Part One

Harry watches Draco sleeping peacefully in his king-size, four-poster bed. It took a while to find him – the Slytherin quarters, as it turns out, are much larger than the ones belonging to Gryffindor, and in addition, the staircase leading to the sixth-year dormitory has several smaller staircases leading off it, all of which end in store cupboards, dead-ends, bathrooms and extremely painful booby traps. Harry shrugs off the Invisibility Cloak and pulls a coil of barbed wire out of his thumb with his teeth, wincing silently.

Neville would probably get himself killed here, trying to find his way up to bed at night, he muses thoughtfully. Either that or he'd get hopelessly lost, and we'd find him three days later, living off crumbs and dust. Harry recalls his bewilderingly long journey up to the bedroom with distaste. And Slytherins claim they're not paranoid.

Harry ponders which hex to use on Draco. Furnuculus is an old favourite. Or maybe Densaugeo, to punish him for the stunt he pulled with Hermione's teeth in fourth year. Harry grins to himself. Maybe he should just dye the stupid poofter's hair lime green and be done with it. For once, Draco's consistently perfect white-blond hair is messed up and scruffy, fanning out onto the pillow like a halo. This is odd. Harry's never seen Draco with so much as a hair out of place before now, and Draco's beauty regime is often the talk of the Gryffindor common room. Ron had even voiced his suspicions that Draco wore a hairnet to bed each night.

The blond boy is curled up like a baby underneath the massive duvet. He keeps making occasional contented noises, and the toes on his left foot, sticking out from the side of the bed, are curling and uncurling themselves.

At least he doesn't snore, Harry thinks, relieved. He pulls out his wand from his back pocket and rubs it clean with his sleeve. Not like Seamus... I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. Git.

Draco is smiles softly to himself, and murmurs a sentence in his sleep. Only the words 'give me' are audible. Harry wonders briefly what he's dreaming about.

Probably stealing candy from some Muggle babies, Harry tells himself, but he's still curious. One other thing he's never seen is Draco giving someone a genuine smile. Not a smirk, or a sneer, or some other expression of amusement at Ron's latest disastrous attempt to get a girl to notice him. Just a smile, the kind people give when they're simply happy.

Draco can't often be happy, Harry thinks matter-of-factly. He leans forward to examine Draco's face, then jumps when he sees his sleepy grey-blue eyes fluttering open. Shit.

Draco yawns cutely, and rubs his eyelids with a clenched fist. Harry holds his breath, not daring to move. Harry mouths the numbers from one to ten noiselessly, in an attempt to keep himself from panicking. Mustn't make a sound. Harry even tries to think in a whisper, which makes his brain hurt, and so he desists.

Alright, Harry says to himself silently whilst edging away from the waking Slytherin, just keep quiet and he won't even notice you. He's half-asleep, he'll just think that you're a bad dream. A bad dream. If you don't make a sound, and you keep very still, he'll think that you were just a dream. Harry edges backwards a little further. Draco is nestling back down into the covers. It doesn't seem like he's going to wake up after all.

"Phew," Harry mumbles unconsciously. Draco's eyes shoot open instantaneously, and they're gazing straight at him. There's a few seconds' confusion, during which Draco struggles to focus, and Harry contemplates suicide, but then Draco's grey eyes widen with shock, and Harry knows he's been seen.

Shit Shit Shit Shit!

"I'm a dream," Harry blurts out stupidly.

Draco sits up hurriedly, exposing his naked torso. Harry stares at Draco's chest idiotically.

Who'd have known? Malfoy has a chest! Harry is panicking, and whenever Harry panics, he has the oddest thoughts. He can't help it. That place the git bought on the Slytherin Quidditch team must have really paid off. Look, there's a six-pack and everything!

"Potter," Draco hisses vehemently. Harry reluctantly drags his eyes up to meet Draco's gaze, which is one of concentrated fury.

"Um." Harry nudges his fallen Invisibility Cloak with his toe awkwardly. "Hello."

"What the fuck are you doing in my dorm, Potter?"

"Nothing." This seems like the safest answer.

"Nothing?" Draco spits out disbelievingly. "Nothing? You just decided to take a scenic tour of the Slytherin dormitories, at midnight, and then you just happened to end up standing beside my bed, aiming your wand at me?"

Draco glares at the wand clenched in Harry's sweaty palm. The dark-haired boy looks down at it in confusion, as if he's forgotten it's there. Harry laughs weakly, and stuffs it back into his pocket with some difficulty.

"Oh, that. That was to get you back, you know… for that thing you did to Ron."

"That thing I did to Ron," Draco repeats, breathing heavily. His heartbeat's only just starting to slow down.

"Yes," Harry answers, blushing. He feels incredibly silly and immature all of a sudden. "You know, how you used the Reducio charm on his -"

"Yes, I do know," Draco interrupts tiredly. Harry continues nevertheless, talking desperately, because he feels it's imperative that he explain himself.

"And… and then… he tried to say it was because the showers near the Quidditch pitch had run out of hot water. But by then Creevey had shown up. With his bloody camera. And then of course we had to catch him and destroy the camera, otherwise you'd have gotten hold of it and tried to blackmail him by putting it up all around school, and that would be pornographic, wouldn't it, because the pictures move, but it's just the sort of thing that you'd do. And then McGonagall showed up, and of course we couldn't tell her why we had to crush the camera, and so she docked points and gave us both detentions, and then we went back to the common room and Ron tried to reverse the Reducio by doing the Engorgement Charm, but that went horribly, horribly wrong, and just as they were taking him off to the hospital wing, he told me I'd better bloody well get you back, and so I came here to hex you while you were sleeping. I wasn't watching you for any other, disgusting reason, I just wanted to you back for the detentions and the points and what you did to Ron's… thing. There."

Harry finishes his speech in a rush and takes a deep breath. Draco is staring at him with a supremely annoyed expression on his face.

"Potter."

"Yes?"

"Get the fuck out."

"No."

Draco looks at Harry quizzically. Harry fidgets and looks down at his feet. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. Draco clears his throat loudly, and Harry looks up, startled.

"I'm sorry, were you going to say something?"

"Potter," Draco snarls. "You are un-fucking-believable. First you sneak into my bedroom in the middle of the night, then you try and hex me, then when I wake up you give me this long pathetic spiel about the Weasel's cock and why you're trying to hex me, and then when I tell you to get lost, you won't go. I don't understand you."

"Well," Harry hedges. "The thing is, if I did go, it wouldn't be very noble. Not the kind of thing a good friend does. I'm supposed to – kind of – avenge Ron."

Draco stares at Harry, open-mouthed.

"What… is… your… problem? What is it with the whole superhero delusion? What, so the evil Slytherin Man hurt your sidekick Freckle Dude, and now the mighty Lightning Scar Boy has to avenge his faithful companion?"

Harry's own mouth drops open.

"Look, the only reason you're not covered in boils is that I was busy deciding on which curse to use," Harry retorts hotly, pushing his glasses up his nose. "So keep your fat mouth shut."

"So you were watching me, while I was asleep? Christ, Potter. You're such a fag." Draco scratches his cheek with his manicured fingernails, obviously irritated.

"I am not a fag!" Harry splutters, disbelieving. "If anyone here's a… a homosexual… it's you."

Draco yawns drowsily, and finger-combs his hair. "How, exactly, did you come up with that?"

"You have manicured nails!" Harry protests, trying not to raise his voice for fear of waking up the other Slytherins. "Your hair's always perfect! You have tailor-made robes. You smell of pear-scented shampoo all the time, you never get dirty, you have loopy handwriting with circles over the I's, you put balm on your lips so that they don't get chapped, and you fly like a girl."

"That's because I, Potter, am cultured and civilised. And also because I can afford to get bespoke school uniforms flown in from Switzerland." Draco lies back onto his pillow and surveys Harry with amusement. "What about you? You've got loads of brainless bimbos chasing after you, yet you've never had a girlfriend, you excel at Quidditch, the most homo-erotic sport in existence, you befriend all the male teachers – that oaf Hagrid, Professor Lupin, Moody… and when you sneak into my dormitory you waste half the time ogling me like some kind of pervert, before realising that you can't actually bring yourself to do anything. It's pathetic."

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"I bet you'd love to fuck me, Potter," Draco says calmly. "It's not my fault I'm devastatingly attractive."

"You're not attractive," Harry replies automatically, although he knows it's a lie. Draco's no Cedric Diggory, certainly. He's about half an inch shorter than Harry, and the permanent sneer doesn't do much for his features, but still. There are some good points. A long, lean body, perfectly chiselled cheekbones, expressive greyish-bluish eyes and the silkiest blond hair Harry's ever seen on a boy.

Like a sort of a male Veela, Harry thinks involuntarily, then checks himself, alarmed at his thoughts. I suppose Malfoy is somewhat attractive, if you like boys like that. Which I don't. Because I don't like boys in the first place. Oh, bugger.

"You might be… less than repulsive, actually," Harry admits grudgingly, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. "But only to girls."

"Wrong," Draco sits up again, and fixes Harry with a particularly piercing stare. "I may be less than repulsive, but only to girls and gay men. Like you."

"What the hell are you trying to do, Malfoy?" Harry asks, exasperated. Draco seems to take delight in infuriating and confusing him, and it's far too early in the morning for Harry to have to deal with this shit.

"What I am trying to do," Draco explains, his eyes flashing dangerously, "is get you out of my dormitory, so that I can go back to sleep without having to worry about you trying to grope or hex me." Draco sits up much straighter and puffs out his chest. "You do realise I could shout at any moment, and wake up everyone else in my house, who I'm sure would give you a much warmer welcome than I have."

"Why don't you shout and wake them up?" Harry inquires boldly. His knees are shaking, for some inexplicable reason. He sits down on the corner of the four-poster and hopes it's due to his outrage at hearing the ludicrous and untrue accusations Draco has just been throwing at him.

"Well, if I woke everyone else up, and they came and found you, here, sitting on my bed, and me naked, they might draw some erroneous conclusions about my sexuality."

"Naked?" Harry asks, unnerved. "You're naked?" He studies Draco's exposed torso with fascinated disgust, then looks keenly at the duvet covering his lower half. "Why the hell d'you sleep naked?"

"It's hot, Potter." Draco snaps back angrily. "Deal with it."

"It may be hot, but there's no need to take your boxers off," Harry scoffs disparagingly. Then a thought occurs to him. "Well… that's assuming you –gays- wear boxer shorts at all. You might wear… briefs. Or thongs. Or nothing at all. I wouldn't know."

"Oh, of course, because all homosexuals go commando all the time," Draco sneers. He pauses, and runs his tongue over his lower lip. "I wear boxers, thank you very much. Silk ones."

"I didn't ask for a detailed description of your underwear, Malfoy."

There is another pause. Draco looks up at the ceiling in mock despair. The moonlight outside is casting ghostly shadows on the walls. Harry sighs heavily from his seat at the edge of the bed, and runs a hand through his tousled black hair, messing it up even more. Draco asks the question he still doesn't know the answer to, even after an exhaustive bout of verbal duelling.

"What are you doing here?"

"Trying to think of what to do."

"Oh, just eff off," Draco snarls. "You've more than avenged Weasley just by being here. You're just that annoying."

"Oh, shut up."

There is silence for a minute or two. Harry fingers the wand in his pocket ruminatively. He takes it out, stares at it for a couple of seconds, but then decides not to use it. Harry lies back on the comfortable duvet, disgruntled. Draco makes an indignant noise from the head of the bed.

"Do you normally do the thinking in your little clique? Isn't that the Mudblood's forte?"

"I said, shut the fuck up or I'll hex you into oblivion."

"Sure, that plan worked so well the first time," Draco mocks, but he falls silent anyway. He watches Harry lying at his feet, contemplating his options.

Is Potty for real? Draco wonders in amazement. Soon afterwards, obviously having reached some sort of conclusion, Harry rolls over to face Draco and opens his mouth uncertainly.

"Look. Malfoy. Would you… be willing to just let me Furnuculus you? I could reverse it as soon as I'd done it; it's just the actual avenging that counts."

Evidently so.

"Potter, what the fuck?"

"Fine, be like that, you twat," Harry scowls. "I was just trying to find a good solution to this problem."

"You want a good solution to the problem?" Draco exclaims loudly, forgetting the need for quiet. "Go up to the roof of the Astronomy Tower, take a good look over the edge, and then fall off!"

Goyle sits up in his four-poster abruptly. Draco freezes. Harry freezes. Goyle looks around him, his dull eyes staring wildly.

"What is it? Where am I?" Goyle asks sleepily, flailing around in his covers. The rest of the dormitory is silent.

"You're in bed, Goyle," Draco hisses from behind gritted teeth. "You should be asleep."

"Bed?" Goyle murmurs questioningly, sinking back down into sleep. "Not… not skinny-dipping with Grindylows, then? Bed?"

"Yes, Goyle. Bed." Draco closes his eyes wearily. Goyle is soon slumbering again, and begins to make little contented snuffling sounds. After a full three minutes of not breathing, Harry allows himself to laugh softly.

"Ron does that sometimes," he comments.

Draco scowls, not bothering to ask whether Harry means that Weasley talks nonsense in his sleep from time to time, or that Weasley occasionally reveals himself indecently to magical creatures. He suspects it is the latter, though. Stupid ginger git.

"Are you really not going to leave?" Draco asks after a while. "Really really?" Harry does not respond. Draco peers at Harry in the darkness, and realises that he's fallen asleep. He kicks out at Harry's head savagely.

"Ow! Fuck! Malfoy, what the hell are you doing?"

"Waking you up," Draco sniffs primly. He was only trying to help, after all.

"I think better with my eyes closed, you git. Don't attack me like that again."

"I won't," Draco promises earnestly. When Harry closes his eyes for the second time, he swings his foot back and delivers a skull-crushing blow to the back of Harry's head.

Harry's muffled curses and threats are most satisfying.