Instead of back.

Why the name of Merlin's most saggy pants had he gone back?

Everything was different. Harry had been born a few years later than before and was only in his last year at Hogwarts. His last year at Hogwarts where he was Head Boy, a guy who abuses his position and, worst of all, a Slytherin. Harry James Potter was a Slytherin and best friends with a foul git known as Draco Malfoy.

He could remember the life he had left behind, thankfully. But memories of the life he was about to end up living was there now and funnily enough he knew what had happened throughout his whole life there. It had to be a side effect of the time travel, when you go forward years it would obviously change a lot and so the defence mechanism must be to provide you with full knowledge of who you are in the time you're in.

He was currently in the Slytherin boys dormitories with Draco, Pansy and Blaise Zabini.

They were studying for NEWTs. Slytherin-Harry got up to go to the toilet and vanished as soon as he saw Normal-Harry. It took a moment for the shock to subside then Harry realized that he was meant to take over and enter his role as Harry Potter, Slytherin and complete git.

-oOo-

As soon as Pansy and Blaise left, Malfoy relaxed and turned to Harry, "I don't know why we even bother to keep friends. You're company enough for me."

Harry shrugged, "Might come in useful." Draco looked extremely different when he wasn't sneering. Right now he was smiling widely at Harry, eyes losing their cold glare and burning with some strange emotion Harry couldn't place. They didn't seem like grey eyes when he had taken off his Malfoy-Mask, they seemed silver.

"That is why you're a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor."

"Oh shut up!" Harry said, falling into this version of Harry Potter with ease.

"No! You told me that the Sorting Hat was going to put you in Gryffindor, I'm just saying while you're really brave and all that ridiculous tosh, you are very sly and ambitious."

Harry stuck his tongue out childishly at Draco; it almost felt nice to be his friend. He knew he wasn't friends with Ron or Hermione. He hadn't spoken to Ginny more than a passing sly insult. Ron and Hermione didn't speak to each other either. The Golden Trio had never existed. Loony Lovegood was for mocking, Neville was just a snivelling coward and Severus Snape seemed to be his mother's friend and his favourite teacher.

-oOo-

Harry paced by his bed.

The Slytherin dorms were creepy. They were creepy and cold.

Merlin he wanted to go back to the life he had left, it was like a burning feeling of shame and guilt.

He decided as soon as he met his parents he would make a decision. All he had to do was play along as friends with Malfoy - simple enough - and get home.

His studies for the NEWTs were simple. As an Unspeakable slash unofficial Auror he was very competent at Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Charms. He was all right at Potions and Herbology, not amazing but he reckoned he would be able to secure an Outstanding, or at the very least Exceeds Expectations.

As a student Slytherin-Harry Potter was awful. He was bright and well able to achieve higher marks but he didn't bother. He and Draco skivved off a lot of their classes in favour of flying.

Harry was also a Seeker for Slytherin - something he would never have expected to see, not in a million years. With a great sigh, he plopped down on his bed only to alert Malfoy to the fact he was awake.

"Harry?" the said Slytherin whispered across the dorm. "Yeah?" he replied in an answering whisper. Draco huffed and appeared in his silk night gown - green obviously. "You should have told me you were awake you git! We were supposed to sneak out but you didn't mention it so I thought you didn't want to!"

Harry turned to him, glasses flashing as they caught the light of one of the floating candles. "Sneak out?"

Draco groaned, "I should have known you would have forgotten. It's Saturday, you oaf. We're going out for a wandering." Wandering. Wandering? It suddenly clicked. The phrase was something he and Draco had uttered every Saturday since Third Year. The sly way Draco pronounced it had alerted him to the fact it was something more than a walk.

He and Draco were unregistered animagi. Draco a lithe leopard and Harry a lion much to Draco's continuous amusement. The Slytherin prodigy was a lion animagus, how quaint.

Harry ducked his head in shame, suddenly understanding the odd restlessness that had overcome him all day that had kept him pacing and the pointed looks Draco threw him all day.

"Salazar," he breathed, the irony of the fact he was using Slytherin's founder instead of Gryffindor's did not escape him. "I can't believe I forgot. I guess I've been caught up with studying for the NEWTs."

Draco grumbled, "Are you going to come with me while I check on the potion first?" Harry racked his brain to find out what the potion was. It was a Memory Potion. It enhances the the drinker's memory and Draco was planning to use it for the NEWTs.

"Drake, I don't think we should brew that." Harry said, face twisted with the awfulness of the idea. Draco froze on his way through the doorway. "You don't think we should brew it?" Draco asked his voice deadly calm and low. Harry shook his head lips twisting into a grimace, "It's not right, Drake."

"Har, you were the one who suggested it. It wasn't terrible when you were getting me to brew that poison that would murder that guy who wanted to rat you out to Dumbledore." Draco's voice was accusing, awful. Harry drew a breath and wondered who the boy was.

He was suddenly confronted by an image of a boy whom he knew as Oliver Wood, writhing and twisting as the potion killed him, slowly, painfully and exhilaratingly. To Slytherin-Harry anyway. The real Harry felt disgusted, horrified and disgraced. He couldn't believe he had planned and executed that idea. It was horrible, he was becoming the next Voldemort.

Harry trailed behind Draco then, the only person that Slytherin-Harry actually liked. The only one in the entire world including his parents. His awful parents who didn't understand him. Draco was his best friend, brother and lover?

Wait what? It was scary to think about. He and Draco were more than best friends, they were lovers. Lovers of the extremely secret kind, nobody knew about them but they did. Draco wasn't repulsed by the things Slytherin-Harry did or wanted to do - they loved each other.

It was so strange a thought, so repulsive that he almost choked.

Draco was by his side in an instant, "Har, are you all right?" He nodded and clawed his way to an upright position, twisting away from Draco awkwardly and blushing. Draco nodded forlornly, "Har, c'mon. We'll forget about the potion. You need to get out and have a run around. Did you bring that cloak of yours?"

Harry nodded and swung the cloak around them, feeling uncomfortable with being so close to Draco.

They reached the grounds without seeing a single person, alive or dead. Harry slipped off the cloak as soon as they reached the Forbidden Forest, stuffing it into a bag he conjured and leaving it hidden beneath a bush with a marker to let him know where it was.

Draco smiled at him. It was an unguarded smile full of undisguised affection and lust. Harry, with a burn in his cheeks, felt a matching smile plaster across his face unconsciously. It was reminding him he was playing in dangerous waters, that he was under the influence of the memories of Slytherin-Harry. Draco closed the space between them and placed a gentle kiss on Harry's lips, leaving him glued to the spot unable to move.

Draco then kissed him hungrily and, to Harry's immense disgust and Slytherin-Harry's intense euphoria, Harry kissed him back. They stood, hands wandering freely for a few minutes, the connection between their mouths not breaking until breathing became necessary. Draco rested his head on Harry's chest, both panting harshly, trying to regain their breaths. Harry was struggling to come to terms with the fact he had just willingly kissed a guy for the first time. It had been like nothing he had ever experienced with Ginny. If Harry's pride had been shredded from the kiss like his hatred towards Draco, he would have admitted to himself that it had been incredible. Any anonymity he had felt towards Draco from his original life was gone just like that. The passion he felt for the man had in the other life been channelled towards him as hate. In this one he had admitted his attraction and honed that into love.

Draco finally lifted his head and blinded Harry with a smile, "Ready?" Harry nodded and allowed himself to change into his animal form. His bones bending and muscles stretching and bunching. It was an odd sensation but one Harry welcomed.

He looked over to where Draco had stood to see a snow white leopard, advancing on him playfully. Harry allowed him to wrestle with him for a few minutes before pinning him to the ground and licking the leopard's face. It squirmed and Harry let it go, racing with it through the forest.

They spent hours in the forest, even as the light grew and the sun made it's way across the sky. Harry couldn't think of a time he had ever felt freer. He gambolled towards Draco in the clearing they had marked as their own, growling softly trying to tell him he was hungry. His stomach rumbled loudly alerting the other being to his hunger and Draco changed to his human form. Harry followed in suit and sat on the floor of the forest facing the man who his entire school life seemed to centre upon in this life and the other.

"Hungry Har?" Draco asked with a smirking grin. Harry pouted, "Come on, Drake. I'm famished. We missed dinner last night studying, breakfast this morning and lunch as well. You're going to have to make up for that." He astonished himself with his flirtatious words but Draco seemed used to them and threw Harry a saucy smile, "How do you propose I do that then?"

Harry swallowed sharply, not understanding what was coming over him. "Dunno, Dray." His voice was hoarse and suddenly a problem cropped up in his trousers. One that Draco's eyes zoned in on immediately. Draco licked his lips, though had you asked him he would have been prepared to swear on his life that he hadn't.

Harry couldn't honestly see any good coming out of any sexual encounter with Draco bloody Malfoy so he smiled tightly, stood up and said shakily, "Best get back to the castle then, yeah?" Without waiting for an answer, he turned into a lion and loped through the forest intent on running away from all his confused feelings and away from Draco the vain, supercilious git that had haunted more dreams of Harry's than he could count - seemingly in both lives.

-oOo-

"You're a git." Draco proclaimed loudly in the kitchen after stuffing himself with all sorts of food he ordered from the house elves.

Harry squinted over at him, glasses in his hand as he cleaned the lenses. "Why's that then?" he asked, not really bothered by the name calling. He pushed his glasses back onto his face, Draco's coming back into focus.

"You knew about the kitchen and you never brought me!" Draco said clambering over to Harry and seating himself in his lap. "I've starved plenty of times and you never brought me!"

Harry kissed his cheek softly, forcing himself not to think of the repercussions the act would wage on him. Draco melted into him, relaxing and stroking one of the tanned forearms Harry had wrapped around his waist. "I suppose I can forgive you," Draco said reluctantly, turning and pursing his lips for a kiss. Harry swallowed but complied, feeling just as swept away by this one as he had the last. Draco released him just as he thought he would explode and sank back into his lap with a self satisfied smile.

"I love you Har," Draco mumbled and froze. He suddenly sprang upwards out of Harry's arms and to his feet, blushing like a Weasley's hair. It wasn't something the two boys had ever said to one another and Draco was ripping himself apart that he would be so stupid as to say it.

Harry was caught in a corner. On one hand he had been thinking of proposing to Ginny not that long ago but on the other what he had with Draco was something infinitely more. With a prickling in his eyes, Harry said hoarsely, "I love you too, Dray."

Draco turned to face him with an incredulous expression. "You do?" he asked, a million times more frightened than he had been before Harry said it back encase it was a cruel joke.

Harry grimaced and turned his tear laden green eyes on Draco. Eyes that were filled with love and honesty. "Yeah, you git, I do."

Draco launched himself at Harry and brought their lips together once more with a crash of fumbling, awkward lips. It wasn't as perfect as the ones in the forest. Those were calculated and lusty. This one was painful, full of bleeding gums and swollen lips but it was loving. A desperate love like both expected the other to withdraw their claims of love.

When they parted, Draco threw himself into Harry's arms and hugged him with a backbreaking force.

Harry pulled back and looked into Draco's silvery grey eyes, so unlike Ginny's warm brown ones. Draco's pointy features were softened by the slightly too long hair that brushed his neck - just how Harry liked it.

His eyes burned, his throat closed up and all that escaped was a quiet throaty murmur of, "Dray..."

He knew with unrelenting certainty that this life was an awful one and that he needed to go back and change it but he couldn't bear to part with this feeling he felt with Draco as, well as boyfriends he supposed. He knew that any sort of relationship with Ginny was out of the question. He wouldn't be able for it after feeling true love.

It was the right thing to do though. With a sudden revelation, he realized exactly what Remus had been trying to do when he left Tonks alone. He too would have to leave Draco so that his rising as the new Dark Lord was prevented. He said a silent goodbye in his head and tried to savour the time he had with Draco.

A/N: AshwoodDraven88 is brilliant, best of luck getting better from your tailbone accident :3

I also just want to mention (for any Slytherins that might read this) I have nothing against Slytherins. I just presume that's the way Harry would feel if he ended up finding out he was a Slytherin!

Finally, are you guys surprised by that chapter?
I was shocked, and I wrote it :3
Lemme know! :D

Sláinte!

~ShazzaBlack...x