YourSide, Their Side and the Truth

Part II - Their Side (2.45)

Disclaimer: Harry Potter doesn't belong to me, this is a fan fiction, by a fan for the fans. No money has exchanged hands during its production.

Harry didn't know what to think.

Draco had pulled away after a startled second, eyes wide and face red. They'd stayed, frozen like that for a few minutes but what felt like hours, before Draco had pushed Harry away and run like the devil himself was after him.

He'd returned to the common room in a daze, ignoring his friends still awake in the corner as he stalked up to bed. Shutting the curtains, he just stayed cross-legged on his bed, awake. Wishing he had a pensieve, he spent several hours distracting himself by writing the Potions essay due the next day. He finished in the early hours of the morning, ink-stained but with his mind still in a turmoil. He could still taste the other boy on his lips. Damn you, Malfoy. Damn you for making me feel like this.

Dismally studying the ceiling he slid his glasses off and pushed his curtains open; depositing his glasses on the chair beside his bed. The other four boys were asleep. Seamus was curled up on top of his blankets, snoring loudly. Dean was huddled under the covers. Every so often football phrases would come out muffled from beneath the sheets. Send him off, Ref! Neville was managing to cause destruction in his sleep, shredding his pillow as he dreamed. Ron was… Looking at him.

"Harry?"

Ron was awake. Harry blinked as the redhead pulled himself up out of his bed and came and sat down at the end of Harry's. Blinking furiously, Harry snatched his glasses back and slid them on. His vision slowly readjusted itself and he looked at his friend slowly.

"Thought you were still awake, I could hear your quill." Ron smiled at Harry. "How you doing? Look, I am sorry about earlier. We didn't mean to offend you or anything."

Harry smiled. Good old Ron. "It's okay," he mumbled sleepily. He was weary, that much was for certain, it was just falling asleep that he didn't want to do. He didn't want to dream again like that, like it was all fine.

"No, it really isn't. I opened my mouth like usual and stuck my foot right in it," Ron said earnestly, his voice hushed. "I'm sorry and I promise not to say something as idiotic as that again."

"Maybe it wasn't so idiotic."

Ron looked up in surprise as Harry averted his gaze slightly.

"Oh," was all Ron could say.

"I'm sorry, I am, and it's just…"

Ron put one hand, resting it on Harry's arm. "You don't have to explain it to me Harry, I'm your best friend. I mean, of course I wish you weren't in love with that arrogant sod, but if it's what you want, then who am I really to stand in your way?"

Harry smiled. "Thanks Ron. It means a lot to me. If it's any consolation…"

"You didn't mean to?" Ron laughed humourlessly. "Trust me, I understand completely."

Harry frowned slightly at Ron's dejected expression. "You know, you should just tell her. She'll understand."

Ron's eyes widened in horror until he saw Harry's reassuring expression.

"I guess we're both idiots," Ron said eventually, laughing quietly.

"I guess so."

Harry woke with a start. Sitting up he groaned and rubbed his head. He must have finally fallen asleep, despite his fear of dreaming about Draco again.

It was getting ridiculous. For the beginning of the year his dreams were haunted by images of Cedric, dead, dying in his arms, by his hand. Then they'd changed to normal dreams, and now…

Last night's dream had been particularly vivid… They'd been flying together, over some kind of snowy area. Just talking. Draco had smiled, and when they'd landed, they'd kissed. Like last night's kiss.

It had been slightly disconcerting the first time he'd dreamed. According to Lavender Brown, dreams were meant to be taken seriously, as a portent. She also had added, when he'd asked, that if a particular person turned up in your dream over and over again, doing the same kind of thing, then it shouldn't be dismissed lightly.

He's approached her after several weeks of nightmares of Cedric, but when the Draco dreams began, he'd had to re-evaluate himself. Three nights ago, wakened from another dream featuring the blond, he'd thought about the idea and that's when the horrifying thought had struck him. He was okay with it. He could imagine a… A future with Malfoy still in it.

Automatically feeling for his glasses, Harry stumbled to his feet and to the bathroom where he washed his face; distracting himself by studying it carefully in the mirror. His unruly hair still stuck out everywhere, no matter what he did to it. Even when Dean and Seamus had attacked it with hair gel, nothing worked. The only good thing about his hair was that it managed to partially conceal the scar which Harry personally thought was very disfiguring, a severe turn around from how he'd used to think it was cool. It had used to be the only thing he'd liked about his own appearance, now it was just a constant reminder of how he'd failed several people, how he'd let them die.

Harry scowled, and rubbed at his face, his thoughts inevitably running back to last night.

That damn kiss.

It shouldn't have affected him. Draco had just kissed him to prove a point, that his father hated him because he was gay. He hadn't meant it, at all, no matter how much… he wanted it to have meant something?

Whether Draco had meant it or not, Harry knew one thing. It had affected him. Letting out a sigh, Harry wiped his eyes hurriedly and swiftly swept out of the bathroom to make his way to breakfast.

Harry joined Ron at the breakfast table, ignoring a couple of the speculative glances and giggles and cursing the fact that now new rumours were circling the school, about him and Draco. Fantastic. Taking a couple of sausages, Harry ignored the muttering and the stubborn blush inhabiting his cheeks again.

"Harry, are you all right?"

Harry lifted up his gaze from his sausages and saw Hermione looking at him curiously. Harry grunted in reply, before turning his attention back to his sausages.

"Interesting sausages?"

"Huh?"

Harry lifted his head again, irritated, before groaning.

"Lavender, Parvati," he greeted dismally as the two girls dropped themselves down either side of him.

"Hello Harry," Lavender said, exchanging a mischievous glance with Parvati. "So what's this I hear about you and a certain Slytherin?"

"A certain nemesis of yours?" Parvati echoed, digging the slender boy in the hips with her finger. Harry groaned and moved to put his head in his hands. The two girls chuckled and Harry, irritated, stood up and stomped out of the hall. He was faintly aware of a few curious gasps and he could almost swear he heard Snape laugh, but put it down irritably to his inability to concentrate much.

Draco paced nervously around his room; running his hands through his hair distractedly. Dumbledore had said he could stay off school for a couple of days to get over the shock of his losing his parents, but the blond's mind kept wandering all over the place.

"For Morganna's sake, Draco, get a hold of yourself," the blond admonished himself firmly, turning and crashing down onto his bed while staring at the ceiling hollowly.

It had been… what? Two weeks since the holidays when… He tried to force the issue out of his mind but it returned as stubbornly as a boomerang. Two weeks since his parents had died… Draco suppressed a smile at the ironical way his parents had met their end… By one of those muggle trains his father hated so much… The one time his parents had boarded one and it had crashed. No survivors.

"Sod's law." Draco sounded out the muggle phrase slowly, wincing at the hollowness of the echo.

Two weeks since…

Draco swallowed.

Since his father had found out about his attraction to Harry Potter.

It hadn't been intentional, not in the slightest. It had slipped out by accident… A secret so closely guarded for the last four years… His father hadn't reacted to it very well; declaring that he had no son and stalking away. Draco closed his eyes softly. That was the last thing he had heard his father say… His mother, of course, had gone along with her husband; more fearful of his power than of going with what she thought…

Harry…

Well, he'd mucked that last encounter up really badly…

It was about half way through the first year that Draco had realised why he hated Harry so much… Not because of his fame. Draco had enough of being pampered by other people - his father was, had been, a very rich man. He hated Harry so much because… Harry was exactly like him, and he was jealous. Pushing himself to get over that jealousy, Draco had been confused at the way he would still look up at the sound of Harry's voice, or when someone called Harry's name. He'd been bemused why his heart would seem to stop when Harry walked past for a painful second, before beating again rapidly.

The answer had come one startled Potions lesson in the Second Year. Harry had passed by, and he'd accidentally knocked off his quill. The raven-haired teenager had bent down and handed it back with a small smile before walking away, and that was when Draco knew that he was, at least, attracted to Harry. He'd attempted an experiment, and the thought of that Valentine still amused him greatly.

He'd found out that he was in love with Harry at the end of the fourth year, during the final feast. The thought that Harry could have died, with help from his father, it was too much for him. He barely listened to Dumbledore's speech, and the toast had confused him. He hadn't known who they were toasting, until afterwards, then he'd had to attack Harry about it afterwards. It was his duty to do as his father wanted until he had the strength to stand up to his own convictions.

The look Harry had given him when he'd badmouthed Cedric Diggory was the single most painful moment in his entire life. Harry had been hurting, and he'd thrown it all into his face. He hated himself for it afterwards, and bore the pain from the hexes with a patience that astounded his parents and the servants at Malfoy Manor. They were more used the moody, temperamental, arrogant Draco. The quiet, unpretentious Draco scared them.

The truth was, he was scared. His parents were dead, he was in love with his worst enemy, and it just couldn't get any worse. He remembered something about love that the Slytherin girls were giggling about earlier that day, and he agreed completely with it. Love was a bitch.

A lump formed in Draco's thought and he abruptly turned; burying his face in the pillow as he fought the tears that threatened to burn down his cheeks. He could kill Harry for making himself feel that way. He could kill himself. He could kill his father if he was still alive.

The turmoil had been too much for him at the beginning of the fifth year, and he'd gone to the one person that could possibly understand. Professor Snape had been more than understanding, and even promised to lay off Harry. Just a little. Snape was still pissed off that James Potter had saved his life… Although Draco suspected there was more to it than that he knew better then to pry…

The fact remained that he was still so, so scared.

Scared that it could happen, that the arrogant, pigheaded Gryffindor could love him back. Scared that his meticulous barrier around his heart would be broken. Scared that the reason his father had died hating him would be the one reason for his existence.

He was scared and that in itself scared Draco. He'd never been scared before. There was a reason he was known as the bravest person in his family… There was a running joke that he was in severe danger of being admitted to Gryffindor he had no apparent fears.

Smirking into his pillow, Draco's chest tightened and his eyes burned. For the second time that week tears streamed out of his eyes and he lay there, shaking and convulsing helplessly as the tears soaked through his sleeves and pillows and he hated himself for being so weak, for caving into his grief. In his grieving state he hardly felt the arm that slipped over his waist; the hand that rubbed his back. The voice that whispered soothing words of condolence and reassuring words of commitment and love.

He hardly felt it, but he did feel it and in that instant all the fear he'd been holding onto in his heart and clinging onto as a lifeline dissipated and all he felt was the warmth of the person clinging onto him. Green eyes flashed with understanding, and one hand moved to stroke his cheek, stroke his hair. All he felt was the warmth of the boy he… Draco swallowed.

The boy he loved.