Author's Note: First of all, thank you for all the reviews! They are all so wonderful and lovely! I'm so sorry for not having updated earlier. It has been a busy two years, and with the plot bunny not showing up, it was just that much harder. I began this chapter, hoping to progress the relationship between Harry and Draco, but I'm afraid I got carried away so none of that this chapter. I apologize again for the (rather unacceptable) delay, and I hope you would enjoy reading this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, as they belong to J. K. Rowling. No money is being made from this.

Summary: AU HBP, HPDM slash. Harry decided to visit Draco in the hospital after the Sectumsempra incident, and finds an unexpected side of the young Slytherin. Realization hits the two of them as they became friends and something more. But time is running out.

Chapter Ten — Revelation

Draco paced softly within the corridors of the Dungeon. He seemed surprisingly alert at this hour of the day—but the shadows under his eyes seemed to tell otherwise. For a moment, the blonde thought that he could still feel the texture of the cool, pale claws as they slithered across his skin.

There is nothing to be frightened about. The voice rung in his head.

The scent of death lingered in the air, long after the end of the dark, bloody ritual.

In exchange for your loyalty, you shall have as you wish.

Behind his master's crimson eyes were own stormy grey orbs, dull and broken from the poison known as fear.

A nameless feeling suddenly seized him—a hybrid of anger and despair and frustration yet unlike any of them. Perhaps it had been there long ago, surfacing only now like a hidden predator striking too vicious, too fast, and before he knew it, this anonymous emotion had coursed through his every vein.

The blonde shuttered, and reach for the arm branded by the Mark of his Lord. He had endured this same cruelty the past few nights. In these nightmares, there would always be corpses. Sometimes, the face was his father's, sometimes his mother's, and sometimes, his own. Not even the Dreamless Sleep potion could buy him a few hours of peace anymore. The boy was beginning to think that there would be no end to the torture.

Ducking under a few low arches, the blonde crawled up a flight of stone steps and out of the castle walls. As he embraced the night wind, Draco trailed the long field grass and headed to the Black Lake—it was the last of his havens.

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Harry gazed straight ahead at the other side of the room between bites of sandwich. Since their conversation by the Quidditch pitch, Harry expected more or less of an echo from Malfoy. However, the blonde seemed quite determined to shut out his existence. So here he sat, glaring knives at the Slytherin.

"Harry, mate." His field of vision was suddenly overwhelmed by red hair and a pair of waving hands. As if counting on the distraction, the blonde stood up and platinum locks were lost behind a wall of moving Ravenclaws. "You've been staring into space for the last ten minutes. Anything the matter?"

"No," Harry turned to Ron and gave what he hoped was an assuring smile. "I've just been caught up in my own thoughts, that's all." He had forgotten that he was supposed to be having lunch.

"Well, you've been acting rather odd lately. Right, Gin?" Ron turned to his sister. She stared at her plate, having disregarded his question altogether. Ginny, like Malfoy, had continued to regard Harry as if he wore the Invisibility Cloak, looking but never seeing. Everyone had noticed—except Ron of course.

Hermione stood up as her empty plate disappeared. "I'm going to get my books for Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Later," Harry and Ron said in unison. It wasn't long before the others left to prepare for their next classes, too. It was only when Ron patted his shoulders that Harry realized most of the Gryffindors were gone. He and Ginny were among the only ones left at the table. It would be a wise decision to retreat now, before the awkward silence turned into something worse. The boy mumbled a quick goodbye and got up.

"Wait, Harry." He turned, almost expecting a slap across his face, half-wishing for a confrontation so that that it would end of their awkward tension. "Can you meet me at the Astronomy Tower at midnight?"

Harry agreed, though he dared not to ask why the meeting had to be at such a late hour. He bid her goodbye for the second time and left for Defence Against the Dark Arts.

The brunet stepped into the classroom and took a seat on the left hand side near the front, where he always sat with Ron. Hermione was the next to enter, and sat directly behind him, while Ron was among the last, creeping into his seat just in time before Snape came out of his office.

"Open your books to page 246." Dully, Harry dragged the thick, heavy book from his bag and turned the pages. He never had a passion for textbooks. In fact, his hatred for them only amplified with Snape teaching his favourite subject. It was hard enough listening to the old bat's monotonous voice drone on. When it became too hard to focus, Harry tuned out the drawl and let his thoughts take over instead.

The past few days seemed like a mere dream. So many things had happened so quickly.

Where were Ginny's smiles? He hadn't seen her beam like the sun since summer. He missed playing Quidditch with her, the way they used to back at the Burrows. It were as if yesterday that he saw Ginny gliding in the tall grass field on her broom with the grace and fierceness of an eagle, stroking through the air as if bound by nothing but the limits of the deep-blue sky. Yet all of that became more distant by day, slipping away without him noticing. And when he had the time to finally reminisce, nothing was the way it used to be.

He wasn't entirely sure that tonight's meeting with Ginny would be a good idea. Almost immediately after their conversation, Harry had wanted to run after her and apologize to her, and beg her for forgiveness; he wished could undo all of yesterday and hurt himself instead of her. But despite his desire to reconcile, there was something foreboding about mending their relationship—some part of him was resisting the idea of erasing the entire event and starting anew.

A spurt of pain spread from the side of his ribs to the rest of his chest, leaving a tingling sensation where Ron jabbed his elbow into Harry. The boy let out a grunt and shot a look at Ron, who ignored him and buried his nose in his book.

"Ah, Mr. Potter." Harry looked up and saw Snape's looming figure. "I see you have your book open today. Well then, a simple question wouldn't hurt.

"Incantations, especially ones associated with Dark Magic, mostly have their roots in what wizards consider as foreign languages, such as Old English or Hebrew. How do these incantations differ from the ones rooted in Latin or Greek?"

A frown appeared between Harry's brows. "Professor, I thought foreign spells weren't taught until our final year." Almost immediately, Snape answered with a mocking sneer.

"Potter, tell me now, what would you do if you were to face a sudden, unexpected—foreign—situation? I doubt 'I don't know' will solve the problem." The man paused, waiting as thought expecting someone to break the silence with a grunt of laughter. When no one did, he went on. "The Killing Curse, Potter, is an example. After all, you've lived with it your entire life." No one dared to look up as Snape returned to his desk.

Harry used every effort to restrain the violence that threatened to lash out, and instead dug his nails deep into the palms of his flesh to let the pulsating pain distract his need to punch the man in the face. Keep it together, Harry. Don't let Snape get to you.

For the rest of class, Harry hid himself behind his textbook, while letting not a single syllable Snape uttered enter his head. If Snape noticed, he didn't bother mentioning it.

"That's it for today's class." Harry shut his book, more than happy to get out of this room. "Potter. My office." The brunet snapped his head up, having the urge to kick a chair or a desk, but he was determined to keep his anger tamed. Snape would only use it to his advantage anyways. The older man made his way up the stairs and Harry followed, hands clawing into his own flesh.

"Do you know why I've called you here, Potter?" Snape shut the door when they were both inside, then slowly made his way to his desk. The boy remained silent and alert. If Snape wanted to make more sarcastic remarks about his not paying attention in class, he would not go down without a fight.

"Draco Malfoy."

Harry hitched his breath at the sound of the name. So this is where we're heading.

"Cursing him in the boys' bathroom, following him in the middle of the night, fighting with him during detention, and once again you were there when he fell from the stairs."

"If you were wondering, I didn't push him," Harry lowered his voice dangerously. A wild anger withered inside him, begging to be unleashed.

"No." The man narrowed his eyes. "I'm insisting that you stay away from Malfoy. I've told you already to leave him be. But once again, you've proven to me that you are incapable of doing so. Fifty points from Gryffindor."

"I had nothing to do with his falling from the stairs!"

"Yes. But your argument does seem remarkably less convincing when you happened to be the centre of all action," Snape snorted, shifting to another corner of the room. "Don't think that I didn't know you've been deliberately tracking down Malfoy's whereabouts. I am going to warn you for the last time; do as the Headmaster asked you to and leave him alone." Snape paused, as though to check the boy was actually listening. "The Headmaster knows what he's doing. If you had any trust in him—any trust at all—you would do as I say and leave Malfoy alone. Stupid boy. You don't even know the extent of the damage you would caused."

"I'm not about to wait and watch his evil plans unfold." Not caring what the man would do next, the boy wheeled around and went for the door.

"Intuition, knowledge and experience. Missing any one of those elements and you shall pay dearly. Right now you've only got one." Harry paused, almost surprised at the levelled voice coming from the other end of the room, as if the man had anticipated this very scene. Forcing himself not to turn around, the Gryffindor dragged his foot forward and continue down the staircase.

Harry knew Snape was right. Dumbledore knew what he was doing—he always did. But Harry couldn't understand why he would go to such lengths to deny Malfoy's involvement in all this. If the man had his reasons, Harry wanted to know why.

Draco Malfoy. The brunet's thoughts were drifting in the direction he least wanted to explore at the moment. Why on earth was Malfoy acting like that, anyways? His ignoring of him — his indifference. For the past five years, Harry knew what to expect from Malfoy, more or less. He always found a way of making the blonde react to him, be it a word or a gesture. But Malfoy had become unresponsive no matter what Harry said or did.

Yet the more the blonde ignored him, the more Harry seemed to notice him. Malfoy was cunning, sly, evil, mean, taunting, and a bully—he was in more than one way a replica of his father. But Harry couldn't help seeing his other qualities: frail, quiet, detached, lonely and pained even. The more he got to know blonde, the more clouded his judgements became. Malfoy's usual sneers and taunts no long had any touch of realism, like an act fallen out of place. It was harder and harder for the brunet to grasp who the Slytherin really was. It felt…strange, unfamiliar, unpredictable, and he was curiously frightened by this change. It wasn't right.

Nothing was right anymore.

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"That looks reasonably good," Slughorn said as he took a quick peek inside Draco's cauldron, and then walked away as swiftly as he came. "Ah! What have we here, Mr. Zabini! Your potion looks excellent! Just one thing though. The colour is a bit off. You might want to add some more powdered lily roots in there to achieve that shade of cream-white." The man made his way around to the left side of the room after he finished checking all the Slytherins' potions. Draco glanced over his shoulder at Zabini and quirked one eyebrow.

"I think he had buttered up his praises quite a bit this last week," Draco said, Vanishing the contents inside his cauldron.

"I think you're just jealous," Blaise replied. Draco dismissed the comment, knowing that it was only meant to be a tease. Besides, there were better ways to shut him up than to retort.

"How is it going between you and Mac—"

"Just fine," Blaise snapped, narrowing his eyes. "I was only joking, Malfoy. You of all people should know that."

"Me too." The blonde grinned victoriously. "But really, how are things between you two?"

Blaise sighed and non-verbally casted a Silencing Charm. "Whenever I make the slightest attempt to talk to him, he avoids me. I even jinxed his partner one time so we could be paired up in Herbology class. He just turned his head and ignored me. I mean, you don't just go up to a bloke and kiss him, then pretend he doesn't exist."

"Class." Their conversation was interrupted by Slughorn's voice. Blaise dissipated the Charm immediately. "Before you leave for supper, I have an announcement to make." He brought out a few bottle of potions from behind his desk—all of them had been either taught or made in this class. "Earlier this year, we've spoken about the properties of various types of potions and ways of manipulating these properties. Now is the time to exercise your knowledge. You will be concocting such a potion next class, with instructions provided. However, you will be working with a different partner for this brew, just this once for a change. I will announce the name of your partner then. I am expecting excellent quality from each and every one of you. Class dismissed."

The blonde glanced over to the other side of the room to the Golden Trio as they packed and chatted. Potter's vision was skimming dangerously close to his; Draco looked away as casually as he could and piled his parchment on top of his books. The Gryffindor's gaze fell on his back and was stubbornly stuck there. Despite the foresight, Draco felt his body stiffening, paralyzing, and altogether refused to move. He could feel nothing else but the pinning gaze from the other side of the room.

"Coming to dinner, Draco?"

"Yes. Of course." Draco tossed his bag over his shoulders and left with Blaise and Theodore, letting out a breath of gratitude as he headed for the Great Hall.

Rumours were still flying around all over the place, but at least the Slytherins had the grace of keeping silent when their Prince is nearby. Having filled his appetite, the blonde was unwilling to stay any longer and parted with the rest of his housemates halfway through the meal.

Now here he lay in the comforts of his own mattress, leaning against the headboard as he carefully polished his Nimbus 2001. He had obtained the broomstick half a decade ago, yet only months ago did he truly begin to appreciate his father's gift. Draco still remembered the days when he wished to hold a Firebolt in one hand and the Quidditch Cup Championship in the other—but those days have far behind him. Mere fantasies, they were now. Beside, both of those things reminded him too much of—

The blonde forced his thoughts to a stop before they could deviate any further.

Why can't you think of something else other than that bloody git?

But it's impossible, his conscious voiced back. He's everywhere.

Draco bit his lips. There wasn't much room for retorts.

His presence had grown to become overwhelming. Draco could feel it whenever he entered a room, and before he knew it the blonde was already searching for his voice, as if the pitch itself was an incantation without a counterspell. Over the past few days, he had trained himself somewhat successful at shutting out anything remotely relevant to the Gryffindor.

Only weeks ago he had snarled and taunted the boy, and now he couldn't even bring himself to look at his eyes. The emerald gems held a fierceness he had never noticed before, intense, bright and powerful. He knew if he looked into them, he could not break away.

"Draco."

He gazed away from the pale green flames burning in the fireplace. "You called?"

"For the third time." Blaise sighed as he dropped a pile of books onto his table. "I can't believe I lost to a Nimbus 2000."

"Nimbus 2001," Draco corrected. "Did you need something?"

"Your hands. But that was two minutes ago." Blaise said, taking out some parchments and a quill from his bag. "Please don't tell me you've been polishing your broomstick ever since you got here."

"It's only been fifteen minutes."

"More like two hours." The blonde raised his eyebrows at the comment.

"Really." The blonde raised his eyebrows at the comment. "I guess I got carried away. I had planned on doing something more productive, like reviewing for Potions."

"Well, looks like it's your lucky day," Blaise smirked and picked up a book from the pile. "I've got most of what we need here. And mind you, you didn't even have to carry a single pound. Aren't you going to beg for an invitation?"

Draco smiled. "No need." He carefully put away his broom and sat down next to Blaise. Looking over the pile of books, the boy decided on one with a blue and silver binding. He turned to the index and went down the list. Thanks to Severus, there would not be much need to search for new materials, but once in a while he would come across interesting concoctions his Godfather never mentioned.

As he finished a few articles, a foreboding feeling rose to his chest. The pale, monstrous figure in black robes had burnt itself behind his eyes. Just when he prepared himself to endure another round of agony, the images had already dissipated into thin air. The blonde evened his breath and shut the book.

"Why don't we call it a day? You look exhausted." Blaise, too, closed his book and began tidying up the quills and parchments spread across their table.

"Do I now?" Draco smiled.

Blaise raised his eyebrows, begging to differ, but left for the bathroom to get ready for bed. And when he came back, he found the blonde sprawled across his bed deep in sleep, and his school robes still intact.

That night, the Dark Lord visited his dream again. Everywhere he looked to were the crimson eyes, seeming to penetrate his soul with no difficulty. The blonde ran into a room and found him drowning in a sea of blood, hot enough to blister his skin. His arms flung about in the peripheral and caught hold of something, slick and wet. Before he could let go, the familiar, large serpent had wrapped herself around his wrist and body; the more he fought, the tighter her hold on him became.

"Why do you run, my boy? You knew this was to happen." The blood vanished, and was replaced instead by bodies mounting on top of each other. "You will become one of them. The decision is no longer yours, not since you failed my task."

Draco's eyes jotted open, feeling the fabric of his shirt warm and sticky against his chest. He propped himself up, conjured some water and drained the liquid in a single breath. The blonde replenished the glass a second time, filling it close to the brim and sipped slow, shallow mouthfuls. Even with his eyes wide open, Draco could not shake away the cruel smile rooted deep in his mind.

It was just past eleven, he noted after casting Tempus, and got out of bed. Most of the professors scanning the groups should have retired to their bedrooms by now. For the next hour or so, the Prefects will be in charge. Finding himself still in his school robes, the boy switched into something warmer and decided to go for a walk.

Once outside of the Slytherin common room, Draco cast the Disillusionment and Silencing Charm to conceal himself. Instead of following the path to the Black Lake, the boy exited the Dungeon, climbing one step at a time until he reached the seventh floor. When he made sure no one had followed him, he paced near the corner three rounds and immediately a set of wooden gates appeared on the wall.

It had been a while since he last visited the Room of Hidden Things. The piles of odd junk rested where he remembered they would be, doing what they did best by collected dust. He maneuvered himself to a tall shelf and brushed aside the canvas, revealing the Vanishing Cabinet.

"Harmonia Nectere Passus," the blonde whispered, anticipating yet fearing what might lie beyond the closed doors. With an air of determination, the boy pulled at the handle, and the closet opened with a click. He held his breath as he looked inside, then ever so slowly, let his lungs deflate.

Nothing.

The boy pushed the doors closed and tried the spell a second time. Still, nothing appeared.

He shut its doors briskly, and stood with his weight leaned towards the cabinet, fingers still clinging onto the rusting handles of the closet. It had been nearly a month since he fixed the cabinet and sent his first message, yet he had not received an echo. The Dark Lord had long recovered his strength and power, and all of the former Death Eaters have now gathered—what more was there to wait for? He bit his lip at the thought.

For the hundredth time, he wished that it had not been him chosen for this task, yet he desperately wanted to end it all himself, once and for all. There was no turning back now.

His attention snapped back into place as he heard the heavy gate open with a creek. A faint ray of light slipped through and then the door swung shut once more. The blonde squinted his eyes, trying to make out the silhouette in the far corner of the room, but it did little to help. The clicking of shoes against stone approached his direction, and he quickly ducked behind a heap of stones of what seemed to be the remains of a statue.

The footsteps stopped, then retreated to another area of the room, only to return a moment later. Whoever it was, was looking for something—hopefully only a decent spot to discard some unimportant object, as he had seen so many do over the past year. Yet the gasp of excitement that came minutes after indicated otherwise. The blonde peered from behind the rubble and saw that the figure stood by the Vanishing Cabinet. But instead of taking out whatever was needed to be hidden, the figure—a female—flung the canvas aside and let the light fade from her wand. His heart picked up pace in the mere seconds it took for the fabric to reach the ground. Then, it was silence, cold and hard and thick as it stretched on.

"Harmonia Nectere Passus." The same incantation sounded strange in his ears. The voice that spoke was familiar, yet wrong in every sense. Dread swelled within him, oozing from his skin and spreading along it, crawling as he drowned in it. He felt his insides churning and breaking—crumbling to nothingness. How could he not recognize that voice?

"Pansy?" His voice came out a shaken whisper as he brushed off the charms and stepped out of hiding. He heard the hitching of breath, as she often did when she was surprised, and the clanging of wood against marble as she dropped her wand. "What are you doing here?"

"Draco, you scared me!" She had managed to regain her cool, and flashed a wide smile. Strangers would have been fooled by her disguise, but Draco had spotted the nervousness in her eyes. "I didn't think you would be up here right now." He watched her as she bent down to pick up her wand. He narrowed his eyes and silently mirrored her action, out of instinct than anything else. When her gaze met his again, he knew what was waiting for him—but he was faster.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Pansy went stiff, with her arms still outstretched and her eyes wide with shock. He let out a silent breath as he lowered his hand. It hit him then that it really was Pansy Parkinson standing in front of him who was so determined to attack him a second ago. A thread of pain laced into his thoughts as the weight of the situation fell into place. Up until now, he had honestly thought that Pansy had been on his side. Despite his mother's warning about the power struggles between Death Eaters, he had thought, naively, that there had not been any conflicts of interests between him and the rest of the Slytherins. It was his father who was kept in the filthy cells of Azkaban, not theirs. But this wasn't just his war. His father had enemies who would not hesitate to pay a large price to see him suffer. Once the Dark Lord had stripped his father of his powers, there were few willing to lend a hand to the Malfoy family. Old acquaintances turned blind eyes towards them; some even severed their connections with their family completely. He just never thought that the Parkinson family would be one of them, considering the closeness the two families have shared over the past few centuries. If they have turned too, then there is no one else he could trust.

Draco was beginning to regret coming up here and learning this painful truth, but he could not let himself do that. He would not allow himself to entertain thoughts of self-deceit—not after what had happened to his family. What is revealed could not be unknown.

The blonde closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out of his lungs. He had hoped that he didn't have to resort to Legilimency, but he was out of options. "I didn't think you were going to confess everything to me at any rate," he said, more to himself than to Pansy. He raised his wand once again, and cleared his head. Then, with the utmost concentration, he peered into her eyes, unpeeling the invisible layers so he can retrieve his memories.

A clouded picture of a drawing room appeared inside his head, and black smoke wisped into a figure walking in the corridors. He saw her coming up to the Seventh floor, peering around and looking for something. The look on her face told him that she had not been successful. She must have been looking for her room then.

Draco dug a little deeper, and the pictures faded into another scene. He saw her entering the Room of Hidden Things in the dark, peering around. This was what happened just now. How did you know what to look for? He asked the question, and the memory hazed into another.

He saw himself sitting in the Slytherin common room, turning to get up to fetch something. Just then, Pansy came over and handed him a goblet. His former self smiled, reaching for the goblet and downed the water.

The blonde felt sick to his stomach. Why?

The common room disappeared, and was replaced by a drawing room in dark burgundy. Two figures appeared on the couch.

"..take these with you." It was Mr. Parkinson speaking, holding out a bottle of clear liquid in his hand in a gesture that allowed no room for refusal. Pansy stared at the bottle for a long time as though contemplating, then shook her head.

"I can't Father." She stared at her hands, no doubt fearing to meet her father's eyes. Silence sat between the two of them for a long time, before Mr. Parkinson stepped around the table and shoved the bottle into her hands.

"You will do as I say and take it with you!"

"I can't do it, Father!" she said, getting up and retreating to the corner of the room. "How can I give it to Draco, and tell him to spill everything to me at the cost of his life!" The man stepped forward, opening his mouth as though to object, but Pansy continued before he could utter a word. "I know what the Verissima Potion would do to a person. It forces him to tell the truth by draining away his life. The deeper he keeps the truth hidden, the more life it drains. How can I harm him so when his father is locked away in Azkaban, when his family must endure the wrath of the Dark Lord!"

"Would you have wished that it was our family being punished by the Dark Lord instead? That I would be the one lockd inside Azkaban, in the company of those vile Dementors?"

"Of course not, Father! I would never think that! You know I wouldn't! But why must we turn our backs on the Malfoys? There must be another—"

"Pansy, there are no other choices!" His voice brought Pansy to a halt. When he spoke again, he was gentler with his words. "We mustn't let the same thing happen to the Parkinson family. Once the real war breaks loose, it's everyone for themselves. We have only ourselves to trust. As much as I regret doing this, it must be done. We must know the Dark Lord's plan, so we would not fall into the same fate!" Pansy was still looking hesitant, but she was faltering. Mr. Parkinson continued. "I know this isn't easy for you. After all, you have known Draco all your life. But the potion will not do him too much harm, as long as it is not used excessively. He will open up to you more easily, and I doubt it is a secret he would hide at the cost of his life." He presented her the bottle again, and with quivering hands, she took it and placed it inside her pocket.

Draco had seen enough. He blinked away her memories and refocused both his gaze and his wand on Pansy. Fear was consuming her; he could see it in her eyes. Draco hated that look on her face, but he had to let that out of his mind. He had to forget about tonight, forget about him seeking comfort in her company these last few months; he had to forget that Pansy Parkinson was ever his friend. He steadied his hand and whispered the spell.

"Obliviate."

Notes: Verissima is Latin for "absolute truth"