Harry? No. Not Harry. His mother? She was about to go off on holiday with Sirius, this would just worry her. Sirius? He toyed with the idea for a moment. Sirius was usually full of good advice and was hard to upset. But he might tell Narcissa.

And then there was Hermione.

Draco sat up and reached for his wand, which was on his bedside table. "Lumos," he whispered, and a small light blossomed from the end of it. He could of course have gotten light without the wand, but untrained Magids weren't supposed to perform "wandless" spells, or so he had been told.

He picked up a piece of paper and a pen and balanced the paper on his knees, thinking. He wrote her name, Hermione, and then stopped. What if she told Harry? No. She wouldn't do that. But what could he tell her? Hermione, I'm having nightmares, the same dream every night, I don't know why. She'd think he was going mad, and perhaps he was. As his father had told him, there was madness in his family. And considering that his father was now a patient in St.

Mungo's Treatment Center for the Criminally Insane, he hadn't been far off.

Draco sat there for a long time, staring at the blank piece of paper, unable to think of any words. Finally, he crumpled the paper up into a ball and tossed it out the window. Then he lay awake, staring at the ceiling until dawn.

*****

Dear Hermione, Thanks for writing me so soon — it was great having a letter waiting for me when I arrived, and tell Mrs. Weasley that I appreciate the sweater she sent, even though it's boiling hot here, and the fudge as well, even though Draco ate it without asking. Did I mention that he and I are roommates? We're the only boys from England here for the program, so they stuck us together. I told them I'd rather be in with the guy from Transylvania who doesn't speak any English and won't go out in the sunlight, but it was no go.