Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author: Penguin

Title: LIKE GLASS

Part 10

Remus Lupin saw the boys come back from the lake. They emerged from the curtain of trees between the castle and the lake, walking so closely together that they looked like some strange, many-limbed creature. The creature parted into two for a moment, and then melted into one again, with a different shape.

Lupin stood by the window and watched them kiss, and worry moved across his face like a shadow of a wing. He hadn't realised this was where all the pent-up emotions between them were going, but if he had, would he have tried to stop it? Ought he to try now?

He couldn't forbid them anything; they were of age. But he felt sorry for them, saddened by the problems and prejudice they were bound to meet. It wasn't an easy path they had chosen for themselves, but hopefully, probably, they had chosen their true one.

Harry's glasses glinted in the moonlight as he turned his head, and then he disappeared altogether. Lupin shook his head and couldn't help smiling. That Invisibility cloak. And the smile lingered at the thought of James, of life, of how life continued. James and Harry, father and son, the similarities and the differences between them…

Their lives weren't really comparable, and their personalities showed how differently they had lived. James had been carefree and irresponsible in a way Harry had never even been close to. It made him harder to deal with than James, but it also gave him a depth that James had never had. The sharp contrast between light and shadow.

Lupin watched Draco walk up to the castle with a smile on his face and his arm outstretched, an arm where the hand was invisible. He shook his head again and was suddenly very close to tears, wondering at the pain he felt. It wasn't anything as ugly as envy; it was a loneliness enormous enough to devour the light and leave him shivering in the shadows. It wasn't new. He knew it well, for he had lived with it nearly all his life. A vast, dark loneliness, undeniably dotted with bright spots of love and companionship, but the backdrop was always the same and always would be.

Now when he saw the boys together, when he saw the tentative, incredulous happiness radiating from their faces, it was almost more than he could bear. It demonstrated so ruthlessly what he would never have.

He was tired, so tired, as always when the moon was waning. This was his reality; this was his life and what it all came down to in the end.

For a moment, he wished he had his wolf form again. Then he could have lifted his head against the star-strewn sky and let out a long howl.

xxx

Harry was giggling under the cloak.

"What did you do with your hand, Mr Malfoy?" he whispered. "Did you misplace it? You look terrible like that. Did you leave it down by the lake? I can go back and look for it if you want."

"Idiot."

But Draco was grinning too, looking at his arm that disappeared into noting, enjoying the wonderful feeling of Harry's fingers interlaced with his own, Harry's palm pressed against his own.

"Haven't you been told to keep track of your hands and feet and not go leaving them lying around…!?"

"Shut up, Potter. You wouldn't stand a chance as a comedian."

Harry was still giggling like a seven year old under his cloak. It was very odd walking next to a giggle.

They entered Harry's room, and Harry swept the cloak off and threw it over a chair. Its seat and legs disappeared, and the backrest seemed to float in the air of its own accord.

"Oh, look, it's just like magic!" Still in that silly, ridiculous, adorable mood, Harry snatched Draco's wand from him and danced away fom his attempts to take it back. Still laughing, he waved the wand in an exaggerated sweep towards the beeswax candles on the table. "Incendio!"

Instantly, a flame appeared at the tapered end of each candle.

The boys froze as if hit by a Petrificus spell, and silence fell like a stone. Harry stared at the candles; Draco stared at Harry. Then their eyes met. Harry had gone white at first; now blood rushed to his face and his eyes began to burn as brightly as the flames. Draco had to tell himself how to breathe.

"Put them out again," he whispered.

The wand shook as Harry waved it towards the candles: "Nox." His voice shook, too.

Obediently, the flames went out.

Harry let the wand sink as he stared at the fine wisps of smoke rising from the candles, curling as they met cooler air and vanishing gracefully.

Neither of the boys spoke for a long time. Finally Potter turned to look at Draco, breathing fast.

"I… I can't quite believe it."

They stared at each other.

"Can you do it again…?"

It was a stupid thing to say, like a little boy who wanted to see a circus trick performed again and again. Draco regretted it before the last syllable had rolled off his tongue. Harry's eyes were wide and bright with fear, shining with hope against hope.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know, and I'm scared to try."

"Do it anyway."

"I – "

"Do it."

Harry's trembling hand pointed the wand at one of the empty goblets on the table. The drop of wine at the bottom of it was glittering like a ruby.

"Wingardium leviosa," he whispered hoarsely.

Nothing happened. The nothing went on until the fabric of silence was ripped by a sob.

But Draco wouldn't let Harry cry, couldn't let him.

"No, Potter! Don't give up like that! Try again. Louder. You have to be more decisive."

Harry caught himself, took a deep breath and cleared his throat. The hand, the wand, the goblet…

"Wingardium leviosa."

The goblet seemed to hesitate, then made up its mind or perhaps surrendered. Draco followed it with his eyes. He thought the glittering object that rose from the wood surface, slowly and gracefully, to hang in the air as if from an invisible thread, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Harry silently took the goblet down and handed the wand back to Draco, who took it as silently. They looked at each other, wondering what to say, what they possibly could say.

"I was wondering…" Harry's voice trailed off and he had to begin again. "I was wondering if you… if you wouldn't tell anyone about this just yet."

Draco gazed into the bright eyes, unable to look away, unsure how to respond. He thought of a similar plea back in London, and how strange it was that Harry Potter kept asking him to keep secrets.

Harry's thoughts seemed to have wandered in same direction. He smiled shakily and said: "Pathetic, isn't it? First I beg you to keep quiet about me losing my magic, and now I'm begging you to keep quiet about getting it back."

Draco returned the smile, equally shakily. He wanted to tell Potter he was pleased to be asked, pleased to be the one to keep secrets for him, but it sounded too ridiculous even inside his own head. The smile died on Potter's face and he looked like a frightened child.

"If it's coming back. Bloody hell, Malfoy, I'm scared."

Draco's thoughts ground to a halt. Harry was scared, and it was a valid fear. Draco could sympathise with it and he wanted to respond, but he had no idea what to say or what to do. He wasn't good at comforting people – he didn't have much experience either with giving or receiving comfort. What was required?

Two months back, he had simply climbed into Harry's bed and held him. But then, the situation had been so desperate – Potter was confused and ill, cold and frightened, and Draco himself shaken to the core. There had been nothing to say and only one thing to do.

Potter was still frightened, but awake and thinking, aware. He might not want comfort, not like that.

Now that Draco had options, he was not at all sure what to do. But did things really have to be so bloody complicated all the time? Did his own mind really have to make it so difficult?

Potter was still looking at him. Draco was beginning to loathe the impulse that always seized him when things got intense: hide his emotions, withdraw, run. He could see where it came from – he had needed to withdraw to keep himself from breaking. But this was different. What would happen if he didn't run? Potter might be afraid, too, but he had taken a step forward. He was scared; but he had asked for help. What would happen if Draco simply responded the way he wanted to respond?

"So am I," he whispered, although it wasn't the same thing.

His heart beat wildly and he despised himself for being so afraid of rejection, but here he was, waiting for a brick to fall from the ceiling and kill him, waiting for Potter to laugh at him. As if the latter was worse than the former.

"It is coming back," he said. "I'm sure of it. I can't imagine it just makes an appearance and vanishes again."

"I couldn't imagine you could lose it, either."

"Perhaps you didn't lose it – not really. Temporarily, yes – like an illness, and now you're getting well."

"Do you really think so?"

Harry was staring at him as if he was the one holding hope and chances in his hands, as if he was the one who could make decisions and make fate turn. But all he held was a dawning love, his heart trapped in the cage of his ribs.

He reached out a hand to touch Harry's shoulder and gently pulled him into an embrace.

"What do you think?" he whispered.

TBC