"Though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable."

—Bram Stoker, Dracula

ALL BUT DEATH

V

SYMPATHY ALONE

"Can I ask you a question?" Malfoy asked carefully, glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye as they strode down the corridor, and Harry nodded warily. What did the man want to know? "What happened back there?" the blond gestured in the direction they had just come from. "Downstairs, in that hallway. I don't want to say that you panicked, but you panicked, Potter."

"Yeah," Harry mumbled an agreement, feeling shame and embarrassment prickle over him uncomfortably. If he was being honest, he had no idea where the anxiety had come from, only that it had snuck up on him without warning and seized him fiercely between two choking fists of cold fear; it had not been something he had been expecting. "I'm not really sure if I can explain it…" He hoped that Malfoy would be willing to accept that as an answer and drop the subject.

But of course, when had Malfoy ever willingly gone along with Harry's wishes?

"Potter," Malfoy frowned, reaching out to pull Harry to a stop. "I'm trying to understand you. We need to be able to rely on one another. My life is more or less in your hands now, as yours is in mine, and we need to start at least trying to create a foundation for trust to be built on if we want to make it out of here alive. So please, I don't care if it doesn't make sense, I want to know what happened. What was it about that hallway that made you panic?"

"You'll just make fun of me," the brunet muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't lying when he said he did not know how to explain it—they were in a shadowed hallway now and it was not having nearly the same paralyzing effect it had had on Harry downstairs. But this hallway felt different for some reason, less sinister perhaps, less cognizant. Harry had felt as though something had been reaching out for him in the darkness, using shadows and obscurity to stretch its clawed fingers closer and closer until it was close enough to slash him into pieces—it had felt as if someone had been watching him. But how? All of the doors in the corridor had been closed; there had been none left propped ajar for any threatening faces to peer through, no gaps through which to peek malevolent eyes. So where had Harry's fear come from?

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "Do you really think I would choose such a time as this to mock you? And especially over what is clearly a very serious ordeal from your past? I just want to know," he said quietly, dropping his gaze. "I just want to understand. The way you looked down there, Potter…" he paused to shiver at the memory. "I'd be lying if I said it hadn't scared me. You looked as if you were struggling just to breathe, I thought you were about to faint."

Averting his gaze, Harry nodded, remembering the choking, strangled feel of the air, the way his lungs had refused to draw breath, leaving him nearly gasping.

"Please, Harry," Malfoy whispered, stepping closer. "Just tell me, whatever it is."

At the words, Harry made the mistake of glancing up, directly into Malfoy's eyes. The grey of his eyes was piercing and molten, like storm clouds melting beneath the rays of the sun—and he found that he could not refuse the plea in those eyes.

"All right," he breathed, feeling his palms dampen with sweat. "I—" he paused to take a deep breath, wondering if he was really about to admit his horrid past to another person, "I didn't have a happy childhood, Malfoy." As he spoke, he dropped his gaze back down to the floor, unable to stare into Malfoy's eyes for longer than a second or two at a time. "After my parents were killed, I was pretty much handed straight over to my aunt and uncle. Dumbledore dropped me off on their doorstep one night with nothing more than a note and a blanket to keep me warm." At that, Malfoy looked shocked, mouth twisting in sympathy, and Harry could not stand to see it. "My aunt and uncle…" he took another deep breath, "they didn't like me. Actually, that's an understatement. Even saying that they hated me is an understatement. They loathed me before they had ever even met me."

"How does one loathe a baby?" Malfoy whispered, looking as though he wanted to reach out to Harry but was stopping himself, and Harry was grateful that he was restraining himself from doing so. Talking about his childhood was difficult enough without the added distraction of physical touch; it was too foreign a concept for him to ever find truly comforting whilst upset.

Harry gave him a sad smile. "They hate magic. Anything that's not normal and boring and mundane in their world, they hate. I didn't find that out 'til later, though, so I never knew as a child why they hated me so much. I always thought I must have done something to earn their hatred because my very first memories of my aunt and uncle are of them telling me how awful and undeserving I am. They thought that if they raised me without ever knowing the truth about who my parents were or who I was, they would be able to quash the magic right out of me."

"But that's impossible," Malfoy said, sounding appalled. "You can't simply wish away magic or alter the way a person is born."

"Yeah, but they hoped they could," Harry shrugged. "So I grew up not knowing a thing about my parents, or our world, or anything to do with magic. They couldn't even stand hearing that word in the house." He slanted Malfoy another sad smile. "I remember one time when I was seven or eight, my uncle beat me for making the mistake of telling them that I wanted to become a magician when I was older."

"A magician?" Malfoy's nose wrinkled as he tilted his head in confusion.

"A Muggle illusionist," Harry explained, staring at the far wall. "They're Muggles who figure out ways to make it seem like they have magic, sort of by tricking people into believing they can do things like levitate or appear across the room in the blink of an eye or survive being stabbed by swords and stuff. But the tricks are always so incredible and so clever and I had always been so fascinated with them when I was younger, the way they seemed able to just change whatever they wanted about the world around them...just like that, in the blink of an eye…"

"Your uncle beat you?" Malfoy took a step closer, and Harry felt simultaneous urges warring within him to both step away and remain right where he was.

"Sometimes," he shrugged. "Not very often." Beatings were far from the worst thing Uncle Vernon had done to him. "But he preferred to punish me by doing things like withholding meals or manual labor. His favorite punishment, though…" Harry trailed off, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. God, he hated talking about his childhood, something he rarely ever did. He had barely told Ron and Hermione anything about it, and yet here he was, confessing things to Draco Malfoy that he had never even told his closest friends. What was it about Malfoy expressing kindness and genuine concern that made Harry want to open his mouth and spill all his long-kept secrets?

"What?" Malfoy breathed, not moving a muscle as he waited for Harry to finish his sentence.

Harry turned his body away, speaking into the distance and trying to pretend he was simply talking out loud to himself. "I didn't have a bedroom until I was eleven," he admitted. "My cousin had two bedrooms, but I was never allowed anywhere near them."

"Where did you sleep?" Malfoy sounded horrified.

Harry took a deep breath. "I was kept in a cupboard. Under the stairs. It had a lock on the outside, and when I would do things like annoy my aunt by asking questions, or look at my uncle too long, or burn the breakfast I was forced to cook or mention anything to do with anything they considered to be abnormal, I was locked in there. Nothing but me and a hundred spiders with nothing to do but sit there in the dark. If I was in there to be punished, my uncle would unscrew the lightbulb first so I couldn't see anything." An involuntary shudder wracked Harry's frame. "I managed to steal a torch once from a supermarket when I was a child but getting batteries for it was tricky. I got caught trying to take some out of one of Dudley's old robot toys and got beat pretty badly for it. I finally managed to get a pair, but I could only use the torch after they had gone to sleep or when they had all left the house after locking me in my cupboard. Sometimes, though, the light just made it worse. In the darkness, I couldn't see a thing and I could at least pretend there were no monsters, even if I could feel them around me. But with the light, it just…I dunno, it made me even more anxious and afraid, for some reason. I just couldn't help feeling like something was about to jump in front of the beam of light at any second, or like I was going to shine it in the corner and see something standing there staring at me." He glanced back to see Malfoy's face as white as a sheet, eyes wide with horror. "To this day I can't stand small spaces. And—I'm not scared of the dark, I'm really not," he turned away again, "but sometimes…I used to have nightmares all the time as a child, about things coming for me out of the shadows, monsters hiding in the darkness, waiting to jump out and snatch me away…there were some dreams where it would just be me sitting in a dark room, crying…and then I would hear something breathing in the darkness…moving closer and closer, until…" Harry trailed off, unsure what else to say.

A warm hand settled on his arm and his head automatically snapped toward it in surprise. "And the hallway reminded you of that?" Malfoy asked softly, eyes flooded with a thousand different heavy emotions.

"Yes," Harry said simply. "I just—I don't know why, things like that don't normally ever happen, I hardly ever think about my cupboard anymore, but…the shadows in that hallway…they just—they—I-I-I don't—"

"It's okay," Malfoy said quietly. "It's okay, Harry, you don't need to try to explain any further."

With a nod, they both fell silent, Malfoy's hand still a warm weight on Harry's arm, and he was surprised at how nice the touch felt.

"I'm sorry," Malfoy finally said, and Harry stared at him in surprise.

"For what?" he asked, wondering if Malfoy was simply offering him the same empty comfort he himself had offered to Padma earlier in the parlour.

"For my house, I suppose," Malfoy said with a glance around the hall. "I know how this house appears; I know that it is not a comforting place to be, especially when fear is already existent within its walls. I know what it's like to feel like the shadows here are watching you." Harry stared at him. "And I'm sorry for your childhood and all the awful things you just told me." He dropped his gaze down to his shoes. "And I'm sorry for pressing you to speak about such a horrible time. It was none of my business."

"It's fine," Harry tried to shrug casually but knew the jerky movement had been nowhere near casual. "None of those things are your fault, Malfoy."

"And I wanted to say thank you," Malfoy whispered, shifting his weight closer, and Harry felt his breath catch. Thank him? Thank him for what?

"Thank me for what?" he wondered aloud. What was Malfoy possibly thanking him for?

"For speaking up for me back there. For defending me from Smith."

"I know you're not the one behind this, Malfoy," Harry told him in a quiet voice.

Malfoy spent several moments studying him, grey eyes alight with an intensity that Harry was not sure he had ever really been looked at with before. It felt as if Malfoy was trying to stare right through his skin, pierce right through his bones and slice through his veins with his gaze until all of Harry's secrets came bleeding out to pool black and sticky atop the cold marble floor beneath his feet. "I'm really glad you're here, Potter," he said finally, breaking the crackling silence that had been building between them like a static charge.

"Well," Harry attempted a grin, although it felt a bit shaky, "I personally wish we were somewhere else a bit more fun, but…" the weak grin slid off his face as he continued, "I like knowing that the two of us can actually get along. Who would have ever guessed, right?"

Malfoy smiled, the corners of his lips trembling. "Right. You definitely lucked out when it came to partners."

Harry wanted to respond with something casual and light, something teasing and airy that would help relieve the tension still sparking between them, but he found himself responding far more seriously than he had been intending. "Yeah, Malfoy," he murmured, staring Malfoy in the eye as he spoke. "I think I did."

Malfoy stared at him with a long, complicated look, one that Harry had no idea how to even begin trying to understand. The other man tilted his head, looking as though he was attempting to calculate impossible maths equations in his mind.

"Come on, then," he finally said, face expressionless, but there was something almost scorching hot about his stare that made Harry want to step closer.

"All right," he croaked, clearing his throat as he felt his cheeks heat. "Show me your bedroom." The moment the words left his lips, he flushed even darker, stealing a glance at Malfoy to find the blond pink-cheeked but smirking. "You know what I mean," Harry mumbled, staring down the shadowed corridor rather than look at the man.

"I can only take things to mean how they sound," Malfoy said slyly.

Unsure how to respond, Harry decided that perhaps silence would be best. But of course, Malfoy could not simply just let it go, which hardly surprised Harry—the man had made it his mission since the age of eleven to try to humiliate Harry as much as possible.

"So, Potter," the blond grinned, "am I the very first Slytherin you've ever said those words to?"

Harry blushed but decided to play dumb. Malfoy could only embarrass him if Harry let him, right? He wasn't so sure, but it sounded nearly convincing enough for him to be able to almost delude himself into believing it. "Hardly," he pretended to scoff, "I've asked plenty of people if they know what I mean before. I ask complex questions, Malfoy, with many layers and many different interpretations."

Malfoy slanted him another smirk. "Oh yes, Potter, the oceans of complexity don't get any deeper than you, do they? You are most certainly the very bottom of their extensive, unexplored depths."

"Exactly," Harry nodded, face still burning. "Out of the two of us, I'm definitely the bottom."

Turning to face the brunet, Malfoy stared at him for a moment in surprise before he started to laugh, loudly and wildly, reaching out to grasp Harry's shoulder just to keep himself upright from the force of his laughter.

"You know what I mean!" Harry huffed, lips twitching reluctantly at Malfoy's continued laughter. God, would it ever be possible for him not to embarrass himself in front of Draco Malfoy? Why did Harry's composure always seem to fly right out the window when the other man was around?

"Again, Potter," Draco chuckled, finally seeming to calm, "I only know what you said. And I certainly was not planning on arguing the statement."

What the hell did that mean? Harry's nose wrinkled in confusion as he lightly shoved the blond away. "Sod off, you dirty-minded prat," he said, struggling to keep the small smile off his face. "You are obviously looking at that statement wrong if you're taking it the way I know you are because, between the two of us, I would definitely be the top!"

Malfoy glanced up at him again, staring at Harry in silence before erupting into laugher once more, clutching at Harry's shirt with both hands to keep himself from dropping to his knees in mirth. Harry thought about stepping away and letting Malfoy fall to the hard ground, but the man was holding his shirt too damn tightly.

"Oh, Potter," Malfoy gasped, laughter still tearing from his throat, "you are too entertaining."

"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry muttered, feeling as though his face was on fire and wondering how the rest of his body was not consumed in flames just from the force of his blush.

With effort, Malfoy straightened, finally releasing Harry's shirt to pat him on the shoulder. "You deciding that you're the top is also a statement I won't argue, you manly Auror, you," he grinned. "Luckily for you, I don't mind which you prefer," he paused to rake a gaze up and down Harry's body, the blond still smiling but suddenly looking less amused. "I'm very flexible that way…" The smirk was suddenly back as he continued speaking, "In all ways, actually."

The words spread even more heat through Harry's body, sending fire racing through his veins and across his flesh until he was certain that the blush had not only covered every inch of his skin but also consumed his entire insides as well. Was Malfoy saying that…what did he…what?

"I'll be honest, though," Malfoy said, still not stepping away, and Harry spared a second to wonder why he wasn't taking the opportunity to step away now that Malfoy had finally released his shirt. "I wouldn't have thought you would know enough about topping or bottoming to be able to use such terms in conversation, or well enough to be embarrassed by them. Those are not straight terms, you realize."

The blush on his face was even hotter than before. What was Malfoy trying to imply? "Ron's brother Charlie is gay," Harry mumbled, staring down at his shoes as though they were the most fascinating things in the entire world. How had they even started talking about such humiliating topics? "And—"

"Are you about to tell me that you've shagged Weasley's brother?" Malfoy interrupted, nose wrinkled in disgust. "It wasn't enough to shag just the sister, you have to move through the entire ginger horde? Because if that's your goal, it might just take the rest of your life to accomplish, Potter, their numbers surely must be up in the thousands by now."

"No!" Harry glared at the man. "Of course not! Don't be crass! I just meant that—Charlie is…" he dropped his gaze back down to his feet, "he's…a bit too descriptive in the sorts of things he gets up to, that's all. He's…an enthusiastic bloke. And a very big fan of what I can only assume is the proper terminology for…you know…the things he gets up to."

"Ah, right," Malfoy said, still sounding smugly knowing, "the descriptions, I see."

Sighing, Harry stepped around him and continued walking in the direction they had been headed in, even though he had no idea where they were going.

"Is the dragon tamer really gay, though?" Malfoy asked as he caught up to him, and Harry turned to him in surprise.

"You know which one Charlie is?"

"Of course," Malfoy answered smoothly. "He was a hard man to overlook at the Triwizard Tournament." The words made Harry frown as Malfoy continued speaking, "I never knew that he was gay, though. That's…interesting." His eyes gleamed with something that made Harry's stomach tighten as his earlier glare fixed itself once more on the floor under his feet. He wasn't sure why the idea of Malfoy finding Charlie's orientation so interesting bothered him so damn much, but it did. The two of them would never even work out as a couple, he thought vehemently. Unless, of course, a relationship wasn't what Malfoy was after.

But the thought of Malfoy wanting nothing more than a quick shag from Charlie was somehow even worse than the thought of him having actual feelings for the older man, and Harry had no idea why he was so bothered at both possibilities.

"So, then," Malfoy said, in a casual voice that made Harry instantly wary, "am I the first man you've ever demanded to have taken to the bedroom?"

I fucking hate him, Harry decided, feeling the searing blush from earlier return with a vengeance. "It's not for anything like that," he said stiffly.

"Yes, of course not," Malfoy smirked. "I merely mention it because you were the first one to bring up the topics of sexual terminology and homosexual men after literally saying the words 'show me your bedroom',"—Harry's face was surely only seconds away from bursting into flames—"so I think I can hardly be blamed for then wondering if I'm the first man you've tried this sort of pull with."

"I'm not trying to pull!" Harry snapped. "I was just—making conversation, or whatever! You're the one with the dirty mind who has to put a perverted spin on everything I say!"

Instantly, Malfoy sobered, straightening and fixing Harry with a cold gaze, all traces of amusement now gone. "Perverted. Right. I apologize, Potter, for making you feel so obviously uncomfortable." Turning his back on Harry, he began to stride away, and Harry quickly hurried after him, feeling his stomach squirm with guilt.

"No, Malfoy, that's not what I meant!" Catching up, he reached out to pull Malfoy to a stop, wondering how long this trip of theirs was going to take if they continued halting their crawling progression every two minutes.

"Save your breath, you don't need to explain." Malfoy stared into the distance, and Harry was unsure of what to do. Why the hell had he used the word perverted—he hadn't meant to offend the man!

"No, Malfoy," Harry stepped closer, refusing to allow the blond to simply ignore him, "that's not what I meant. Whatever you're thinking I meant just now is not what I actually meant!"

"It's fine," Malfoy muttered. "It's nothing I haven't heard before, I can assure you."

"I once snogged a bloke," Harry blurted, regretting his confession the moment it tripped its way free from his mouth; Malfoy's head snapped in his direction, eyes wide with surprise. "At Charlie's birthday party last year. It was at some gay Muggle nightclub in London that I'd never heard of before, and we all got sloshed out of our minds, and I ended up…" Lord, if Harry had thought he was blushing before, it was nothing compared to what his face was doing now, "I ended up snogging some bloke in the corner of the club for half the night." It hadn't been until the next morning that the full implications of what had happened had hit Harry, but it hadn't been until the day after that—when he was finally healed enough from his hangover to be able to once more think clearly—that he started to truly wonder what it had all meant for both his identity and his orientation. What did it mean? Was it a simple case of getting too pissed, a one-time thing, or was it going to happen again? It didn't even take the full day for Harry to decide that he didn't like the questions and he didn't like feeling confused and so he would simply choose to never think about it again, a plan that had been going more or less brilliantly until Malfoy decided to tease him and make him feel guilty by getting offended enough to force the sticky confessions up Harry's throat.

"And what else happened?" Malfoy asked in a low voice.

"What else?" Harry tilted his head in confusion. "That was it. He's the only man I've ever kissed."

"Yes," Malfoy shifted a fraction closer, "but I can't imagine that he would have left it at just kissing. Surely even Muggles are not that daft. Or that blind." As he spoke, his eyes swept up and down Harry in a way that made the brunet shiver. What was Malfoy doing? What was Malfoy saying? Why was he looking at Harry like that? As though…but no, Harry shook his head internally. Surely Malfoy wasn't making some sort of pass at him, was he?

"Well, h-he kept trying to drag me to the toilets," Harry stammered, wincing at the words.

"And why didn't you go?" Malfoy asked with a curious lilt, sounding genuinely interested in the answer.

"Because, I-I dunno," Harry shrugged in humiliation, wondering why he could not get rid of that damn stammer; why was he so nervous? How was Malfoy able to get Harry's most secret confessions out of him so easily with little more than a wounded look and a handful of words?

"I think I understand," the blond said softly, shifting even closer. "You didn't want just some quick shag with a stranger in a public toilet. I believe I'm correct in assuming that you've never actually had a one-off in your life, Potter, have you?"

Harry sucked in a surprised breath, at both the question and Malfoy's proximity, wondering how he could answer such a question without embarrassing himself, before wondering in the very next second why it should be some sort of shame to have never shagged a stranger before. He felt so confused.

Slowly, he shook his head. "I've never been interested in one-off's, Malfoy." He kept his voice quiet, deciding that the first chance he got to turn the tables, it was going to be Malfoy's turn to confess every embarrassing detail about his personal life; why was Harry the only one confessing difficult things?

"It would have surprised me if you were," Malfoy admitted, eyes roving over Harry's face. "You certainly do not seem the type for such things, Harry."

"Type?" Harry's brow furrowed. "Am I a certain type?" What did that mean? What were the other types?

Malfoy smiled. "I just mean that you are merely someone who prefers to know a person before engaging in anything as intimate as sex. You're far too much of a romantic for anything else, aren't you?"

The word surprised Harry. "Am I?" Was he? Was that the way he came across? Harry didn't think of himself as particularly romantic—in fact, he thought it was the opposite; he was far less romantic a person than he thought he should be, considering he had never yet had a successful relationship. Malfoy should just ask Ginny or Cho; either of them would confirm that Harry was not in any sense a romantic person. Both dates with Cho had ended in her storming out on him, for god's sake.

"I'm assuming you don't see yourself that way," Malfoy mused, still smiling so softly. "But I know you, Potter. You like to feel connected to others; you would never consider making yourself so vulnerable by being intimate with anyone you did not feel attached to, because anything else would not feel emotionally safe for you, am I correct?"

Eyes wide, Harry nodded. Everything Malfoy was saying was making sense, even though Harry had never consciously considered any of it before in actual words. But it was true—Harry liked to feel connected, he liked to know he mattered to the ones he cared about, and he could not even really consider the idea of sharing pieces of himself with people he did not have those connections with.

"I can respect that, Potter," Malfoy murmured, shifting his weight even closer, and Harry felt light-headed. "I admire that in a person, frankly."

"What…" Harry swallowed, throat unexplainably dry, "what type are you then?"

Malfoy's smile twisted painfully, becoming far more of a grimace. "Someone who doesn't seem able to connect in such ways with others, no matter how much I try or how much I long to be able to." The statement made Harry's heart ache in his chest—it was one of the loneliest things he had ever heard.

"So…" he struggled to speak, "are you saying you're a one-off type of person then?"

At the question, Malfoy turned his head away, but not before Harry caught the look of sadness that flashed across his face. "Sometimes people only want certain things from you, and that's all they'll ever be willing to take. People see others as the type of person they expect them to be, and because of those preconceptions…" he sighed wearily, "You ask the question as though I have a choice in the type of person I am in regards to my interpersonal relationships, Potter. But I don't. People tend to only want one thing from me, and I can assure you that it is not a romantic connection."

"Malfoy…" Harry didn't know what to say. Every word that left Malfoy's mouth was only serving to make Harry more and more sad for him, despite knowing that Malfoy would never want pity from anyone, least of all Harry. But knowing that didn't make the desire to hug and comfort Malfoy any less strong, which might just be one of the strangest desires Harry had ever felt.

"I just want to be seen as a real person, Potter," he whispered, turning back to face Harry. "That's why we threw this party, that's why we invited everyone. I know what everyone thinks of me, how everyone in our world sees me, and I was hoping that…I was hoping that if I was somehow able to mend fences with others from our year, the ones we attended school with for the longest amount of time, the ones we saw every single day and the ones who have the worst idea of me in their minds because they're the ones who actually knew me as I was…" he lowered his gaze, "the ones who have actual reason to hate me more than most others because of the way I was in school…" Sighing again, he took a step away from Harry and turned to stare down the corridor. "I was hoping that, if I could do that, if I could start there and somehow fix how you all saw me, then maybe…one day…"

"What, Malfoy?" Harry breathed, desperately needing the man to finish what he had been trying to say.

"Then…" Malfoy half-turned to slant him a sad look, "maybe one day, the rest of the world could also start to see me as a different person—as a real person, rather than someone to manipulate or someone to hate or someone to borrow money from or someone…" he looked away again with a blush, "someone there just to fuck…" Harry felt heat rise to his cheeks at the final word.

"I want what you want, Potter," Draco continued in a voice so quiet Harry had to step closer to hear. "I want connections. I want to matter. I want someone to look at me like I'm important. Is that selfish of me? Are the other Slytherins and I so wrong to want to once more belong to this world? We're sick of being forced to live on the very edges, pushed to the very outskirts of society; we just want to matter. Is that desire really such a bad thing? We all just want to matter."

But Harry heard what he was not saying—I want someone to matter to. "No," Harry answered softly, "of course that's not selfish or wrong of you, Malfoy, because you're right—everybody wants to matter to others. I get it now." Fingers shaking, he reached out one hand to lightly rest against Malfoy's upper arm, and at the touch, Malfoy inhaled sharply. "I get it now, Draco."

Slowly, almost as though he was expecting Harry to have vanished, Malfoy turned to face him, and Harry felt his heart stutter at the raw emotion on Malfoy's face.

"I never thought I would ever tell anybody that," the man whispered, sounding stunned.

One corner of Harry's mouth lifted in a smile. "I've told you things in the last few minutes that I've never told anyone else, either."

"I'm glad you told me," Malfoy said in a voice that trembled, matching the tremble in Harry's insides.

"I'm glad I told you too," he returned quietly, surprised to find that he really was glad to have been able to confide in someone. It had been difficult, but at the same time it had felt so nice to tell another person, and the way Malfoy had listened…Harry was amazed to realize that he really liked when Malfoy listened to him. He really liked being able to discuss such personal things with someone such as Draco Malfoy and have the man listen so sincerely to him. And he really liked listening to Malfoy in return—he liked finding out new things about the man and discovering hidden depths Harry had never before seen in the blond. "And I'm glad that you told me as well."

Malfoy didn't respond, remaining perfectly still as they gazed at one another in growing silence.

But the tension was quickly becoming far too much; the stillness felt so heavy, so sticky, almost as if Harry would have to scrape it from his skin with a wire brush just to rid himself of its clinging fingers.

Stepping away, he attempted a shaky laugh as he raised a trembling hand to rake through his hair. "I guess all these secret confessions mean we're friends now, then, yeah?"

"Yes," Malfoy slanted him an almost shy smile, one that made Harry's heart flip over in his chest, "I suppose we are, Potter."

"Harry," he corrected softly, no longer liking the sound of his surname on the man's lips. "We're not in school anymore, Draco. And you wanted fresh starts, so…let's start fresh."

Warmth was shining in Malfoy's eyes as he offered Harry a sincere smile. "Harry, then."

"Well, Draco," Harry grinned, liking the way the name rolled off his tongue, "show me your bedroom already. How many times does a man have to ask?"

Malfoy laughed. "As many times as it takes, apparently." With a final lingering look, he turned and began to stride down the corridor, amethyst-robes swirling around his feet. Harry took a second to shake his head to himself with a grin, cheeks still lightly dusted pink, before beginning to follow.

TBC

A/N: Our very first chapter without a single death! Yaay! Buuut maybe also don't expect that to last for very long...The next chapter will be up soon, lovers!