Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot line; all the characters etc are JK Rowling's. HP/DM pairing later on.

Warnings: At the moment this is just rated T, however the rating may rise in later chapters.

Beta: My wonderful friend Candy Marie, who read this so long ago she's probably forgotten what happened:)

Summary: Will Harry ever learn to close his mind? Will Draco ever learn to open his?

Authors Notes: I really enjoyed writing this chapter (way back when!) so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter 2: No Going Back

Almost an hour later, Draco was back in the tunnels again. Voldemort had arrived. He had been angry beyond anything Draco had ever experienced in his life and had punished them severely with the Cruciatus curse. Then he had dismissed them all , except Snape, and now Draco was trudging along with his father, through the cold damp passageways, his limbs aching in that all too familiar way, towards the entrance where they would be beyond the Anti-Apparition charms. They were going home.

At least his father was going home, Draco wasn't, and he felt an odd ache in the pit of his stomach at this thought. He was about to turn his back on the life he had known, on everything he knew, on his parents. As the realisation of this flashed into his mind he felt himself pale further. True his home life hadn't all been wonderful and idyllic but there had been times... he shook his head slightly to clear these thoughts. Now was not the time to be looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles. It was too late for that now, he had already made his decision.

Moments later he stepped out into the cold night air by his father's side, for what was probably going to be the last time. His father turned to him with a nod, a nod that was the signal to Disapparate back to the Manor. Draco nodded in acknowledgement and then his father was gone, he was left standing alone, the pale moon the only source of light.

"Goodbye, Father," he murmured, closing his eyes briefly and letting a moment of self-pity engulf him. When he opened them again all trace of emotion was gone. There was no room for regret now; he must concentrate and hope Potter had managed to get where he thought he was going to be.

That was his plan. Get to wherever Potter was and talk to him. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was the best he had come up with so far. There was only one snag. He didn't know where Potter was. True, Draco had seen in his mind the place where he had been going when the Death Eaters had surprised him, but he had no idea whether Potter had gone there once he had escaped, and even less idea where the place was. It had looked to Draco like a deserted stretch of moorland, dark and bleak for miles and miles, Potter could be anywhere on it, if in fact he was on it at all.

Draco knew what he had to do; not only would he have to concentrate on where he wanted to go, he would also need to concentrate on apparating into the space right next to Harry Potter. It was going to be tough, but it had to be tried.

Taking a deep breath Draco focused. He had only a little time left before his father realised he was not in the Manor and came back to look for him. He concentrated, he imagined Harry and the moor; he tried to fuse the images together. Harry Potter, the moor, Harry Potter, the moor, Harry Potter…. He stepped forward and vanished.

Then he fell.

It took Draco a split second to realise he had apparated into thin air, took a split second for him to grab wildly at the nearest object, took a split second to realise that he was dangling above roaring flames that licked greedily at his ankles, took a split second to realise that Potter had been riding a broom.

Shit.

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Harry had been floating above the moor for a good half hour now and still hadn't figured out a way to get where he needed to be. After leaving the Death Eaters he had apparated back to the place where they had captured him and found his broom lying untouched on the floor of the hut. He had flown rather than apparated to the moor land; after all he hadn't known exactly where on the moor he needed to be and he had no idea what was going to be there. There was no point apparating into a load of trouble after such a narrow escape and if a Muggle happened to be around as he suddenly appeared from thin air things could get very uncomfortable. Besides Harry hated apparating.

He was here now though, and he knew it was the right place; for one thing the circle of flames was a bit of a giveaway. Someone had wanted to protect something that was placed in the middle of that circle. Harry hoped that someone was Voldemort and hoped that something was a Horcrux. The only problem was he had no way of getting to it; water hadn't put out the flames, he hadn't really expected it to, after all that would have been too easy. The only thing so far which had stopped the flames was distance, so Harry had been drifting around just high enough to stop the fire from burning. There was no one around for miles, but Harry wasn't taking any chances.

In truth his mind had been only half on the task, he kept thinking back to what had happened with Snape. He was sure he hadn't suddenly mastered Occlumency, he had been burning up with emotion, there was no way he had cleared his head. Then there was the mystery of where that spell had come from, he was sure now it was not a spell he had ever heard of and found himself wondering how much damage it had done to Snape. A lot he hoped, but still, where had it come from? Had someone else been controlling him? The only way he knew of doing that was the Imperius curse and he was almost certain he hadn't been under that. It had been almost as if there was someone in his head with him, blocking his thoughts from Snape, and replacing them with thoughts that he could not think, but that made his body act seemingly of its own accord. Wait, that didn't make sense, thoughts that he could not think? It was nonsense.

His train of thought was broken as his broom jerked sharply downwards, causing the flames to leap up once again. Something had landed on the back of his broom!

Harry twisted hurriedly, reaching for his wand. There was no one behind him. His gaze dropped, landing on the hooded and cloaked figure that was now dangling by one hand from the back of his broomstick. An involuntary shiver raced down his spine as he recognised the hooded mask as that of the Death Eaters. He watched in fascinated horror and the figure swung wildly for a moment, then seemed to regain his bearings and reach up to his hood.

Harry's thoughts raced. Why had a Death Eater suddenly appeared on the back of his broom? Were there more? Logic told him that if there were more they would surely appear either on their own brooms or on the ground. After all they couldn't all be planning to join him on his broomstick. Clearly something had gone wrong for this one. Maybe he had intended to land on the back of Harry's broom and wrestle him off? Even that didn't make sense though, how would he have known Harry's exact position? How would he have even known Harry would be on a broomstick?

Right now there was no time to think about that. Harry snapped his attention back to the Death Eater and readied his wand. His gaze fell on the hand gripping the broom handle; the fingers were long and pale, Harry was surprised they had enough strength to grip so tightly and he realised how very easy it would be to prise those fingers away, to let the Death Eater fall to a fiery doom.

Below him the Death Eater tugged at his hood and Harry realised with some surprise that he was pulling it off. Pale blonde hair glowed in the dancing flames and the figure released the hood, allowing it to be consumed by the hungry fire below. Then he looked up. Silver grey eyes, pale skin, blonde hair.

"Malfoy!"

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Harry blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Somehow now he realised it was Draco Malfoy hanging from his broom most of his fear had disappeared. Malfoy might be a Death Eater now, but he was a familiar enemy. Harry had been around him and had been fighting with him nearly everyday since he was eleven, give or take a few summer holidays. Yes he was afraid of what might come next; and yes he was afraid that there would be other Death Eaters nearby, waiting for some sort of signal from Malfoy; but he could not fear Malfoy himself.

"Malfoy, what are you doing?" It was a stupid question Harry realised, especially if Malfoy was part of some plan the Death Eaters had to recapture him, but the strange relief Harry felt had made the question come out of nowhere.

"I'm hanging one handed from your broomstick, in the middle of nowhere, above some sort of raging inferno by the looks of things Potter." Malfoy snapped back, his face twisting into his trademark sneer. "Unless of course you want to tell me something different." Harry recoiled slightly; that wasn't the sort of reply he'd been expecting, although come to think of it he hadn't really known what he was expecting. His mouth tried to form several questions at once.

"How did you get here?" he stammered finally. That was another pointless question he realised. Shouldn't he be asking him about why he was here? About whether he should expect more Death Eaters to suddenly arrive to take him prisoner once again?

"I Apparated Potter, what do you think. It's not like I just fell out of the sky." Malfoy made a grab for the broom with his free hand, causing it to sway dangerously. "Are you going to give me a hand or what?"

Wordlessly and unable to think what else to do, Harry clutched at Draco's free hand and, after some effort, managed to haul him up high enough for him to hook a leg over the broomstick. Draco swung himself up, and for one brief moment clutched at Harry's waist to steady himself, then his hands were gone and Harry could only watch in silence as he pulled the black robes over his head and then let those too fall into the flames below.

The flames! Harry hoped no Muggles had noticed them. He pulled the broomstick upwards sharply, forcing Malfoy to once again clutch at his waist to keep his balance. The flames vanished suddenly and both Harry and Draco had to blink a few times as their eyes adjusted to seeing only by the pale light of the full moon.

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"They've gone!" Draco stated somewhat obviously, before realising that his hands were still gripping Harry's waist tighter than was strictly necessary. He pulled them away hastily, although luckily Harry didn't appear to notice.

Instead they hovered there not moving for a few moments, before Harry twisted round and looked at him again with raised eyebrows.

"You're wearing Muggle clothes." Harry's voice sounded unnaturally loud now the roaring of the flames had gone. Draco glanced down at his attire: black jeans, black trainers, long sleeved black t-shirt to hide the ugly mark on his arm.

"Yeah." His mouth was suddenly very dry Now that he was seated safely on the broom and floating quietly above what looked like an ordinary deserted moorland, Draco was beginning to realise how odd the situation must appear. So far Potter actually appeared to be taking things quite well considering, and he hadn't hexed Draco yet, which was always a good sign as far as he was concerned. Harry was still looking at him strangely and Draco realised that he was even more unsure about what to do next than Draco was. The realisation brought back some of his Malfoy self-assurance and he relaxed slightly.

"So Potter, care to tell me what you're doing?" he drawled, casually flexing the fingers that were aching from supporting his weight for so long.

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Harry looked at him almost incredulously. "What do you mean, what am I doing?" he spluttered, half out of rage, half out of amazement. He was starting to feel like he had missed a very important part of a very important conversation. This was not supposed to happen. Moments ago his biggest worry had been how to get past seemingly impenetrable magical flames. Now he had to deal with the fact that Malfoy had just appeared from nowhere, for no discernable reason and was asking him what he was doing as if this were a normal everyday occurrence.

"Never mind what I'm doing, what are you doing? How did you know I was here? Why did you Apparate onto my broomstick?" Harry's voice was beginning to sound high and panicked but he didn't care "Are there more of you? Is this some sort of attack?" He paused and took a deep breath to calm himself slightly before he asked the most important question of all. If only he had the answer to this he felt that it might all make sense. "Why have you just thrown away your robes?"

Draco sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes "Hold it, Potter, one question at a time." He took a deep breath "I saw where you would be in your head. I was trying to Apparate to wherever you were. I didn't know you'd be on a broomstick. I didn't mean to Apparate onto it, or off it as it turned out." He gave a twisted sort of smile, "No, there are no more of us. No, it isn't an attack. And I threw them away because I won't be needing them anymore."

"..." Harry blinked, his mouth moved for a second, but no sound came out. What exactly was Malfoy saying?

"You won't need them anymore?" The question came out in a rush, as if he was afraid to say it in case the answer wasn't what he expected.

"No, Potter, I won't be needing them anymore." Draco's eyes pierced into his, as if daring him to challenge what he had just said. Daring him to ask why. Harry let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and understood what Malfoy had left unspoken. He had switched sides. That was it, end of discussion. There would be no why, there would be no doubtful questioning, there would be no surprised remarks. Not here, not now, not yet...

There was one thing though that needed to be asked, something Harry could not let go. "Was it you earlier? In my head?" Draco scowled and nodded briefly; Harry opened his mouth to ask how and why, but closed it swiftly again. That was all he was going to get, he realised. He had to decide here and now whether to trust Malfoy, and if he made the wrong decision everything would be lost. If he trusted Malfoy he would probably have to let him in on what was going on right now, and that was something that only his closest friends knew. If he trusted Malfoy and Malfoy were not trustworthy, Voldemort would find out just how much Harry knew about how to destroy him and the consequences didn't bear thinking about. But what if Malfoy was trustworthy and he turned him away? He had already betrayed Voldemort and without The Order's protection he would probably be dead before another day was out.

How could he make that decision? He found himself thinking back to the events of the last year: the night of Dumbledore's death and how Malfoy had acted on the Tower. This was the first time he had seen him since that dreadful night. Dumbledore's death had been Malfoy's fault, how could he trust him now after all that had happened?

His thoughts returned to this evening and the strange events that had taken place. He would probably be dead now if Malfoy hadn't helped him back in those cellars, he didn't know how or why Malfoy had helped him, but when Malfoy said it was him Harry found himself believing him; he was sure there had been no one else present who would have done such a thing. Of course it could all be a trick, designed to make him trust Malfoy. Dumbledore had trusted Snape and look what that had led to.

Sighing heavily, he lifted his gaze from the ground below and looked at Malfoy properly for the first time in years. His white-blonde hair shone silvery in the moonlight, outlining his pale, finely chiselled features. He was toned, perhaps more muscular than he appeared at first glance, but still he looked too thin for his height. For the first time Harry found himself noticing both this and the dark circles under Malfoy's eyes. Silver grey eyes that held no emotion; that simply looked back into Harry's own, waiting for a decision.

Slowly Harry held out his hand.

Draco shook it.

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So another chapter up! The next one will be coming soon. In the meantime please leave me a review to let me know what you though!

-Sivany