Summary: Harry is suddenly acting very weird – in both universes. Yeah, you guessed it. This is a parallell universe-fic, and the two Potters are switched, causing a lot of confusion, especially for Harry Potter himself.

Genre: Romance/AU – Rating: PG

Warning: apart from the AU and slight OOC, nothing major. This is obviously slash, but nothing graphic I think. At least not so far.

Pairing: Harry/Draco (also Hermoine/Ron, Ginny/Neville, Sirius/Remus, Narcissa/Lucius – but only in the background)

Change of Reality

Part Nine – Avoiding

"You're repeating youself, Harry... If you have something to say to me, then just fucking say it!" Draco all but cried.

Harry blinked furiously while trying to get his head around the whole situation and what would be the right thing to do or say at this point, but to his own horror he found himself unable to form anything but stuttering unintelligible noises, no matter how much he worked his mouth.

Just as the tears in Draco's eyes were about to spill over, and his lips began to tremble, dispite him having pressed them tightly together. Harry decided that a answer was better than no answer, whether or not it was the right one, so he blurted the first thing that came to his mind.

"I'm sorry! I... I haven't been... sleeping well... and well, I... I had this... Eh, dream, and..."

For some reason Draco visibly relaxed, and Harry watched in horrormixed fascination as he broke out in a smile again, as the tears finally rolled over his lashes and ran down his pale cheeks, "Oh Harry..." he said and before the Gryffindor had time to react, he found himself with an armful of Malfoy, who was sniffing and chuckling at the same time, and also squeezing the breath out of Harry rather successfully.

"Oh, I'm so stupid... So bloody stupid..." Draco mumbled thickly into Harry's neck. Harry didn't know what was the right reply to that, but figured it was much more important to say the right thing now than it had been before, so he bit his lip as not to say something utterly wrong, and awkwardly hugged the blonde back. Draco sighed happily and relaxed to the point where he all but melted into Harry's embrace, before he finally loosened his grip and sat back enough to look inte Harry's face.

Harry swallowed thickly again, but willed himself not to move. Draco's eyes were quite pretty up close, despite the red rim left behind by the salty liquid. Nice colour, Harry thought absent-mindedly, barely registering them moving closer until they fluttered shut and Harry felt Draco's lips brush his own. Malfoy's kissing me, he thought. Then he stopped thinking all together.

The kiss lasted only for a moment, not long enough for Draco to realize his boyfriend's lack of participation, or for Harry to realize he was just about to start kissing back. Draco sighed again, and rested his head on Harry's shoulder, his cheek brushing Harry's chest.

"I'm sorry, love..." the blonde said, putting his arm comfortably around Harry's waist. Making himself more comfortable, Harry thought dumbly, as in, not moving away. But somehow, Harry discovered he didn't exactly mind. Not that he didn't, didn't mind. It just wasn't such an awful feeling as one would have thought, he explained to himself, while he carefully put his arm around the Slytherin's shoulders. Yeah, not at all awful, actually...

"How long have you been having nightmares?" Draco asked somberly.

"Eh? Oh... not so long, I mean... a while..."

"Why haven't you told me?" Draco asked, and Harry picked up on the disappointment immediatly, the sound of feeling betrayed. He realized this question also needed the right answer, or else it might provoke Draco into crying again, and Harry discovered that he really didn't want to see the blonde Slytherin in tears again. If he'd been in his usual surroundings and everything wasn't upside down, Harry might have considered this an alarming development in himself, but now he didn't care.

"I... I'm sorry" he said simply, with just the right amount of regret in his voice. Draco seemed to melt further onto him, Harry noticed and congratulated himself proudly.

"No, it's alright, I know you're only doing it to protect me... because you... care about me..." the blonde murmured.

Finally it all made sense to Harry, the things his Fathers had said, the way Draco was acting... Honestly, I am being thick today, he thought, the pride vanishing instantly.

"Right?" Draco said, just a little anxiously, as he raised his head from its spot on Harry's shoulder, and peered into the other boy's eyes, searching for something. Harry caught himself immediatly missing the warmth and feeling of Draco's head on his shoulder, but didn't bother to reflect on it at the time. He met Draco's gaze, unfliching, unavoiding, almost holding his breath, as he took the plunge.

"Yeah, because I love you..."

TBC