67 Deal.

Draco arrived in front of the Headmaster's office, which was in a separate tower like the Gryffindor and Slytherin common room. The tower is guarded by a large and ugly stone gargoyle. Draco walked up to the Gargoyle and repeated the password written on the paper. "Sherbet Lemon."

The gargoyle leapt aside, revealing a slowly ascending circular staircase. Draco climbed the stairs, where he found an oaken double door. He opened the door and walked inside, the headmaster's office itself is a large circular room with many windows and many portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, who were pretending to be asleep, snoozing gently and a large portrait of Dumbledore hanged behind the head's desk, from what Draco knew, the portrait of the immediate predecessor of the current headmaster or headmistress will always be the largest of the paintings in the room, and the paintings shrinks by some degree once it is no longer the portrait of the immediate predecessor of the current headmaster or headmistress.

One thing was certain: of all the teachers' offices Draco had visited so far this year, Dumbledore's was by far the most interesting... It was a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. A number of curious silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. There was also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tainted wizard's hat — the Sorting Hat.

Draco walked up to the Hat who looked at him in a similar way. "Missing the sword?" Draco asked jokingly.

"No, it was a bother to carry anyway." The hat replied, "I am surprised as to why the sword wants to keep following you but since it wants to, I can't do anything about it but you ought to know one thing."

"What's that?"

"The sword will come back to me when a true Griffindor's summons it." The hat said, "I thought you ought to know."

Draco was surprised by this information, "Do other people know?"

"Only you and me." The hat said, "I am not allowed to do otherwise."

Draco nodded and walked away looking at the Fawkes, the beautiful Pheonix who was looking at him curiously as well.

"Beautiful, isn't he?" Dumbledore came down from the set of stairs in front. "His name is Fawkes."

"Yes." Draco replied, "And your collections of books are really interesting."

"Oh if you want to, you can come read it at any time you want." Dumbledore said kindly, "But be sure to return it to me in time."

Draco just nodded and stayed silent.

"Oh! Take a seat and make yourself comfortable, will you?" Dumbledore said sitting on his chair. "Do you want some tea?"

"No, Thank you." Draco said sitting on the chair face to face with Dumbledore, "Let's get straight to the point shall we?"

"Let's do so." Dumbledore nodded.

Draco took out a pouch from his robe and took out the Philosopher's stone and put it on the table.

"It's really an interesting thing, isn't it?" Dumbledore said just looking at the stone and not taking it.

"Why?" Draco asked confused.

"Why?" Dumbledore asked him instead,

"You could have taken the stone from me when I fainted or even now... but your actions suggest otherwise," Draco said looking at Dumbledore in doubt wondering what game he was playing.

"I could have, but I wanted to see what you would do?" Dumbledore said, "And I am surprised nonetheless seeing you give it to me without any hassle."

"It's not mine, to begin with." Draco said, "I do want it though."

"I wonder what will you do with it?" Dumbledore asked, "To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human being would choose above all -- the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. So I am curious of what you want?"

"I want to experiment on it." Draco said truthfully, "I don't care much about money and as for immortality, I have seen pictures of Mr. Flamel before and no offense but he looks like he's barely hanging on, like a corpse with life in it. The body's rotting away but the soul isn't willing to leave due to the Elixir of life. Unless it can provide me immortality without consequences, I am not willing to take it."

Dumbledore was looking at Draco carefully while he continued,

"I have several theories about the stone you see, with so much ma-- I mean power inside it, it sure is to have a lot of other uses. I want to try all that and find the truth about it." Draco said with his eye's shining brightly.

"You want to try it all."

"Yes." Draco nodded.

"Let's make a deal, shall we?" Dumbledore said suddenly surprising Draco.

"What do you want?"

"You can have the stone while I have a request of my own." Dumbledore said.

"But you aren't the owner of the stone." Draco said, "Can you make the decision?"

"I have asked Nicholas and he agreed, at first he wanted to destroy it but later on he finally agreed." Dumbledore said, "But you have to make sure to use it properly and not let it fall under dirty hands. Also, he has a request for you to visit him when you have time."

Draco narrowed his eyes, "What do you want from me?" he asked again.

"Draco, tell me what do you feel about Harry?"

"Ignorant, Naive, low self-esteem and incredibly dependent." Draco quickly listed things about Harry as if he had read all the things the night before, even Dumbledore was surprised, "I am good at reading people." Draco said awkwardly as he himself didn't expect to say all those things.

"*Cough* You seem to know him well." Dumbledore said, "So I hope you can listen to this one request of mine."

"To win the house cup?" Draco asked curiously.

Dumbledore in surprise nodded, "How did you guess?"

"Well, at the end of the year there can't be anything else." Draco said, "And with all the commotion I thought you wanted to take this as an advantage."

"Good deduction." Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, I want to offer house points to Gryffindor so they can win this year."

"To boost Harry's confidence?" Draco asked, "But unless you gave him 150 points he wouldn't be able to win."

"I plan to do so with Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Longbottom as well," Dumbledore replied.

"But aren't I getting the bad end of the bargain?" Draco said, "The way you put it, I have the permission of Nicholas Flamel the owner himself and you are just the mediator aren't you, so taking that much as a commission would be a bit unfair to me."

Dumbledore instead of getting angry, smiled and said, "What do you want? As long as it's nothing extensive I can give it to you."

"First, give Daphne the house point as well." Draco said, "At least I want to be second. For that, you can give her all the credit as I don't want any part of it"

"Done."

"Second, can I get some phoenix tears." Draco said looking at Fawkes, "Not much but a little will be okay." Draco said.

Dumbledore thought for a while and nodded. "You really know how to drain someone dry"

"Third, the dog." Draco said, "I am pretty sure you will release it in the wild or sell it somewhere else, so why not give it to me?"

"I heard you really like animals," Dumbledore said implying something but Draco didn't let that faze him, "Fine, I will try to convince Hagrid but that's all I can do."

"The snitch..." Draco said glaring at Dumbledore who was still unfazed and looked calm,

"You are one of the brightest students I have seen at Hogwarts." Dumbledore said, "I will try my best, So I guess we are even now, aren't we?"

Draco rolled his eyes, "How about some Pheonix ashes? I can pay for it if you want. Consider it extra."

"No need, I will give it to you for free but you will owe me a favor in the future," Dumbledore said smiling. "How about it?"

"As long as it's not anything extensive," Draco repeated Dumbledore' line.

Dumbledore nodded, "Time will tell."

"Can I ask you something?" Draco said, "Why go through all this trouble when you could directly call the shots at the feast tonight."

"Well if I do so, Professor Snape would be very angry and the other students are very hard to handle themselves, and since I am a Headmaster I need to be fair to all students," Dumbledore said.

"Even if you have to use tricks?" Draco snickered.

"Yes, even if I have to use tricks." Dumbledore replied, "And the other reason is that you remind me of someone."

"Oh, really?" Draco said, "Can I ask who?"

"An old friend of mine," Dumbledore replied looking as if he was reminiscing things.