I have a few promises to make before I start this.

First: I promise never to invent things (such as spells and omg-extended-polyjuice) that do not exist as created by our esteemed Miss J.K.Rowling

Second: I promise never to write scenes that could not, in any tiny remotely small way, have happened.((Bar the minor scene that's next, as I wrote it before I re-read the book))

Third: I promise to do at least one update a month, and I'm going to try for one a week. (If you read my other stuff, you know how bad I am with this)

He was in my arms mere moments after I made my entrance into the great hall. One minute he was sitting there, at the Slytherin table, in the same spot he always did, looking overly worried and rather haggard, and the next he was looking up, running towards me, clinging to me, and he didn't give a damn that the entire school was staring. The seven years we'd been so carefully hiding our relationship, and he blew it all away that morning. Before, only Snape, Ron, Hermione, and the Weasley twins knew of our relationship. Now it was the entire school. Not that I blamed him, really; he'd been wondering if I was even alive or not for a while. My fault. And it felt so good to hold him in my arms again, after so long, that I just gave in. Held his sobbing face to my shoulder and buried mine in his hair. I was taller than he was now. When his tears subsided, I simply led him out of the Great Hall, completely oblivious to the stunned silence that stretched even to the enchanted ceiling. Never in all her years had Hogwarts seen anything such as this. Two blatant rivals in a loving embrace. Not one person would ever expect Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, to be lovers.

Now you must be wondering how this came to be?

I will tell you, but I won't start at the beginning. The tale, you see, doesn't begin at the beginning, but rather somewhere near the middle.

Neither does the story weave sensibly in a chronological order.

It appears, in fact, to have no order at all.

But I know the difference. The order is all-important. It makes sense only when told a certain way, with certain far-spaced events told adjacently.

And so we begin at the non-beginning, but what was a beginning for two best friends of a certain boy, and an end for someone so very close.