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 Ten – A Newfound Friend

Harry fell back against the headboard of the hospital bed with a heavy sigh. He was beyond both anger and tears by this point, now he was merely exhausted. He didn't care anymore. Everything was upside-down, everyone were acting mental, and he just didn't have it in him to bother make sense of it all anymore.

Severus Snape who unceremoniously disposed him in the Hospital Wing and quickly given Madamde Pomfrey the headlights of the situation as he was aware of it, had disappeared back to the Great Hall for the Feast, leaving a huffing Pompfrey to run her tests on a seemingly apathetic Boy Who Lived.

When all of her tests were run and none had given any result that would confirm the Potion Master or the young Mr Malfoy's beliefs about Mr Potter's health, Poppy sighed and decided to alert the Headmaster.

Not long after she'd left, there was a faint knocking on the door which carefully slid open with a squeak, and Harry turned his head to see Ron Weasley pop his own red head in through the crack and blink at him with goggly eyes. Harry Potter sighed and looked away, but as he had suspected, Weasley didn't give up so easily. Instead of leaving, as Harry had silently prayed he would, Ron inched his entire gangly body in through the door and carefully approached the boy on the bed.

"Harry?" he asked tentatively.

"What is it, Weasley?" Harry drawled tiredly.

"Ehm... Are you, have Pomfrey run her test yet, or whatever? I mean... Is there, did she..."

"There's nothing wrong with me!" Harry snapped impatiently.

"O-okay, if you say so, mate..."

Harry shot the other boy an impatient glare, and noticed to his own growing irritation that the taller boy was fidgeting rather childlessly where he stood uncertainly in the middle of the room.

"Was there something else?" Harry bit out with forced patience. Weasley seemed wounded by his harsch tone, but Harry couldn't be bothered, he was exhausted.

"Sorry, you probably want your rest, yeah? Sorry, I'll just... I'll go..." the redhead mumbled, and turned his body inches towards the door, but his feet remained stubbornly rooted to the spot. Harry sighed, because he realized that despite his words, Ronald Weasley wasn't going anywhere anything soon.

"Sorry..." he mumbled himself, then bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself calm. The Weasley boy visibly lit up, even though he didn't dare smile just yet, and Harry reluctantly made the decision that he'd try not to hurt the other boy's feelings again. Not immediatly anyway. So he forced himself to grumble something else, "You're right, I'm tired... Didn't mean to snap at you..."

"That's alright, mate!"

"Shouldn't you be at the Feast?" Harry muttered, "Aren't you missing dinner?"

"Yeah, but I don't mind... I'm not that hungry anyway!" the redhead said and discretely inched closer to the bed. Harry could easily tell that this boy was a terrible liar, but figured he should be touched or something equally Gryffindorkish at the gesture, so he didn't comment on the obvious lie. Instead he sat up a bit straighter in the bed and allowed Ron to inch closer by focusing his attention elsewhere, his own fidgety hands to be precise.

"Well" Ron said, definitely closer, "I should probably leave you to your rest..."

"Well, I am tired..." Harry mumbled carefully, "I mean! You don't have to go just yet, just... in a bit... I mean, i fyou want to stay, or something..." he scowled at his fingernails. Someone explain to him why he was being friendly to this Gryffindor who was practically a stranger! He thought, but then he realized that of all the people that had been acting weird that day, the redhead was the only one who'd been nice to him, and that, he figured with a lopsided smile in the other's direction, was as good an explanation as any.

TBC