Alright still don't own Harry Potter, as much as I wish I did.

Harry had been sitting in his room for the last two weeks. It was not because of the Dursley's for once. In fact it was difficult to find much to complain about with them since the revelation of his godfather's criminal history. No the reason he was currently sitting in his room was because of Draco Malfoy. When it had become clear that Hedwig was going to be allowed to fly out he had immediately sent her off with a letter to Draco. That was a week into break. About two and a half weeks ago. Officially 17 days and 15 hours had passed since Harry had seen Hedwig fly off. Not that Harry was obsessing about it at all. Harry had waited patiently for the first few days after Hedwig came back looking pleased with herself for delivering such a letter. Okay so he had made it a day before wondering, two before he started pacing, four before he had gone to do the yard work to ease the tension, it made no sense that Draco would not have written him. Especially after what he had said on the train as they were parting ways. He had sent a second letter while he was pacing his room. Signing it "Guess," he assumed that Draco's owl had gotten lost along the way, especially seeing as it was the muggle world after all. It would make sense. Now Harry was sitting in his room reading a letter from Hermione and held one from Ron in his lap. With every word he felt a little more hurt and a little more abandoned. Not by Hermione of course. But she happened to mention that she had seen me and Draco talking and wondered if we were writing. She wanted to know all of the details and all Harry could think about was that Draco was ignoring him.

Draco was pacing inside the wall of his garden. Harry had not responded to his letter. He had one waiting when Hedwig had come by and had handed her another one along with some treats and asked her to take it back to Harry. She had nipped his fingers affectionately and spread her wings taking off into the night. That had been two and a half weeks ago. Not a scrap of paper from Harry since he could not believe that the boy who he thought of as his friend was going to just ignore him like that. Several letters to Harry sat on his desk unopened and waiting to be sent. The one letter Harry had sent him was inside of his drawer. All of the creases nearly gone, the parchment worn down with use, the letter was obviously well loved. He had not looked at it for a couple of days by this point. He did not need to, by this point he was sure he could mimic the way Harry looped his 's.' He had the entire letter memorized and was absolutely furious that Harry had not responded to his letter. Especially since his own letter had contained a note regarding how much he looked forward to Harry's reply, one that was most definitely reciprocated in the Gryffindor's letter. He absently mindedly punched the wall and stared once more up at the sky hoping to catch the briefest glimpse of Harry's beloved white owl. He had thought he had seen it twice since he sent his letter back but the snowy owl never appeared on his window sill.

Harry spent the rest of his summer patiently answering the letters from his friends and the parcels of food they would send his way. He would write to Malfoy (saying Draco just hurt too much) occasionally but it had become far less frequent when it became apparent that the blonde was not going to answer. Eventually he had settled for placing them on his desk never quite getting up the nerve to send them and risking Malfoy seeing how pathetic he had become without the boy in his life. He travelled to the cup with the Weasley's and was outrageously excited to see Malfoy there. They gave the expected barbed banter while Harry searched Malfoy's face for a hint of the friendship they had shared not two months before. When Malfoy saw Harry and the Weasley's escaping he knew that he was no longer looking at the boy who he had shared so much of his life with. The Death Eaters reminded Harry of the strength of Voldemort's influence and where the Malfoy's sat in his circle of followers. Harry was disgusted and would forever deny the pain that he felt as he felt the last hope he had of friendship dissolve in an instant.

Seeing Harry at the Cup had nearly killed Draco. To have to be cold and callus to the boy was pure torture. Seeing Harry believe the things he had said nearly killed him. Draco realized that some of the things he had said about the Weasley's was more than rude, but Draco had been angry. Draco had been waiting for Harry to write him back for almost two months. Then he had been there with the red headed bunch proving that he was talking to the wizarding world and basically shredding Draco's last hope that Harry was not ignoring him. Break was almost over and the last thing he wanted to do was embarrass himself by trying to talk to the boy on the train. He needed to know and he needed to get it out on paper before he changed his mind. He penned out a letter that began as a simple do not expect me to talk to you ever again but quickly followed the pattern of the many letters that were currently sitting on his desk. He signed it with and outrageous flourish folded all of the sheets up carefully penning Potter's name on the outside and handed it to his mother's owl telling her that it was an emergency and that she needed to get the letter to Potter even if she had to peck someone's hands into bloody stumps. He opened the bedroom window and watched as the huntress flew into the stars.

After that Harry spent some time at the Weasley's and could not help enjoying the time with the family that meant so much more time him than the aunt and uncle on Privet Drive. He had continued to write to Malfoy using the time when Ron was asleep on his side of the room to pen the day's adventures onto a sheet of parchment that would be folded up and left among the growing pile wrapped in his invisibility cloak and buried beneath his t-shirts. Of course all of that changed when the packed breakfast table was interrupted by aggressive screech owl landing in the middle of Harry's eggs and sausage.

Harry startled when he saw the hand writing on the parchment and quickly made a dive for the letter before Ron could see it. He could not help the grin when he saw his name etched in that elegant script once again. Thankfully Ron was as distracted by the other's as the giant owl proceeded to peck at everyone who tried to reach for him, something that Harry had not noticed as his hands remained scar free. Mrs. Weasley tried to regain order around the table as every complained about the owl and Errol gave his opinion of the visitor rather loudly. By the time everyone had calmed down the letter was buried in Harry's pocket and the owl was on its way back to his owner.

Harry had only waited about five minutes after normality had returned to escape to Ron's room. Those five minutes had been an eternity to the boy barely understanding what he said as he attempted to follow the conversation. He slipped inside of the room and shut the door behind him. He kicked off his shoes and crawled onto the bed placing his back against the wall so that he could still see the door and carefully opened the letter. He had known that it was going to be huge by the heaviness of the parchment but the number of pages that fell onto the bed astounded him. At least five feet of parchment front and back decorated his bed. The bottom page marked by an elaborate scrawl he quickly shuffled them into order and began to read. The entirety of the first page was ranting at Harry for not writing back to the first letter Malfoy had sent, complained about the "one letter to make up for the hundreds of promises," he raved about how unfair it was to see him having fun with the Weasley's when he was supposed to have been spending some time at the Manor. As the letter continued it began to change the anger gave way to bitterness which eventually fell into misery and gradually became a contented recount of everything from their brief hug on the train to the empty resentment at the Cup. Harry felt the tears fill his eyes as he read out Draco's ending note to the feet of parchment that he had scrawled:

"There you have it. I have spent months waiting for you to fulfill your promise to me and write to me about how awful your summer was with those people who call themselves your relatives. I patiently waited my own letters piling up as the days passed. I wrote to you nearly everyday fingers crossed that you would soon send me your reply. I sincerely hope that this note reaches you so that you can at least know that I do recognize who you are, even if you do not reciprocate. I would like to continue to be your friend- however I know that you may be ignoring me on purpose. If that is the case I just want you to know that I have no ill feelings towards you or to the Weasley's who make up your adoptive family. In the end I want you to know that I maintain my wish for friendship and sincerely hope that you do as well. All the secrets that you entrusted me with will be kept safe in my heart. Hoping that this letter finds you in good health,

Your Secret Keeper,

D. Malfoy"

Harry reread the letter once more, before carefully folding it and setting it among all of the other notes and letters that he had. Laying back one hand behind his head and the other on his stomach he thought of what he had just read and decided that there was no way Draco could affect such emotion. Coming to this conclusion he quickly sat up and reached into his drawer for some clean parchment. He pulled out sheets after sheets trying to figure out a decent reply to such a mind-blowing letter. Everything he put down seemed like chicken scratch and nothing came even close to suitable. Finally after several hours and an excuse of an upset stomach he was finished. His own reply was much shorter and he really hoped that Draco would see the emotions behind the few words that Harry could capture to share the way he felt. Borrowing Pig as Hedwig's letters seemed to be getting lost he watched his own words fly away and lay back in bed. His words and Draco's filing seamlessly behind his closed eyelids.

Draco opened the letter delivered by a small and distracted owl. His hands were shaking with nerves as he unfolded the single sheet of parchment. Then with relief as he read the first lines. Eventually the paper fell from his hands as he shook with laughter over Harry's lack of any form of writing skills. The opened paper fell to the floor and remained there as Draco climbed into his huge bed and settled in for the night.

Draco,

I did write you, I don't know what happened to the letters I sent. I was so worried when you never replied to me. I gave up hope. I don't want to give up on us. Of course Hermione knows about us but I bet you can guess what she said. I hope to see you the night we return to our home in the halls of Hogwarts.

A devoted friend,

Harry P.

P.S. First night back sound good to you? Don't worry, I'll wait as long as you need.

And below that, in Draco's own elegant script, were the words he could not believe Harry had kept for all of these months.

"Potter,

"Hermione told me that we need to talk about what happened earlier this week. If you want to talk meet me at the top of the Astronomy tower tonight at 9. I'll wait for one quarter hour.

"DM"

Alright that was really sappy, but I wanted to get them through the summer and their first fight besides it felt like a remarkable journey. Tell me what you guys think- What will Draco do when Harry's name gets pulled from the goblet? Who does Harry take to the Yule? What does Draco think? Ideas please!