By the end of dinner, the news that Harry had kissed Draco in the hallways had spread through the entire student body. Harry had heard people claiming everything from that Harry had forced himself on Draco and Draco had hexed him to that the two of them had screwed each other right there in the halls. He pointedly ignored the stares he was getting, fixing his total attention on his meal. He even managed to resist the temptation to look over at Draco.

At first Hermione and Ron tried to talk to him, but when he simply sat there eating methodically they eventually gave up. As soon as he had finished his meal, he left the room, forcing himself not to look at Draco and to ignore the stares of the other students.

Once in his dormitory, he changed into his pajamas and dropped into bed, pulling the curtains closed around his bed. Then he lay staring into the darkness, remembering how it had begun:




"But Professor –"

"Silence!" Snape spat. "You will stay after and assist Mr. Malfoy in re-making his potion, which you so clumsily spilled."

Harry opened his mouth to protest that that wasn't fair, that he hadn't knocked over Malfoy's cauldron, but Hermione beat him to it.

"But Professor, you've got it all–"

"Miss Granger! I suggest you silence yourself before I decide to take another 10 points from Gryffindor. Now go over there, Mr. Potter, and help Mr. Malfoy re-make his potion."

"But what about Ron, Professor?" Harry tried desperately. "You can't make him finish our potion all on his own."

"Yes I can, and I am. I've already taken 10 points from Gryffindor. Do you want to make that 20? No? Then go!"

Harry clenched his jaw and stalked over to Malfoy and his cauldron, which was now resting on its side, the potion spilled all over the stone floor in a greenish-silver puddle. This wasn't fair. He hadn't knocked over Malfoy's cauldron; he hadn't been anywhere near Malfoy's cauldron. He'd been on the opposite side of the room, along with the rest of the Gryffindors, minding his own business, carefully preparing his own potion with Ron. It had been Crabbe, clumsy oaf that he was, who had knocked over Malfoy's cauldron, but Snape, being Snape, was blaming Harry any way. And now Griffindor was down ten House points, Ron had to finish preparing their potion on his won, and Harry had to stay after to help Malfoy prepare a new potion.

Seething, Harry drew his wand to clean up the spilled potion, but Snape stopped him, asking icily, "Just what do you think you're doing, Potter?"

Harry slowly turned to face him. "I'm cleaning up the potion, like you told me to."

"I never told you to use your wand. You will clean it up by hand, understood? And remember that if you touch it, it will force you to reveal your deepest darkest secrets to whoever is around to hear."

Harry glared at Snape, but put away his wand and found a mop instead. Why on earth did he have to clean it up by hand? Weren't they here to learn magic? And why the hell were they making this stupid potion in the first place?

By the time he finished cleaning up the last of the spilled potion, the rest of the class had handed in viles of their potion for Snape's inspection and gone on to their next class. Only he and Malfoy remained. Malfoy had spent the class watching him with a smug, self-superior sneer, his arms folded as he sat casually in his seat. If Snape hadn't been watching him the entire class as if waiting for him to screw up, Harry would probably have just given in to temptation and slugged Malfoy. But Snape had been there, watching Harry's every move, and Harry had somehow managed to control himself.

Once he had finished cleaning the floors, Harry turned to Malfoy. "Why don't you go get the ingredients while I set up the cauldron?"

Malfoy smiled at him. "But you're supposed to be helping me. Why don't you set up the cauldron and then go get the ingredients yourself?"

"Because," Harry began, trying desperately to keep his voice relatively civil, "if you go get the ingredients while I set up the cauldron, we'll be done faster. And the sooner we're done, the sooner we can leave."

Malfoy smirked. "Or you could just work fast. You're the one who knocked over my cauldron, so it's your fault."

"But –"

"Mr. Potter!" Snape cut in from his seat at his desk. "I would appreciate it if you would refrain from antagonizing Mr. Malfoy. I know this may be challenging for you, but you can at least make the attempt."

Harry glared at Snape, then turned back to Malfoy.

"Are you going to get on it?" Malfoy asked. "I don't have all day, you know. And if you mess this up, you'll regret it."

Malfoy watched in amusement as Harry set about preparing the cauldron, silently cursing all Slytherins to the deepest of all Hells as he did so. After a few minutes, Snape rose.

"I'm going to leave for a few minutes," he informed the two boys. Then gave Harry a warning look. "I would appreciate it if you didn't harm Mr. Malfoy while I'm gone. I would hope I could trust a third year to be capable of acting civilly, but with you I'm not so certain."

Harry forced a smile and nodded.

When Snape was gone, Harry finished preparing the cauldron and then collected the ingredients. He started by crushing the dittany seeds, but before he could get very far, Malfoy stopped him.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked in disgust, taking the pestle from Harry's hand and pushing him aside. "That's not how you grind up dittany seeds. Watch."

Harry watched over the boy's shoulder as he proceeded to grind them into a fine powder. When he was done, he set about crushing the snake's fangs. Without pausing or taking his eyes from his work, he told Harry to get to work chopping the tubeworms.

When Malfoy finished with the snake's fangs, Harry had only finished with half of the tubeworms. Malfoy gave him a look of disgust and grabbed his hand.

"Hold the knife like this," he told Harry impatiently as he rearranged Harry's grip on the handle. Then he showed Harry how to hold the worms with one hand and the knife with the other so that it was easier to chop them. In seconds he had chopped half of the remaining worms into neat, even quarters. Then he let Harry do the rest while he started skinning the shrivelfig.

In less than a half an hour, they had finished preparing all the ingredients. Malfoy had prepared most of them, working quickly and neatly while Harry struggled to finish his own task. Whenever Malfoy finished with one thing, he would pause to correct Harry before moving on to something else. They didn't talk, beyond Malfoy's instructions, but it was probably the most enjoyable potions experience Harry had ever had – not that that was saying a lot.

Harry added the ingredients to the cauldron, following Malfoy's quick, clipped instructions and in another ten minutes they were done. Now all they had to do was wait three minutes while it simmered and then make sure it worked.

Harry set about cleaning up while Malfoy watched the clock, carefully timing the three minutes. When they were up, he poured the potion into the waiting bowl and told Harry to clean the cauldron.

By the time Harry had finished cleaning up, the potion had cooled and was ready to be poured into a vile so Snape could test it. Harry got the vile and was about to pour the potion into it when Malfoy stopped him.

"Not quite yet." He had an odd look in his eye and Harry was suddenly quite certain that he wasn't going to like what Malfoy was about to do.

"Why not?" he asked cautiously. "It's done isn't it?"

Malfoy nodded, giving him an evil smile. "But it hasn't been tested yet."

"Snape tests it."

Malfoy shook his head. "You think I'm handing this in to Snape without first knowing that it works?" He laughed. "No, we're testing it first. Or rather, you're testing it."

"What?!"

"You do know how it works, don't you?"

Harry nodded. "Of course I do, but –"

Malfoy smiled. "So what are you waiting for? All you have to do is hold the bowl and watch it and then you'll either see into the innermost depths of your soul or something else will happen and we'll know you screwed up."

Reluctantly Harry walked over to the bowl, placing his hands on the sides. He stared at the glowing silver and blue liquid, watching as it slowly began to swirl, shifting and changing color until the glow dimmed and it resolved itself into an image.

The image was of his face with Malfoy staring over his shoulder and behind them the potions classroom.

"What do you see?" Malfoy asked.

"Just the classroom," Harry told him in disappointment. Now he'd have to make it all over again. What had they done wrong?

"That's funny," Malfoy said softly. "Because I don't see anything but some dull, silvery swirls."

Harry turned his head to look at Malfoy. Or rather, he tried to. But he found that he couldn't move his gaze from the image in the bowl. He couldn't move his hands either. In fact, he couldn't move at all.

He tried to open his mouth to tell Malfoy that he couldn't move, but he couldn't even move his lips. He couldn't breath. His entire world narrowed to the image reflected in the potion and he was only vaguely aware of Malfoy muttering something like "Shit, too many jobberknoll feathers," before he descended into darkness.

He felt warm, very warm. Heat like liquid fire was spreading through his body, he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't see. There was nothing… nothing at all but the image of his face and Draco's imprinted in his mind, branded behind his eyelids.

Suddenly he felt all the heat rush from him, leaving him cold and sore. His head hurt and he felt strange. After a moment he realized he was lying on the floor. Slowly he opened his eyes, wincing at the sudden light. But then he saw Draco, standing over him, looking concerned and the rest of the world seemed to fade away. The only thing he could see was Draco; his only thought the boy's name. And like an angel Draco knelt beside him, taking him in his arms.

He reached out to Draco, pulling him closer, reveling in the warmth of the boy's body. And Draco held him.

After a moment, Draco pulled away and Harry realized that he had been shivering with cold, though he was warm now, and that Draco was looking at him with a confused expression.

Still dazed, Harry started to climb to his feet, but stopped as the world began to spin nauseatingly around his head.

"What the fuck happened?" he asked hoarsely.

Draco…. wait a minute. Since when was he calling him Draco? Malfoy looked away from him. "I think you added too many jobberknoll feathers…"

"So what happened?" Harry asked again.

"I'm not sure," Draco – Malfoy – admitted. "But it's a form of a truth serum, in case you didn't know, and jobberknoll feathers are supposed to reveal that which you would like to keep hidden. So I'd guess that you were shown something that you've been hiding from yourself." Dra – Malfoy (why do I keep slipping up like that?) tilted his head curiously. "What do you remember? I just saw you get all tense, then collapse."

Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The potion got messed up, so we'll have to make it again no matter what."

"You can't even get up. How do you intend to make another potion? We'll hand this one in and I'll tell Snape that you added too many feathers and we can go eat dinner."

Harry would have protested, but his head was hurting bloody awful now so he just nodded. Draco extended his hand to help Harry to his feet, but Harry ignored it. There was no way he was accepting the help of a bloody Slytherin.

Of course, as soon as he tried to get up the room began its spinning again and he would have fallen if Draco hadn't reached out to catch him.

Harry almost gasped at the feeling of Draco's body against his. Heat like molten lava spread out from every place they touched, flooding his body. Draco's body felt so good, so soft, so warm against his. Harry's legs gave way and he found himself sagging against the blond Slytherin. Draco slipped an arm around his waist, holding him up, and Harry's arms moved almost of their own volition to encircle the boy's waist. He pressed his face against Draco's chest, inhaling the clean, slightly spicy scent of him.

"What the fuck did you see?" Draco asked him in astonishment.

But Harry couldn't speak anymore. Suddenly his mind was filled with images of Draco and the only thing he could think or say was Draco's name, and maybe 'holy shit.' His world began and ended with Draco, and for several seconds he couldn't even move, he was so overwhelmed by Draco.

Without thinking, he turned his head upwards and brushed his lips against Draco's. The boy's eyes widened briefly and he tensed against Harry, but then he relaxed, kissing Harry back.

When they parted, Harry stepped away from him, unable to meet his eyes. What the hell just happened?

"I–" he began, wondering how he was going to explain his actions when he wasn't sure he understood them himself.

"What?" Draco's voice was curt, tense.

"I'm sorry… I… I don't know what… I mean… I–"

"Harry?"

Harry looked up, confused. "What?"

"Shut up."

"But–"

"I said shut up," Draco snapped. Then he turned on his heel and left the dungeons – fled them, really.

Harry poured the potion into its vile and left it on Snape's desk, then trudged upstairs to the Gryffindor common room.

He had missed dinner and now Ron was playing chess with Dean. Hermione had presumably already gone up to bed. Ron looked up as he entered the common room, inviting him over. But Harry shook his head, saying that he was tired and wanted to get to bed early.

In his dormitory, Harry had lain awake for hours, trying to figure out what the fuck had happened down in the dungeons with Draco. Draco. He rolled the name around inside his head, silently forming the word with his lips. He liked the name. For a moment he considered trying to call him Malfoy again, but then decided it would be too much work. What was the harm in calling him Draco, at least to himself?

As he pondered this (and other deep, important questions of life, the universe and, mostly, Draco Malfoy), he heard a tapping outside his window. He rolled over, trying to ignore it, but it just got louder. Finally he hauled himself from his nice, warm bed and opened the window, shivering as the chilly, night air touched his skin.

Almost before the window was completely opened, something large flew in, almost knocking him over. It was an owl – surprise, surprise – but not just any owl. It was an eagle owl that looked suspiciously like the one who delivered Draco's letters from home. It soared around the room, then landed heavily on Harry's bed, holding out its foot so that Harry could retrieve the letter. Yawning, Harry did so, and the owl took off into the night. Sighing, Harry closed the window and returned to his bed. He pulled out his wand, muttering lumos, and opened the letter.

If you really want to, meet me in the astronomy tower tonight at midnight.

Short and to the point. It was unsigned and written in an unfamiliar hand, but Harry had a fairly good guess who it might be. So now the only question was whether or not he really wanted to go. His head told him that it would be a really bad idea. And why on Earth would he want to meet Draco? But the rest of him, inexplicably, desperately wanted to go.

In the end, he decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to at least see what Draco wanted.




Harry froze, holding his breath and pulling his invisibility cloak tighter around him. He listened intently, wondering if he really had heard something or if it had just been his imagination. It had been so quiet, but…

There it was again. Footsteps, getting closer. Harry held his breath, pressing himself against the wall as Filch rounded the corner, the light from his lantern momentarily blinding Harry. Filch paused, looking around suspiciously. Harry closed his eyes against the light, thinking that at any moment Filch would somehow notice him. But after a few moments he continued along the corridor, his light vanishing as he rounded another corner and Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

When he could no longer hear Filch's footsteps, Harry let out his breath and continued. He reached the base of the stairs to the astronomy tower without encountering anyone else and discarded his invisibility cloak behind a nearby statue. There was no way he was letting Draco know he owned one. He reached the top of the stairs and climbed out onto the tower to find Draco already there and waiting. At the sight of the blond haired boy, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. At least Draco hadn't tricked him into coming and then told Filch, the way he had in their first year when he had challenged Harry to a duel.

Draco was standing at the edge of the tower, his arms resting on the edge of the wall that surrounded it as he stared out over the Hogwarts grounds. His platinum hair seemed to glow with a light of it's own in the moonlight and his robes seemed rimmed with silver. He looked surreal, like a spirit or a ghost.

Then he turned around to face Harry, staring intently at the darker haired boy. Harry felt his breath catch as he met those hard, cold silver eyes. He had always known the boy was good-looking (Ron had once muttered that he probably used more beautification spells than Lavender), but now he seemed truly otherworldly. Like an ancient god come down to earth. It was probably the moonlight (or maybe it was just that for once, he wasn't sneering), but whatever it was, Harry suddenly felt an almost overwhelming –and disturbing – desire to touch him, to kiss him, to hold him and make him real.

"Well, well, well," Draco murmured, breaking in on Harry's thoughts. Draco was smirking slightly again, and Harry tensed. "So you came."

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry asked tightly, careful to remember to use the boy's last name.

Draco laughed. "You really are slow, aren't you?"

"Malfoy –" Harry began warningly.

"Oh come on, we're alone. You can call me 'Draco.'"

Harry sighed. "Alright, Draco. What do you want?"

Draco gave Harry a pleased, smug smile and crossed his arms. "What do you want?" Harry stared at him, confused, and Draco gave a tolerant sigh. "Why are you here instead of safely sleeping in your bed? Why did you come to meet me tonight?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer, then realized that he himself wasn't entirely sure what he was doing here.

Draco gave him an exasperated look. "Alright Potter, let me make this really easy for you. Why did you kiss me in the potions room earlier today?"

Harry flushed at the memory. Why had he kissed Draco? He wasn't entirely sure himself. Draco rolled his eyes.

"Alright, let me give you a hint," he said, his voice overly patient. Then he stepped forwards, easily closing the distance between them, and caught Harry's shoulders, fiercely pressing his lips against Harry's. Harry opened his mouth to protest and Draco pushed his tongue between Harry's lips. For several seconds Harry was simply too stunned to do anything, either to respond or to push Draco away, and Draco took the opportunity run his hands up Harry's neck until he had his fingers buried in Harry's hair as he devoured the boy's mouth. Then Harry relaxed instinctively sliding his arms around Draco's waist, pulling him closer as he kissed the boy back.

That was when Draco pulled away, his pale cheeks slightly flushed and his lips still parted. "So?" he asked harshly.

Harry reached out towards him, his only thought that he needed, needed to pull Draco back into that kiss. But Draco pushed him away, his eyes hard and cold. "Tell me why you're here," he snapped. "Tell me or I'm leaving and pretending nothing ever happened."

Harry stared at him, confused. "…because… because I want you…"

Draco stared into his eyes as if trying to probe the depths of his soul. "If you're lying, I'm going to kill you," he hissed. Then he kissed Harry again, and this time he let Harry kiss him back.



From then on, they had met every day while their friends were at lunch and again every night after their friends were asleep. Draco had also gotten into the habit of dragging him into deserted classrooms whenever they encountered each other alone in the corridors and Harry had formed the habit of going to his classes alone and taking the route most likely to cross with Draco's.

A week after they first met in the astronomy tower, as they sat holding each other in an unused classroom, Draco had asked Harry what he had seen when he had looked into the bowl in potions, and Harry had told him that he had seen their faces. Then Draco had told him that he had done some research and talked to Snape about the potion (Snape had deducted five points from Gryffindor for Harry messing up and given five to Slytherin for having to put up with Harry's incompetence). Draco had told him that the potion would have revealed something that the person who had looked into it had been hiding from themselves. But according to Snape, the potion would try to reveal everything that the person was trying to hide from themselves, from how much they needed to study for their next test, to saying something stupid and embarrassing in front of their friends, to having a secret obsession with the color purple. It would have had no focus and would have been too much for the person who attempted to use it to cope with or it wouldn't have worked at all. But Draco thought that maybe since he had also looked into it, it had shown Harry something they were both hiding from themselves, or from Harry, or maybe something Draco wanted Harry to know that Harry wanted to hide from himself. Or something like that, meaning that since Draco had had a crush on Harry since the day they had met (Harry had almost choked at that), Harry had been forced to realize that he didn't hate Draco anywhere near as much as he might have wished. Or something like that.



The sound of the other boys entering his dormitory brought Harry back to the present, and he lay still, not really wanting to face them just then. They must have thought he was asleep, because after a few minutes of silence Dean said, "Imagine that… not only is Harry gay, but he's sweet on that stuck-up Slytherin bastard." Harry resisted the urge to jump out of bed and sock Dean for that. How dare Dean call his boyfriend a stuck-up bastard? But he wanted to hear what his friends would say about him, to know what they thought now that they knew the truth, so he stayed still.

"Yeah," agreed Seamus, his voice temporarily muffled as he pulled his nightshirt on. "I thought they hated each other."

Laughter. "I guess not."

"I can't believe he waited so long to tell me," Ron complained. "I'm his best friend, and he didn't even tell me!"

Harry closed his eyes guiltily at that. He could say that he hadn't known how or that he'd been afraid of loosing his friends, but the truth was that ever since that night in astronomy tower, he had hardly thought about his friends beyond hoping they didn't catch him with Draco.

"Oh come, Ron," Dean said. "He was probably just terrified of our responses. I mean, we didn't even believe him until he snogged Malfoy in front of everyone."

"But I'm his friend! He should be able to trust me!"

"Yeah, but, well, I'm not sure what the wizarding world thinks of it, but being gay isn't exactly encouraged in the muggle world. And if his aunt and uncle are the prudes they seem to be, they probably think being gay is only one small step above being a serial killer or a terrorist."

"Yeah, almost as bad as being a wizard," Seamus broke in with a laugh.

"Or maybe even worse. He's probably had a tough time admitting to himself, much less anyone else. And as I said, I don't really know how the wizarding world feels about that sort of stuff, and I'll bet he doesn't either. He's probably scared shitless that you'd hate him for it or something."

"But I'm his friend!" Ron protested. "I would never hate him. Not for something as silly as being gay. Falling for Malfoy, that I might be worried about, but being gay? That's just dumb."

"But he didn't know that. It's not like you've talked about it or anything, have you?" Dean persisted.

"Well, no," Ron admitted.

"You know," Seamus broke in. "There are even some wizards who don't exactly approve. The wealthy ones don't really care, as long as they get kid to continue their bloodline or whatever, but some of the poorer ones think it's sinful. My mum once told me that it was rumored that You-Know-Who was gay himself and so were all the Death Eaters. Not that I believe it or anything, but people do say it. And if he's with Malfoy, well, Malfoy's a pureblood and his parents were Death Eaters, so maybe he was afraid that you'd think he was betraying you for Malfoy."

Ron sighed. "I still wish he'd told me."

"He did tell you," Dean pointed out. "It's not like you accidentally caught him snogging Malfoy."

There was a long silence, then Seamus said awkwardly, "Let's get to bed. We can talk to Harry in the morning."

Harry heard them climb into bed. He lay awake long past when his friends presumably had fallen asleep, thinking over the day. Every time he remembered his telling his friends and then showing them in the entrance hall, he felt his face burn with a mingling of embarrassment and lust.

Part of him was dreading the morning when he would have to face his friends, not to mention the rest of the school and, of course, Draco. But part of him just wanted to get it over with. And he missed Draco.

He closed his eyes, rolling over onto his side, and imagined that Draco was lying spooned against him. He lay there, loosing himself in fantasies of Draco as he drifted into sleep.

A/N: I told you I'd explain how Harry and Draco got together. I know it's a little corny, but I didn't want to focus the entire story on how they got together. Kashiaga, I'm glad you like this. I'll admit that H/D doesn't usually make much sense and I'm glad you like my story. Orange, I think I'll be updating pretty frequently for a while at least. So yay!