Huh.This was beautiful in a way. An anthropomorphized shadow! A new thing for you, I think? Harry grew up quickly in this. Started out as quite the schoolboy kneejerk Malfoy-hater (except he wasn't). Interesting to see how conflicted he was all the way through about helping Malfoy - he wanted to, he got negative response so he backed off, but he wanted to, yet when he got negative response he backed off, and so on. I wondered what could break him of that. His compassion did not go as far as showing it, beyond his actions to help. The clue about lying in couplets was clever, and I like the alternating POV rather than overlapping. I suppose you could have filled in the passage of time more but I didn't miss it. I liked the speed of it since it was taking the boys long enough as it was to get it together!