I'm not late! It's been one helluva month since I last updated, but somehow, through exams, a funeral, and other things which interrupt my writing time, I am not late. Well, not by much, anyway. As usual, hugs to all reviewers, you know who you are and thank you so much for giving up a few minutes to make a humble author very happy. On with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Eleven – Shock to the System I

Harry didn't return to the Common Room until sometime in the hours still too small to be called morning. He had been wandering in circles since the argument, in an attempt to pull his thoughts back into some semblance of order, and ultimately to avoid Gryffindor tower until everyone in it was asleep. No one was there to notice him blunder through the portrait hole in an accidental fashion, except Hermione. She noticed him collapse into an armchair and stare at nothing, although as she did so she couldn't shake the thought that it was only an illusion, because no sound accompanied his entrance. She cautiously came over and sat as close as she dared; instead of being startled, as she had expected, he didn't react at all, as if he was unaware of her presence, or simply ignoring her. She couldn't tell which was more likely, nor which she would prefer it to be.

"Harry." he didn't look up, but she knew he had heard. The air shimmered briefly with a spell of some kind, and she spared a moment trying to figure out which one, with no success. There was a silence, and she tried again.

"Harry, I know––"

"You know nothing." He said flatly. She bristled for a moment – she was not used to being told she was ignorant.

"Well, tell me then." she said, for she knew he was right. All her knowledge amounted to was a flawed understanding of Harry, and a half-overheard confrontation.

"It is none of your fucking business." he said, voice completely even, which frightened her more than anger would have. He still had not even glanced in her direction.

"But I'm––" Your friend. "I just want to know why––" We weren't good enough ...

"Because nobody is like Draco." She hadn't expected an answer, and certainly not the one she had received.

"That's true – I don't think anybody else could deliver a cutting insult as effectively as Malfoy can. Tell me, does he still do that, now that you're..." she hesitated. "Friends?" Harry gave a cynical ghost of a laugh, and she jumped, startled. She couldn't understand any of his responses: they were not only unexpected but cryptic and discomfiting.

"He's corrupting you, Harry, can't you see it?" She raised her voice a little in a desperate attempt to understand the incomprehensible.

A raised eyebrow. "Actually, I think it might have been the other way round." His sudden dry amusement was unsettling enough, but it swiftly turned to anger. "You see nothing, Hermione. If you hadn't chanced to walk in right then, you wouldn't have known at graduation. You haven't seen us; you're making stupid assumptions based n stupider prejudices! You never knew me, and you certainly don't know Draco." she shivered, sure that the temperature had fallen, perhaps from the tone of his voice alone.

"But surely..." she pressed. "Surely it was him who taught you the...Dark Arts." She couldn't keep the insecure, questioning inflection out of her voice any more than she could avoid whispering 'Dark Arts', or bring herself to say Malfoy's name without dislike and disgust.

"I did it myself. I don't like him to see."

Hermione stopped trying to predict what Harry was going to say. His wand levitated out of his pocket, and hovered in the air above his fingers. It began to spin, and Harry slowly seemed to relax watching it.

"Didn't, that is," he amended. His wand dropped to the floor and his head fell forward into his hands.

"I don't like it," she declared, stupidly, trying to fill the silence where she couldn't think what to say.

His head lifted, and he looked directly at her for the first time. The effect was the same as if he had punched her in the stomach.

"Goddamn you! I don't care whether you happen to like it or not. It's nothing to do with you!" She was frozen under his glare, and it took several minutes for her to recover her voice and remember that this was Harry, who would never hurt her. Even if it was difficult to believe when he glared at her as if her could curse her with his eyes.

"What is it that you want, Harry? You don't seem to know ..."

"I know exactly what I want. I want you to go away and stop interfering and questioning me, and I, I want Draco right now."

She was hurt by that, that he wanted Draco and not her, but something stalled her tongue. Maybe it was because she was shaking. Maybe, though, it was because she could see Harry shaking – could

see blood running down his fingers from where his unbitten nails dug into his palms.

"Let me see," she said, making every effort to still her wavering voice. "Then––"

He looked at her again for a second, but he was not glaring this time. Then he left, and she sighed. She had thought that she could get some answers out of Harry, to see if she understood more. All she had was more questions and more confusion.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry almost didn't understand what he'd done.

He understood the part where Draco got mad at him because he thought Harry had accepted Ginny, even though he hadn't, because he hadn't eavesdropped on the important part where Harry told Ginny that he wasn't interested in as nice a way as he knew how. Which wasn't nice at all, but was at least better than 'fuck off', which would have cost much less effort.

He didn't understand why Draco was still mad at him, even after he'd explained what had really happened. This was what had been tearing him apart for three days, though he had lost all sense of time and only knew it had been three days because of the changes in the light.

The thing he hated was that he'd spent so long obsessing over Draco, had kissed him and gone to heaven for a day, but then heaven had spat out the tainted Boy Who Lived and he was back to missing him, but it was worse because he kept tormenting himself with memories of a perfect kiss that he didn't know if he would ever experience again. It meant that he was in a state of almost catatonia, unable to move off the covers of his bed for hours, torturing himself with masochistic recollections. Finally, a last spark of sanity pulled him into action.

When someone knocked on their Common Room door, none of the Slytherins expected it to be Harry Potter. The small First Year who went to answer it returned looking terrified out of his wits, muttering "Potter.." , "Malfoy..." and "s-stare..." in a squeaky but mostly unintelligible whisper.

"I'll go," said Theodore Nott. He was intrigued, especially by the mention of Draco and Potter. They had seemed to be paying little attention to each other this year, which had always seemed a little too unlikely and out of character for him. Blaise nodded his approval.

"What?" he said, quietly, arms folded across his chest in a habitual defensive gesture.

"I need to speak to Draco Malfoy." said Harry. A year ago, the boy in front of him would have been nothing more than a vaguely familiar face and perhaps a first name, but Harry had seen to it that he knew about everyone in his year. He could list several facts he had observed about Theodore Nott, one of them being his quiet, unobtrusive demeanour combined with a dangerously sharp intelligence. He was someone to watch out for.

Nott nodded guardedly, and opened the door far enough to allow Harry in. Blaise gave him a questioning glare when he walked in with Harry Potter following, and most of the Common Room were eavesdropping as subtly as they could, with varying success.

"He wants to speak to Malfoy." said Nott. Blaise snorted loudly.

"Hope he comes back bloody, then."

Theo decided to give Draco the courtesy of knocking before he entered, not that it seemed to matter to Draco recently. He was lying spread-eagled on his bed, fully clothed but unkempt, staring at the green curtain over his bed which was blocking his view of the ceiling.

"Draco," he said.

"What?" He didn't move.

"Someone wants to speak to you," Draco sat up and hugged his knees to his chest. "It's Potter."

"Harry..." something ghosted over his features, but Theo couldn't place it.

"He's outside. Merlin knows how he found the door."

Draco rested his forehead against his knees. "What's he want?"

"I don't know." Which was puzzling him almost as much as Draco's strange reaction.

"Tell him...tell him I don't have anything to say to him." Draco's voice tapered off into a whisper.

Theo shook his head. "Yes you do; you've been moping for three days and I assume it's because of him." he made some quick deductions, praying he hadn't got the wrong end of the stick which would make Draco fly into a rage. Then again, he thought, looking at the blond boy, rage might be better than this.

"I wasn't moping!" he was irritated, but not angry.

"What were you doing, then? Thinking about the meaning of life?" Theo recrossed his arms and tilted his head to one side.

"Yes."

Theo sighed. "Don't be difficult, Draco. Don't do this to yourself – or him."

"Him?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, him, Potter. He looks like a ghost, if you ask me. Or maybe a demeguise."

"Ha – yeah. He's good at not being seen. Maybe...maybe too good."

"And you know?" Theo quirked an eyebrow.

Draco looked up defiantly. "Yes."

Theo hesitated. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. "What's he to you, anyway?"

Draco didn't reply. There wasn't even any acknowledgment that he'd heard. He doesn't know, Theo thought. He really doesn't know. There was a silence, in which Draco looked lost somewhere else.

"Go and talk to him." Theo said, suddenly. Draco looked up sharply.

"No," he said. "Then I'll remember."

"Remember what?"

"That he doesn't care."

Theo shook his head. "He isn't out there scaring half the Common Room because he felt like stopping by."

"Scaring half the Common Room?"

"You can't have forgotten what that stare looks like."

"No," he said. "I don't think I could forget."

"I'm letting him in," Theo said. "And you can talk, or fight, or fuck, or whatever it is that you do. I don't really care. Then you can stop staying in bed and moping, or pining or, I suppose, thinking about the meaning of life."

"Harry?"

"Him too. He looks like he's forgotten how to stand up."

"Right."

Theo left.

Harry walked in, looking at the floor and leaning heavily against the wall, breathing as if he resented the effort it took. "Draco," he addressed the carpet.

"Harry––"

"No, let me explain. I meant it when I said you hadn't seen it all. I don't want anything to do with her, and do you know why? Because I have you." He stopped. "Thought I did, anyway."

Draco couldn't say anything. He wanted to say sorry, pull Harry close and forget that the whole mixup with words had ever happened, but he couldn't move.

Harry nodded, and turned to leave.

"Don't you dare walk out of that door." Draco found his voice again, awkwardly, and it had come out all wrong but at least Harry had stopped and wasn't going to leave anymore.

"Isn't that what you wanted? And you always get what you want," he remembered. The echo of a laugh, dry and humourless, but still a laugh from Harry. Better than dark, brooding depression. Harry looked at him, and he couldn't have stopped himself from walking up and seizing Harry's wrists.

"Yes," he said from between his teeth. Harry kissed him hard, Draco still clutching his wrists hard enough to stop the blood and turn the skin whiter than it was already. It made a total contrast to their earlier kisses, gentle, burning with a tentative desire. But they had dreamed of doing this, of kissing so hard with their bodies pressed together, finding out exactly how they fitted – and they fitted. Perfectly.

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this chapter, especially the Hermione/Harry interaction. I hope you all liked it. Next up is the Yule Ball...

In other news, I now have a Beta-reader, otherwise known as Cinnamon sakaki. Hopefully she'll help me to keep on track and shout at me to make me get off my lazy arse and write.