Saturday, 10pm.

Draco Malfoy bolted upright as Harry flew through the doorway, wand out, firing spells rapidly into each corner of the room. Harry saw one spell fizzle - hitting the ward - in front of Draco's bewildered face before landing on his cot beside the door. Harry lifted up his head and looked around the room, empty save for his blond roommate.

"Sorry if I woke you, Draco," Harry said. Harry had been awake since 6pm last night, having adjusted his sleep schedule in preparation for the wargame. He'd been up nearly twenty eight hours at this point and wasn't tired yet, but with the battle still raging inside the dungeons he needed to get ready. Harry didn't trust any place without serious warding and dare not wait until sleep started pounding his judgement like a snare drum, so he'd arrived in bed early.

Normally his extra long sleep cycle was an advantage, if you had a time turner at least, but Harry couldn't stretch out multiple all-nighters with only cat naps. Others had offered him time to sleep, during the small pause after the Battle of Slytherin Bridge, but his body just didn't work like that. He needed a long break. Harry was going to crash, and soon. Draco stared at Harry's sash and said something, shaking his head.

"Oh, come off it Draco. I know you understand me," Harry said. Draco cocked his head and shrugged, his gesture clearly saying I don't know.

Harry raised his voice so that anyone nearby could hear him. "So, I talked to The-Girl-Who-Revived about your date, and she mentioned some interesting facts about flower arrangements. I hadn't realized..."

"OK, OK," Draco said. "Just. Sheesh. Keep a sense of proportion. I thought I'd done well. What did I do wrong?"

"Even you need feedback to figure out how to trip up people spying on you. I could believe you'd feed random misinformation to spies. It's not a huge stretch to imagine that anyone who tried to spy on you would understand you, although that would be much more obvious to someone who was bilingual. No, your plan to convince Derrick to kill Colin Creevey was too inspired. He already wanted to do it, he'd been chafing at working for a first year. You overheard their grumbling, and your plan felt absolutely perfect. Then I remembered when the spell first hit. You kept looking to Gregory to see how he was acting, like you weren't sure what was going on. If you actually didn't understand me, that would be one thing. But you did and Gregory didn't, so you had to gauge your reaction. I should have known then, but I missed it. Once I found it it was you that Derrick conveniently overheard, I was almost certain. And now you just spoke to me in Green which is pretty good proof, considering."

Harry smirked at the last few words.

"So, if I hadn't spoken up just now and was actually innocent, you'd blab about Hermione to everyone." Draco adjusted his pillow so that he could lean back comfortably against the wall, then folded his hands across his chest. "Just to try and confirm it."

"I was ... 95% certain," Harry said, shrugging. "And there's nobody out in the hall to overhear. But you had a good plan. Tell me, did you know that it was possible to coup a leader?"

"I'd heard a rumour to that effect. Hadn't confirmed it, but that didn't matter. Just my luck that you actually had that tidbit of information. Who told you?"

"Started with it. But that isn't nearly as lucky as starting out bilingual. This war would have wrapped up three hours ago if I'd had that. War's chaotic uncertainty, you have to love it. Anyway, sorry if I woke you," Harry said. Draco just harrumphed.

"I wasn't asleep yet," he said. "But I was in the area and felt better safe than sorry. I'm pretty tired, I didn't catch any breaks last night. You?"

"Nope," Harry yawned. Draco hadn't slept much Thursday night either, not that Harry could remember. "You haven't been sleeping well."

"Too interesting to sleep."

"I meant in general, you haven't been sleeping well. Is everything OK? I mean you could take a Doorahkah potion, it doesn't keep you under, like the regular sleeping draught, but I'm told it makes it helps you fall asleep. It's not that potent, just the wizarding equivalent of warm milk."

"I hadn't heard of that," said Draco. "Is it easy to make?"

"Not too difficult. We've got the gubba nub nub plants on campus. Well, we did as of two days ago, I'm not sure we do now. We could brew up a pretty decent supply in a day or two. Maybe monday afternoon?"

"That sounds good," Draco said. "Although now I'm not really tired. Having someone fly into your room Auror Woo-style, all jumping sideways and firing blindly does that to me. A game of chess?"

"Sure." Draco set down his wand and leaned over to his desk. He was still on his cot, just grabbing pieces. He took a chess board and tossed it down to the middle of the room, where it landed with a dull splat. Harry put down his wand, his chess pieces were under his cot, and he reached under it until he felt the bag. "You know, I have no idea how the Babel spell affects this."

"I just assumed they'd understand us. But I think it will work. After all, they are tied to us." Draco carefully emptied his bag of pieces on the floor and then said something that Harry couldn't understand. A few of Draco's green pieces grumbled backtalk, but they all started trudging away from Draco's cot to the middle of the room and taking their assigned positions on the chess board. Harry carefully leaned down and rolled his pieces out of the bag and told them to go to the board.

The silver King just looked up at him and said "At this hour? Surely you jest!"

"I'm not kidding, and stop calling me Shirley," Harry said, pointing to the board. His pieces started the long march. Draco watched them moving slowly across the floor, like regal metallic roaches spreading out towards the board.

"I assume, Harry being Potter and all, that you've already come up with a plan on how you are going to get out of bed in the morning," Draco said. Most of his pieces were already on the board, since it had landed closer to his side of the room and they'd gotten a head start. They were now calling out to the silver pieces, exhorting them to hurry up, but neither side's chessmen could understand the other, so they eventually got bored when their enemy ignored them and quieted down. A few of his pieces fell asleep where they stood.

"It's not like I'd tell you what it was. I have a few options, of course. I'm not going through the pool, if that's what you are asking. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I've got a few theories. It's like the sunlight potion ... I don't need to know exactly what you did to know it's a bad idea."

Draco chuckled in the maniacal fashion Harry sometimes did, then said "Pawn to Queen Four, please." He actually said it twice, once in gibberish for his pieces, and then translated for Harry's sake. He had to repeat the command a few times, but his queen pawn hopped forward twice. Harry couldn't recall pawns hopping before, they usually just walked. Maybe it was punch-drunk because of the time.

"How's Lesath doing? I mean, in general, nothing specific. Pawn to Queen Four, let's just go with a conservative game for now."

"Oh, he's doing fine. I mean, he doesn't really command respect but neither did Colin. Lesath's ... a solid performer. You know how our House is, Lesath's old enough and talented enough that we tolerate him. If Derrick hadn't been hopped up he'd have realized my plan to take out Lestrange would generate more ill will in the real world than any amount of glory I'd gain this weekend. But if he were clever he wouldn't be a bully. Pawn to Queen Bishop Four. Chop chop! Wake up! Lesath's got a good tactical grasp of the situation. He reminds me of Snape, in some ways. Obviously without the experience but he could blossom."

Harry wanted a simple game, since he could feel himself getting tired. He probably shouldn't have agreed to this. "Pawn takes pawn. That's good to hear. I don't think Colin took the coup very well, though. I did what I could to make it better."

"It's just a battle. Do you want me to talk with him? I teach monday's lecture and I could ... Oh, I teach monday's lecture! How am I going to have time to prepare? Anyway, I can pull him aside. I mean, we've all been there, losing a battle stings no matter how it happens. Pawn to king four."

The game proceeded. By now Harry and Draco were both good enough to avoid blunders, so each focused on limiting the other's options while accumulating small advantages. Enough small advantages would become a big advantage. A big advantage forced the other player into a defensive position, to answer threats with forced responses. And it was easy to plan, when your opponent's moves were all forced. Until then, the game felt equal.

"Being murdered by a non-traitor on your side who seriously thought he was doing the right thing? That has to hurt."

"Lockhart shouldn't have made everything random. Let the teams pick their leader, or something. And he should have probably limited magical devices," Draco said as the game moved from opening into middle game, "there were a couple of close calls that I'm aware of."

"I think the Headmistress will fix that flaw for next time," said Harry. If there is a next time.

Sunday 7.45 am

The Great Hall, significantly fuller than yesterday, turned as Draco Malfoy strode forcefully into the Hall, Nimbus in hand. Each of his footfalls had an accompanying squish and his brilliant purple robes dripped profusely even though he'd stopped to wring them out. He kept carefully to the purple side of the room - thankfully the unwritten truce had held for another day. The two center tables of red-robed students erupted into laughter.

Apparently the edict against dead people talking didn't apply to laughter. Draco ignored them all as he squished his way to the main table and Professor Lockhart, who had the good taste to have a somber face.

"Professor, since unauthorized spells result in disqualification," Draco said, spreading his arms wide, "I was wondering if I could ask you a favor."

Professor Lockhart took out his wand and wordlessly passed it across Draco's form, at which point the robes instantly dried and even felt pleasantly warm for a change. He leaned down and said, somewhat quietly, "The Hot Air charm has it's uses, but if you live in a jungle for any time you'll want to be more efficient. It's not completely simple, but if you'd like I can show you how to cast that later this week."

"Thank you, Professor," Draco said loudly and walked - footfalls sounding normal - back to the purple table. He put down his broom, took a plate, and some food.

"What happened?" Neville asked.



Draco finished chewing his piece of grapefruit. It provided a not-unpleasant shock, now that he was dry. "Well, I woke up and Gregory was sprawled out in the middle of our floor, robes red. Harry probably set some guards on the room for when I left, and they must have surprised him, and they didn't bother waking him up. I guess they were afraid that Harry or I had trapped the room."

"And did you?" asked Daphne Greengrass. She wasn't a purple robe, she was neutral, but this was also the Slytherin table. She hadn't done anything overtly biased, but Draco had made sure he could keep her in his field of view.

Draco noticed that the red robes on the next Hufflepuff table were following the conversation intently, but just shrugged. "Nothing extravagant. But anyway, Gregory's broom wasn't out which meant it was still at the bottom of the pool so I managed to get in to there and get through the tunnel and burst out of the water. They had guards, but they were sleeping and I guess they hadn't expected someone to come out of the water. Anyway, I got past them and here I am. What's the situation?"

"I don't think either side is going to eliminate the others leaders by dinner," said Neville. "Both Slytherin leaders are still alive, Katie Bell is still running Purple in Gryffindor, and Roger Davies is running Green in Ravenclaw."

"Davies," said Draco, "I though it was, uh," he paused, blanking on the name, "Hillard. The one who was held back a year?"

"Yeah, Davies overthrew him last night," said Neville. "Word got out after Harry took command from Colin."

"It wasn't like that," said Daphne, "Harry wouldn't do that."

Draco agreed internally, but Daphne's defense of Harry seemed odd. Draco would expect a neutral to be careful when complementing the enemy's leader. Doing that implied complete confidence, and honestly Draco didn't trust everyone at this table who wore purple. How could Daphne be so sure she wasn't executed as a spy? Draco looked up from his grapefruit as the far doors burst open and a dozen greens ran into the room, wands out.

"Run," Draco yelled and jumped up from the table. He grabbed the broom, tossed it in front of him while saying "Up" and jumped onto it in one smooth motion. (He'd actually practiced that with Gregory during martial arts. It really only saved a second or two from a standing start, but everyone agreed it looked amazing). He flew for the near door and then realized he'd have guarded it before sending in a huge number of visible troops, so he swerved away just before it opened, revealing more green troops. Draco saw Daphne fire a stupefy into Neville's back so he Somnumed her and she sprawled onto the ground, her robes flickered to green briefly, before turning red. No wonder she'd been projecting confidence. It was just an act. Many red robed students sitting in the middle tables raised personal shields, not to affect the battle but just to make sure that they weren't shot by accident.

Draco yelled "We need to," but didn't finish. Several spells impacted on him at once and as he crashed into the Slytherin table, his last thought was Realism is overrated.

Author's Note - it has been pointed out that the Fidelus Charm isn't really HPMOR canon. Lockhart/Harry used the name ("Fidelus") as a descriptive shorthand to indicate "safety." I have updated this chapter accordingly. It was not my intent to divert from canon.