand on his heart and says mournfully, "Oh, Sobriety, you wicked wench."
"Don't let Luna hear you call it that. Or Ginny." Longbottom eyes him with that fond snicker-smirk again. "Don't want to spend what's left of the year in the Hospital Wing, do you?"
"Not for that, no," Draco says as solemnly as he can, then there's eye contact and foolish grins all 'round, that simpatico he'd come so close to missing.
And when Draco's got Longbottom set up for extraction, the first silver-string of memory safely stoppered, Draco asks how many phials Longbottom thinks he'll need.
Longbottom stares at the phial in his hand for a moment, then looks up easily and says, "How many can you spare me?"
::
Draco finds himself wondering what Blaise and Pansy might have picked, what they'll Owl to him eventually from their new corners of the world and whether the Ministry's going to let that post come through unbothered. He likes to think there'll come a day when the Slytherins of his year can spend time together without being accused of anything but it's hard to say for sure either way: there are always people who'll believe anything if they hear it often enough and Draco's under no delusion the world outside the school isn't being primed to consider his House synonymous with Death Eater.
Won't matter to anyone how much Pansy cried that Lost Year, how long she held on to him even when it was clear to anyone with eyes that befriending Draco Malfoy was sheer masochism. Nor will anyone care how quiet Blaise kept, the things he and Mill might have said to make their own lives easier they just couldn't bring themselves to parrot. Hating Muggles was, for a time, something of an unofficial sport, and Blaise has three near-step-fathers with only tenuous connections to magic, because his mother's never been what one might call selective. Draco can't say where Mill's connection is, though he's sure there must be one, because she'd spent so much of Lost Year with stubborn pride gleaming ruthlessly, just digging her heels in and refusing to give.
Funny, he thinks, that the model behaviour coming out of his House should be Millicent Bulstrode, but she'd taken that fine line of acceptability and played it perfectly. When Draco thinks about it, he's a bit in awe.
He wonders, too, about the rest of his House-and-yearmates: what Greg thinks about in Azkaban, whether Nott really has gone Muggle in a colony somewhere, just given up his wand entirely and left all this behind. It's a shame there aren't more of them back, though he knows the Board of Governors hasn't made it easy. Slytherin is underrepresented in everything and probably will be for years.
He wonders how long it'll take before that breeds resentment. How long it's going to take before the upper-years won't spend their first night back calming down the recently-Sorted, promising them it's really not so bad.
He wonders if his Pensieve's going to be of any help at all or whether it'll just be one more oddity in the castle. Whether time will make it a bloody free-for-all of new additions or whether it's going to be outdated and exclusionary in ten years. When all else fails, he imagines the future Granger who'll uncover it in some dark corner somewhere years from now, eyes bright with discovery and their own cleverness.
He really, really hopes the future Granger, whoever it is, isn't hunting down the Pensieve with anything but the best intentions, though he's aware there's nothing he can do to control that. That's the thing about leaving bits of yourself to history, how little control there is over what gets made of it.
So yeah, Draco goes through the motions of seeing the younger-years safely off in the general direction of their dorms, high on sweets and sodas and the exquisite thrill of being in the corridors after hours, the buddy system kicking in instinctively, a habit they won't shake for ages yet. Safety in numbers, he thinks bittersweetly, and he thinks of the detention squads, how they always seemed to find the little ones when they were out alone and fuck it, fuck it, he's meant to hold off drinking until he's got Longbottom free to split the Firewhisky stockpile but sod the plan, Draco needs a drink.
Some thoughts just can't be willed away; the scorch-sting of two shots in quick succession are always so marvellously distracting.
::
He finds Daphne trying to teach Thomas to dance, to Finnegan's rather obvious frustration and what seems to be Mill's endless amusement, and Lovegood's tidying the complete shambles the phial crates have become, which she tells him mock-earnestly is the Wrackspurts coming out for a laugh, and someone's cranked the wireless to something obscenely loud, and Kevin Entwhistle is trying his mating twitch-spasm on Susan Bones again, with about the usual level of success.
Which is to say, none at all, though Hannah Abbott looks intrigued. Sometimes, Draco's concerns for the future have far less to do with his own recent history, far more to do with their parents. He will weep hysterically when Finnegan has his first, and probably it's going to be half-Greengrass, as well, and won't that just be enough to keep McGonagall in facepalms and sour looks forever? Draco's sure it will.
He doesn't even want to know why the Hufflepuff boys seem to have turned the empty phials into tiny Quidditch players, though he imagines there's going to be a mess of Reparos in that corner of the room tomorrow morning.
"Come on, gloomy," Longbottom says before he plants a hand on Draco's back. There are very few people who can come up behind either of them anymore without there being some sort of incident, though they're better than they've been, and fewer still occasions Draco lets his guard down. He appreciates immeasurably that Longbottom gives him forewarning so he won't make an arse of himself.
"I'm not gloomy, I'm contemplative," Draco counters easily, casting a lazy glance in Longbottom's direction. "I realise that's a common mistake in your House."
"Arsehole," Longbottom says fondly. "Careful, your inner lion's showing again." Longbottom rubs the smear of red on Draco's shoulder like he's trying to brush it off.
"Someday, I will get them both for this. And it will be glorious."
"I don't doubt it." Longbottom hums. "Actually, I think I'm looking forward to it. Might make a nice change from Seamus getting his arse kicked by Greengrass."
"Well, there is that."
For a moment, they just stare at the crowd, watch the sixth- and seventh- and eighth-years hanging about, cutting loose like they haven't really all year. It feels, however ridiculous and maudlin, like this is them taking their school back, and Draco half-thinks he can feel the tension that's been burning up just under things this whole last year disappearing, shoved into the past where it belongs.
The Lost Year, gone at last but not...not forgotten. So there's that.
There are so very, very few people he'd trust with whatever's on his face now, because he's sure he's bright-eyed and he can't seem to keep the easy smirk he wants, just cannot wrangle this expression, and he's luckier than he probably deserves that he's got one of those rare few just beside him, a willing shoulder like he's been all year.
When he turns to Longbottom properly to collect himself, Longbottom presses his hand a bit tighter on Draco's back and lets Draco get that paint smear on his shoulder without complaint, and just when Draco feels like words might be necessary, Longbottom says, "And, I mean, have you pictured their kids yet? I guarantee in twenty years, there will be professors crying themselves to sleep over the name Greengrass-Finnegan."
"Oh, I dunno," Draco murmurs, grateful again for something new to focus on. "I suspect the Lovegood-Longbottoms will hold their own."
Longbottom laughs. Not...not a weird sort, not tense or anything, just calm and warm and bright. It is quite possibly the best thing Draco's heard all night. "Yeah. Yeah, probably." Longbottom blushes a bit then. Probably all worked up now about his own presumption, like it's not obvious to everyone how well he and Lovegood get on. "I mean. Possibly. If it gets that far. We'll see, right?"
"That we shall," Draco says, feeling uncommonly sage in the face of Longbottom's uncharacteristic uncertainty.
"What about you, though? Planning little hellion lap Crups yet, or is it too soon to tell?"
And yes, all right, Draco knows his smile's just turned soppish and foolish, but he can't help himself. With his luck, his git's allergic. He's...it's still early days yet, relatively speaking, but it's been long enough in gay years that they're probably not going to kill each other in their sleep, so maybe. Maybe. "Me, personally? I have fine and well-laid plans to be a disreputable uncle to yours. Eventually."
Longbottom groans and says "Oh, you're awful, Merlin let me have them before you start planning to corrupt them, all right?" and maybe other people would mean that differently, maybe there's loads of people out there on the Outside who really will want Draco Malfoy as far away from their children as possible, but Longbottom's laughing and grinning and leaning into him, linking their arms like he won't ever let go really, and sod it, what does the Outside know, anyway?
Not one thing that matters.
::
And when Kevin Entwhistle's mating-twitch-toppled into Hannah Abbott and spilled punch all down her robes, when Finnegan's challenged Daphne to a prank-off Daphne's probably going to win easily, when Ginevra's slipped in to stand wrapped up in a suspiciously clean Thomas and Lovegood's trying to sell Draco on the meditative qualities of the hokey pokey, whatever that is, Weasley's going to say "My bloody Merlin, Malfoy, were you swarmed by hooligans?" and Draco's going to look over to find Potter and his best mates by the door, sheepish and antsy and looking very much like three people who've been glad-handed to intolerance.
Ginevra's going to shout back, "Close, Ron, it was Seamus," and Weasley's going to look a bit Confounded until he shakes it off and Potter's going to try desperately not to get caught laughing, because, well, it is still early days.
Granger's going to ask if it's still Lost Year-only and she'll have the avaricious look of academia in her eyes when she does, the zealousness she wears every time Draco's Runes research comes up, and he'll say it's all right, they can all come in so long as they promise not to add anything to the archive.
When they swear it, he'll believe them.
And when Potter slips into the space Longbottom leaves because Lovegood's dragged him off to dance with her, Potter will brush his arm against Draco's easily and lean in to murmur, "Think I took the wrong plus-on with me, you'd have gone to town on the lot of them, I'm sure of it," and Draco will mean that smile, too.
And when, a few Firewhiskys in, Draco catches Potter staring wistfully at the somewhat muddled mess of phials he'll need to arrange—and honestly, how is it this much trouble, it feels like he's been at this all bloody night, are people still playing with them—when it's clear what's on Potter's mind tonight, Draco will press their shoulders together and offer Potter a private viewing later if he doesn't mind helping Draco clean up, and Draco won't ever be entirely sure why that's the thing that breaks through Potter's relentless need for privacy, just one thing in his life he doesn't have to share with the world, but whatever, it is.
And Draco will find himself kissed out of nowhere, long and sweet and hot, a night's worth of pent-up frustrating disappearing as Potter relaxes into it, the dim sounds of cheering and catcalls and Finnegan shouting that Thomas owes him five Sickles now, he knew it from across the room. And Draco won't care at all, because maybe they're still ages off adopting lap Crups and corrupting children, maybe there's still a whole new world to build no one else could even dream of, but they've got loads of time.
And maybe it's going to be weeks yet before they get past wanking and what the books tell him is frottage—which sounds like a French tourist destination, honestly—and maybe it's going to be ages still before they get really adventurous, and maybe they won't ever.
...No, who's he kidding, they'll get there. Ridiculous as it sounds, Draco quite possibly did find his bloody soulmate when he was 11. Just took him—took them both, really—a while to grow into it.
And in 20 years, give or take, Frank Lovegood-Longbottom and Fred Spinnett-Weasley are going to be talked into sneaking out of their dorms after hours by Vinnie Greengrass-Finnegan, eyes lit with adventure as they start their hunt for the elusive Pensieve Project Uncle Draco's promised will get them an easy pass in Modern History of Magic...
And when Neville Longbottom firecalls Draco about the inevitable uncomfortable chat with Headmistress McGonagall, Draco's going to blame his tears of laughter on Harry falling over the hellion lap Crup.
And Neville's going to pretend to believe him.
~ end ~