Harry Potter and the Unsettling Discovery

Ch. 11

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.-Elie Wiesel

Draco awoke abruptly, wondering what had stirred him from his warm comfortable sleep curled up against Harry. Almost thinking that it had been his stomach rumbling, reminding him that he hadn't eaten in a while, he was wholly ready to ignore it and snuggle in closer to Harry's nude form when he heard it again, the faint distant whistle of a train moving AWAY from the area.

"Oh, shite! Bugger! Harry! Harry wake up! NOW!"

"Nuh, it's not even mid-day. Go back to sleep, Draco."

"No, Harry, we have to get up. The train is here!"

Harry's eyes snapped open, and in a flash he was up, dashing around the room, picking up clothes and pulling them on. He rushed down the stairs from the Slytherin seventh year dorms and across its thankfully still-empty common room while hopping from one foot to the other pulling on his trousers. He finally managed to button and zip them as he raced up the main staircase in the entrance hall. If the pair of Ravenclaws he bowled over thought it odd to see Harry racing through them from the dungeons, zipping himself up with a strangely fluid cloak thrown over one shoulder, and his shoes in his hand, they didn't offer any indication. Apparently the first carriages had already arrived, as numerous students were filing into the main hall, but Harry didn't take the time to see if his friends were among them.

He got a stitch in his side as he raced through the seventh floor corridor, but didn't stop until he was safely in his own dormitory. He quickly jumped into his bed and grabbed the nearest reading material, only having enough time to open it to a random page midway through, and lay back when the door to the dormitory opened up and his fellow seventh-years burst through it.

"Hey, Harry! Thanks for the broomstick servicing kit. Now I won't have to borrow yours any mor... Harry?"

Harry was still panting, face flushed and sweat dripping down his forehead. He thought everyone would let his strange appearance go, but trust Seamus to stir up a commotion wherever possible. "Oi, Harry! Getting one last wank in while you have the room to yourself, eh? What's that you're reading, anyway? Have you seen the newest issue of Backdoor Sorceress?"

"Uhhh, he's reading a copy of 'Which Broomstick?'" Neville seemed almost hesitant in his answer as he bent closer to read the cover of the magazine in Harry's hand.

They were all silent for a while, before Dean finally spoke up. "Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'broomstick polishing,' doesn't it?"

Amid the boy's chuckles, Hermione bustled in, leaving a rush of words in her wake. "Oh, hi Harry. Thank you for the book, I didn't even know they had produced a revised edition. I already used an altered version of the new scorching charm to help Ron with the broomstick servicing kit you gave him. Apparently the polish hardens up faster if you apply heat. I helped him polish his broomstick last night."

The other Gryffindor boys nudged Ron, making suggestive noises. Ron's face reddened to match his hair.

"I also helped Ginny polish hers, and helped her trim her tail. Ron was nice enough to let her borrow the trimmers from his new kit for that. She'd lost hers while polishing her broom with Angelina last year. It hadn't been trimmed in a while, it was a bit bushy."

It was all too much for the Gryffindor boys, who were falling over each other, giggling like schoolgirls. Even Harry joined in, while Ron's look of anguish only intensified.

Misinterpreting the giggles, Hermione continued, "What? I know for a fact that Ron hasn't trimmed his in a year. He thinks it's bad luck to trim it during a quidditch season. You should see the tail of HIS broomstick, it's bushier than his sister's was."

"Herminone!"

"Well, all I'm saying is it creates drag. No wonder it takes you so long to achieve liftoff. Harry can get his up way faster than you, because he keeps his tail neatly trimmed."

"Herminone, for the love of all that is magical, please SHUT UP!" Ron's bellowed plea, and the roar of laughter from the seventh year Gryffindor boy's dormitory that followed it must have been audible from space. Harry was thankful for the diversion.

-o-o-o-o-

The new semester started in a whirlwind. If Harry thought the professors had cracked down on them in preparation for the OWLS, he had no idea how to describe their newest level of fervor. It seemed that the new focus of the entire set of seventh year lessons was fixated solely on NEWTS. Professors spoke about it so often, Seamus had taken to collecting bets on the number of times the word 'NEWT' would be spoken in each lesson. So far Ron was ahead in the prize pool.

With the triple fold increase in class work, things had been particularly precarious for Harry, who was having trouble focusing lately.

"Please do try to concentrate, Potter. This spell is not that difficult, it only requires focus."

McGonagall's words reverberated around his head as he tried, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, to turn his salamander into a fish. It was embarrassing, as he was the only student who had yet to successfully make the transfiguration. Even Neville had gotten it in the first half-hour. Harry tried to concentrate, but with everyone watching, now waiting for him to finish so they could all move on... It was changing an animal so closely tied to the element of fire to one so closely tied to the element of water that had Harry hung up, he tried to tell himself. Try as he might, he could only get his to issue steam from its nostrils.

"Very well, everyone. Come over here and continue to the second part of our lesson. Harry, remain and keep trying. Once your salamander has fully transformed, please join us."

If Harry were honest with himself, he would have conceded that elemental issues were not what was hanging him up. He had been having this trouble for a while now. Even spells he had mastered years ago were giving him trouble. He had lost it half way through a simple Wingardium Leviosa the other day and spilled the pitcher of water that he had been trying to retrieve from across the common room over Lavender Brown's head. It took some convincing that it hadn't been intentional. She swore that he had only done it to see her wet t-shirt sticking to her body as she ran up to her room for a change of clothes. This wasn't helped by Seamus cheering and thanking Harry for the show as she did so, calling after her that by the looks of it, that water had been pretty cold.

Harry spoke the incantation again, prodding the salamander with the tip of his wand, which only resulted in the tip of his wand glowing like a red-hot ember for a second before extinguishing in a single line of smoke drifting skyward.

-o-o-o-o-

With the start of the new term, and the preparations for NEWTS, quidditch practice, and the DA, Harry hardly had any time to spend with Draco. He saw him in his weekly occlumancy lessons with Dumbledore, which were turning out to be even more of a disaster with his current problems controlling his magic, and during Potions and Care of Magical Creatures, but that was hardly the alone time with Draco that he craved. They made it a point to spend their evenings together after their occlumancy lessons. Harry could use the lessons going late as an excuse for showing up late back to the common room those nights. Whenever possible, they made plans to meet later on other nights, but the lack of sleep was taking a toll on both boy's coursework, so they were forced to back off and stick with not much more than meeting up after occlumancy.

It was on such an evening in early February, as they made their way from Dumbledore's office to the room of requirement, that without preamble, Draco launched himself at Harry, unable to keep his lips from the Gryffindor's any longer. Harry found himself pushed backward into the statue of the one-eyed humpback witch. Too into the kiss to register the footsteps he heard coming down the hall, it was as they were almost upon them that Harry finally realized where they were. Breathlessly between kisses, Harry muttered, "Disendium." Since Draco was pressing him rather hard into the statue, it took only a slight shift of weight and Harry was falling backward onto the passage newly revealed behind the statue, and down the slide into the tunnel below with Draco on top of him. Draco, not much expecting this, took only enough time between his lustful assaults on Harry to be impressed with his boyfriend's knowledge of trivial, yet wholly useful things.

It was only after he had touched and tasted everything he felt the need to partake of, and both boys' breathing had returned to normal, that he finally bothered to pay enough attention to his surroundings to ask the question that had been plaguing his thoughts for a while now.

"How in Merlin's name do you know so much about Hogwarts?"

"Oh, well I have a map."

"A map? How did you get that?"

"Well, my dad was one of the authors."

"Your father wrote a map of Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, him, and Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew."

"What!"

"What?"

"Are you saying that your father helped to write a map of Hogwarts with our former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who also happens to be a werewolf, an escaped convict who was killed during an illegal break-in at the ministry, and a Death Eater?"

"Um... well, yeah, I guess. They were all friends at school."

Draco stared incredulously at his boyfriend. "Your father ran with an interesting crowd."

"I guess the same could be said of me. I'm currently sleeping with the son of a servant of the evil dark wizard who killed my parents, and has tried to kill me at LEAST six times, the first one when I was only an infant."

"I take your point."

"Way to stay under the radar, by the way. Why don't you just bend me over the breakfast table tomorrow morning and take me like you mean it?"

"Oh, I would VERY much like that."

Draco's answer brought color to Harry's cheeks, and he became painfully aware that they had yet to take that step in their sexual relationship. Harry very much wanted to as well, though he wasn't quite sure how it worked. The fact that the very prospect scared him to death didn't deter him from dreaming about it almost every night for the past fortnight, or fantasizing about it during Transfiguration instead of paying attention, and thus earning himself a detention.

"What's radar?"

"Er, sorry. What?" Draco's voice had shaken him out of his reverie.

"You said, 'Way to stay under the radar.' What does that mean?"

At Harry's explanation, Draco offered, "Oh, kind of like the echolocation that bats use to locate insect prey? Wow! Ingenious, really, what Muggles come up with to deal with the world without magic." He almost sounded like Arthur Weasley when he said that, which Harry had no intention of ever letting him know.

Instead he shared a private smile with himself while listening to Draco's story about almost colliding with a Muggle military helicopter on his toy broomstick as a child.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry constantly found it hard to keep his eyes from straying over to Draco in the Great Hall during meals. He always walked around as if floating on air, and could usually be found with a smile on his face, if only because he was reliving a conversation (or a lack of conversation) he had had with Draco earlier. Everything seemed better, colors brighter, tastes richer, and smells sweeter. He didn't even mind waking early one Saturday morning to work on preparations for potions NEWTS at Hermione's request, which Ron found totally ludicrous, and felt the need to point out, loudly, as they made their way to the common room to meet Hermione.

Harry gave her a big smile as a greeting when she joined them en route to the library. "You're in a very good mood, despite the early hour," she shot a glare at Ron, who was scowling at her, "I could swear you look like you're in lov..." Hermione stopped in her tracks and spun around on the spot, causing Harry to run into her.

"WHO IS IT?"

"Er, sorry. Who is what?" He hadn't really been paying attention, head too far in the clouds to take note of the mere mortals surrounding him on earth.

She dragged the boy away from the portrait hole, to the corner of the common room away from the early birds and seventh years that had already awoken. Ron followed, his curiosity piqued.

"You've been walking around with a permanent, unwavering smile on your face, you seem totally immune to the NEWT stress that the rest of us have been anguishing over, and you're so...happy all of the time. I even saw you smile at a bunch of Slytherins the other day. Either you're in love, or you've gone a bit off in the head."

At the mention of the word 'Slytherins' Harry started. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, Hermione."

"You know what, Harry? She's right. You're always humming and staring off into the distance, you're spending more time looking in the mirror in the morning..."

"You guys, it's nothing. I've just been happy lately."

"You've been more than happy, you've been at peace. You're glowing." Hermione obviously wasn't going to take 'it's nothing' for an answer, and Ron was emphatically nodding at her side.

Knowing defeat when he saw it, Harry finally gave in. "You're right, there is somebody. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I actually feel different-better. Like I'm the best version of myself when I'm with him..." Harry's eyes widened and he clapped his hands over his mouth, making a small pathetic gurgling noise. He closed his eyes and waited for the assault to begin.

"What's wrong?" his friends asked in unison.

"Did you hear that?"

"Of course we did, it sounded horribly romantic. So who is he?" Hermione had a gleeful expression on her face.

"He- You- You're okay with that? That it's a HE?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't we be?" It was Ron's turn to sound astounded.

Harry just gaped at him like a fish out of water. Hermione tried to explain to Ron that Muggles often have a problem with gay people.

"Why? That makes no sense. What does who you love have anything to do with- with anything? That makes about as much sense as hating someone because they prefer grape jam over marmalade." Ron's confusion only deepened, and Harry could kiss him for it.

Hermione smiled at her boyfriend, obviously in total agreement with Harry. She tried to explain the mentality behind Muggle homophobia, but it felt like explaining fire to a fish. She finally settled on comparing it to how the death eaters feel about Muggles and Muggle-borns.

"That's stupid, there have been plenty of gay people who have done great things, look at the drummer for the Weird Sisters, look at Madam Hooch, look at Dumbledore for goodness sake!"

"So, you're okay with, wait a second...Dumbledore is gay?"

"Yeah, didn't you know?"

A euphoric giddiness flitted through Harry as the realization struck him. His friends really didn't care. He pulled them toward himself, not caring about the weird looks they were getting from nearby Gryffindors for engaging in an early morning group-hug. Harry's relief from the weight he had never quite been conscious of bearing lifted off his shoulders, and he let it fly off with the barrage of words that tumbled from his mouth. "I was so worried. I grew up with Muggles, you know. I went to a Muggle primary school. 'Bender' and 'Nancy' were some of Dudley's gang's favorite insults while beating me up. I was worried... I thought..."

"Oh, Harry. I should have-I knew you grew up with Muggles just like I did. I should have told you the way wizards see it long before now. I thought you, of all people, would have gone looking it up. To imagine how long you've been keeping this bottled up inside!" Hermione was almost in tears.

"You knew, about…me?" He looked up at her in astonishment. Still not able to say it out loud.

"I always suspected you were."

"I thought you might be a few times." Ron added.

"I've never even had a crush on a guy before; I wasn't ready for this at all. It just hit me like a-"

"That's not true."

He looked up at her again, perplexed as ever, but it was Ron who answered this time. "Bill. You must have had a crush on Bill."

Realization dawned on Harry as Ron spoke.

"I saw the way you looked at him when you first met him. Even mum asked me about it afterward. She was fishing around to see how I felt about you, seemed excited at the prospect of having you as a potential son-in-law, but I told her I liked...," he grinned at Hermione before quickly looking down.

Hermione threw her arm around Ron's neck and gave him a peck on the cheek. "He was sending Oliver Wood appreciative glances too, a few times, especially when we ran into him at the Quidditch World Cup."

"Oh, yeah! And Cedric Diggory! Did you see the look on Harry's face, the way he was looking at him after the second task, couldn't keep his eyes of that wet body."

"I did no such thing. I was looking at Cho."

"I thought you were at first mate, but even when she walked away your eyes were fixed on HIM. You only turned away, blushing I might add, when he bent over to pick up the towel he had dropped."

"And remember that time Seamus brought those horrid magazines in? There were only three boys in all of Gryffindor who didn't swarm around him for the rest of the evening, and the other two are currently dating each other."

"No, Colin Creevy and Andrew Amsden broke up a while ago now."

"That's right! They broke up because of Colin's crush on Harry! Andrew is now seeing that Hufflepuff, Justin Flinch-Fletchly."

Harry's gaze bounced back and forth as they each took turns speaking, ignoring the fact that Harry was even there. The look of astonishment growing on his face by the minute, he looked like a spectator at the most shocking tennis match the world had ever seen.

Finally they broke out of their shared discussion about each of the incidents when they had suspected Harry to be gay. "So who is it?"

Bewildered, head still reeling from all they had said, Harry didn't even know what she was referring to any more.

"What?"

"Who's the guy?"

"Erm, I-I shouldn't say anything. We haven't even talked about telling others yet..." His happy bubble burst somewhat when he imagined their reaction to finding out it was Draco Malfoy who had Harry feeling like this. Somehow, he didn't think they would be so accepting of that, not to mention what he would get from the rest of the school were his relationship with the Slytherin to become known. "But if and when we decide to tell, you two will be the first to know, I promise."

They didn't look like they were too happy with that answer, but they let it go. He gave them each one last squeeze before they broke, and made their way to the library.

End Chapter Eleven