JK owns them. Nuff said.

Plot © Sami-Lee 2000-2004.

Well, it's about bloody time for another update, isn't it? God, the details are getting harder and harder to remember, keeping in mind of course that this is loosely based on my life and a hellova lot of the details have been changed.

Anyway, we left the story kind of hanging; things may start to get ugly before they get pretty again. But you'll just have to read it to find out. Mwahaha... on with the story.

Harry had taken to spending almost every Computing Studies class playing pc games, typing stupidly annoying letters to Draco and daydreaming. But in this particular Computer class, Harry had a different agenda. On this particular Friday morning, nothing special, just a regular, out-of-the-blue Friday, Ron had given him a letter. He hadn't stuck around long enough for Harry to say anything to him, so Harry had taken it to class, chosen a seat at the very back and pulled the letter out the second Ms. Lucas had turned her back. It wasn't very long. He made sure no one was paying him any attention and then leaned over the paper and read:

Dear Harry,

This is getting stupid. I think it's about time you and I sat down and actually talked about it. Draco agrees with me. I talk to him, he's a good friend, you're lucky to have him. But you can have more than one friend, right? What do you say? Can we work this out?

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple of months since the holidays, and I've decided it's not the end of the world. We can still be friends, that is, if you want to. And Hermione is willing to be your friend again too.

If you're willing to fix this giant mess, meet us in the stairwell after school, Draco can come too.

R.

Harry blinked at the page, looked around the room, blinked again and then looked back down at the page. Was it real? Was he serious? Harry felt his heart jump up into his throat and make him feel like he couldn't breathe.

He spent the rest of the morning wondering whether or not he'd be going home in one piece. That was, if he met them at the stairwell after school. He brought the topic up with Draco in the art rooms at lunch.

"So, do you think I should go?" Harry was starting to have second thoughts about being friends with Ron and Hermione again, after all, it would mean that Draco could talk to Ron all he wanted and Harry wouldn't have an excuse to not want him to. After all, it would be very like Ron to try and steal Draco just to hurt Harry.

"I think we should go." Draco's response pulled Harry off of his current train of thought. He looked at Draco, sighed inwardly and nodded. So this was it, this was all the time he was going to have with Draco before Ron managed to weasel in and ruin it.

Harry spent the better part of the afternoon fretting about the meeting to come. As much as he did want to be friends with Ron, he was a lot happier just being friends with Draco. In fact he spent so much time dwelling on it, that he almost jumped when the final bell went at the end of home room and he hadn't even realised it was the end of the day. He pulled his backpack over his shoulder and waited for the majority of his classmates to leave before heading out into the back stairwell.

Draco was already there. Alone thank goodness, Harry thought as he threw his bag on the floor and slumped down next to it. Draco watched him before sitting down beside him. "It'll be okay, Harry, I promise."

"But how can you promise?" Harry retorted, Draco looked taken aback for a moment but didn't say anything and let Harry continue. "How can you promise something that you don't know to be true? This could go any way. This could end in tears. This could end in blood..." Harry stopped talking when he heard the door handle click and Ron came through the door, followed by Hermione. Draco stood up and smiled, they smiled back. Harry stood up also, but he didn't smile.

"So..." Ron started shakily, looking at the ground, then at Draco, then at Hermione. Draco nodded at Ron, and Harry couldn't help but feel like Draco should be on his side and should be helping Harry glare at them. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, only to find Draco staring at him pleadingly when he dropped his hand back to his side.

"Ok, ok... Look. Ron, I'm really sorry, I did some really cruel stuff, said some stuff I shouldn't have and did some stuff I didn't mean. I'm sorry. Herm... I'm sorry that I was such a bad friend... and a horrible person... and miserable company..."

"Oh Harry, don't be ridiculous, you were never a horrible person and you certainly weren't miserable company." She sighed and then smiled at him. "Come'on, you're my best friend no matter how bad a friend you actually are." She smothered the last part in sarcasm and Harry smiled before turning to look at Ron.

"Now, don't say I didn't say that this was going to be hard." Harry warned. "It may near be impossible, but we might as well try, right? Only conditions: You have to trust that I'm not plotting against you, trying to hurt you, being mean without seeming so and all that other shit you seem to come up with sometimes, because I'm not, ok? And I'm with Draco now, so you have to put the past behind you." Harry stared and Ron and waited for him to show some sign that he understood. He looked up at Harry, trying to hide the fact that he was almost in tears, and nodded feebly. Harry nodded back. "Ok then."

So they were three again, only now they were four as well. It wasn't ever going to be the same as it was between Harry and Ron, Harry knew that, but he wasn't sure whether Ron did. He could see every problem that could, and most likely would, arise. Ron would want to get back with Harry, he would do everything in his power to try and make Harry miserable with Draco.

Harry suddenly remembered what Seamus had said about Draco being manipulative and almost laughed out loud. Ron was more manipulative than Draco could ever be. Or did Harry really not know Draco as well as he thought he did? They'd been good friends for a while now, hadn't they? Harry certainly thought so. And any way, Seamus didn't know Draco that well now, did he?

So it started off slowly, Harry started spending more time with Hermione at first, Things were almost back to normal between the two, Hermione certainly seemed happy that they were friends again at least. And Harry was glad he had someone he could talk to about everything again. But it wasn't so easy with Ron. So much had happened between them that Harry found it hard to look at him without remember some bad aspect of the last year. He did want to be Ron's friend, but it just wasn't that simple, so he decided to talk to Draco and Hermione about it.

Hermione went with Harry down to the art rooms that lunchtime so that they could talk to Draco without interruption. They walked in looking slightly serious, as Harry had already started the conversation with Hermione, mentioning his worry that Ron would try and steal Draco, or at least try and turn him against Harry. But before they even got 2 feet inside the door, Harry froze, Hermione turned to look back at him and asked him what was wrong. No reply. He stood just inside the doorframe, mouth open like a goldfish, staring straight ahead. Hermione turned her gaze to see what Harry was looking at.

There was Draco, standing at one of the desks, paintbrush in hand, laughing. And there was Ron, standing next to Draco, smiling broadly and leaning nonchalantly on the desk where Draco was working.

Hermione snuck a look at Harry's face, his teeth were now gritted and his face had turned bright red. She hoped that he wasn't going to do anything stupid and hurried over to the two boys. She whispered something in Ron's ear and he stood up straight, then chanced a glance at Harry who still looked utterly furious. "We were just talking about the concert on Thursday night." Draco said innocently, placing his paintbrush in the glass of water beside the huge piece of canvas he had been working on. Harry opened his mouth to respond but closed it again as his eyes settled on the canvas. Then his mouth opened again.

"Is that..."

"Yes." Draco cut him off. "It's you." He smiled and Harry smiled back then rushed over and pulled Draco into a tight embrace. Ron faltered. He looked at Hermione, looked at Harry and Draco and fled the room. Hermione sighed.

"I'll be right back, you two need to talk though." And with that Hermione disappeared as quickly as Ron had.

"Harry, you have to stop being jealous when I talk to Ron. I understand where you're coming from, but it's just going to cause too much trouble." He looked down at Harry pleadingly.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'll try, I promise." Harry hugged Draco tightly and then sat down at the desk to look more closely at the painting Draco was working on.

"It's for our latest assignment," Draco said, sitting down on the chair next to Harry and resting his chin on Harry's shoulder. "We had to paint something or someone who inspires us." Harry smiled down at him but didn't say anything. In fact Harry couldn't have said anything even if he had wanted to, because before he realised what was happening, Draco had kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss; it wasn't even an overly passionate one. But Draco had just kissed Harry at school. When he stopped, Harry opened his eyes and looked at Draco,

"Sneaky." He said, and both boys laughed.

Harry and Draco met Hermione on the quadrangle at the end of the day; she was going back to Harry's place to help Harry with his Maths homework. They bade goodbye to Draco and watched him run down the stairs flippantly, then Harry turned to Hermione. "I'm sorry about what happened with Ron at lunch, is he ok? I didn't get a chance to see him this afternoon and apologise."

Hermione smiled sadly. "He'll be fine, he just isn't over you yet, frankly, and I don't think he ever will be. It's not the end of the world for him though."

"But will he do anything stupid?" Harry asked, the worry in his voice sincere, not only was he worried that Ron might cut his wrists, but Harry didn't want to be the reason for it.

"Stupid?" Hermione echoed. "You mean cutting himself? Ron's going to add a new scar to his arm, or any other part of his body for that matter, every night without you having to provoke it. Harry, please don't blame yourself, it's not your fault, it really isn't, and he's having problems at home as well right now. He's just not coping with anything well. I've tried asking him to stop. Did you know he's seeing a psychiatrist? He's trying to deal with this, but I'm afraid the only way he knows how is to blame himself..." She trailed off.

Harry already felt awful for the way he'd treated Ron, and now he felt like being with Draco was just going to make things worse. Harry wasn't normally a selfish person, but he really didn't want to give up Draco to try and make Ron feel better when there was only a remote chance that it would actually work. He sighed and followed Hermione down the stairs to the bus stop.

Ok, so that's another chapter done and I'm working on the next one as you read this! I hope some more people actually read it, too. So, it's starting to get interesting, the three of them are starting to get feisty, and it's just going to get worse! We're not ever half way there yet!! This'll be fun.. hehehehehe

R & R Greatly appreciated

Cheers,

Sami.