There was a knock at the door and Harry jumped to answer it lest the portrait of Sirius's mother commence her awful wailing. Without a second glance, he stepped back to let the returning members of the Order in, hoping against hope to see a head of platinum blonde in the ragged Death Eater refugee's.
He couldn't explain it even to himself, but he felt a shift in the relationship he had with the blonde Slytherin. He watched carefully as the battle weary wizards and witches walked through the door, all of them smiling at him as they passed straight into the kitchen to talk about the raid and subsequent rescue mission. The last to step through the door were the Slytherin's, hair dirty and matted, eyes haunted and hollow looking, These were not the proud Slytherin's they all knew and hated, these were just kids, kids like them who needed help.
Without a word Harry stepped forward and did the one thing no one expected, he held out his hand at the leader of the small band of refugee's.
"Nice to see you in one piece, Draco," Harry commented as the blonde took his hand and smiled winningly.
"Careful, Potter, someone might think you cared," Draco said in his usual drawling voice, tinged not with malice but playful arrogance. The other Slytherin's relaxed a bit and looked around.
"And here I was hoping you had died, just my rotten luck," Ron glared down at the boy from the top of the stairs.
"Nice to see you too, Weasley" Draco said slowly with a hint of a smile.
Harry smiled at Hermoine who was descending the stairs with her boyfriend. "Hello" she smiled politely at Pansy and Millicent, who smiled back hesitantly.
"Thank you Potter" Draco said abruptly. "From all of us" he added, looking at his friends.
"Anytime Malfoy" Harry grinned a bit and looked at the other Slytherin's.
"I'm afraid the headquarters is rather cramped right now, so we're all sharing rooms." He addressed everyone in the room.
"I would sleep in Gryffindor tower at this point" Blaise muttered, coaxing a laugh out of Goyle and Crabbe.
"I'm happy to say it hasn't come to that yet Zabini, you'll share with Nott, Crabbe and Goyle. Ron, Malfoy and I are next door. Hermoine, Ginny, Pansy and Millicent are down the hall. I don't suggest passing the second floor unless you want to be subject to the Weasley twins newest products." Harry said.
"I'll show you to our room if you like" Hermoine said to Pansy and Millicent. The two girls looked to Draco who nodded his consent. The two followed the bushy haired girl up the stairs and out of sight.
"Ron, show everyone else around would you, I'd like a word with Malfoy" Harry said absently. Ron nodded his head and the four boys climbed the stairs headed towards their respective rooms.
"You can sit if you like" Harry said gesturing to the empty sitting room. The Order meeting in the kitchen was still going strong so they had little chance of being interrupted. Draco took a seat in the chair nearest Harry's and slumped down gracelessly, wincing in pain.
"I've already given all the information I have to the Order, what else do you want Potter" Draco said somewhat irritably his mask of politeness evaporating now that his charges were safe. Harry only smiled reassuringly.
"I just wanted to talk to you." Harry said innocently. Draco seemed to relax a little once he knew he wouldn't be subjected to any more interrogation that night.
"How are you" Harry asked.
"As well as can be expected. My mother's dead, a madman wants my blood and I haven't slept since June" Draco replied, one pale eyebrow arching delicately.
"I guess that's fair enough. I've been rather worried about you." Harry admitted, blushing slightly at the admission.
"I'll be alright, sleep will be long in coming for a while though I'm afraid" the blonde said, stifling a yawn.
"Nightmares" It wasn't a question.
"Yes" Draco admitted.
"Sleeping with someone else helps me" Harry said slowly. "Not like shagging, just sleeping, someone to calm you down if you wake up"
"Yes well I can't ask my friends to bloody well sleep with me can I? They look up to me Potter, I can't let them see me as weak" Draco sighed and ran a hand over his face.
"Needing help isn't being weak Draco, needing it and not asking for it is weak" Harry replied, leading the blonde to their room only to find Ron already asleep in his bed. Harry looked at Draco and pulled out a pair of old pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. "I don't think you want to sleep in those clothes." Harry said gesturing to the blood and grim stained robes Draco was wearing. Draco accepted the pajama's and slipped them on, wincing as he brushed his hands over cuts and bruises marring the moonlight pale skin.
"I know your staring Potter" He said lightly as he tugged the shirt over his head and tried valiantly for a smirk, managing only a grimace. He gingerly dropped himself onto the only empty bed in the sparsely furnished room.
He looked around the room with interest, noting the trunks in front of Harry and Ron's beds, the owl cages perched on top of a cluttered wardrobe in the corner of the room. That seemed to be the entirety of it, but then anything was better then the cellar of Riddle Manor.
"Goodnight Malfoy" Harry said sleepily, climbing into bed and rolling over to face away from the tired blonde.
"Night Potter" He replied, closing his eyes and for the first time in years, despite being in a house filled with his rivals was unafraid to sleep.
HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD
Harry woke up to find Ron's bed vacated and wandered downstairs, leaving Malfoy to sleep. He wondered idly weather or not the blonde would come down to breakfast. When he reached the kitchen he was only half-surprised to find Hermoine engaged in a conversation with Pansy Parkinson.
"But of course if you use the blood magic it will be completely irreversible" Pansy was saying, her dark brows furrowed with concentration. Sweeping her dark hair out of her eyes and looking to Hermoine expectantly.
"Yes, we know that much. But not what effects it may have on them long term" Hermoine replied, pulling a hand through her brown locks and sighing in frustration.
"Of course you don't know, the Ministry ban blood magic. The only people who know it are purebloods whose parents taught it to them. It used to be a tradition that married couples were blood bound, but after the ministry started cracking down on 'Dark Magic' it fell out of practice." Pansy replied with a roll of her eyes that clearly gave her opinion on that particular ministry decision.
"So you must know it then" Hermoine's eyes lit up and she looked at her Slytherin counterpart.
"Some of it, Blaise knows more though." She said. "I know the effects of a blood bond but not the process of forging an official one" She turned as Harry entered the room and smiled hesitantly. Harry offered her a smile and set about making himself some toast.
"What are the effects" Harry asked the Slytherin with barely concealed interest.
"Well...I dont know all of it mind, but according to what my mother and father taught me it's like being chained together. Anything you feel the person your bound to can feel and vice versa. That applies to all Blood Bonds.
But of course it varies depending on how and why the connection was made. In a bond made purely for business...it isn't nearly as strong, you may receive a minimal power boost and a slight telepathic connection." Pansy looked pensively at Harry before continuing.
"I think the prophesy means a bond that will give you a substantial boost. Meaning that you'll be emotionally invested in them. Weather or not the bonding is formal may not matter. A bond isn't always intentional." She finished.
"What do you mean it isn't always intentional" Harry asked.
"Well for instance if you and a lover share blood of any kind during intercourse that can form a bond without knowing it until it's already happened" Pansy replied, stopping to smile at a bed tousled Blaise as he wandered into the kitchen still in his borrowed pajama's.
"Where is everyone" He asked groggily, "The Order I mean"
"Home, or on missions. The Weasley's are all gone on missions accept the twins, Ron and Ginny. Ginny is with Fred and George at the shop and Ron...where is Ron?" Harry asked, realizing that he hadn't seen the ginger haired boy since last night.
"He went to feed Buckbeak" Hermoine supplied helpfully. Blaise nodded and proceeded to slump into a chair at the end of the table.
"What about Black" Blaise asked, looking around warily as though said man would jump out from behind a portrait any moment.
"He's with Remus Lupin" Harry said with a grin.
"You mean the werewolf" Pansy said, her eyes glazing over with fear.
"Yes, the werewolf" Hermoine said curtly, daring the dark haired girl to say more. Pansy backed down immediately.
"Pansy, the man taught you for a year and never bit anyone I would think you would be more worried about Voldemort" Blaise said
"She had a run in with Fenrir Greyback Blaise, how would you feel about werewolves if it had been you" A voice interrupted from the stairs as Draco descended them, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.
"Remus is nothing like Greyback Pansy" Hermoine said softly as the dark haired girl shuddered involuntarily at the name.
"What exactly happened to you guys?" Harry asked, looking from one Slytherin to the next. Watching them avert their gazes.
"Harry, they'll tell us in their own time" Hermoine said, her eyes begging him to drop the subject.
Draco flopped into a chair next to Harry and looked at Hermoine seriously. "I'm sorry Granger, for what I did to you and Weasley and Harry. I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for my father. Your blood doesn't matter"
"Thank you Draco" Hermoine said softly but with a beaming smile.
A/N ok, I need a beta! And reviews, even monosyllables are ok.
