A Touch of Evil

DaggersBloodPain

Chapter Nine

Go Down in Flames.

(Just Like Jesse James- Cher)

Draco worked very hard over the next few weeks to make sure Harry had a blush staining his cheeks for most of the day. It was Draco's delight in educating Harry and Severus' relief that he wouldn't have to be the one beyond books.

Harry thrived under the attentions of both of them. His magic was growing further under his control and his dueling was becoming deadlier. He trusted them more on what they were saying and was finally able to use that to his advantage. He was also less afraid of his own strength. One of Dumbledore's oldest lessons you can not use fully what you are afraid of.

The other students slowly accepted Harry back into the fold and if Harry was perfectly honest with himself half of his isolation had been enforced by his own beliefs. Even the boys in his dorm were coming around, all except Ron and Harry hadn't really been expecting his opinion to change.

Draco and Harry had decided that first night that they were not going to be open about their relationship. Although they wouldn't lie if asked they just were discreet enough to avoid being questioned. Two males together was not uncommon, but a Gryffindor and a Slytherin together was positively unheard of.

Draco had also been right about another thing. It really hadn't taken long for the Slytherin's attitude and mannerisms to begin to change him. He was acting more and more like a snake and less and less like a lion. He was surprised so few people had commented on the change in his attitude. He wondered if the staff even knew he had changed. Since the beginning of the year he had been working hard on his assignments so it didn't make a whole lot of difference in the classroom. The only out word shift in him was his over all appearance. He began to take care with how he dressed and acted like. He now had a reason to. If his relationship with Draco went public he didn't want to embarrass the proud Malfoy heir.

It was starting to get late enough in the year that Harry had another thing to worry about. The time for him to go back to the Dursleys was fast approaching, and last summer had been too quiet. He had only had to worry about chores and the occasional slap. He knew better then to think this summer would go as well. He debated on confessing the problem to Draco or Severus but held back. They had already helped him so much he wasn't sure if they could or would do anything about it.

Draco did manage to surprise him with something. One weekend in mid February he actually invited Harry down to the Slytherin common room.

"Why would you want me there? Would the other Slytherin's care?" Harry asked carefully after Draco had brought it up.

"We have parties in the house from time to time to break up the boredom and people from other houses have been invited before. This isn't a party weekend but I wanted you to actually meet my friends on civil terms and thought if the rules could be bent for those parties, then they could for this too, as long as you don't know the password no rules have been broken." Draco explained.

Harry sighed and as he remembered something a smirk found its way onto his face. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"And what do you mean by that?" Draco asked with his eyes narrowing.

"In second year, Ron and I, you know when we were still friends? We made some Polyjuice potion and turned into Crabbe and Goyle. Do you remember a day when those two were acting odd?"

"Now that you mention it.. that was you two? Two Gryffindors were in the snake pit and we didn't know? Remind me again how you got into Gryffindor in the first place?" Draco asked incredulously.

There Harry chewed on his lip a bit, and Draco had to remind himself to work on breaking that habit, before answering. "Well the sorting hat did kind of wantmeinSlytherin." The rush at the end of the sentence was indecipherable.

"I'm sorry come again?" Draco asked for clarification.

"The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin." Here Harry gained a little bit of confidence as he squared his shoulders, crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

"Why did you tell it no?" Draco asked incredulously.

"Watch it Draco your pride is showing. I told it to put me in Gryffindor because of a few well placed manipulations. Please don't make this any harder then it is, I know it was Dumbledore's 'training' that got me in Gryffindor but I still have too many things that keep me from being able to completely admit the man is evil. I need more time. It was only last year I was the mans lapdog for heaven's sake." Harry admitted.

"So are you going to come or not?" Draco asked to both change the subject and get his answer.

"Yes, I promise not to hex your friends if they return the favor." Harry said with a smile forcing the conflicting thoughts to the back of his mind.

"Harry we are Slytherins. Even with your admittedly strong power most of us have been training our magic since we were old enough to speak Latin. You might win against one or two of us but when you are on our territory you face all of us. I don't think even Severus could take on the entire house if it decided to do something unanimously. He just asks that we don't get caught." Draco explained.

"I was trying to joke, but I get your point anyway. Where do you want to meet at?" Harry asked resigned to his fate. Although he couldn't deny he was curious about who the Slytherin's really were. He was intelligent enough to figure out that out of any house the Slytherin's were the ones you wanted to remember what you see is not always what you get.

"Why don't we meet near the potions classroom after dinner tonight. You can say you got another detention from Severus if anyone follows you." Draco thought out.

"Sounds like it would work, although at this rate I am going to beat out the marauders record for most detentions." Harry grumbled. "Are we going to tell them?" Harry asked.

"Tell them what?" Draco asked distractedly. Harry fixed his distraction with a kiss. "Oh, that, um I think we are going to have to. They are going to wonder why I invited a Gryffindor, and you above all of them, down to our common room seemingly randomly. They will figure it out eventually anyway. It is a lot harder to hide a secret from a Slytherin then a Gryffindor." Draco pointed out.

"Alright I think I can handle people knowing if you can." Harry replied.

"See you tonight then." Draco answered kissing him quickly and exciting their appropriated empty classroom. The two boys now knew pretty much every safe hiding place in the school thanks to their need for discretion. The room they had been talking in hadn't been disturbed in so long there was a thick layer of dust curtaining everything.

Harry waited until a few minutes had passed since Draco had left, then followed his example. They were always careful to not be seen coming or going too close together from the same mysterious places. Hogwarts was famous for how fast rumors spread. If even one student had seen them do it then the whole school would have known by the next meal. Plus in this castle the truth was often stranger then fiction. Everyone would be concocting wild stories to explain the odd behavior and if anyone did get it right they would have been shot down immediately by the next harebrained story. The boys just didn't want to take the chance, the two of them got enough attention as it was, and Harry hated it while Draco wallowed in it.

The only other person aware of just how deep their relationship went was Severus. He covered for the boys when he could, but didn't go out of his way. He warned all of his students from the beginning that if they did some rule breaking they were not to get caught. He would only cover for those that gave him a good reason to. If Harry and Draco got in trouble because of their own miscalculations they were on their own.

He also didn't do anything to stop them. He could see the good it was doing both of them. Harry was doing wonders with containing Draco's ego, and Draco was helping Harry out of his shell. He knew the boys were equal partners in the couple, and he knew Draco wouldn't give up control easily so there must be more to Harry then meets the eye.

Severus knew Harry was stronger then Draco in more then one way. If Draco had been put through what Harry had he would have broken long ago. He might have a puffed up sense of his own importance but he actually depended more on others then he would care to admit. If you took his support out from under him he would fall. This was the first time in Harry's life he had ever gotten the least bit of support and while he didn't come out unmarred he was healing faster then anyone could have hoped for. If magical power could be measured Harry would definitely beat Draco he just lacked the confidence to use it.

Severus also noticed an odd shift in Harry's manner. One minute he would act like a person far older then he was, and others he would retreat back into childlike naivety. There was yet more walls to crumble before Harry would be able to stop the childish impulses and just be what he was supposed to be. They were making progress but until he figured out what was holding Harry back now then there was little anyone could do, it was something Harry probably had to do himself.

Harry was feeling very anxious while waiting for Draco to show up when the time came. He knew he was still not quite the same as a normal boy his age and wondered how badly it would look for Draco to be with him. He would do his best to act the way he had been taught, but even he couldn't predict when a flashback would come and send him over the edge. If he could just stop those things from happening he knew he would be a lot better off.

He actually hated the headmaster for what he had done to him, the frightening part was he hated himself for thinking that. He knew it was the headmaster's doing that he felt so guilty about it, and that was just another reason for hating the man. As long as he held onto his hatred for the headmaster he figured he could get through this meeting. He did not want anyone to find out just how far he had been under the headmaster's thumb.

Before he could work himself into a complete frenzy of conflicting thoughts Draco finally showed up. "Are you ready to do this?" He asked concernedly.

"Yes, although I am a bit worried about them finding out about how I used to be with Dumbledore." Harry explained coming clean immediately.

Draco sighed and responded. "Harry I had hoped I wouldn't have to tell you this but most of Slytherin has known about that since your first year here. We don't miss much that goes on in this school, especially the upper years. I want you to know that Slytherin house actually has a high opinion of you. We are the ones under the headmaster's wickedest scrutiny, some of our own have had personal dealings with the man. They know how manipulative he can be. When you started coming around this year, this was before Severus told me anything, the Slytherin's noticed. You know I wouldn't bring you here if anyone was going to harm you, you won't be welcomed with open arms simply because we don't trust easily, but you will become one of us if you decide to stay long enough for them to get to know you." He explained.

Harry was shocked at this but realized it made sense. He was surprised he had gained at least a bit of approval from the most selective house at Hogwarts. "Alright lets do this together." Harry said his voice firm, all traces of the little boy persona pushed back. He held his head high and walked into Slytherin territory with pride in his eyes, and for once that pride was all for himself, he could really get used to that.