Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is published or that J.K Rowling created.

Author's Note: For this story the Slytherins and Gryffindors have Charms classes together.

Harry POV

Malfoy had been acting differently all year and it both irritated and angered me. Malfoy was supposed to be my constant, always sneering, spitting insults and racial slurs, acting superior and generally being an arse. I could always rely on Malfoy to give him an opportunity to let out steam but at the end of last year I had noticed that Malfoy was dimming. His insults were not as cutting and his sneer had no backing. I had figured that after the summer he would be back to his normal self and , in some perverse way, I had been looking forward to it. But the opposite had happened. It was halfway through term one and the only time I seen Malfoy was during the classes we had together. He never spoke unless someone spoke first to him, he never voluntarily answered a question and he didn't appear at meals. Rumours were circulating around the school about what had caused the sudden change in the Slytherin Prince. They ranged from the ludicrous, he had been attacked by hippogriff and was in shock, to the morbid, he had been raped during the summer, to the believable and obvious, he had witnessed his mother's brutal murder at the hands of his father.

I cringed slightly when I thought of that. Narcissa Malfoy's death had been front page news for a few days, mostly due to the brutal way that she had been murdered. The Daily Prophet had refused to give any details but the scandal was so huge that most everyone knew the basics. Her husband had beaten her until she was an inch from death, healed her, repeated the process and cast Cruciatus until she had passed out from the pain. He revived her and only then did he kill her, but not before dragging his son out of his room, which he had locked him in, to witness her death. Draco was the last thing his mother saw before she died.

I suppose if I was to be truthful, I was worried about Dra, I mean Malfoy. Although maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I referred to Malfoy as Draco, even if only in my own head. With a sigh, I turned my attention to Flitwick, who was telling the class what we would be doing today. The spell was a complex one and she highly doubted any one of us would be able to achieve the final level of it. There were apparently two possible outcomes of the spell if cast correctly. One was that you would relive your strongest memory and the second was the physical manifestation of your strongest memory.

I glanced over at Draco again and saw that he was doodling on his parchment with his head propped up against his hand. It was funny how many things I was noticing about him now that he was no longer drawing any attention to himself. For instance, he was left handed, his hair had grown long enough to cover his eyes and one eye was slightly darker than the other.

Flitwick must have instructed the class to start working on the spell because suddenly there was a flurry of wand movement and an outburst of the spell being repeated over and over again. I tore my attention away from Draco to practice the spell myself. I tried again and again and was finally achieved the glimmer of a memory. Slowly the class grew quiet as everyone turned to look at the ceiling. Draco had apparently achieved the second possible outcome of the spell, the physical manifestation of his strongest memory. As I followed everyone else's eyes to the ceiling I learned something else about how Narcissa Malfoy had died.

She had been hung.

Author's Note- That was morbid. Anyway, review and I'll give you a virtual iron maiden…

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