Notes: I am quite aware that the "real" Draco Malfoy would want to get Harry off his hands as soon as possible--but this is all in good fun. ^^ I'm not making much of an effort to stay in-character (as a few readers have noticed). Also, I haven't really set an age for Harry...er, I guess he's about 2 or 3 years old. Thanks to my (new, lol) beta, Mauve, for correcting some of my dumb mistakes. :P

~Daisy Chains~

~Bedtime Stories and Other Dilemmas~

Many of the Slytherins had retired to their private rooms by the time Harry and Draco entered the Slytherin common room. Harry recieved many stares and lifted eyebrows, but Draco refused to comment, and no one actually asked Draco anything concerning his strange guest. Don't ask, don't tell-- a rather convenient motto for the almost non-existant plot of this tale.

(When they'd left the room, however, Blaise Zabini muttered to Pansy Parkinson, "Didn't I tell you? It's the whole love-hate relationship deal," to which Pansy replied, "That's absurd! Draco and...Potter?!" "Oh yes, it's a plot used in many, many novels...though usually the two main characters are male and female," Blaise replied, drawing on his knowledge of romance novels which ran surprisingly deep. But anyway.)

Once in his dorm room, however, Draco found resistance in the form of his two best "friends"--mutual aquaintences, really--Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe sat up from his sprawled out position on his bed, and Goyle turned from torturing a spider by the window. A slash of lightning, and their faces were illuminated two-fold. Harry wimpered.

"What's he doin' here?" Crabbe, the slightly more articulate of the two, asked.

"I, er..." Draco dropped Harry on the bed nearest the door, which was currently unoccupied--they had no idea when Cameron Difleu would get over that nasty bout of--well, Madam Pomfrey ("The Muggle-loving poof," Draco had said dismissively when he'd been informed of who was caring for Difleu) hadn't been able to figure that one out, but whatever it was, it made blue hair grow out of his nose and warts appear on various parts of his anatomy (his rear, for instance).

Suffice it to say, Draco thought Difleu's old bed perfect for their really unwanted guest. "Er, well, you see...I." His mind raced. Crabbe and Goyle had no sense of compassion whatsoever ('And neither do I,' Draco thought stubbornly, 'I was just unwillingly pulled into all this.') and they might take it upon themselves to rid the Slytherin Fifth Years of one scar-faced little boy.

Finally : "Oh, you kidnapped him!" Crabbe said excitedly.

Draco snapped his fingers and grinned. "Yes! Yes, that's it exactly." He took a moment to compose himself and then stared down at the two Slytherins superiorily. "I expect the both of you to keep this quiet. Don't ask, don't tell, you know. Can't have any Gryffindors catching wind of my...um, incredibly evil plan."

"What IS your plan?" Crabbe asked dully. Goyle had gone back to pulling the legs off the spider, and Harry was watching this with great interest.

"None of your business," Draco replied firmly. "But Potter must be contained to this one room. So...That's why he's here."

"Cool." And Crabbe fell back against his headboard, his head hitting wood making a dull THONK, though Draco wasn't entirely sure he could feel it. Idiot.

Draco turned to Harry--and found he'd disppeared into thin air.

Not really--he was at Goyle's elbow, reaching a tiny hand to steal the crawly thing. Oh, yes, he knew a crawly thing when he saw one, and he wanted this one. But the big person who was playing with the crawly thing wouldn't let him have it, and so they glared at one another until Harry finally thonked the big person on his nose and said, "Gimme!"

"No!"

Harry pouted. "You gimme now."

"Nooooo! It's my spider."

Harry blinked. "What spider is?"

"This." The big person held up the crawly thing, and Harry took that opportunity to snatch it away and hide it in his shirt.

It didn't crawl, though. It just...fell. Harry backed up a bit to see that it had fallen to the stone floor, and he nudged it with a toe. It didn't move then, either. "Broke?" He asked the big person.

"It's dead, genius," Draco said from behind him.

Harry stared at the crawly thing a few moments more and then sniffled a bit. Draco, sensing a crying fit, lifted Harry and deposited him back on Difleu's bed so fast Harry didn't have time to protest.

"All right, you wanted to sleep so much," Draco said. "Now do it."

"But..." Harry frowned cutely (though Draco fervently denied that the words 'Harry' and 'cute' belonged in the same sentence). "But need story."

"Good grief. Here." Draco tossed him a Potions textbook. "Read a bloody story, and hurry up about it."

"You read."

"Me? I hardly think--"

"Please?"

"...Potter...Fuck, I can't believe I'm doing this," muttered Draco, finally sitting cross-legged on Difleu's bed and clearing his throat. He caught Goyle giving him an odd look (Crabbe had fallen asleep already) and frowned. "What're you looking at? Potter wants a story."

"Um."

"Shouldn't you be retiring soon?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Ahem." Draco stared at Harry in disbelief then said, "Once upon a time--"

"No book?" Harry held out the Potions textbook.

"No, no, this story doesn't call for a book," Draco said. "So, once upon a time, there was a smart, handsome, utterly irrestible prince. He had everything in the world. Money. Power. People to order around. A Firebolt. He--"

"Is me?"

"No, Potter, is ME. The prince, as I was saying, had everything. But one day an evil wizard came along and stole everything. The evil wizard was angry at the prince, you see, for trying to help the wizard with his...social problems. Um. And the evil wizard was very stubborn. So after the wizard stole everything, the prince went on a long journey...blah blah...and found true love...blah blah...and then he found the wizard and ripped him to a million bloody shreds--"

"Too scary!"

BOOM.

"Eep!" Harry dove under Difleu's coverlet, and Draco sighed.

"Have it your way. The prince found the wizard and, er, taught him the error of his ways. And the wizard gave everything back, and as soon as the prince was back in power he had the wizard thrown in prison so he could cause no more damage. Then the prince and his significant other lived happily ever after. The end. Now go to sleep."

"'Kay." Harry closed his eyes almost all the way; now that he was actually in bed, he was determined to stay awake as long as possible. Draco noticed this and said, "Give me your glasses." Harry did so. Everything became very fuzzy, and it was hard for him to see. Draco gave him a warning look, just daring him to get out of bed, and then left for his own four-poster.

Harry lay awake, eyes wide in the darkness--every time lightning flashed, he could see the shadows dancing and make out certain shapes. He really didn't like this place. It was nothing like his Gryffindor dorm room-- warm, safe, comfortably cluttered. Here, no one snored, no one talked in their sleep. There were the initial shifting sounds of Draco crawling into bed, and then--nothing.

Harry crept out from beneath the sheets until his bare feet hit the freezing floor.

BOOM.

We'll leave Harry where he is for a moment to rejoin with Ron, who was not having a very good night, either. He didn't have a very creative detention; not only was he achy and sleepy, he was also bored. He'd been polishing trophies again--and though, he admitted, it could have been worse, it was hard to remind himself of that when his poor nose was about to fall off, it was so filled with the acrid smell of polish.

It was well past midnight before he was allowed to return to his dormitory. He trudged into the Gryffindor common room and was immediately greeted by the worried face of Hermione. He was really very pleased that she'd waited up for him. She smiled a bit weakly and said, "How are you? You'd better get a shower before you go to bed, you smell awful...is Harry with you?"

"Er, no. I thought you had him."

"...What?"

"I mean...I had detention, so I thought you took him with you from the Great Hall after dinner."

"No, I didn't! I couldn't find him, so I figured YOU'D taken him with you to detention!"

"Oh. Oh God," Ron said in a tiny voice. "Didn't anyone...didn't someone get him? I mean...Dean, Seamus or Parvati--"

"No, no, none of them did, I asked."

"Where the hell is he, then?!"

"How should I know?" she retorted, her hair practically frizzling up with anger.

"This is it." Ron sat down in one of the armchairs with a thud. "I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die a horrible, painful death."

"What, when Professor McGonagall--"

"McGonagall? I'm not worried about her." He waved a hand carelessly. "It's Alicia Spinnet I'm worried about..."

"Oh, honestly, Ron. We'll just go and find him. He's bound to have wandered off somewhere..."

"The castle's HUGE! How on earth could we possibly look through all of it in...one...night." Hermione caught his eye, and they both nodded as one, though Ron said aloud what they'd both been thinking, "The map."

Harry, meanwhile, had stumbled his way around the Slytherin Fifth Year dorm room, and had succeeded in stubbing his toes twice, walking into a desk, and had nearly given up on ever finding Draco's bed--or anyone's bed, for that matter, other than the empty one he'd left minutes before. He wished he was the prince in the story Draco had told him--if he had everything he wanted, he could have a flashlight to find his way around. Well, he'd rather have a wand...but Hermione said he wasn't allowed to play with wands.

Finally, he bumped into something large and fuzzy--fuzzy because everything was fuzzy without his glasses, which he hadn't been able to find--and after many attempts, he was at last able to climb up onto the thing. It was a bed, all right, and there was a lump. He pulled back the covers and squinted. It looked sort of like Draco, he supposed...if he turned his head to the left a bit. He traced the face...what he guessed was the face...and realized it wasn't the boy who'd killed the crawly thing, and it wasn't the loud one.

Yes, it was definitely Draco.

Harry crawled in under the covers beside Draco and then the lightning didn't bother him so much and he could finally fall asleep.

He dreamed of being a prince and saving Ron Weasley from a dragon that turned out to be a lizard with social problems.

Draco dreamed of nothing because he was too busy being toasty-warm in his empty bed--well, HE thought it was empty, anyway, and he was happy to hold on to this disillusion until morning.