DISCLAIMER: If I owned them, this is what would have happened. But I don't, so it didn't.

A/N: Here's chapter 3! I'm kind of posting them as I finish them, so at this point I'm still writing chapter 4. They're coming out pretty fast, but no guarantees it'll stay that way. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

WARNING: Cussing again, talk of abuse and suicide. Still unbeta'd so some mistakes may be present.


Ch 3.
Revelations

"Harry! Wait up!"

Harry turned around just in time to see Ron rush towards him. Harry slowed down his pace and waited for Ron the catch up. "Hey, Ron."

"Where were you all morning? Hermione was looking all over for you," Ron said as he caught his breath.

"I was on the Astronomy tower. I go up there to think sometimes," Harry said as he shrugged. They both entered the half-full Great Hall for lunch and made their way over to the Gryffindor table.

Ron had a bemused look on his face as he sat down beside Neville and pulled some food towards him. "Are you kidding me, Harry? It's freezing outside! No wonder you're wearing one of mum's sweaters. You're going to catch your death with all the thinking you're doing," Ron said through a mouthful of potatoes.

Harry pulled a plate of sandwiches towards him and chose a few. "Thanks for your concern, Ron. I'll be sure not to think anymore," Harry said with a smirk.

"What about not thinking? I've been looking for you, Harry. I heard the strangest thing in the girl's loo this morning outside the library. Pansy Parkinson was telling Millicent Bulstrode that Draco Malfoy ditched her to go hang out with you. I think they're taking drugs, because that's just absurd." Hermione had squeezed herself between Harry and Seamus before pulling a plate of chicken towards her.

"Why is that absurd?" Harry asked as he poured himself some pumpkin juice. He was met with incredulous stares from Ron, Hermione, an eaves dropping Seamus and a confused Neville. "What?"

Hermione cleared her throat as she arranged her food on her plate neatly. "Harry, need you really ask such a question? Isn't the absurdity of that statement painfully obvious?" Hermione said in a bemused sort of voice.

"Would it honestly be that horrible if I were friends with Draco?" Harry asked, ignoring Neville's horrified stare.

Ron dropped his fork and knife with a loud clang and dived across the table, smacking his hand hard against Harry's forehead. "I think he's suffering from delirium. We should take him to the hospital wing."

Harry smacked Ron's hand away and glared at his best friend. "Shut up, Ron. I'm serious! Hermione, you're always talking about how important house unity is and that we should be encouraging it instead discouraging it. This is the perfect example!"

"Harry, are you saying that you really were hanging out with Malfoy?" Hermione asked with an alarmed expression.

Harry scoffed and took a drink of his juice before responding. "Yes, I was."

Neville took this opportune time to promptly pass out and fall over backwards off of the bench, landing with a loud thud onto the Great Hall floor. The Great Hall went dead silent as everyone turned towards the Gryffindor table to examine the curious scene.

"YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH DRACO MALFOY?!" Ron shouted at the top of his lungs through the dead silence.

Harry let his head fall forward and hit the table- hard, creating the second loud thud of the lunch hour and attracting more curious stares. "Shoot me now…" he muttered to himself. The Hall broke out into whispers and quick discussions about this latest piece of gossip.

And then the outrage began. "Oh fuck you, Goyle! I don't need your approval to make friends. I can talk to anyone I damn well please!" Draco's voice could be heard from across the Hall.

Harry turned just in time to see Draco stand up angrily and stalk out of the Great Hall, cussing under his breath and glaring at anyone who dared to stare. He felt a light swooping sensation in his stomach that he was sure he would regret having later. Without thinking too much about it, Harry stood up and tried to extract himself from the Gryffindor table.

"Harry! Where are you going? Come back here and explain!" Ron shouted as Harry walked away.

"Ron, shut up! Just leave him alone. We can ask him about it later when the entire school isn't watching," Hermione hissed from her seat at the table.

Ron sat back down and grumbled into his food as he ate. Whatever was going on, he really didn't like the idea of Harry being friends with that bloody ferret.

By that Friday, Harry had heard some of the craziest rumors Hogwarts had ever invented, and they were all about his new found friendship with Draco. When Harry arrived in potions class shortly after lunch, he was met with stares of many different kinds; blank, curious, disgusted, angry, and most surprising of all- happy.

As Ron had all but stopped talking to Harry completely, and Hermione was paired up with Neville, Harry was left partner-less for the second time that week. Unsurprisingly, Draco had ended up in the same situation. He scooted his cauldron over besides Harry's, sighing heavily.

"Partners again then, Harry?" he asked with an exasperated look.

Harry shrugged as he opened his potions book to the correct page and pulled out his potions kit. "I guess so. You'd think we were both diseased with the way everyone seems to be avoiding us," Harry said quietly.

Draco let out a snort of laughter as he started cutting up his ginger roots. "Have you heard half of what they're saying? They think we've both lost our minds. They may be right."

Harry laughed out loud, quickly shoving his knuckles into his mouth in order to quiet himself. It was too late, however, as Snape turned around to glare at the Gryffindor and Slytherin.

"Is there something amusing about this potion, Potter?" Snape asked in a low hiss. The whole class turned to stare at Harry once again.

Harry scowled as he stubbornly met Snape's black eyes. "No, sir."

"Then I suggest you stop messing around and get to work. This potion will take the full hour and will account for a large part of your grade. Do not mess this up."

"Yes, sir," Harry said through gritted teeth. Another potions lesson, another hour of abuse by Snape; nothing new there.

Snape's eyes narrowed as he leaned across the desk, getting uncomfortably close to Harry's face. "Do not speak to me like that, Potter, or you'll find yourself in detention. Twenty points from Gryffindor. Get to work,"

"Sir, he was laughing because of me. He didn't do anything wrong," Draco insisted as he frowned at his favorite teacher. The man really was being unfair; Harry hadn't done anything wrong.

"Would you like to lose twenty points for your own house, Mr. Malfoy?"

"No, sir," Draco said quietly as he looked down at his still empty cauldron.

"Then be quiet and get to work." Snape moved away from Harry and Draco, glaring at the rest of the class instead. Everyone turned back to their books and cauldrons, an uncomfortable silence falling on the classroom.

Harry was staring at Draco, more than a little shocked by the way he had defended Harry right in front of Snape. "Thanks," he said quietly as he crushed his scarab beetles. This new found civility with Draco was interesting, if not a little fulfilling.

Draco stoked the fire under his cauldron as he scanned the ingredients list in his book. "No problem, he was being unfair. Sometimes I think he waits until potions class to completely unload all of his frustrations on you," Draco said off handedly.

Harry paused in his chopping of caterpillars, staring at Draco with a raised eyebrow. "Since when have you cared?"

Draco matched Harry's expression, setting down his own chopping knife. "I've always cared, Harry. The difference is I thought it was amusing before, whereas now I see it's completely uncalled for."

"Harry, do you have him under some sort of spell or something; because that is not Malfoy," Ron had been crossing behind the two boys on his way back from the ingredients cabinet and overheard them.

"Ron, hurry up! Leave them alone so they can work on their potion," Hermione snapped as she walked over, smiling politely at Draco and Harry.

Draco tried not to sneer or looked disgusted as Hermione smiled at him, but he couldn't control the slight scowl on his features. "Bugger off, Weasley."

Harry frowned as he dumped his ingredients into his potion as Ron and Hermione returned to their own work station. "You know, even though she's muggle-born, Hermione is the most powerful witch in our year and possibly above. She's no different than the rest of us with magical blood in our veins and she deserves to be treated that way. Remember, my friends are my family," Harry said quietly, giving Draco a stern look. He didn't like Draco's disapproving scowl and would not tolerate mistreatment of one of his best friends.

Draco sighed as he studied Harry's expression, mixed emotions running through his mind. "You're jumping into the deep end before you've learnt to swim, Harry. One step at a time," Draco said quietly, neither approving nor disapproving.

Harry smiled and shook his head. At least Draco was showing signs of being willing to change; it was a heap of progress already.

Sunday morning found Harry walking up to the Astronomy Tower, two cups of hot apple cider clutched in his hands. He pushed the door to the top of the Tower open and saw Draco sitting with his back against the wall in much the same way he had been the previous Sunday.

"Good morning, sunshine," Harry said as he sat down beside Draco and handed the second cup of cider to the blond.

Draco took the cup and brought his knees up to his chest, resting his chin lightly on his knee cap. "Morning, and thanks," Draco muttered unexcitedly. He seemed to be a bit put out for some reason.

"What's eating you? You look like Christmas was canceled," Harry said with a faint smile. He was trying to get Draco to open up to him; he truly wanted to know what was wrong.

Draco shrugged, clutching his knees closer to him. He had no desire to tell Harry what was wrong with him; it wasn't that simple. He decided on the partial truth instead. "Nothing, I just got a letter from my father this morning and it upset me a little, that's all."

Harry's eyebrows rose as he looked over at the Slytherin. "Oh, I see. I didn't know prisoners were allowed to send letters out," he said, trying not to sound too patronizing.

Draco frowned slightly but didn't comment on the stiffness of Harry's reply. "They aren't. He somehow managed to get it to my mother, who sent it to me with her usual letter. Anyways, there's something I wanted to talk about specifically. Last week, I wasn't completely honest with you," he paused to take a sip of his cider.

"After I broke up with Jacob in fourth year, I saw him during the summer holidays. I was staying with my grandmother in London and he wanted to meet up so he could talk to me about what happened between us. My grandmother wouldn't let me go, but I snuck out anyways. Jacob was waiting for me at the Leaky Cauldron all day and he was pissed when I showed up at ten in the evening. We went up to the room he was staying in and we started fighting. He claimed that I broke up with him because I didn't love him, that I only stayed with him for as long as I did because I felt sorry for him. That couldn't have been further from the truth, though. I loved him very much; I just didn't know how to show it. I was fifteen years old, I felt overwhelmed by how much he seemed to care about me. I tried to explain everything to him, to tell him how much I cared about him and he just went crazy." Draco turned to look at Harry, who was expressionless except for a crease of worry in his forehead.

"I've never been as scared as I was that night…He just wouldn't stop hitting me but I just let it happen because I didn't know what else to do. He got tired eventually and locked himself in the bathroom. After an hour he didn't come back out, so I went in to check on him. There was blood everywhere; he had slit both his wrists and bled to death. I didn't even see the note he had left on the counter. I ran all night as fast as I could to Pansy's house about ten miles away from Diagon Alley. She took care of me; healed everything and took me home to my grandmother and took the blame for me running away the night before. Two days later was when the Howler came from Jacob's mother. I never told anyone; the only person who knows is Pansy. I was the last to see him before he died." Draco's voice became quiet and cracked near the end of his explanation. He cradled his head in his arms, his knees still pulled up to his chest.

Harry was staring at Draco, his mouth hanging slightly open. He didn't know what to say; sorry? Harry still didn't understand why Draco had felt the need to divulge this secret to him of all people. It was shocking to hear that such a horrible thing had happened to perfect, prissy little Malfoy. He couldn't imagine having to go through something like that. Harry had seen his fair share of horror in his life, but this was different; Draco hadn't even tried to defend himself.

"Why didn't you try to defend yourself, Draco? Why would you just let him do that to you?" Harry asked quietly, unable to tear his eyes away from the blond.

"What was I supposed to do? Jacob was bigger, stronger, and I…I thought I deserved it," Draco whispered, still not looking over at Harry. His voice sounded thick and strained with emotion.

Harry shifted so that he was kneeling in front of Draco. "No one deserves that, Draco, least of all someone he was supposed to love so much. It's not your fault; he made those decisions entirely on his own. If he had really loved you that much, he wouldn't have hurt you and he certainly wouldn't have killed himself over it. I think there was something more, something you didn't even know that drove him to what he did," Harry said. He touched Draco's hand lightly, trying to coax him into looking at him. He wanted to see his reactions, to know how much he was hurting.

Draco looked at Harry's hand on his own before shifting his eyes to Harry's worried and sympathetic expression. "I don't want your pity, Harry…I need you to know everything if you're going to make a judgment about my character. You can't know who I am if you don't know my secrets," he whispered, blinking back the warm tears stinging at his eyes. He was not going to cry over this anymore; he had already wasted too many tears on Jacob's behalf.

"I don't pity you, Draco; I'm supporting you. What he did not only to you but himself was wrong, and you can't blame yourself for any of it. I'm glad you told me. You were right, I don't really know you. I'm sor- "

"Don't! Don't say it yet; I'm not done with you. I still hardly know anything about you other than what I've read in the papers. 'It's a double edged sword', remember? I have to work my side of the deal. Besides, that one secret doesn't define me. We've still got a long way to go," Draco said, his voice stronger now. He sat up properly and let out a deep sigh, all traces of the threatening tears gone.

Harry smiled, pulling his hand away from Draco and returning to his spot against the wall. "Well I guess it's my turn to tell a secret then, eh?" Harry said, warming up his now cold cider with his wand.

"If you want; we could always save it for next week if you'd like." Draco mimicked Harry and reheated his own drink before taking a sip.

Harry shrugged as he checked his watch. "It's still fairly early. I reckon I could take up the few hours until lunch time."

Draco laughed. "Then have at it. I'm all ears."

"Well what do you want to know? Half of my 'secrets' have been published publicly, but I don't pay attention to which ones."

Draco tapped his chin with his index finger a few times, a thoughtful crease in his forehead. "Hmm…Why did you like Diggory? What did you like about him?"

Harry blushed; he was still a little uncomfortable with this particular secret.

"Well, other than the fact that he was gorgeous? He was a really nice guy. Even though everyone gave me shit about 'stealing his glory' in the Triwizard, he never once gave me a hard time or was rude to me about it. In fact, he actually helped me out in the second and third task. He didn't see me as a selfish fourth year trying to steal the spotlight, he saw me as a confused victim of ridicule for something that was completely out of my hands, and I admired him for that. I wasn't in love with him, I just had a small crush on him; nothing too drastic I suppose. That's why I said that I 'supposed' I was straight. I don't really know the answer to that myself," Harry said with a shrug.

He had actually surprised himself with how easy he found it to tell all of this to Draco. Maybe it was because he knew the blond would understand because he knew how it felt, but it felt good to finally let it all out either way.

Draco smirked as he sat his cup of cider down. "Well you've just described him as gorgeous and said you admired him. I would place that as bordering on bi, if not all the way gay. You've never really been all that much interested in relationships though, have you? You only had your first kiss last year after all," Draco said, a little bit of teasing in his voice.

"What's that got to do with anything? I've had a fairly busy life, Draco. Forgive me if I haven't had the time to look for The One. It'll happen when it happens, but I won't delude myself with the idea that going looking for it will help me any."

"Oh, gross, Harry! Don't go on philosophical on me just when I was actually considering you had a decent brain in that thick skull of yours! People don't necessarily go looking for anything. Like you said, sometimes it just happens, but that doesn't always mean it's going to be The One when it does. Take Jacob, for instance; I was very much in love with him, and he's gone now. We didn't necessarily pursue each other at first, it just kind of fell into place. You've pursued all of one interest and it didn't work out, right? So you're just going to give up completely and let 'fate' take its course? You're going to be an awfully lonely person, Harry, because as lovely and poetic as that sounds, it just doesn't work that way." Draco finished this long winded speech with a look of pure sympathy in his eyes. He had no idea where those words had come from, but he knew that everything he had said was completely true.

Harry sat quietly thinking over Draco's words for a good minute or two. "When you're surrounded by people who think they know who you are from reading the tabloids, it's hard to find someone who is genuine and not just in it for the thrill of being with a celebrity. If it was an issue of just being lonely, I could have solved that very easily by taking up any one of the offers I've gotten from some pretty desperate girls. I hate how the majority of people I know, sans all of my close friends, are fake and have some kind of hero worship when it comes to me. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I didn't get to choose my image and I hate that it defines me. I'm not that person in the papers and I never will be. I just wish I could make people understand that I'm not special, I don't have super-powers, and I'm not as brave and fearless as I'm portrayed. Ninety-nine percent of my success rate when it comes to Voldemort is sheer dumb luck and lots of help from devoted friends. Is it too much to want to be considered a normal teenager? Do people realize how fucking stressful it is to have the weight of the wizarding world constantly on my shoulders? Christ, I'm only sixteen an- "

"Harry, calm down. You're starting to go off on a completely redundant tangent; I've never thought of you as special or super-powerful, so you need not convince me. It's amazing how much you won't shut up once you get going; I always thought you were a fairly quiet individual," Draco said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Harry shrugged. "Well I usually am, but if I feel strongly about something I make sure I let it be known. Gryffindors are stubbornly blunt."

Draco let out a snort of laughter. "Harry, I don't think you realize how much of a Slytherin you actually are. Yes, you're brave and stubborn and all that nonsense, but you're also very sly, cunning, and outspoken; sure characteristics of a snake. We're more alike then I think we both ever cared to realize," Draco said with a curious look.

Harry sighed before drinking the last of his cider and setting his empty cup down. "Well that may be, but isn't that why we're up here, why we made this deal? That was the impression I had, unless you have some hidden agenda," Harry said with smirk that was clearly meant to tease.

"Don't think so highly of yourself, Potter. I meant what I said when I proposed the deal; I want you to know the real me before you make judgments on my character. We're quite similar there too, I guess you could say; you don't like your public image, and I don't like my some-what smaller reputation. So in a way we're balancing each other out, helping the other in clearing our names, so to speak," Draco explained. That was the reason he had made the deal, but he wasn't quite sure what Harry's intentions had been anymore.

"Really? Because I thought it was because you had a burning crush on me," Harry said with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. Leave it to Malfoy to point out the obvious.

"You wish."

"Do I? Before this little deal of ours I had no idea whatsoever that you were gay or had any interest in the same sex, so why on earth would I wish that?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising so far up on his forehead they were in danger of disappearing into his hairline.

"Well it's obvious that it's you who's got the burning crush on me," Draco said with a cheeky smirk. A strange feeling in his stomach began to become apparent to him; was he actually flirting with Harry Potter?

Harry snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "And what gave you that impression? Honestly, I'm supposed to be the arrogant one?"

"You're the one who made the insinuation first. Not to mention your kind little hand-holding earlier," Draco said, his smirk widening as he saw a faint blush tinge Harry's cheeks.

"That was concern for a friend, not a loving gesture, I assure you. You're playing mind games, Malfoy, trying to trick me. It sounds like you want me to have a crush on you." Ha! Get out of that one!

Draco bit his lip as he studied Harry's prematurely triumphant expression. "And what would you say if I did?" He'd only meant to stir confusion; bad idea.

Complete silence.

"You've got to be kidding me, Draco. We've been friends for all of a month and you're crushing on me? I only just realized that I was gay today!" Oops.

Draco's smirk turned into a curious smile. "Oh really? Well, that just gives me even more evidence that you're the one crushing on me."

"I am not! You just said that you wanted me to crush on you, meaning you're the one crushing on me!"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Harry, you're making my head hurt."

Harry scoffed and scowled at the blond beside him. "I will not shut up! What're you playing at, saying you want me to have a crush on you? That's not exactly the deal I signed u- "

Draco had had enough of Harry's blabbering, so he did the first thing he could think of to shut him up; grabbed him by the front of his sweater and kissed him full on the lips.


A/N: Hehe, sorry for the cliffy, but it just seemed like the perfect ending to me. Don't hate me, I promise to try to get the next chapter out soon enough. Please review and let me know what you think!