Favour for an Enemy.
By Tycho tychompx@bigpond.net.au

Summary: Just something that's been floating around in my head, refusing to go away. Draco finds himself in the untenable position of having to ask Potter for a favour. And it's a big 'un! D/G with references to others. This is the first book of a much larger series I've called Azkaban.
Rating: We'll start at PG-13 and go from there shall we?
Timeline: During HP's seventh year.

Disclaimer: This is a spell that prevents me from getting sued by JKR for using her characters. Hope it works!

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Harry Potter was having a very hard time concentrating on his Transfiguration Essay. That of course would explain why he was still up at two in the morning trying to finish it. There just seemed to be so much that was just more important than arguing the pros and cons of the many animals most commonly used by animagi. So many other things to worry over, plan for and panic about. Of all of them the escalating war with the Death-Eaters was foremost in his mind. Also Sirius had been missing for months, Hagrid was in mourning - his people had been destroyed after their refusal to join Voldemort, - and although attacks by Dark Wizards were steadily on the increase, the Dark Lord himself had not been seen in person since the previous Christmas.

Black Christmas. The day that Harry's last living relatives had been brutally murdered, the Dark Mark obscenely burned into every available surface. Harry's memory of finding them in what had once been his childhood home, their vital organs splayed out like a museum exhibit, still brought him nightmares. A self-loathing thought found it amusing to frequently rear its head inside his mind: If only I'd loved them, I could have saved them.

Harry was roused from his musings by a very odd sight. A hand was waving at him through his window. His fifteenth story window. Harry looked away, blinked rapidly to clear the bleariness from his eyes and looked back. The hand was still there, only now it was pointing at him angrily, (Harry had absolutely no doubt that the hand was angry) and motioning him to come to the window. Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off yet another headache. "If that's who I think it is, you can just hover about out there all night."

Unsurprisingly the hand's movement changed from the universal 'come here' gesture to one almost as familiar involving two fingers. Harry laughed. Only one person could own a hand with that sort of attitude. A person he had once counted as his greatest annoyance, but now was. . . . what? A rival? Somehow, over the past year, the nastiness had gone out of their encounters. Even their madhouse antics around Quidditch Pitch during a match had changed to something remotely resembling fun, and Harry found himself actually looking forward to his next match against Slytherin. He walked over to the window and opened it. "You gonna hover about all night out there or are you actually going to come in?"

Draco Malfoy scowled at him from the precarious perch on the narrow rampart below Harry's window. "Very funny, Potter. Now hurry up and levitate me in, will you? It's bloody freezing out here!"