I got the feeling that I've lost my touch with this story, so I've decided to give it a Happy-injection. I think that Harry/Hermione conversations are my favourite to write, probably because I talk like Hermione in the real world (Just with my amazing Australian accent)

The happy-injection continues on into my own life, my friend is doing wonderfully, as far as recovery goes, and I taught Chuckie (my dog) how to fetch the newspaper. I also got told by four or so people in the last week that I look like Audrey Hepburn. Fabulous. Now to eat bagels with elbow length satin gloved fingers.

My updating habits are disgustingly disorganised. Honestly I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. For those of you that are interested, I posted another chapter of Fahrenheit the other day, for those of you who aren't interested, I picked the coolest flower ever today.


Chapter 12 - Pride

Harry doesn't move for several minutes, staring at the empty doorway and wringing his hands together. He doesn't know what to do.

"I don't know why it has to be like that," Harry jumped violently at the voice, twisting around to see Hermione Granger clutching at a heavy looking pile of books. He groaned to himself, this couldn't be good. "Slytherins and Gryffindors, I mean."

Harry turned back to his own table, dropping his bag back at his feet at sighing heavily. Hermione seemed to take it as an invitation to sit down, and takes up residence in Draco's vacant seat in a flash, dropping her books with a dull thunk onto the table and studying Harry closely.

"I didn't mean to pry, I was in one of the back shelves, and you two were talking rather loudly," she says, flipping open the topmost book and scanning the contents.

"We were whispering, how is that loud?"

Hermione smiled at him, a sad, you-don't-know-anything kind of smile, and he hates it. "You don't come in here very often, do you?" she laughed, shaking her head and looking back down at her book.

"Should I?" Harry asked quietly. He wasn't really looking for an answer, and turned his attention instead to the book he had pulled randomly from the shelf. He could hear Hermione ranting about the importance of good study habits but he didn't bother with listening to any of it. People often talked at him, and he had gotten quite good at just switching off in the last few years.

The book is entitled; The Dragon's Tail, Living with the Untamed by Jarod Baroski, it looks particularly dry, bound in bashed up brown leather that looks about a hundred years old. Harry flicked through some of the pages, eying the dense writing and complicated diagrams carefully before deciding that it would be best not to read it.

"... and you heard Professor McGonagall the other day, the exams are based off of work from our very first day through to the very last, so if we don't start early then we have no hope of passing anything." Hermione stops for breath, and Harry blinks at her.

"Do you really think Slytherins and Gryffindors can be friends?" he blurts, shuffling in his seat and watching Hermione expectantly.

She's somewhat caught off guard by the sudden change of subject, and frowned for a moment before responding, "I don't think that our Houses should dictate our friendships, if that's what you mean."

"Er... yeah," he whispered, knitting his eyebrows together until he figured out exactly what she was talking about. Hermione's vocabulary was definitely impressive, to say the least.

"I don't really think it makes a difference, only that every House is suited to slightly different personalities, and even then we can share bits and pieces." She clasped her hands together on top of her pile of books and cocked her head to the side in thought, "The Hat very nearly put me in Ravenclaw, you know, but it decided Gryffindor was a better option."

"Yeah," Harry ducked his head, looking away from Hermione's thoughtful gaze as he spoke, "I very nearly went into Slytherin."

"Why didn't you?"

Harry snapped his head back up, his green eyes glinting in the candlelight, "Because, I wanted to be brave." he mumbles weakly, he doesn't mention James, and how much he envied his little sand friend. Things like that were meant for six year olds.

Hermione nodded slowly, chewing her lip, "Then your friendship with Draco should be fine, shouldn't it? I mean, if the Hat considered putting you in Slytherin, wouldn't that mean you have more in common with them than you think?"

Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it. "Yeah, you're right."

"Of course I am," she giggled, "Though I don't particularly fancy making friends with the Ravenclaw students, they act rather stuck up most of the time."

Harry actually snorts at that, thinking of the rather snobby conversation Hermione had had with him and Ron on the train. Maybe she did have a little more in common with the Ravenclaws than just her intelligence.

He can't help but wonder how she knows so much about all of this sort of thing, or why she seems to be much nicer than what he remembers. Ron often took to complaining about Hermione, with Harry nodding mutely next to him. Maybe he should stick up for her. Be brave. It couldn't hurt, after all.

They don't talk much after that, Hermione goes back to her book mountain and Harry goes back to staring blankly at the dry Dragon book in front of him.

"My name's Draco, it means Dragon in some other language."

"Wow, that's a really nice name."

He flipped it open, reading through the contents page before flipping to the chapter he would be most likely to get through without falling asleep. The page was very very plain, the title written in bold and the writing below it written in neat, tight rows.

He was good at reading, probably because of all the hours he spent alone as a child, reading without a partner. Reading in his cupboard. Reading to Draco.

"..."This chair is too big!" she exclaimed. So she sat in the second chair. "This chair is too big, too!" she whined. So she tried the last and smallest chair. "Ahhh, this chair is just right," she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces!" Harry looked up from the book in his lap, to find Draco in fits of laughter, arms clutched around his stomach and tears shining in his pretty silver eyes.

Harry couldn't help but laugh, too. "What's wrong with you?" he giggled.

Draco wiped his eyes, still laughing gently as he looked at Harry, "Goldilocks sounds a bit like Dudley, that's all" he said.

Now that Harry thought about it, Goldilocks did sound very much like his cousin. Dudley hadn't broken a chair quite yet, but he did like to eat plenty of food. "You're right," he laughed.

Harry still has that book, it's stuffed in the bottom of his trunk somewhere. He'd never returned it to the library when he was a child, and chose instead to read it every few days in his cupboard so that he could laugh about Dudley. Draco had always been able to make him laugh, but Draco was different now.

Wasn't he?

He certainly looked different. Sadder, perhaps.

Harry stared at the same line in the book for ten minutes, reading it over and over though never really absorbing any of it. Draco probably knew everything this book could tell him, anyway. Draco knew a lot about Dragon's after all.


The air is cold outside the castle, and while the sun shines brightly above Harry, all of the other students seem to have retreated into the castle and away from the rather gusty wind. He doesn't really mind it, and the silence is a nice change from all the hubbub of the castle.

He walked across the grass and toward the brilliant blue water of the lake at a reasonably sedate pace, letting the breeze rush through his messy hair and the sun kiss his face. It was a nice feeling, and it made Harry smile gently to himself. Draco would hate it out here.

He reached the lake a short time later, waves lapping at the shore gently, and the shade of a large beech tree blocking the sun. There's sand here, beautiful, dry white sand that shimmers gently as Harry looks at it. It's so enticing. So he dropped down to his knees, and smoothed his fingers through it as he had hundreds, perhaps thousands of times before.

His friends appeared without him even realising what he was doing, carved into the soft whiteness with smiles that were so shockingly familiar they made his heart ache. He hadn't seen them in so long.

James is there, and Lily. She looks beautiful, and seems to have forgotten her pride. James holds her little hand at his side and waves to him happily. Lily smiles too, and Harry wonders whether she'd wanted James to hold her hand all this time, but was too proud to say it.

Too proud...

Harry's eyes widen where he kneels, his hands tightening on his knees as he continues to watch the pair in front of him, James, the brave one who would do anything for Lily's attention, and Lily, the one too proud, and too stubborn to let her feelings get in the way.

Maybe Draco was a little like Lily. Maybe Harry really was just like James.

"Slytherin's can be friends with Gryffindor's," he whispered to himself, "You've just got to try."

He stood, glancing down at Lily and James in the sand, the friends he had always had waiting for him, before turning back to the castle and running towards the open front doors.


Now to go shut my sisters iPod up before I pull either my hair or her hair out.

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