Warnings: Nothing much, just a bit of two boys kissing. But if you don't like that, then why are you reading this story?

A/N: Here's your bonus chapter for today because it goes so nicely with the last one and because I didn't want to make our boys wait too long. We all know they've been wanting this. Also, this is just about the halfway point.

XIV

It was all Harry could do to get through the next day. He was certain he must have been acting strangely; he certainly felt weird, at any rate. There was no good reason he should have been looking forward to seeing Malfoy again in the Room. Yet there he was, anticipating his nightly escape. They had at last begun to untangle their complicated history, and for that he was grateful. He hadn't anticipated finding an ally in an old enemy, yet something told him that it was in allowing Malfoy's humanity, he gained understanding that he had never truly been the enemy at all.

At last everyone else had gone to bed, and Harry slipped out of the dormitory. Malfoy was already in the Room, just finishing his nightly assessment of the potion.

"It's nearly ready," he said when Harry entered. "Less than a week, I think. We start adding the other ingredients tomorrow."

"You're talking like I'm going to help you with that," Harry said.

"You know you'll be in here, and I'm not letting you just sit on your arse whilst I do everything. I do have standards." He cleaned up the work space. "Besides, you could learn a thing or two about brewing. You're not completely hopeless when it comes to potions-making."

"Fair enough," Harry replied, hiding a smile at the grudging compliment. He sat down in the space by the book shelf.

A moment later, Malfoy joined him. He produced two butterbeers—Harry wondered where he was acquiring them so frequently—and sat down on Harry's right. Harry wondered how to begin; after all, it wasn't his story to tell this time.

Malfoy cleared his throat. "You wanted to know what it was like." When Harry nodded, Malfoy continued. "Maybe I should start with this."

He pushed up his left sleeve. There was a strange mark there, but it wasn't the Dark Mark. Harry looked at Malfoy questioningly.

"Oh, I had it," he said. "After it was over, I…" He looked away for a moment, then, with determination, he returned his gaze to Harry's. "I carved it out of my arm."

It was all Harry could do not to recoil in horror. In an effort to keep still, he stared down at the scar. "I thought it couldn't be removed."

"Trust me, it can. I wasn't allowed to do magic at the time, so I used a kitchen knife and made one of the house-elves heal it afterward. Hurt like hell, too. But I wasn't going to have that thing on me one second longer than I had to." He took a deep breath. "And now I'm going to tell you why."

For the next hour, Harry took his turn listening as Malfoy poured out all he'd been through in the previous year. He admitted to enjoying the power he'd possessed under the Carrows; it made up for what he suffered away from school. Even that had been a mockery on their part, however, because of his parents' perceived crimes against Voldemort. By the time Crabbe set the fiendfyre, he was more under his friends' power than they were under his. As much as Harry had seen through Voldemort's eyes, there were dreadful things even he hadn't seen, and his heart ached at what he heard.

When Malfoy was finished, he was shaking. "And now you know why I don't sleep well."

Without thinking, Harry reached out. He drew Malfoy in and kept his arms around him. It felt strange. Touch always felt odd to Harry anyway, but this was different. Despite the fact that Malfoy was considerably taller than Harry, he folded himself small and tucked himself into Harry's side. They stayed that way so long that Harry was afraid Malfoy had actually fallen asleep. At last, though, he disentangled himself from Harry and made to move.

It happened quickly, before either of them fully had their wits. Their faces were close, and with no premeditation, Harry closed the gap and kissed Malfoy. It wasn't long or intense, and it didn't ignite the tingling buzz of their previous try. For a moment, Malfoy stiffened, and Harry wondered if he'd done the wrong thing. After a brief hesitation, Malfoy kissed him back.

When they sat back, Harry said, "We wasted a lot of time hating each other, didn't we? But I don't see how we could have been friends."

Malfoy shook his head. "We never could have been. I believed everything I was told until I saw it for myself. And you—you took me for your enemy, perhaps rightly so." He snorted. "It's a miracle that we're talking to each other now. Believe it or not, that was never in my plan."

Harry sniggered. "Oh, I believe it." He sighed. "You know we're going to have to deal with that eventually, right? I can't pretend that you didn't insult my friends and bully me and cause harm to people I care about. But I also can't pretend you were completely evil or that I never did anything back to you just because I didn't like you."

"I know."

Harry stretched and stood up, offering a hand to Malfoy. "We should both get some sleep. Do you think you can?"

"Yeah." Malfoy accepted Harry's hand and pulled himself up. "Good night, Potter."

"It's Harry."

"What?"

"That's my name. You and I never use our given names. Maybe that's where we should start."

Malfoy—Draco—chuckled. "All right, then. Good night…Harry."

"Good night, Draco." Harry stepped out into the corridor and shut the door. All the way back to Gryffindor tower, he turned it over in his mind: He was now on a first-name basis with his former rival, and instead of feeling awkward or uncomfortable, it felt like coming home. He didn't spare a thought for why that didn't bother him in the least.

Nighttime conversation was far easier from then on. Instead of hanging back while Draco stirred and tested the potion, Harry helped him. By that point, the remaining ingredients went in one by one. Side by side, they chopped and crushed and measured, Draco keeping up a steady stream of instructions and information. It pleased Harry to watch him work, despite the fact that he still snipped whenever he thought Harry was shirking. Harry decided he was learning more from this than he had in five years with Snape.

Together, they also finished the last of the cleaning and they even painted the room. Thinking ahead and still trying to keep the reason for his nighttime wanderings secret, Harry offered to take care of it if the others could agree on a colour. Neville pinched a bucket of paint from where he was working in the greenhouses and left it in the room at one of the group's meetings, saying, "It doesn't matter what colour the damn walls are. Just use this." That made Draco's eyes go wide at Neville's assertiveness, and Harry chuckled at his surprise.

While they worked, they stayed close to each other, casually brushing against one another or making contact in other ways. Occasionally, Draco would press his hand into Harry's shoulder or his arm. Once, Draco had gotten a bit of paint in his hair, and Harry reached out to take care of it, wondering if the fine, blond strands were as soft as they looked. He flushed at his musings, though he did discover that the texture of Draco's hair wasn't mythically soft; it was actually rather ordinary and merely felt like hair.

Eventually both the Room and the potion were finished. Draco bottled the potion into eight vials—just in case—and cleaned out the cauldron. He set the remaining supplies inside it to be returned to Professor Slughorn. While he took care of that, Harry tidied up the cleaning and paint supplies, storing them on the book shelf. He absently wondered whether the shelf would become part of the Room once it was restored, the first of the new treasures to be collected in its natural state of disorganized storage.

They stepped back and admired their work. The Room didn't look like much more than an overly large closet, but something felt different, as though they had reached some kind of milestone. The Room itself seemed happy, although that might have been nothing more than the feelings Harry and Draco were pouring into it.

Awed at how far they'd come from the charred remains only seven weeks prior, Harry breathed, "Wow."

"Yeah."

Harry turned to Draco and grinned. "We did it." He gripped Draco by the shoulders. "We did it!"

"Not so fast," Draco answered. "We still have to be sure the potion works and do all those complicated spells Granger listed for us." His face broke out in a smile, though, and he said. "But yes. We did it."

Before he could stop himself, Harry pulled Draco into a fierce hug. He didn't resist the sudden pressure of Draco's mouth on his. Harry felt the tingling blossoming from his chest and spreading out to his limbs, and he put his hand on the back of Draco's neck to draw him closer. They kissed for several minutes before they both pulled back.

"Er," Harry said.

"Right." Draco flushed, and Harry fought back a smile. "We should get some sleep. Tomorrow's the big day—we'll want to test that potion." Draco gave Harry's arm an affectionate squeeze before he crossed the Room to the door. Not for the first time, he left Harry staring after him, muddled by the strange emotions bubbling to the surface. What felt like an hour later but was probably more like thirty seconds, Harry collected himself and set off in obedience to Draco's admonition to get more sleep.