-Chapter 3-

June 23, 1998

Harry settled down into his chair, nursing the hot chocolate that he had mixed with Firewhiskey when Hermione wasn't looking. He felt he could use it, after the day and night that he'd had.

First, there was the business with Malfoy and the apparent Veela wings that he now sported. It was a little after one in the morning now, which meant that he had been aware of Malfoy's condition for a little over 14 hours, and he didn't understand it any better now than he did then. From what he could work out, Malfoy had Veela genes wouldn't kick in until they were forced to by another power, and that power turned out to be Voldemort. But because it was Voldemort, that power was given to him through pain, not through a more neutral conduit, so the only Veela trait that emerged was one that occurred when a Veela was angry. So, he had sprung wings. Great, whatever. Still didn't make sense in Harry's mind, but Hermione seemed to understand it, so at least that part of the story made sense. Kind of.

Second, Malfoy had explained about how he had gone into hiding with Snape immediately following the Death Eater attack on Hogwarts at the end of their Sixth year. It was lucky for Malfoy that he looked right miserable and sorry about his assistance for that attack, because Ron certainly hadn't forgotten what Fenrir Greyback had done to his brother, Bill, and had been able to do because of Malfoy. If Malfoy hadn't let the Death Eaters in, then Bill might be sporting all of his face instead of what now remained. Though, Harry had to admit, it did show a bit loyalty on Fleur's part; the rest of the family was sure that her obsession with appearance and own great deal of vanity would turn her away from Bill. How surprised they were when she stuck by his side, claiming to be beautiful enough for the both of them!

According to Malfoy, he had followed Snape back to Spinner's End, where they had stayed until they were summoned by Voldemort a few days later. Snape was rewarded for killing Dumbledore, while Malfoy was punished for his inability to complete the assigned task. The only reason he was not killed outright was because he had allowed for the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts through the pair of Vanishing Cabinets from Borges and Burke. At least that had gone according to plan, even though it had taken him a ridiculously long period of time to fix the cabinet, Voldemort had said, before punishing him again for his incompetence.

A couple more rounds of Crucio, and Voldemort was back to his old self: ranting and raving about how irritating that Potter brat was, and how useless all of his Death Eaters were, being unable to kill a mere boy for him. Malfoy had dragged himself back to his place in the circle, barely able to stand after two bouts of Crucio, but managing to hold himself together for a little while.

Not long enough, apparently, as Voldemort noticed his slouched posture and the slight lowering of his eyes from pain and exhaustion. Enraged that Malfoy had not given him the fullest of attentions, Voldemort flew into a rage and cast Crucio yet again on the blonde. A third time proved too much for Malfoy's body to handle, and thus began the transformation that Malfoy had talked about. His body absorbed the power, his life was saved, and he had a whole other body part to learn how to move.

This was a bit dangerous now, however, since it wouldn't do to have a scared seventeen year old Veela winged Death Eater in Voldemort's circle. So Malfoy did what he did best: he ran.

As soon as Snape had fed him enough potions so that he could move once again, Malfoy grabbed his few possessions, withdrew some money from his account, and hightailed it out of England. He would have gone to France, since he did indeed speak French and had several distant cousins that lived in the French countryside, but that would have been too obvious. So, Spain it was. Madrid was not at all what he had expected. It was noisy and crowded and there were people all over the place, walking and biking and driving and dear god all of those fucking tourists would someone please kill him right now?

But Malfoy managed to tough it out. He learned Castilian Spanish, adopted the customs and learned to eat the food, at the appointed hour. Though no matter how hard he tried, he could never manage to enjoy dinner at ten o'clock at night, even after nearly eight months.

Those eight months in exile proved useful, however, for Malfoy was able to study magic underground, learning new spells and potions, including the one that he employed to conceal his wings. By mid-March he had been working on a potion that would enable him to retract and expand his wings at will, so that he could literally pull them into his back, making his appearance normal. It was also around this time that word reached him that Harry Potter had finally defeated Voldemort. No other details had come across, just a whisper of something called a "Horcrux." So Malfoy had packed up his few things, grabbed himself a long distance Portkey, and made for England.

That's were things got a bit blurry. Malfoy himself said he wasn't sure what happened, but he did know that he wasn't ready to talk about it. Not yet anyways.

Now here they were. Harry sitting there on the couch with his cup of slightly tainted hot chocolate, mind spinning in all directions. Hermione was sleeping with her head in Ron's lap, an exact mirror of the positions that they had been in previously that afternoon. Malfoy was also asleep in the armchair that he had collapsed into before he had begun spinning his tale. Harry still wasn't sure he believed all of it, and certain spots definitely needed to be examined further, but for now Malfoy's explanation would have to suffice.

What irked Harry was that he still had no idea what had happened to Malfoy before he found them at the Three Broomsticks. He had no idea where those horrible injuries had come from, nor why Malfoy had insisted on staying and speaking with Harry. When coming to that part of the story, Malfoy had claimed to be too tired to continue, promising to explain further in the morning.

Well, it was technically morning now, wasn't it? Harry asked himself. The clock read five minutes to two, and surely he could just wake Malfoy up, drag him over to the bedroom, and force the Slytherin to answer his many questions. But Harry also knew in the back of his mind that Malfoy would only tell Harry what he wanted to, and that no matter how much Harry prodded, he was going to be silent on the matter.

Sighing at having such a ridiculously stubborn and irritating person resting in his favorite armchair, Harry drained the rest of his mug and set it on the little table to his left. He rubbed his eyes, annoyed that he still couldn't sleep after the entirely exhausting few days he had just had. Standing up he stretched as far as he could, arching his back and throwing both arms over his head, nearly rising onto the tips of his toes in his effort to elongate his body as much as possible. He could feel the bottom of his t-shirt rise up at his motion, and as he relaxed his body from the stretch, his right hand came down to rub the bit of skin from navel to pelvis that had previously been exposed. His eyes closed involuntarily as he yawned, feeling tired but unable to sleep

A slight noise snapped Harry's eyes open and he immediately grabbed his wand from his back pocket and aimed it at the disturbance. He relaxed a second later, however, as he saw that the only thing that had moved was Malfoy, who was no longer asleep but was gazing at Harry intently.

"Damn, Malfoy. I thought you were someone else," Harry muttered, lowering his wand and stuffing it back into his pocket.

Malfoy didn't react to Harry's statement, only continued to stare at him, eyes roving over Harry's body over and over again. Harry stood there, unsure of himself and very uncomfortable under Malfoy's scrutiny.

"Malfoy?" Harry ventured, stepping closer so that he could see Malfoy properly. The room was hardly spacious, but the lighting was dim and it was hard to make out certain features correctly.

What Harry saw, though, left him feeling even more uncertain, for Malfoy was looking at Harry in a way that Harry was sure he never had before. His eyes were wide open, the pupils dilated so much that Harry could barely see any gray. He couldn't read the expression on Malfoy's face, but since his mouth was slightly open and his eyes were not narrowed in anger as was usual around Harry, he assumed that he need not take out his wand again.

"Malfoy, are you alright?" Harry tried again, stepping over so he was directly in front of Malfoy, and crouching down until they were eye level. And still the blonde did not move, continuing to just stare at Harry. Concern settling in, Harry reached out and grasped Malfoy by the shoulders in an attempt to jar some sense into him. What ended up happening, however, was that Malfoy snapped into it before he could do anything but rest his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"Potter," Malfoy answered him, voice a bit deeper than normal, sounding as if Malfoy was straining to merely answer Harry.

Harry jumped a bit at the sudden reaction, though his hands remained where they were and he stayed in his crouched position.

"Alright there Malfoy?" Harry said, searching the man's eyes and trying to figure out what was going on.

"I'm fine, Potter. Thanks for the concern," Malfoy replied slowly. "Would you mind letting me go now?"

Harry startled a bit, unaware that he still had Malfoy in his grasp, but he nodded and released the boy, standing up even though it felt a bit awkward to be so much taller than the boy who was still looking at him.

"We should probably change those bandages," Harry said quietly, eyeing the red stains on Malfoy's side, before moving into the kitchen so he could locate some more medicinal tools, not looking back to see if Malfoy had followed or not.

He apparently had, and quite closely as well, for when Harry turned around, hands full of more alcohol and clean bandages, he nearly walked straight into the blonde. As it was, he ended up dropping more than one item on the floor.

"Bugger," Harry muttered under his breath, crouching down once more and grabbing items off of the floor. He was a bit surprised when he leaned over to reach for the last bottle, and Malfoy had already grasped it and was handing it to him. As Harry took hold of the bottle, his hand brushed over Malfoy's and the other boy's fingertips seemed to linger a bit longer than was necessary. Harry shrugged it off, though, think he was just imagining things in his tired state. Nodding his thanks, he indicated that they should move back to the bedroom.

"Lie down again," Harry directed softly, indicating the bed and nudging the door shut behind him.

Malfoy did what he was asked, lying face down on the bed so that Harry could more easily access his back and side, though he would have to move a little when Harry cleaned the front part of the wound as well. Harry set the bottle, ointment and bandages on the floor, then fetched a towel from the bathroom before settling down on the floor by his bed.

Very carefully Harry removed the old bandages, grimacing internally once the angry wound was revealed to show crusted blood and a little inflammation. As he slowly applied a wet cloth to the area, Harry wondered at how Malfoy was dealing with the pain. He had certainly never been one to have dealt with blood easily before, as a certain third year Care of Magical Creatures incident came to mind. But then again, they were absolutely certain that Malfoy was faking the majority of the injury, though it did look right nasty when Buckbeak had first slashed the boy's arm. Being attacked by a huge animal was surely not a thirteen year old's idea of a fun lesson. Breaking out of his reverie, Harry started to talk himself through what he was doing, knowing that he would be less likely to mess up if he did it that way.

"I'm just cleaning the cut with some water now, Malfoy," Harry explained, "and then we'll disinfect it again with the alcohol, and I found some ointment for the inflammation. The ointment should also ease the pain a little as well."

Malfoy looked up sharply at the mention of alcohol. "That was the stuff that nearly burned me a new orifice, wasn't it Potter?" he asked warily.

Harry had to stifle a chuckle. "Well, I've never heard it described quite like that before, but yeah, Malfoy. It does burn a bit."

"A bit? A bit, Potter! I'll have you know that that ridiculous substance that Granger poured on me--" Malfoy began, but he stopped to let out a hiss of pain as Harry applied a cloth saturated with said 'ridiculous substance' against his cut.

"I'm going to need you to turn a bit, Malfoy, so that I can get your stomach as well," Harry asked, ignoring the murderous look Malfoy was now giving him. So much for that shaky truce that had been going on.

But Malfoy just continued to glare at Harry before he finally twisted a bit, grimacing but also exposing his pale stomach so Harry could dab it with alcohol and then the special ointment. A few minutes later and Malfoy was standing up so Harry could bandage up his side without any disruptions from the bed sheets. They were standing quite close, and Harry could feel every breath that Malfoy took, in both the way that his chest rose steadily and in how his breath tickled across Harry's neck as he leaned over to better place the bandages.

Finishing up, Harry allowed himself a small triumphant smile. Just as good as Hermione would have done; maybe even better, he thought. Rising up so that he could look Malfoy in the eye, he was surprised a bit at how much taller the other boy now seemed. Where Malfoy seemed to carry the tall and slender stature that his father, however evil, had once employed, Harry was still a bit on the skinny side. He was a bit taller than Malfoy though, only by an inch at the maximum, but it was enough that Harry was praising the growth spurt that had finally kicked in.

"There, you're fine," Harry commented, the euphoria he felt for a job well done fading as it was replaced with an entirely different type of feeling as his eyes met Malfoy's again. For some reason, he couldn't help but continue to look into them and wonder if they were a pathway into Malfoy's mind. That if maybe he could figure out what in the world was going on, just by looking into those gray eyes.

Harry shook himself slightly, wondering where all of this 'sentimental stuff,' as Ron always called it, was coming from. He turned away from Malfoy and started gathering up all of the materials on the bed. He could feel the blonde hesitate for a moment, before a pale hand reached out and began helping him. Together they gathered everything and placed it carefully in the kitchen, and when they were done, a silence ensued. It was neither awkward nor comfortable; it just was. Knowing that the silence would simply continue, Harry walked back into his living room and sat back down on the couch again, gesturing for Malfoy to sit across from him once more. Once they were seated, looking at each other a bit hesitantly, Harry realized he had absolutely no idea what to say. Scrounging around, he saw Ron still asleep on the sofa, and blurted out the only thing he could think of.

"So, how about them Cannons?"

TBC