Chapter Three

Draco and I climbed the steps slowly. I felt him flinch each time my shoulder grazed his.

"Malfoy," I whispered, carefully keeping my eyes off him and on the never- ending stone steps in front of me, "what is it that you want?"

"Want? All I want, Potter, is to make certain that you are going to continue to retaliate when I insult you. If you don't, it makes my life boring, unpleasant, and uneventful, you see," Draco said, a sneer darkening his handsome features. For some reason that was unfathomable to me, he looked... Perfect... Sexy, even, in the dim torch light of the cramped stairway.

"Uneventful?" I half asked, half stated, still partially lost in the image of him; the way his shoulders were rising and falling with each breathe and step up the stairs.

"Yes, Potter," he said. Was he glaring, or just glancing at me? It was impossible to tell in this light.

Funny, isn't it, the light that makes him look so beautiful is also that light that makes him impossible to read.

We walked in silence until we reached the tower, saying nothing until he shivered in the cold.

"Cold?" I asked as another convulsion shook his body when a breeze came through the window that was carved into the stone.

"Y-yes," he replied back to me.

He looked like he didn't know whether to shiver and get the attention he needed, or to defiantly keep a straight face.

I sighed and removed my cloak and handed it to him, shivering slightly myself.

"Well, now you're cold," Draco said, his voice was different. Not hard and unfeeling, but actual concern laced through the words as he looked at me.

"I'll be fine," I whispered, crossing to the window and staring out over the dark grounds. I loved taking in the sight of the forest, hearing the sounds of the creatures that lived in it.

I think I could have stared out that window, lost in my own thoughts, forever. Forever, until Draco captured my attention once more.

He shoved me out of his way and sat on the windowsill, throwing his legs over to the outside and covering himself with my cloak. I laughed a little.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm sitting, Potter," he drawled, "what's it look like?"

"Well, from here, it looks like you're about to throw yourself from the window, Draco."

"Well, I'm not. Don't worry, Potter," Draco said.

"Can I ask you something?"

"I suppose..."

"Why did you follow me up here? There must be a reason,"

"I've told you, Potter. To make sure that you're always going to be the Golden Boy who I live to torment," he replied, a smile playing his face.

"I intend to be," I said. There was no emotion in my voice.

Again a heavy silence swallowed the room and we sat there glancing from each other to the window, then back again.

"Potter... Harry? What's it like?"

"What's what like?" I asked, even though I had a feeling what.

"Being you. Defeating the Dark Lord... The Boy Who Lived..."

"Excuse me?" I managed to choke out after a moment. Draco Malfoy, one of my several sworn enemies, had just asked me what it was like to be me.

"What is it like to be... Loved?" he said. His voice was small and weak sounding. I had never thought Draco could be so... vulnerable?

"What it's like to be me? I'd tell you, Malfoy, but I don't know if I can trust you.

Why I even let you follow me up here escapes my knowledge," I snapped, a surge of defensive anger igniting in my stomach.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that, really," Draco said in that same meek voice.

Draco was not behaving at all like I was used too and it was starting to make me wonder what was going on here.

"Malfoy, what is with you? You're not acting like yourself. You used to be so cold and unfeeling and now you're being so... Dare I said it? Nice?" He said nothing. Just stared back at me, steel gray eyes boring into mine, seeing through me rather than actually taking the sight of me in.

"I'm going," he said shortly. With that, he stood and hurried from the tower, still wrapped in my cloak.

-_-`~`*`~`_`-*-`_`~`*`~`-_-

Hours passed. I didn't get up, just shivered in the moonlight, considering why Draco had asked me what he did. It had made me nervous, but worst of all, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to trust him with my secrets. Things that even Ron and Hermione didn't... And never would... Know about me.

It wasn't until the sun's light crept through the window and spread over my legs did I get up and trudge down the 587 stairs to the main corridor.

I stepped into the Great Hall and was greeted with silence.

"Everyone must still be asleep," I thought and settled myself on the side of the Gryffindor table nearest the High Table. I don't know how long I sat there, an hour maybe. I only looked up from my lap when I heard the door slowly swing open and saw Draco Malfoy step through it.

"Harry?" He said, his voice flowing through the air in barely more than a whisper.

"What?" I replied, my voice cold and indifferent. I shifted my weight on the bench so that I faced more away from him.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Why are you even bothering to ask? My saying 'no' hasn't stopped you the last couple of times you've wanted to 'talk' to me, has it, Malfoy?" I said, a note of impatience mixed with a cold, unfeeling anger that had burned just below my stomach since he had walked away after questioning me the previous evening.

"And it won't stop me this time. I want to know about Voldemort... My father never tells me anything..." He said, his voice still in that same whisper. He started to walk toward me, his footsteps echoing off the walls as his feet crossed the stone floor.

"You want to know about Voldemort?" I repeated back to him, shocked that he had the audacity to ask me this. "Because your father never tells you about him. Your father, who participated in the plot to have me murdered, who spoils you, who is in Azkaban now, hasn't told you?"

I was very angry and nearly shouting by now, the only thing causing me to keep my voice down was fear of someone outside overhearing. Draco's eyes dropped from mine to the stone floor. Was that a tear? No. Couldn't be. When he looked back up I saw that it wasn't, just the way the light had angled on his pale face.

"Yes, Potter, I want to know about the man who is responsible for my father's permanent imprisonment in Azkaban," he said, his fingers gripping into loose fists, not out of anger, his face was calm.

"Draco, I'd tell you... I really would, but how do I know that you're not going to use what I tell you to try and take over... To free your father? I can't tell you Draco, I just can't. It's too risky and you wouldn't understand," I said, glaring at him.

"Yes! He never told me! He'd come home with mysterious injuries... It was horrible for me to see that! He was my father!" Draco said, glaring back at me, a new emotion, malice, spreading over his features.

"Draco, you don't know what it's like. You never had to fight him. You were never in any danger from him as your father was in his Inner Circle. He never... Never tried... To kill you..." my voice was failing me now. Visual memories flashing through my mind like a violent slideshow.

He must have noticed the expression on my face because it was a minute before he pressed me again.

"Harry, I never told you about my Aunt Bellatrix, did I?" Draco asked me in that same whisper.

"Bellatrix Lestrange? Yeah, she's the one who killed my godfather, enough said," I said back through gritted teeth.

"Yes... But not quite what I was getting at. She was Voldemort's favorite, ex- lover, even. But she was killed by him simply because she knew too much about him and he couldn't have that, could he? People knowing too much is probably what caused his downfall... And that's not a bad thing..."

I didn't answer. I couldn't help but feel she'd gotten what she'd deserved after murdering Sirius, but I didn't say that out loud.

By this time the sun has shifted position enough to shine in through the window and was dancing on Draco's blonde hair.

"I'm sorry..." was all I was able to manage before the door swung open again and a stream of people entered the Hall for breakfast.

The meal was eaten with Ron and Hermione in near silence, save for some idle chat about the Potions essay due first thing this morning.

I stood to leave the Great Hall after the eggs and sausages had vanished from the plates and I had to walk past the Slytherin table to do it. I walked right past Malfoy who accidentally dropped a piece of parchment at my feet. I bent quickly to pick it up.

Meet me on the big staircase at 11 pm -Malfoy

~*~

It wasn't as if I'd never been asked to meet anyone anywhere in the dead of night before, but Draco Malfoy? This wasn't happening.

I paced the center step of the marble staircase and watched the door that I knew led to the Slytherin Common Room carefully.

I was facing the opposite direction in my pacing when I finally heard his footsteps on the marble floor of the Entrance Hall. I watched him climb the stairs up to me, noticing for the first time how gracefully he moved. He definitely had beautiful eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight that was streaming in through the window over the oak doors.

"Good evening," he said in that silky voice he used when he was speaking to someone he thought to be on his social level. I nodded, my eyes drifting over his body. In all of our years being enemies I had never really looked at him, save to glare menacingly, but now I saw him, really, really, saw him.

His frame was thin, but not skinny, and you could see the muscles on his stomach and chest through the tight black shirt he was wearing.

It wasn't until he reached over and grabbed my arm did I come back to reality from the alternate universe that the sight of him in the streaming moonlight had taken me to. I felt as though someone had hit me in the stomach, for a moment I actually wondered if he had hit me, but no. Just took my wrist and draped my cloak over my arm and released me. Was I disappointed? I can't say... I just know I felt, strange.

I glanced at his face and he was looking at me, just looking, no emotion. "Why did you want to meet me?" I asked him finally, a yawn creeping into my voice.

"Part to give you your cloak back to you as I seem to have walked off with it last night, and part to just talk to you. I think we've been enemies for so long for the wrong reasons. This may not seem like me talking, but it is and I really think that I could –"he started, but broke off.

He sat down on the step in front of me and placed his head in his hands. He was obviously tired; I don't think he had slept at all the last two nights, not by the look of him, anyway. I know I hadn't.

I yawned again and sat down next to him, resting my elbows on my knees and propping my chin up on my fist.

"Tired, Draco?" I asked him in an offhanded tone, trying to sound as though I didn't care.

"Mmmhmm," he said, his voice was low, as though it were a great effort for him to make the sound.

I continued talking to him about such random things as Potions homework to how his mother was since his father had been carted away, but I always got the same answer.

"Mmmhmm."

I really stopped trying when he emitted a soft snore and slumped sideways into the rail on the stairs. I laughed a little and didn't have the heart to wake him.

~*~

That was the last thing I remember before I saw Snape's face looming ominously over me. I was laying across Draco's lap in what would have been a very uncomfortable position had I not been asleep when I moved into it.

"Malfoy, Potter, wake up and explain yourselves!" He snapped in that voice that usually came from him when he was giving out detentions.

It wasn't until I sat up and moved the cloak that was being used as a blanket from Draco did he wake up and look around, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I glanced past Snape and out the window where snow was swirling down in white torrents and coming to a stop on the green grass just outside the castle.