A/N: I first discovered the word Sonder from 'The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows". I shall leave a link here for its credit. I highly recommend checking it out, there is a bountiful list of brilliant words!

www dictionaryofobscuresorrows com

I would also like to give a shout-out to Meeana! Thank you so much for all your reviews, they honestly make me so impossibly happy every time I read a new one! Same goes with all of my other reviewers and followers, thank you a million, you guys are the reason I write these fictions! Also, my apologies for the short chapter! I hope my swift updates, as per usual, make up for it!

Chapter Eleven
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It was as if he had gone deaf; there was a light ring sounding in his ears, perhaps from the bloody screams before him, but he thanked it for he was certain he wasn't particular to what he would have heard anyway. What mattered is the look he was receiving that gave him a thousand words in itself.

Draco was calm at first, his own head abuzz with so much all at once. Harry was standing there, in the middle of the corridor outside of the library where students could emerge any second, before the two people that meant the most to him, holding his hand. His hand. It wasn't the Weaselette's, it wasn't him shying away and hiding him, but he was there with him, unashamed. There was a slight blush on his cheeks, he was so easy to redden, and Draco wanted to close the distance between them, to embrace him fully and kiss him harder then he had ever done. It was everything he could have wanted from the boy, being handed to him in the simplest of gestures. And he wasn't even paying attention to his friends. His eyes were focused on Draco and him alone, he was smiling ever so sweetly. Then it hit him; Harry had just called him his boyfriend. Now he couldn't control the smile that sprang on him, spreading to his eyes as he squeezed the hand in his own tightly.

If Hermione wasn't in enough silent shock as it was, this was enough to send her close to the edge of a coma. She hadn't spoken a word, hadn't moved an inch, her eyes wide as Sickles just passed between the couple and her screaming boyfriend who couldn't seem to sputter together a proper sentence still.

"Are you even listening to me, Harry?" Ron bellowed, finally his friend turned his attentions back on him, "After all this bastard has done, you're sleeping with the pathetic sod? What the bloody hell has gotten into you? You must be absolutely mad! He must have cursed you! That's what I think about all of this! Something to do with that key, your blasted trunk and all of those Death Eater's crawling around biding their time with an Unforgiveable ready with your name on it,"

"He hasn't done a thing. I've checked. Twice. Myself, the key, my trunk...trust me, I thought I'd gone mad at first, too," Harry was quiet and collective, very much unlike what he had been known to be. But of course he was calm, it was Ron yelling at him not Draco - it tended to be the blond that pushed those buttons hard enough.

"I would never curse Harry," Draco returned defensively.

Ron narrowed his eyes dangerously, "You have before,"

"That was then. This is now," he said resolutely, as if that would simply be enough for the red-head. As he had confided to Harry before, even if he did come forward he wasn't going to lay down and beg for the Weasel's forgiveness.

"You think this fucking ferret can change then, hm?" he paused though as soon as Harry began to speak he promptly cut him off, "Well he can't. It's in his dirty, nasty blood. The whole lot of the Malfoy's and the Black's, they're all the same, they're all twisted and wicked," Ron hissed.

It took it perhaps a step too far for Harry who clutched tighter on Draco's hand now but before he could speak his retort it was the blond doing it for him, "My Father is a horrible sort of coward and a right bastard. But you best not speak ill of the rest of my family or else," he had his free hand pointedly on his wand now, slowly withdrawing it from his trousers, "You will certainly be regretting it, Weasel," Draco sounded as he would have years ago, sneering and hissing at Harry, but this time it was only to Ron in their own defence.

"Threatening me are you now, Malfoy?" Ron advanced, his own wand drawn, Hermione was still a shocked, silent spectator, "I dare you to try me, ferret,"

Draco sneered at him raising his wand and before Ron could even think again the blond had cast a Full Body Bind, sending him like a board to the floor with a thud. It was enough to wake Hermione up who hurried to his side, "Finite," Draco lifted it almost as soon as he could cast it. "You deserve so much more than that-"

"That's it, I'll kill you, you fucking-"

"Ron, please!" Harry finally yelled. He looked between his two friends and his newly professed boyfriend and sighed heavily, he knew this wouldn't be easy but between screams, insults and curses he didn't feel the most apt in trying for either one of them at that moment.

Ron turned purple in the face as he turned to his friend, "He just hexed me, Harry, yet you're siding with him?! He's the reason Fred's dead, the reason so many others are dead, like Dumbledore and Remus and Tonks!"

Draco hissed, "Did I point my wand at them, Weasel?" he was taking small steps forward now, his hand unlaced from Harry's and his wand raising, "Did I curse them? Did I order those who did to do it? The ones I did turn my wand to, all but you, I regret. I do, truly and honestly. I want to prove my regret to Harry but I do not owe you anything. I am not here to repent for my sins or those of my Father. I am not here to beg forgiveness or to become part of your pathetic golden pal group, I am here only because I care for Harry,"

"You might as well have pointed your wand at them. If you truly cared for Harry, Malfoy, you'd stay the hell away from him!" Ron spat, his own wand raised, the boys mirrored each other but neither sent a curse or hex.

"Ronald, maybe we should just go..." Hermione finally spoke up in a shaky whisper, Harry jerked his head to her and she smiled sadly at him. It made his heart fall with relief. She may not fully approve but she wasn't yelling, she just needed her time.

"I can see now why I am the only person his key chooses to trust," Draco turned his back, lowering his wand and putting it back into his trousers. He walked back over to Harry but didn't take his hand, it appeared the brunette was attempting his best at keeping calm, taking slow and deep breaths. Ron didn't appear too keen on the words he heard, Harry could swear he heard a fuse blow in his head.

"Shove off, Malfoy, you obviou-"

"Enough with avoiding the truth, Weasel, it is rather pathetic. Harry's key," he reached into his cloak, taking it out and dangling it before the others, smirking as he did at the hate that began to cloud Ron's eyes, "Trusts me because Harry trusts me. Do you know why that is? Because I know who he is, more than you ever have and ever will. It has always been like that. You had your head shoved too far up his arse to really see him and understand what he was going through. I can even recall in Fourth Year how much you loathed him for Dumbledore pulling his name from the Cup. Though I could tell, from the moment his name appeared that it was something he solemnly wished he could have given away. How could you be so blind to your best friend? And after the War, were you too grief stricken to even notice him? I knew him a fool to care so much about what you would think about us, kind like you don't deserve that type of thought especially from somebody like Harry. You are too damn stubborn and childish to see just how happy he is for the first time..." Draco finally trailed off, taking a deep breath, he recalled in his head Harry confessing how, when alone, being with him was the happiest he had ever been. Well, maybe he didn't need to particularly share all of that just yet.

It seemed his words had stunned Ron, he was red and purple, shaking all over with rage, but he did not move. Harry was looking on apologetically with Hermione, they seemed to be sharing a non-verbal conversation of sorts as the other more heated two argued. "I, wha-Harry, what about my sister then, 'eh? Was that all a lie? How do you think she's gonna feel-"

Draco snorted, rolling his eyes as Harry spoke softly, blushing and looking away from Hermione now and at his feet, "If it weren't for Gin, I wouldn't have even..." he stopped talking, turning and blushing at Draco.

"Ginny? No, Ginny wouldn't, she couldn't, not after everything," he whispered in disbelief.

"Well she did. And when she persuaded me to go for it she told me about something your Mother used to teach you when you guys couldn't get on together. She said she remembered always being told that everybody's from different walks of life. That each of our situations are so vastly different from each others we simply cannot judge, cannot blame one another, for our pasts even if we think we experienced the same histories. They're all different, everybody's different and what happens to us collectively effects us all separately," Harry's words made Ron's anger subside, only ever so slightly, as he did recall his own Mother's words as he was growing up.

The four were silent for a moment, as Ron was letting it sink in, until Draco spoke up, "Sonder," he merely said. They all turned towards him in questioning, "I read about it once in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It means the realization that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. Your Mother is a smart women, Weasel, same with your sister. You might learn a thing or two from them," the compliment he paid to the Weasley females did not go unnoticed, Harry smiled thankfully at him.

"I still don't like this, Harry. He's a right bastard and I won't rest till he's gone away from us all, Merlin knows what him and his Father got up his sleeve," Ron muttered darkly, though slightly more resigned than he was before.

"He's not Lucius," Harry whispered and then sighed, shaking his head, "Listen, I'm truly sorry you two, for lying and keeping secrets - especially the ones I still need kept. What I am not sorry for, is this," he gestured between their clasping hands, so familiar as their fingers entwined together, warmly. Even in tense situations, he couldn't imagine his hand elsewhere. How did he ever go seven, nearly eight years, and never once consider this a possibility? Harry cursed himself inwardly, what pain it would have saved him sooner if he had, but then again this wasn't quite possible until now. They both had their own paths they had to take, unable to choose, but that had to be fulfilled in order to bring them to where they were.

"Right well, I need to find Ginny," Ron turned from his friends, shaking off his girlfriend as he did, "And Harry, could you just stay away from me, please?" he asked, earnestly. Harry frowned as he watched him leave, he felt hurt but at least it had gone much better than he ever expected.

Hermione finally spoke again, still softly, "I don't, well, er...I'm not mad at any of this. I promise. I just, I have to go with him," she explained quietly.

Harry nodded, "I understand. And thanks, 'Mione, it means a lot. To the both of us," he added, though Draco scoffed at that and turned on heel.

When both of them had left the corridor, Harry sighed and turned to Draco who was smiling down at him. He felt the heaviness of what had happened float away almost immediately upon seeing that slight curvature of those thin lips, reserved only for him. "Do you regret it, yet?" Draco asked, taking his hand from Harry's only to bring his arms around the boy, pulling him towards him.

"Never. I needed to do it. Plus, it just means that I can do this whenever I want to now," Harry grinned as he went up on his toes and captured Draco's lips, kissing him hard. He was certain he heard several gasps as a group of Seventh Year Ravenclaw's left the library, whispers breaking out around them. It only caused for Harry to smile against Draco's lips and he felt a smile in return, they kissed harder as they embraced in public for the first time. Draco broke apart slowly, catching his breath as he looked down at Harry with such a swooning look. His lips were rosy, his grey eyes were so clouded with ease and passion, Harry loved observing him closely after they kissed for he never looked more perfectly flawed. Harry's smile and heart dropped, however, at a million miles a second when he heard Draco drawl.

"Now that you have poured the potion out of the cauldron, Potter, I do say it is about time I have a little chat with dearest Mother and Father,"