After Defense Against the Dark Arts was over, Harry stayed after so he could talk to Professor Lupin. It was his last class of the day and dinner wouldn't be for a while and he really wanted to talk to Professor Lupin about Draco, among other things.

Once the other students had gone, Professor Lupin turned to Harry, raising his eyebrows in question.

"Professor… can I talk to you?"

Lupin nodded.

"Well…" Harry fumbled awkwardly for how to phrase what he wanted to ask. "What do you think about… me and Draco?"

Lupin looked at Harry for a long moment before answering, considering how to answer the question. "I think that you should be careful with him – honestly, I can't bring myself to trust him. But you two seem to be happy together, and I certainly support you. I can't tell if he truly doesn't care about you or if it's simply that he doesn't like to show emotion in public. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I don't know."

"…and you don't mind that we're… you know… both guys?"

Lupin smiled, shaking his head. "Now that I truly don't care about."

"And… what about his parents being Death Eaters?"

"Well, they aren't any more and as long as they don't hurt you I can live with them."

"Do you think it would be a good idea for me to stay with them for Christmas?"

Lupin nodded. "If you want to. Why?"

"…Ron doesn't."

"Ah… so that's what this is about."

Harry nodded. "Ron won't even talk to me anymore. Ever since he found out about Draco and me. He acts like I've betrayed him or something, and I don't even know why. All I know is that he doesn't want me dating Draco, and I won't give up Draco. But I don't now how else to get him to be my friend."

Lupin sighed. "You and Draco were enemies before, right?" Harry nodded. "Maybe Ron's just suspicious of how you've completely changed your attitudes towards each other. What would you think if he suddenly told you he was dating… I don't know… Professor Snape?"

Harry choked. "Ew… Professor Snape's like 50! That's just gross."

"Professor Snape's the same age I am, and I assure you that I'm nowhere near 50."

Harry flushed. "Sorry, Professor. But Ron's only 13 and Snape's… older than that. And anyway, Snape's a teacher."

Lupin made a face. "Thank you, Harry. I feel so young now. But aside from age differences, how would you react to Professor Snape and Ron dating?"

"It would never happen. Snape practically lives to torture us. He thinks Ron's scum. He'd never date Ron, and Ron wouldn't date him."

"Isn't that what Ron thought about you and Draco?"

"But… but that's different…"

Lupin raised an eyebrow. "Is it? How?"

Harry floundered for the words. It was different, that he was certain of. But he couldn't put it into words. "Because… because Snape's… Snape."

Lupin sighed. "And as far as Ron's concerned Draco is Draco. The same boy who tormented you for years. Can you really blame him for not jumping up and down, cheering for you? He probably feels the same way you'd feel if you found out Ron was dating Snape."

Harry stared at him. There had to be a flaw in that comparison. But try as he might, Harry couldn't find it.

After a few moments, Lupin asked him, "So, would you mind telling me how you two got together in the first place?"

Harry sighed. Right… "Well, Snape made me stay after to help Draco finish making his potion after Crabbe knocked over his cauldron. And I got messed up and I blacked out for a bit and when I came to I… Well, I realized that I liked Draco."

"That sounds a bit like a love potion, don't you think?"

Harry shook his head. "No… it wasn't like that. We were making a self-discovery potion and Draco and Hermione both think that it just sort of revealed something I'd been hiding."

Lupin frowned. "Do you know what you did wrong?"

Harry sighed. Why did everyone he told immediately want to know how he'd screwed up with the potion? Why did it matter? He loved Draco and that was that. "I think we added too many jobberknoll feathers."

"Only one or two too many?"

"Yeah."

Lupin nodded. "Interesting…" He smiled at Harry. "Thank you for trusting me. I hope I could help."

Harry gave him a quick smile. "Can I ask you something completely different?"

"What?"

"The dementors. How come they affect me so much more than everyone else? Am I just–"

"It has nothing to do with weakness," said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry's mind. "The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don't have.

"Dementors are the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can't see them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, a dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself… soulless and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life. And the worst that happened to you, Harry, is enough to make anyone pass out. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"But you made that dementor on the train back off," Harry said suddenly.

Lupin sighed. "There are… certain defenses one can use," Lupin told him carefully. "But there was only one dementor on the train. The more there are, the more difficult it becomes to resist."

"I don't pretend to be an expert at fighting dementors, Harry… quite the contrary…"

"But you could fight off one… please, I need to be able to defend myself against them."

Lupin hesitated a moment, then sighed. "Well… all right. I'll try and help. But it'll have to wait until next term. I have a lot to do before the holidays."

Harry grinned at him. "Thank you, Professor."

A/N: More of Draco in the next chapter. Promise.

Gemini Gerbal: Thanks... Dumbledor would probably be upset if he ever found out exactly what Harry and Draco were doing together.... I think right now everyone just thinks they're holding hands and smiling at each other... Master of the flames: Thanks. Kashiage: Poor Ron, poor Harry, poor Draco... I don't think their lives are going to get much easier in the near future... Trekkie-54: Thanks :P I'm not sure if this is that much longer, but the next one will be (I hope) Stars-n-moons91: Thanks.... and I've changed the chapter numbers. Thanks for pointing that out. Orange: Thanks