Hi everyone! Time for a return to the HP universe, this time featuring the Golden Boy and everyone's fav Slytherins.

I actually had a HP marathon a month or to again, and it pretty much became a knee-jerk reflex to cry whenever someone mentioned Harry Potter. JK Rowling is a genius, and I sincerely doubt I will ever regard anyone as highly as I regard her. She singlehandedly a legion of nostalgic adults ready to kill for an opportunity to experience the world she created.

This story focuses on Draco and Harry, who become surrogate brothers to each other after being taken under Snape's wing. The war flared up again sometime during their schooling at Hogwarts, and after they graduated, they immediately enlisted in the army to fight Voldemort and his forces. There will be character death, so watch out for that.

Only time will tell if I can manage to update in a timely manner, but writers need love so please keep reading.

~MPG

AN (and this is the only time in this story I will ever write this): nothing you recognize belongs to me as I am a broke human bean.

"Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Draco Malfoy sat in his office, signing forms and reading reports from a slowly shrinking tower of papers on his desk. It was all work that should have been finished by yesterday, but he had fallen asleep while working, as the ever growing responsibilities on his shoulders exhausted him. The only thought that brought him relief was the fact that he had not had to actively lead any troops in months, but even this made him nervous, as he was constantly anticipating any movement on Voldemort's side, and though he may not have been in active duty rotation, his brother was.

Harry had taken his turn in active duty, and led a small airborne battalion into France to combat a minor threat that had taken root there, which would have escalated if proper action had not been taken. That was three months ago, and he was supposed to have returned to camp four days ago. Draco knew perfectly well Harry's penchant for getting into trouble as well as his talent for worming his way out of those situations relatively unscathed, but he could not shake the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that something had gone wrong in France. Before he had disappeared, their adopted father, Severus Snape, had ordered Draco to protect his younger brother in his stead, and he had swore to do his best, but his job was made exponentially more difficult by the fact that Harry was the bloody Chosen One, target primo of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Over the last few days, Draco had lost an absurd amount of sleep fretting about all the ways Harry could have gone missing, captured, tortured or murdered, and eventually settled for a policy of general apathy until further news arrived.

He looked down at the parchment in his hand, and set it aflame in disgust. It was from a Ms. Roberta Kingston, who evidently thought that her darling Caroline would make a splendid wife for Major General Potter or Lieutenant General Malfoy, whichever one of the two officers preferred her more. Who would consider a marriage proposal in these times? he wondered. It was highly fortunate that the brothers had never met this deplorable woman in the flesh, as they were libel to blast her into the Floo and have her pop out in some godforsaken forest. The war had whittled away at their patience, but fostered their trigger-happiness and acidic humor. His musings on the character of Roberta Kingston were interrupted by the entrance of Captain Weaver, rushing in a little too harried and unkempt for his tastes.

"Lieutenant General sir!" Draco nodded for him to continue with whatever business he had come on.

"Major General Potter has arrived, and he has requested that you see him in his tent."

"He couldn't have come himself? I'm rather busy and don't have the time to spare for such niceties."

"Please sir, you see he's rath-"

"Oh bugger, I should have never bothered. I knew you would never get your lazy ass up out of your chair long enough to say hello to your beloved brother." Harry walked in, grinning like a loon. Draco stood there, gazing in surprise at the other man, while Weaver took the opportunity to slip away. The blond suddenly realized what was different about Harry.

"Your arm Harry, your arm's gone!"

"None of us knew they'd started using dragons to fight!" Harry defended.

"Maybe not, but you should have been more careful! Your soldiers are expendable, but you are not." Draco's voice rose in agitation.

"How can you say that? Those men and women have families who care about them too! On the battlefield, they're every bit as valuable as you and I are, and you may be the sort of person who would drop them to save me, but I'm not."

"They may be as good at dueling as we are, but they aren't the Chosen One are they? They aren't the primary target for the Death Eaters, but Voldemort isn't above using your softness to bargain their lives for yours."

"That's not what we were talking about and you know it!" Harry shouted back. He was tired, in pain, and disoriented from the loss of his arm. All he wanted was to give his report and sleep for days.

"Without you Harry, we will never win this war." Draco said solemnly, quietly.

"I'm starting to think we were never meant to win it anyway." Harry turned away, perfectly aware that it was his best friend's betrayal of their forces that had caused the war to be prolonged.

Something had snapped in Ronald Weasley when Charlie was arrested and given the Kiss for a bogus charge, without anyone's knowledge. In his opinion, the Light had failed him and his family, their loyalty and support to the cause utterly abused. For months afterwards, he had retained the pretense of remaining loyal, but had secretly been ferreting information to the Death Eaters about a massive planned raid on one of Voldemort's stronghold. Once the battle had commenced with all their plans falling to pieces around them, Draco had spied the redhead flying off to the incoming forces, and upon realizing his betrayal, sped after him and killed him instantly. The Light suffered major losses in that battle, and was forced to rebuild their command system to replace the many deceased who had been instrumental leaders in the fight. The other Weasleys had come under fire for their questionable loyalty, but Snape had used Legilimency to ascertain that they were not a threat currently.

That was the turning point in the war. Now, the Light were on the retreat, scrambling to defend whatever grasp they had on the English country and come up with a clever counterattack to regain ground. Snape had disappeared, supposedly to do research on a theory he'd had since his sons' fifth year. Neville Longbottom had been killed, along with Seamus Finnegan and Aurora Sinistra and several other friends and comrades. Some, like Hannah Abbott had escaped the country to seek refuge in the farther reaches of the continent, while others had fled to the other side of the pond to America and Canada in an effort to be as far away from the fighting as possible.

"There's nothing we could do then, and nothing we can do now. You can't put the weight of the world on your shoulders, Harry, one way or another, it will kill you. You can't be Atlas, just as I can't be Hercules."

"I don't want to be Atlas! I don't want to be a god, I never wanted to be a god! I just want this bloody fucking war to be over!" Harry's forlorn eyes met Draco's, and they saw in each other the weariness, the fatigue, and the things they had lost in the inferno. "I just want the war to be over." he repeated quietly.

"I do too, and if you'll let me, we'll do it together little brother, like everything else we do." And Draco promised himself he would do his best so his brother would stop losing everything he loved.

Severus Snape reclined in his chaise, fingers clutching the letter from Harry. He had lost an arm, but the he was grateful Harry's physical losses had stopped there. Mentally or emotionally, however, the impact of the latest defeat was still yet to be seen. Logically, he knew that his sons were very capable young men, fully able to hold their own against other witches and wizards. They might be older, but what Harry and Draco lacked in experience, they made up for with ingenuity and a growing appetite for creative viciousness.

He wouldn't say that they were losing their way, but in a way, he supposed their growth mirrored his own when the First Wizarding War began. Fighting and subterfuge transformed him from a spindly, sallow bookworm into ruthless, still sallow duelist. The fact that Harry and Draco were becoming more and more willing to throw away the rules spelled only good things for them, at least in terms of the war. Whether they would have an easy time assimilating into peacetime society was still yet to be seen, if the war were actually decided in their favor, of course.

The course of the war was still yet to be decided, but with the way things had been going for a while now, the Death Eaters still had the upper hand. That might not be the case, with the information he had cleaned from his trip to the wreckage that remained of London. He had finished his preliminary research, but still had to verify a thing or two here and there, and when he was done, he would have an idea of what to do. But for now, all he could hope was that his theory was wrong.

Please R&R and stay tuned for the next chapter! Also accepting any beta requests for this fic, maybe others!