Author's Note: This is still Christmas, only now it's that night. Don't worry though, the next part will move through to New Year's relatively quickly. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed both this and my other HP stories.
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Several hours later, Greg's rumbling laughter broke Draco's concentration as he was sorting through the various jars of ingredients that had been included with his new potion's kit. Looking up, he had to smile at the picture his rumpled friends made. Greg was easily the largest boy in their year- possibly in the entire school. Harry, on the other hand, was as small as some of the third years.
"Hullo, Draco!" The pair chorused.
His smile changed to a scowl when his fellow Slytherin reached over and ruffled his hair. "How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?" he growled. Luckily, his hair was well trained from years of being slicked back and it only took a few strokes of his hand to get it back into place.
A soft snicker from the chair that Potter had claimed made him glare in that direction as a blush crept up his cheeks.
"You are such a priss."
The honest amusement in Harry's eyes made it difficult for Draco to hold his anger and indignation. Instead, he raised a brow. " There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking pride in one's appearance." He gestured towards the other boy's hair. "I should have gotten you a brush for Christmas."
A small sheepish smile lit the Gryffindors features as he ran fingers through his own tangled mop. "Well, brushes don't seem to work all that well. 'Mione even tried a grooming spell once. It barely managed to tame it at all and it only lasted for a half hour or so."
Both Slytherins had to laugh at that. Draco shook his head. "Why am I not surprised?"
"What are you doing anyways?" Harry asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
The blonde turned back to his task as he answered. "I'm checking to make sure that everything that's supposed to be here is. Some of the shopkeepers can be a little devious. They'll cheat you if you're not careful." He decided to ignore Harry's muffled snort and comment of 'this from a Slytherin?'. "Also, this particular kit is so expensive because it comes with some of the more rare and difficult to obtain ingredients. Unicorn's horn, gillyweed, basilisk's blood and scales," at that point, the raven haired boy- who had been leaning in close to look as he pointed out the ingredients- pulled back sharply and shuddered. Draco and Goyle shared a curious look, but neither questioned the reaction. "Things like that. Snape is low on some of them and out of others. I won't really need them much, so I thought I'd see if I had enough to share them with him in exchange for free use of ingredients I'll need more often."
"Hm. What could basilisk ingredients possibly be good for?" There was a distant look of distaste on the boy's face as he asked the question and Draco had to wonder if he had something against snakes in general or just basilisk's in particular. He'd have thought a Parsletongue would have an affinity for all the scaly little critters.
He'd have to ask later. "Oh, all sorts of things." For the moment he had an interested audience to display his amazing potions knowledge before.
Greg apparently recognized where this was all going because he sighed and stood up. "You've done it now, Harry. Enjoy the lecture. I, for one, have better things to do." With that, their large friend ambled out of the room.
Potter looked a little wary at the warning, but seemed to have resigned himself for whatever he'd gotten himself into.
Bless that Gryffindor courage and lack of sense!
"Basilisk blood is used in some of the strongest truth serums made, such as veritaserum. Veritaserum, as you know, is mostly used when a suspected criminal goes on trial before being put in Azkaban. It only takes three drops to render a person absolutely incapable of even the tiniest fib. Jobberknoll feathers are used for the weaker ones because they're more plentiful and easier to find. The venom is a main ingredient for any number of poisons..."
A glazed look had appeared in Harry's eyes somewhere along the Jobberknoll feathers and didn't leave for the rest of the night as Draco continued to extol the various uses of a basilisk, frequently segueing off onto other potion tangents. The Slytherin didn't really mind. Most of his other friends would have been up and running before he'd even gotten the first sentence out, as Greg had already proved. At least Harry had made an attempt. Snape was the only one he could actually converse with about his favorite subject and the Professor was usually too busy or in a bad mood.
He often talked out loud to himself when he was messing about with his potions work because he tended to learn better when he could actually hear the information. It got boring sometimes though. Draco had been accused frequently of loving the sound of his own voice, and there was perhaps, some small truth in that. But it was ever so much nicer to be able to share both his knowledge and his voice with someone else.
Besides, he figured Harry was used to it considering the fact that he'd been hanging out with the walking Textbook for the last six years. At least potions was interesting. Granger was known to ramble on and on and on about just anything and everything that had ever been written into a book.
Of course, Draco completely ignored the fact that only he and Professor Snape actually enjoyed talking about potions. To him, it was obvious that everyone else were just plebeians who wouldn't know a good subject if it blew up in their faces.
"Now look, Draco, you've put the poor thing to sleep."
Startled, the aristocrat looked first at where Greg was propped in the doorway grinning at him and then over to where Harry had fallen asleep in the other chair. With a sheepish look, he scratched the back of his neck and glanced over at the clock.
He'd talked for hours!
It was well past curfew now. There was no way that even The Boy Who Lived to Break the Rules would be able to sneak all the way back to the Gryffindor Tower this late at night. He'd have to make it past Snape, Peeves, Filch, and MacGonagal.
Nodding decisively, he stood up and turned back to his friend. "There's no sense in waking him up when he's stuck here anyways. Pick him up, Greg. He can sleep in Blaise's bed tonight."
Goyle nodded and moved over to the chair. Gently, he lifted the sleeping Gryffindor up into his arms, cradling him close. The small figure snuffled cutely before cuddling against his chest. Draco had to stifle a stab of jealousy at that. If he'd been strong enough, he'd have carried Harry himself. As it was, he walked ahead of Greg, opening and closing doors quietly.
Once they had the boy settled the friends got themselves ready for bed, making occasional quiet comments to one another.
Dressed in his sleep clothes, Draco sat gingerly on the edge of the occupied bed and just watched Harry sleep for a while. Even in his sleep, there were lines of disquiet and unhappiness marking his face though they had softened out a bit. It saddened the blonde Slytherin to see. How many of those lines had he caused over the years?
The Savior of the Wizarding World shouldn't have had such hard life.
His thoughts were interrupted before they could spiral down into complete depression.
"Draco? You should get some sleep. I'm sure it'll be a busy day tomorrow."
He bit back the urge to remind Greg that he was a big boy who could take care of himself. He didn't need to be told to go to bed. Besides which, he was a Malfoy. If he wanted to stay awake til dawn watching Harry bloody Potter sleep, then it was well within his rights to do so.
His friend was only concerned about him and so, Draco didn't snap at him as he would have anyone else who had dared tell him what to do. He just grunted his agreement and with one last lingering look at the shadowed face, forced himself to move.
"Nox." With a whispered command, the lights went out.
As he settled himself into his own bed and snuggled into his blankets, he remembered that he'd wanted to ask Greg something. "Hey Greg?"
"Hmm?"
"Was it just me, or did Harry seem really uncomfortable this morning?"
He could hear his friend shifting around and knew that the other boy had turned to face him, even though he couldn't see it in the darkness.
There was a long pause before Greg's deep voice answered. "A little. I got the feeling he doesn't really like much close contact."
"Me too. D'ya think the rumors are true then?"
"Which ones?"
Draco bit his lip. Greg was right, there were always dozens of rumors flying around about Potter. Some were amusing, others down right disturbing. "I don't know. Any of them, I guess."
"Maybe. I don't think he had much of a childhood."
After the snowman thing, Draco was inclined to agree. What kind of childhood produced a boy, muggle or wizard, that had never built a snowman? Or had snowball fights? Harry seemed to take a simple pleasure in any number of things that the two Slytherins considered commonplace.
"True."
"I'm sure Granger and the Weasley's make up for it."
There was silence for a minute as Draco thought that over. The wonder Trio did seem to have a lot of fun. Even if they had to break an untold number of rules to do so.
"Greg?"
"Yes?"
He ignored the exasperation in his friend's voice. "Do you think he likes us?"
"He did get us Christmas gifts." Greg sounded more amused than annoyed as he pointed that out. "Now go to sleep, Draco. Or you'll have bags under your eyes."
Well. He couldn't have that, now could he? Although, he wasn't really tired and didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep any time soon.
With a disgruntled sigh, he closed his eyes and within moments, drifted off.
