(Step author's plea for forgiveness: GOMEN! SORRY! SLICHAH! SIENTO! I'm SOOOO sorry this took so long to post. The computer I tried to use to post this wouldn't work with floppies so I was at a loss for a while. PLEASE FORGIVE ME! Well, I believe this is the last chapter before our writing group starts. Panics My chapter is the second new one TT and I haven't started writing it yet...)

Part 5:

It had taken a while to get Ron calmed down and even then he just sat on his bed, breathing heavily until he finally fell asleep. Everyone else had been sleeping for at least an hour by that time, minus Harry who hadn't been able to sleep very well for several nights.

"Harry?" he heard from across the room in a hushed, barely audible whisper. He made a soft noise of acknowledgement. Draco popped his head in through the curtains, "Can I talk to you?"

"Has 'no' ever stopped you before?" was Harry's dry reply. Draco shrugged and crawled onto the bed.

"We never got a chance to talk about the custody issue after dinner. I had a meeting with Snape and you were talking to Weasley," Draco said in a sad attempt to explain his motivation in sneaking to Harry's bed in the middle of the night.

Harry just shrugged, not caring about what Draco had to say. He just wanted to sleep even though he didn't know how he was going to achieve this. He sighed, "Malfoy, I'm thoroughly exhausted and I really just don't care right now. I think it's getting close to 2 a.m. and I cannot for the life of me get to sleep. I'm afraid of using any sleeping potions or charms because they could hurt the baby and nothing else will work. Unless you have some method of relieving my fatigue, I suggest you go back to your own bed before I get annoyed and make it so you can never have another child ever again."

"Oooooh, you got dogged," a voice whispered from across the room.

"Shut up, Seamus," came a hiss from the direction of Dean's bed.

Harry let out an exasperated groan, "Who all is awake?"

"I think it's just me and Dean," Seamus said who had walked over and crawled into the bed with Harry, but he got under the covers when Malfoy didn't. Dean quickly joined them.

"I'm awake, too," they heard Neville say.

"Doesn't anyone sleep in these dorms?" Draco wondered aloud. Dean, Seamus, Harry and Neville all replied in unison, "No."

"Are you still reading that porno-book that Percy gave you, Neville?" Seamus asked when the small blonde boy joined them on the bed.

"It's not a porno-book!" Neville hissed quietly so as not to wake Ron or Dudley. He turned to Harry and said, "They're making fun of me for reading Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice."

"I love that book!" Harry exclaimed softly, "I've read it like five times! You want a porno book, Seamus, read Naked Lunch."

Draco watched as the four Gryffindor continued laughing and joking well into the night before they all drifted to sleep in the same bed. He frowned, realizing he had achieved nothing in venturing to Harry's bed and returned to his own. Nothing seemed to affect Harry when Draco tried to have civilized conversation with him. It was as though they were doomed to end up fighting whenever they spoke.

"Man this sucks!" shouted Seamus as he paced around the dorm room. Dean was sprawled on his bed with his head hanging off the side he got a funny head-rush when he sat up. Ron was in the corner growling, rocking back and forth while hugging his knees. He had finally stopped muttering things about hemlock, arsenic, and daggers at night a few minutes ago. Neville was on his bed reading and ignoring everyone else. Dudley, Harry and Malfoy were all at a meeting so it was just the four of them. Seamus really had nothing better to do than gripe.

"Yes, well, we'll just have to deal with this, won't we Seamus?" sighed Dean, sitting up, swaying for a moment, and lying down again.

"Don't you think it was a bit predictable? Perhaps the author is losing her touch."

"Did you say something, Neville?" asked Seamus from his bed where he was writing on his arm with a quill. Neville looked up from his book, "Huh, what? No, I didn't say anything."

"This is all a part of Malfoy's plot!" Ron suddenly shouted, standing up, "He seduced Harry so the baby-thing would work then impregnated Harry so they would have a reason to be near each other. It also got his housemates to turn against him and he got moved into our dorm. Don't you see what all of this leads up to!"

No one spoke for a moment and just stared at him, except of course for Neville who was pretending to read his book while he giggled and murmured things about Seamus being inhumanly gullible.

It was finally Seamus who guessed at what Ron was implying, "He's going to take pictures of us jerking off in the shower and use them as blackmail?"

All stares then turned to Seamus, but they were less stares and more gawking looks of astonishment over the true amount of idiocy and perversion it took to concoct a response such as that.

"No!" Ron shouted, "He's going to try and kill Harry in his sleep and more than likely the rest of us as well!"

"Actually," said Neville as he marked his place in his book and set it on the floor, "Apparently he's here because the other Slytherins have shunned him. That's what Harry said last night anyway. We kept talking after you fools fell asleep and Malfoy left. It's very dangerous for Malfoy around the other Slytherins right now because they believe him to be a traitor."

"Neville, that makes no sense," Ron said, rolling his eyes, "Why would they think Malfoy is a traitor?"

Neville snorted, "You are completely blind, Ron. Malfoy cares about the baby, and Harry for that matter, and he is more than willing to defy You-Know-Who to protect them. It's bloody obvious."

"It is not obvious!"

"He respects his father more than anyone and he denied his father to protect Harry."

Ron frowned, "How do you know?"

Rolling his eyes, Neville replied, "I work in the gardens with the Ligneous Chrysanthemums. They know everything there is to know about Hogwarts gossip. Apparently Lucius wanted to have the baby 'taken care of' and Draco freaked out and said that if anything happened to the baby, he would never speak to him again."

"I doubt that a bunch of flowers would know all of that, Neville," Seamus said, reminding Ron and Neville of his presence.

"Gosh, maybe you're right, Seamus. I should ask someone else to double check. What do you think of Terry Boot?"

Seamus face immediately glowed red and he hurried out of the dormitory. Neville allowed himself a small, self-satisfied smirk. That was probably the second or third time he had ever stood up for himself to his housemates.

Ron frowned, "Why did Seamus freak when you mentioned Terry Boot?"

"Ask the chrysanthemums."

(Switch had typed in this section that this was the last chapter she was going to write -switch is a she, righ?- anyway, from here on in THE CHAPTERS WILL ALL BE NEW! Don't be confused becase it said at the bottom that this was the last chapter. It didn't occur to me to delete that ;; Sorry guys, but I'm still alive and strong)