Hello everyone! The good news is that I've graduated college and I got the whole 'moving-across-the-country' thing all out of the way. The not so great news is that I'm still in the job-hunting process, but whatever, I can still do some writing in between all of that.

Anyway, in the end of the last chapter, stupid me made a mistake on the description of the cup Ed found in Bellatrix's room. I went back and fixed it, but for clarity's sake, I'm adding a little scene at the beginning of this chapter that has the cup in it. Blah. Whatever. Let's get on with this chapter already!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. Don't sue me, I'm poor.

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Chapter Seven

Dull gold with a badger engraved on its surface. It was nothing special to look at, yet time and time again, Edward found himself returning to the bedroom the cup resided in. His lips pulled down into a frown as the cup glinted teasingly at him. He couldn't understand it, that strange feeling the cup gave off that called to Edward's entire being, beckoning him forward.

It was driving him up the wall, this feeling, this presence, and it wasn't just the cup he was sensing it from. There were several others like the cup, yet all different, residing in Malfoy Manor. He could sometimes sense them scuttling about behind walls and beneath floorboards while others drifted from room to room. It took a few days of constantly feeling these somethings, their combined presence clawing at the back of his mind, before he realized that the ones drifting from room to room were in fact coming from the residents of Malfoy Manor.

Alphonse, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, the screaming lady he later learned was named Bellatrix, and anyone else who occasionally stopped by the manor, they all radiated this feeling. Edward couldn't understand it, couldn't understand just what it was he was sensing. Whatever it was though, it had an intoxicating pull to it that sang out to him, making him want to get closer, get as close as he could.

Fingers twitching restlessly, his breath occasionally leaving him, Edward resisted the siren's song as best as he could. Save for Alphonse, he barely knew these people. He didn't trust them, especially the screaming one, and he didn't want to get close to them. Thank the Gate for Alphonse though, he was a reprieve from the maddening feeling. In Edward's mind, it was win-win. He could be close to his brother while at the same time satisfy the need to be close to the unexplainable feeling his brother gave off.

There were times though, when a small part of him seemed unsatisfied with simply being near the feeling Alphonse radiated, and during the night, when his younger brother was away in his own room, the need Edward felt returned with a vengeance, making the already difficult night even more impossible to bear. During the night, he was faced with phantom dementors, the ragged claws of sleep digging into his entire being, trying to pull him under, and the resulting nightmares he experienced when he succumbed to such mortal needs. Now, added to all of that was the unholy screech of a need to seek out one of the many strange feelings that clung to the manor's residents.

'I need that cup,' Edward thought, eyes locked on the golden cup that rested on the mantel across the room.

It was the perfect solution to his problem. If he had the cup, he could carry it on his person and satisfy the unexplainable need he felt. Unfortunately, Bellatrix was very protective of the cup. The strange English words 'Mine' and 'My special assignment' were repeated more than once the few times she caught him in her room, hovering around the cup. She also wasn't exactly Edward's biggest fan, if her shouting was anything to go by, and if the cup went missing, he'd probably be her first suspect.

'I'll need to create a copy and switch them,' Edward decided, giving into the need for just a moment and stepping closer to the cup.

Off in the distance, he could faintly make out the sound of footsteps and sense the strange feeling that accompanied it. Ignoring the pull in his being to go find the owner of the footsteps, Edward stealthily slipped out of the room, deciding to go find Alphonse instead.

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'When picked under the light of a full moon, crushed knotgrass can be used to counteract...'

'can be used to counteract the effects of...'

Draco frowned, his quill hovering over his summer potions homework.

'...counteract the effects of...'

A single drop of ink dripped onto the parchment. Glaring at the offending ink splatter, Draco kept his eyes locked onto his homework, all too aware of the golden gaze burning a hole into his very soul. He refused to look up though. Looking up would be a form of acknowledgment, it would be encouraging a conversation of some sort that he really didn't feel like having. He had already done his part for the morning. He had greeted Edward in the hall, they'd exchanged pleasantries and small-talk over breakfast, and he even answered Edward's questions as to why he had summer homework he needed to focus on, along with some follow-up questions about Hogwarts. It should have been enough for the day.

But of course it wasn't enough.

'Think of it like having a younger brother who believes he's your older brother,' the Dark Lord had told him.

Yeah, right.

It was more like having a puppy. An extremely clingy puppy.

Honestly though, Draco wasn't quite sure yet what to make of Edward. The tattooed blond was kind of jumpy, flinching at any sudden noise. Sometimes he'd get fidgety, nervous, in which case he'd fall back on what Draco had come to call his 'post-Azkaban obsession.' He'd noticed something similar in his Aunt Bella as well, but he hadn't really made the connection to the wizarding prison until he'd spent some time with Edward and noticed the parallels between their... 'symptoms' if you will.

For his Aunt Bella, it was an obsession with touching and rearranging the small material things around her. If there was a small nick-knack nearby or something else of the sort, she just had to pick it up, fiddle with it in her hands, and then rearrange its position a couple of times once she put it back down. It wasn't something you'd notice about her off-hand, but having his Aunt Bella living in the manor now, Draco had easily picked up on the habit.

For Edward, it was clear that the obsession was with alchemy. The other blond could often be found drawing what Draco later learned to be transmutation circles, one after the other again and again. The same went for actually performing alchemy. There were many times when, while Draco was busy doing something, Edward would sit nearby and transmute something over and over again.

'Maybe it's a way of distracting himself,' Draco had theorized on more than one occasion, 'something that Edward can focus on due to its familiarity... Or maybe he's always been this obsessed.'

Whatever the reason behind the obsession was, it was a habit Draco could accept of someone who had been in the company of dementors for an extended period of time. The previously mentioned clinginess though, that was a bit harder to ignore. It had only been a little over a week now and Draco was already getting annoyed with Edward's constant need to be close-by, and when Draco says 'close-by' he doesn't just mean 'in the same room.' No, it quickly became apparent to Draco that Edward seemed to rely on touch. Not in a creepy way, mind you, just something simple like Edward slinging an arm over Draco's shoulder or standing close enough to Draco so that their arms were pressed up against each other. At times, it seemed like the tattooed blond hardly even noticed when he was doing it.

On top of all of that, Edward wasn't sleeping. Oh sure, he claimed he was sleeping every night, but Draco wasn't a moron. He could easily recognize the signs of sleep deprivation, having seen these signs on his classmates in the past. Granted, Edward was kind of loony from the start, so Draco couldn't exactly be sure how much of this was due to not sleeping, but the dark circles around those golden eyes couldn't lie.

He had already approached Edward about the subject, not out of any real concern for the other blond, but more due to a concern for Draco's own safety as well as the safety of his family. His real family. Depriving someone who was already unstable from Azkaban and who was as potentially powerful as Edward of sleep was just a bad idea all around ('potentially' powerful because so far Draco had only seen a small scrap of what Edward could do with alchemy. He was reserving his judgment until he got a better demonstration). His 'older brother' was anything if not stubborn though (as Draco was coming to learn), and he denied having any sleeping problems at all.

In fact, Edward denied having any problems. He would swear to Draco that he was fine, even when it was clear that he wasn't. Draco decided not to fight Edward on the subject though. Not only was it not worth the time or effort, but he also didn't bother because the whole reason behind his mission as 'Alphonse' was to keep Edward happy, and if Edward wanted to pretend that there was nothing wrong, far be it from Draco to tell him otherwise.

"Edward," Draco finally said, unable to take the blond's staring any longer. He set his quill down a bit more forcefully than he meant to and another splatter of ink joined the first on his homework. Finally looking up at the other blond, he asked, "What is it?"

'Why are you staring at me?' Draco snapped in his mind. 'Merlin's beard! I can't concentrate when you're staring!'

Edward blinked, as if he hadn't realized he had been staring. Eyes narrowing, his staring became more focused, and he said with a small frown on his face, "You're different."

Draco faltered. Was that it then? Barely two weeks into his mission and he had already screwed it up? He supposed that he should count himself lucky that Edward had bought his act as 'little brother' for even this long considering that he barely knew a thing about Alphonse. Not that it mattered though as the Dark Lord would only see this as a failure on Draco's part and do who knows what to him.

Palms sweating, Draco did the only thing he could think of.

Deny, deny, deny.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

Somehow encouraged by Draco's response, Edward rushed forward into an explanation.

"You're different from everyone else, who are also all different from one another," he said, his golden eyes growing bright as he spoke. "And I don't mean a physical difference. Of course you all look different. I mean the feeling you all give off is what's different from each other."

Now it was Draco's turn to stare. And blink. And stare some more.

"Now I really don't know what you're talking about," he said, giving Edward a dubious look.

"Sorry, I'm rambling," Edward said. He suddenly began laughing, and just as suddenly stopped. "I didn't tell you? I meant to tell you, but I must not have."

"Tell me what, Edward?" Draco asked carefully.

"It's nothing. It's fine. I'm fine, Al," Edward said. Grabbing one of the pieces of parchment he had scribbled a transmutation circle on, he began to absentmindedly tear at the edges. "It's just this feeling that I keep feeling, but not physically feeling, and not 'feeling' in the way that it's an emotional feeling," he stopped to laugh again. "But that doesn't make sense... Sense. I'm sensing it, you could say? Yes. That's it. It's more like an extra sense different from something like sight or smell. And I'm sensing this feeling, from you, from the Malfoys and Bellatrix and that damn cup."

Wait, a cup? Draco was beginning to wonder if this was the sleep deprivation talking. His fellow Slytherins had said some pretty weird things when they were running on no sleep too.

"And I want - no, that's not important... But I'm fine Al, alright?" Edward said, giving Draco a stern look as if trying to will him to believe so.

"Yeah, Edward, I know," Draco said, holding back a sigh and being careful to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

Edward was silent for a moment, staring at Draco as if judging the truth in his words, before continuing on, "Anyway, these feelings you guys are giving off, I've just started noticing that they're different from each other. Well, they're all similar, like it's all the same thing, but at the same time they're all different. Individual... like.. like," he struggled to find the words. "Like a signature or something."

The Dark Lord had said he wanted to be informed of anything strange or magical Edward did, and while this definitely fell into the category of 'strange,' Draco wasn't so sure he should send off a report for his father to give the Dark Lord just yet. After all, if this turned out to just be an addition to Edward's delusions due to lack of sleep, Draco didn't want to waste the Dark Lord's time with pointless information that might piss the dark wizard off. No, he'd wait a bit. Maybe if he could get Edward to get some sleep, the other blonde would be more sound of mind and Draco could question him on the subject again. If it did turn out to be something, he'd send his report then.

'How would I get him to go to sleep though?' Draco wondered. He honestly didn't have a clue. From what he'd heard from his parents, magic wouldn't work, and Edward was far too stubborn to just go to sleep when he was told. 'Maybe a potion?'

"I don't know what to tell you, Edward," Draco said, responding to everything Edward had just said to him.

Edward chuckled a little and said with a small smile, "It's fine. I don't even quite understand it myself."

Thinking that the conversation was, for the most part, over, Draco picked up his quill and turned back to his homework. He was only able to write out one word before Edward's exaggerated groan interrupted his concentration.

"Come on! You've been writing all day," Edward griped. "I usually have no problem with research, you know that Al, but there's nothing here for me to do."

"Sure there is. You can draw more of your transmutation circles," Draco said, attempting to reason with the other blond.

"For what purpose though?" Edward asked. "Before, we always had some sort of goal in mind for alchemy, some drive to inspire us, to keep us working." Resting both hands on one of the arrays he drew, the complex circle crackled with blue electricity before forming into a paper flower. "There's no direction now, and I've been drawing arrays all week. I'm not used to this much... inactivity!"

"Edward," Draco groaned. "I need to get this assignment done. I've got this and a bunch of other assignments I need to get done before the summer's over with and I'd like to get it out of the way now."

"Homework.. For that hog school that teaches you alchemy," Edward said, basically summarizing what Draco had previously told him about.

"'Hogwarts'," Draco corrected him, "but yes."

"You don't need lessons in alchemy, Al," Edward said, frowning. "Not from some dumb school."

"It's that new-age alchemy stuff, it's different," Draco said stubbornly.

"You know, you still haven't taught me about any of this new-age alchemy," Edward said.

"Yes, because I've been busy," Draco said, nearly snapping at his 'brother' as he gestured at his homework, "trying to do my homework like I'm trying to do... now... damnit."

"What, what is it?" Edward asked, following Draco's gaze down to the piece of parchment he was looking at, but apparently not seeing anything wrong with it.

But of course he wouldn't see anything wrong with it, aside from the baffling content, because Draco had written the entire thing in Edward's language. Between having the spelled bracelet on and occasionally talking to Edward while writing out his Potions homework, Draco hadn't even realized that he wasn't writing the thing in English. He'd have to re -write the whole thing before he passed it in, and it didn't look like it'd be a good idea to do so while Edward was around and being distracting, least he write everything out in the foreign language all over again.

"It's nothing," Draco responded with a defeated sigh. "Just a content error. I'll have to re-do what I wrote... later."

Edward perked up, asking, "Later? Meaning...?"

"Meaning not right now," Draco said as he stacked the useless pieces of parchment up, not caring that the ink from the different pages was bleeding together. It'd look horribly messy, but he'd be able to read the words later and that was all that mattered. Deciding that he didn't want to end up in another situation with Edward staring him down as he did something the tattooed blond saw as a waste of time, Draco asked, "So what do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

He was almost afraid to know.

Looking a little taken aback, Edward said with a shrug, "Well, I dunno. Something that doesn't involve us sitting around for the rest of the day."

Before Draco could even begin to come up with some sort of activity that could occupy their time, Edward's eyes lit up with an idea.

"Sparring!"

'I'm sorry, what?" Draco questioned in his mind.

Sparring... as in physically fighting each other without wands or magic? Like muggles?

"No," Draco said automatically.

His opinion on the subject apparently didn't matter though because Edward had already gotten a hold of his arm and was dragging him up from the bed where they had been sitting.

"Ah, come on Alphonse, it'll be great!" Edward said enthusiastically. "We haven't sparred at all since I got here and Gate knows we both need it. We're out of practice and out of shape."

"I am not out of shape!" Draco said, offended. Pulling his arm from Edward's grip, he stood his ground and said, "I participate in sports at school. I'm very much in-shape!"

Edward gave him a once-over before raising his eyebrows doubtfully.

"Please, you're as noodly as I am," he said, unconvinced of Draco's physical prowess. To further emphasize his point, he grabbed on of Draco's arms by the wrist and flopped it about in the air. "See? Noodly."

Draco snatched his arm back once again, but no matter how many stern looks he threw the other blond, Edward would not be swayed on the matter.

"Come on. Let's change out of these damn robes into something we can actually move in and then head outside."

Before Draco could get out another word of protest, Edward raced off to his own room to change.

"Bollocks."

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'I guess it could be a good way to tire him out and get him to go to sleep,' Draco thought to himself as he walked with Edward outside to some place where they could do... whatever sort of fighting this sparring thing involved. He honestly had no idea.

They were both dressed in a t-shirt and pants, and even though Draco had dressed this way plenty of times at school, he couldn't help but feel odd being dressed without a robe at his home of all places where his parents were around. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Edward occasionally tug the short sleeves of his t-shirt down, as if trying to hide the red markings on his arms. It appeared that Draco wasn't the only one who felt a little off with their current attire, although it was for different reasons. They were both too stubborn to admit it though.

Coming to stand in a nice, open grassy area on the manor's grounds, Draco turned to Edward and asked, "Now what?"

"We do warm-ups, or course," Edward said, already doing some sort of stretching exercise.

Draco supposed that made sense for any overly physical activity. For Quidditch, there too was a little bit of stretching involved before practice or a game, but the real warm-ups involved flying on a broom. Not really knowing what he was doing in the case of sparring, Draco just followed Edward's lead and copied what the other blond did. Eventually losing count of just how long they spent stretching, by the time Edward stopped, Draco already felt ready to call it a day. He was tired and a little achy from the stretching and he couldn't believe Edward wanted to keep going.

'Isn't he supposed to be the one getting tired?' Draco thought, wiping sweat from his brow.

"So what, do we just..." Draco balled his hands into fists and made a couple of limp swinging motions in the air, "..start?"

"Yup, and no holding back, Alphonse," Edward said, bouncing energetically from foot to foot. "No alchemy either. Like, really no alchemy. We're both using different kinds now and since yours doesn't work on me, it'd hardly be fair."

"Alright," Draco said, and it was as if he had instead shouted 'go!'

Suddenly Edward was racing towards him, and in moves too quick for Draco to follow, the young Slytherin quickly found himself on the ground with a couple new aches to add to his collection and a confused tattooed blond standing over him.

"You weren't even trying," Edward said, sounding baffled. "What's up? You never go that easy on me, not even when I was recovering from surgery."

"Not going easy on you," Draco said with a wince. "Just not... remember as much about sparring as I thought I did."

"Well, how much do you remember?" Edward asked as he held out a hand to help Draco up.

"Umm... next to nothing," Draco admitted with a sheepish shrug as he grabbed Edward's hand and pulled himself up.

"Jeez, Al, you should have said something sooner. I could have really hurt you."

'Yeah... Could have hurt me,' Draco thought with a grimace.

"I guess I'll just have to re-teach everything to you," Edward said, as if it was a simple solution.

"Can't we just go back inside?" Draco groaned, wilting where he stood.

"You can't not know how to defend yourself, Al," Edward said. "If you lose that alchemy stick thing of yours, you'd be screwed. Now stand up straighter and raise your arms up. We're going to go over the basics first."

For the next several hours, Edward taught him about sparring. They practiced stances and balance before moving on to the basics of striking, kicking, and blocking an attack. Draco honestly hadn't thought he'd pick up on anything Edward taught him when the other blond first started the lesson, but there was so much repetition to each move Edward showed him that he actually found some of it sticking. Before he knew it, the lesson had ended and they were both collapsed out on the ground, almost feeling too exhausted to move. The once neat grass was now torn and scuffed up, revealing patches of dirt which Draco was sure that the house elves would have fixed by the end of the day.

"This was nice," Edward said quietly after a long stretch of silence. "Almost like we're back in-" a scratchy-hissing noise replaced Edwards words for just a second, but the other blond continued on, apparently not noticing it at all as he said, "and everything's normal... Well, as normal as things get for us."

Edward smiled at Draco, and all the Slytherin could think about was how some of the tattooed blond's words had been cut off with that noise. Censored... On purpose, he was sure. He doubted that the translator bracelets would be malfunctioning since it was the Dark Lord himself that had spelled them up. He knew that he should leave it be, that apparently there were some words the Dark Lord didn't want him hearing, and that it wasn't his place to know what those words were.

'But what if he asks me a question that requires me to use the word I can't hear him saying? Knowing would just be for the good of the mission,' Draco reasoned with himself.

For the good of the mission and not at all for the good of satisfying his own curiosity... Alright, so it was a bit of a stretch. In all honesty, if the situation ever came up, he could just give Edward the usual 'I don't remember' answer.

Yet although he knew this, he still found himself opening his mouth and asking, "Edward... How do you spell the name of that place?"

"Huh? You mean-" and again, the hissing noise filtered over whatever it was that Edward said.

"Yeah," Draco said, sitting up in the grass.

Giving Draco a confused smile, Edward sat up himself and wrote the word out in a patch of dirt as he spelled it out loud, "A-m-e-s-t-r-i-s."

"Amestris," Draco read out loud, and judging by the smile on Edward's face, he thankfully pronounced it right. "Was that the town we lived in?"

The smile on Edward's face dropped as he said, "No, it was our country. Risembool was the town we lived in... at least for a while. You... you really don't remember any of this?"

"There's a lot I don't remember, Edward," Draco said bluntly.

There was a brief pause as Edward seemed to think something over. Then, with a new look of determination on his face, similar to the one he got when he declared that he would teach Draco how to spar, Edward said, "Then I'll just have to tell you about everything you've forgotten."

For once, Draco wasn't going to argue because this was the perfect way to learn about Edward's past which would mean learning about Alphonse's past. If he could know more about the person he was supposed to be, he could play the role better. Voicing his agreement to Edward's plan, Draco laid back in the patchy grass and listened to Edward talk about his past with his younger brother.

Edward told him about life in Risembool, about his friends, about a strong-willed girl named Winry. He told Draco about his parents, about how his father left them at a young age (or rather, left Edward and the real Alphonse), but that he later discovered that his father had his reasons (reasons he didn't tell Draco). He told Draco about the death of his mother, and for a while, he was quiet.

When he began speaking again, he told Draco about how they went to stay with Winry and her grandmother off and on (apparently Winry also lost her parents, though Edward didn't say how). He told Draco how they later found someone to teach them more about alchemy. Izumi Curtis, and when Edward told Draco the stories about her, the young Slytherin couldn't help but feel thankful that there wasn't a teacher like her at Hogwarts.

From there, Edward's stories got kind of scattered. He talked about some people that they later met who worked in the military (because apparently Amestris was a military-run country). He said that some of them became good friends to the two brothers, but beyond that he didn't say much more.

There were pieces missing from Edward's story, Draco could tell, but he wasn't about to push the subject. Instead, he suggested that they both head inside and take a quick shower to wash all the sweat and grime off before they had to be ready for dinner. Climbing to their feet, both wincing from their aches and pains, the two trudged back inside.

"Teacher would've kicked our asses for being so out of shape," Edward said with a chuckle.

Draco cringed at the thought of it, not seeing how that was very funny at all.

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Edward looked ready to drop into a coma, yet rather then go off to his room where he could sleep, he lingered in the doorway of Draco's bedroom. Draco watched him from the corner of his eye, not understanding how the other blond was even still standing when Draco himself felt ready to collapse. Edward had been awake practically all week, Draco was sure of it. He looked like he was about to unravel at any second, but even though night had fallen long ago and it was well past time for them both to go to bed, Edward made no move to leave for his own room.

"Well, goodnight," Draco finally said with a sigh, gesturing for Edward to take his leave.

It was as Draco watched the other blond nod, a nervous look in his eyes, and hesitantly shuffle out the bedroom door, that he realized what the problem was. It wasn't that Edward couldn't sleep, it was that, for whatever reason, he didn't want to sleep. Even if Edward went back to his own room where his bed was, Draco was almost positive that he wouldn't sleep.

So what could he do? Exercising and tiring Edward out that way didn't really work. He didn't have a sleeping potion of any sort on hand that he could slip the other blond. So then what?

His eyes fell on his Potions textbook that was still lying open on his bed from when he tried to do his homework that morning. His mind recalled every single History of Magic class he's ever had with Professor Binns droning voice.

"Hey, Edward!" he called down the hall after the retreating blond. Edward stopped and threw a curious look over his shoulder at Draco. "I'm not feeling all that tired myself just yet," he practically had to force down a yawn as he lied. "If you want, I figured before bed, I could teach you a little something about the new aged alchemy."

Edward smiled tiredly but happily and said, "Yeah, sure, Alphonse."

Setting aside all of his homework from before, but keeping the Potions book in hand, Draco settled down on his bed, propped up against some pillows piled up by the headboard. Edward followed suit, taking a seat next to Draco and curiously eyeing the Potions book Draco had opened up on his lap.

"That's all in English," Edward pointed out. "I thought you said you couldn't understand English?"

"I said I know some," Draco reminded him. "I know enough to understand this and translate it, but not enough to actually read out the words in English."

"Alright, so what are we learning?" Edward asked.

"They call it 'potions.' It's like... cooking," Draco explained. "You mixed a bunch of ingredients in a particular way and you get something from it."

"Sounds exactly like alchemy," Edward said, seeming to relax a bit more against the pillows.

"Well, there's no transmutation circles involved," Draco said as he flipped through the pages of the book to find a good starting place.

"Still more like alchemy then that weird stick waving alchemy," Edward murmured and Draco just hummed in agreement.

Deciding on a chapter, Draco began reading in the most low and calm voice he could muster, "Fill the cauldron up with two and three fourths cup of water. Begin heating the water on a low flame."

"Cauldron?" Edward asked with a quiet snicker.

"That's just what it says in the book," Draco said, rolling his eyes before continuing, "Chop up freshly picked mint leaves and stir in counter-clockwise three times..."

He continued on like this, reading out every single instruction for the potion in a calm, but droning voice. There were a few instances where Edward would stop and question him about an unusual ingredient such as dragon's blood, but once Draco told him that that was just a name for a certain part of a certain type of plant, the other blond stayed quiet.

But he also stayed awake, and soon Draco was fighting off sleep himself as he read through potion number five for the night. Just as Draco was beginning to think that this was a dumb idea that clearly wasn't working, he felt a sudden weight slump against him. Pausing mid-sentence, Draco looked down to see Edward leaning against his side, completely fast asleep. Shifting Edward over so that he was instead lying against the pillows, Draco laid back against the pillows himself with a quiet sigh.

'About bloody time.'

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End of this chapter! Why wasn't the word 'Risembool' censored, you might ask? It's because Edward never mentioned Risembool to Voldemort (BTW, if I'm spelling Risembool wrong, I apologize, but google gave me three different ways to spell it). And just in case there's any questions about it, this is a gen fic, meaning no romance (aside from canon stuff like Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, but even that would be brief). Just friendships in the future of this story people.

Anyhow, sorry for the delay. I would have gotten this out sooner today if the sun hadn't decided to blast 105 degrees down on me and heat up my room. I had to make an emergency fan run to keep from melting in this damn hot box. Wish I could have gotten an AC unit, but I don't have the strength or the ability to install one (plus the screens of my windows are screwed into the window frame), AND I live on the 6th floor. Can't you just visualize that horror? An AC unit falling 6 stories and landing on some poor unsuspecting passerby. I didn't even want to risk it.

Yay digression!

Review please and tell me what you think!