Black Truth

Chapter Eleven: Settling In?

Dinner, which was normally a mostly cheerful and looked forward to event (by the single fact that food was served), was not so cheerful for four people on this night. These four people were: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Draco Malfoy.

Draco was enjoying the last part of his day off (owing to the fact that he was still "recovering" from his near death experience, which by now had been pushed to the farthest reaches of his mind) eating dinner while sitting on his bed in his room. The only bad thing--which had therefore thrown him into this category with three others whom he would never want to be listed with in any way shape or form unless it was a list of people who hated each other--was the seemingly unobtrusive addition to his bedroom. Well, to some people it was seemingly unobtrusive... yes, some people who were blind that is. Another bed had been "graciously" added to his own bedroom, not three feet from his own emerald and ebony bed. The house elves had added it, without his permission he might add, to his bedroom while he had been engaged in his Potions homework (which Harry had in fact not bothered to bring him; Snape had done so instead) in the other room of his "dormitory", which he personally had dubbed his "study". He'd nearly had a heart attack when he unknowingly had walked back into his room in order to grab another Potions reference book. Somehow, looking at this... thing made the whole situation much more real.

But Draco was recovering from this situation, he really was. In fact, he prided himself on how well he was adjusting in the space of time that it took to eat one meal. As he'd, in a way, promised Harry, the boy's bed was not Slytherin colored. It was black and red. Not that garishly and, in Draco's humble opinion, tacky red that adorned everything Gryffindor, but a subtle blood red. It was actually a nice addition that accented the color scheme of the room... which was chiefly black, a color that was fast becoming Draco's favorite color for reasons that he hadn't quite yet sat down and thought about. Maybe he should... that would certainly get his mind off the whole Potter subject...

The other three in the category of having-a-not-so-cheerful-dinner were sitting in the Great Hall with other students of their house, wondering exactly what was really done in situations like this one. Harry was just trying to recover from the slight nausea that was setting in because he'd just realized that his trunk was no longer in the dormitory that had been his home-away-from-home (if you could call his real "home" by that name). He would be rooming, as in sharing living space, with Draco Malfoy. But that wasn't the real nauseating part. For some strange reason, he didn't mind as much as he thought he should.

Ron and Hermione were wondering what to say in the gap left by Harry's contemplative silence. What did one say to a friend that was going through something like this? Of course, what, at the basic level, they might want to do would not be the right answer. And they both knew it. Ron spewing about how much he hated Draco Malfoy would not change the fact that Harry now had to pretty much live with the boy, and Hermione asking about a hundred times if Harry was okay wouldn't do much more than Ron's spewing. So they were also silent. One almost had to thank Ginny, who like most everyone else in the entire school (barring several teachers, one parent, and one other student) didn't know about this predicament, when she asked in a low voice at Harry's elbow:

"Harry, when is the next DA meeting?"

Harry blinked, and then latched on to this safe and relatively Draco-free subject. "What?"

"We haven't had a meeting in about a week. We're wondering when the next one will be."

That much was true. They'd had only two or three meetings before the whole non-Draco-free subject came up, and that had been a while ago.

Ron also latched onto the idea. "Are you doing anything tonight Harry? We could have it tonight."

"Ron-" Hermione was about to admonish Ron for even suggesting such a thing, as the two boys hadn't even looked at the newest Potions assignment, not to mention their other subjects which were either half-done or not started at all. Then she caught the look in Ron's eye, and more importantly, the underlying idea of this impromptu meeting, and her tone of voice changed drastically. "-that's a great idea! How about it, Harry?"

Harry shrugged, completely missing the underlying effect that if they had a meeting he could put off spending the evening with Draco Malfoy. "Sure," came the reply.

"Good. Ginny and I will spread it around. How about in..." Hermione paused to consult the time, "...an hour? Will that be enough time?"

"Sounds good," came the reply. And the second half of dinner was spent talking in low tones among the three of them about what exactly they would cover, a topic that put the Veriae bond between Draco and Harry so far back in Harry's mind that he completely forgot about it.

The members of the DA (full name: Dumbledore's Army) had not changed much. One or two had dropped out, and three or four had asked to be in. But the idea of the DA was not wide spread throughout Hogwarts. This was purely political, really. Even in times of crisis, rules had to be followed, and the formation of an "army" in school was not to be allowed. In truth, this was something which Harry agreed with. He could just hear the messages of the Howlers from different parents. I don't want my child in the war, and all that. Having been through the muggle educational system for most of his schooling, Harry was well aware of how drafting was used in muggle wars, and though he was unaware if the wizards had actually ever used a draft system, he was sure the reaction of concerned wizarding parents would be the same as muggle parents. It was a somewhat common muggle saying that "no parent should have to bury his/her children", and Harry also agreed with this, adding that ideally no one should have to bury anyone who died an unnatural death. Harry was still coping with the fact that if a body had been available for Sirius, he would have had to bury his godfather. He'd "moved on" enough to be able to live life the way he normally would, but the loss would always be there. That much he was certain.

And speaking of certainties, he was certain that he was slightly late to this impromptu DA meeting. So with hurried steps, he moved towards the Room of Requirement.

Down a few floors, in the dungeon, Draco Malfoy suddenly shivered, wings ripping through the fabric of his shirt. In confusion, he threw a quizzical look over his shoulder. That was weird. Then he sighed. He'd liked that shirt too...
Hermione and Ron had already--with plenty of help from Ginny, Harry was sure--separated everyone in pairs. The idea for the past few meetings had been duels, with one new spell learned every meeting. Hermione would teach the spell, with Ron to demonstrate on, and would then demonstrate how to block said spell, again with Ron to demonstrate on. Then the group would practice in pairs for about half an hour, before turning to small duels. On the first meeting, they'd taken turns dueling one on one with the rest of the group watching so as to watch for flaws or exceptionally done spells. Then they'd slowly progressed to one on two person duels, and one on three, all the way up to this current meeting in which there were six people on a rather large dueling platform (a hexagonal shaped duplicate of the platform Lockheart had used in Harry's second year) in a free-for-all in which the goal was to be the last one standing.

This, of course, had to be carefully controlled. No spells that would cause a trip to the infirmary was the major rule, although they'd broken that once or twice... fortunately Dumbledore had talked to Madam Pomfrey about it and explained the situation. She'd been much more forgiving after that... well, not forgiving, but less condescending at least.

Tonight, after Hermione finished her demonstration of a charm, which was originally used in earlier times to boil water and could be focused into a beam which could cause quite a number of nasty burning oddities to the skin(she'd taken a bit longer than usually to heal Ron, and Harry'd fought back a giggle when he'd realized that this was because she got to hold on to Ron's hand while she did so); the group chosen for the six-person duel included Harry. Most of the time, Harry found an excuse not to participate as he didn't want to place another spotlight on himself if he did something exceedingly well (he practiced quite a bit more than he let on in these duels and was therefore always afraid that he would slip), but tonight he had been roped into it. Taking his position, Harry felt rather strange, as if something was slightly wrong. Shrugging it off as anticipation or slight nervousness, he waited for the signal to begin.

All six bowed and waited for the sudden burst of light from Hermione's wand which was the signal to begin. Harry saw it out of the corner of his eye and barely had time to blink before a lance of pain shot through his abdomen. He doubled over and a charm flew over his head to form a slight dent in the wall where it hit.

The onlookers cheered slightly at what seemed to be a brilliant display of reflexes on Harry's part, but Hermione caught the slightly pained look on his face. Realization dawned on her and she hurriedly grabbed Ron to whisper in his ear. He paled slightly, watching the battle which was being waged on the platform.

Harry appeared to be dodging the attacks with even better reflexes than he played Quidditch with, yet he was not enjoying himself. Every time he was forced to duck in order to evade a curse or charm, the slight look of pain intensified on his face.

Hermione's wand suddenly lit in a red color, a slightly different charm from Lumos which had actually been used to mark off apparating grounds until the eighteenth century when a muggle had thought it to be a fire in the woods. The fighters on the platform stopped moving, and a disappointed groan went through the spectators as it always did when a duel ended without a decisive victor. And this was the shortest time yet. But Hermione ignored the questioning glances her way as Harry jumped off the platform and made his way towards her, his face barely hiding a pained expression.

"What's going on?" He whispered.

"Find Malfoy," was the mouthed answer and he nodded, leaving the room.

"What the-" Draco muttered as he was distracted again by a slight twitch from his wings which caused him to take a large lurch forward, nearly into his essay on the discovery of the Celtic Cross tarot spread (which was for History of Magic, and not Divination). Something was wrong around here. Then it hit him; exactly what must be wrong. Draco groaned, getting up.

"I'm going, I'm going," He muttered at his wings, which fluttered slightly in response.

Pain was now lancing down Harry's legs, from its starting spot just below his bellybutton as he jogged down the dungeon hallways. Luckily the hallways, which the dungeon was just crawling with, were empty in this area. He was so intent on getting to that Medusa portrait that he ran right into Draco, who was walking in a leisurely pace away from the same portrait.

For his part, Draco was not sent sprawling to the floor, no, he was merely knocked into and regained his balance rather quickly. As did Harry.

"Potter, I am immensely displeased," he practically hissed as he realized who had run into him. "Do you know how much this shirt cost?"

Harry's eyes didn't even bother to scan the shirt, the back of which was in shreds. "What is going on?" he managed to force out through his vocal cords.

"Oh, you mean why you're in pain? Honestly Potter, what were you doing to make the bond kick in like that?" Draco surveyed Harry's slightly hunched over form.

"Make. It. Stop." Harry rasped.

Draco rolled his eyes and stepped forward, his hand grudgingly finding its way under Harry's shirt to the skin just below his bellybutton.

Harry blinked as the pain disappeared. "Glad that's over," he muttered.

"Are you?" Draco quipped, raising an eyebrow in annoyance. "I hope you keep that attitude for the next hour and a half."

"What?"

"We have a newly formed bond, Potter. It will take time for that to be pacified enough to let us leave the other alone. See, I'll show you."

And not even bothering to hide his glee, Draco slipped his hand out from underneath Harry's shirt. Said boy blanched as the slight burning sensation appeared again. He looked at Draco with an expectant look as the other boy hesitated to replace the hand, but he finally did so when Harry, none too nicely, kicked him.

"See what I mean?" Draco drawled.

"Why wasn't I informed of this?" Harry spoke, his tone accusing.

"Because it's information that the Veriae knows and others do not." Was the simple and haughty answer. "Now, Potter, do you think you might be able to start moving back towards my room as I do not relish the idea of my fellow classmates finding us in this position?"

Harry nodded and the two began to walk in measured steps back towards the Medusa portrait.

Once back inside, Draco moved them towards one of the couches in his study (green leather of course). "Start talking, Potter, you've got an hour and twenty minutes."

"Talking about what?" Harry shot back.

"Explain what got you into this situation," was the answer.

"Well, let me think... nope, I don't think I know enough about the Malfoy line to answer the question of how Veriae blood got-"

"Not about that, Potter, about this," Draco moved his hand away from Harry momentarily to accent the point.

Harry sighed slightly and figured that it couldn't really hurt to explain. "I was in the middle of a DA meeting-"

"What?"

Another sigh. "The DA. Dumbledore talked to you about it-"

"Oh, right, I remember now. The little defense group that you started that I thought was a complete waste of my time. That DA."

Harry blinked as Draco spoke as though he was remembering a trip to Diagon Ally. Oh, that trip. I remember I went and bought this, that, and the other...

"Anyway, we were just starting a six-way duel-"

"You what? Are you crazy?" Draco practically shrieked.

"What are you talking about?"

"You can't do that, you moron! No wonder the bond was so upset." Draco looked accusingly at Harry.

"It's controlled-" Harry started to explain, but Draco wasn't done ranting.

"You're just up and allowing people to throw curses at you! Merlin, how stupid can you get?"

Harry fought the urge to groan. "Nothing even hit me," he pointed out helpfully.

"Principle of the thing," Draco spat back venomously

"Whatever."

Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then I'll just go to bed now." he drawled, and moved back away from Harry.

"Don't you dare stop touching me!"

"Potter, do you know how wrong that sound-"

"Shut up, Malfoy!"

Draco smirked triumphantly and returned his hand to its original spot. "The only person the bond will allow you to duel with like that is me," he pointed out after a few seconds worth of silence.

"Oh that's a relief," Harry muttered. "Because I would really like to hex you right about now."

Draco merely raised an eyebrow in response, looking eerily like his father for a moment or two. "You may find that harder than you think, Potter. Remember that."

So, after the most awkward hour and a half of Harry's life was over and Draco could remove himself from Harry's person without Harry yelping in pain, Draco wordlessly disappeared into a room, which Harry assumed was the bathroom to, as Harry assumed, wash off that hand about a million times. Harry himself would have done the same thing except Malfoy had beaten him to the bathroom.

So Harry resolved to just ignore the fact that Malfoy's hand had been under his shirt for over an hour, and set about making sure that everything he owned was carefully stored in his trunk (which had arrived at some point unknown to both Harry and Draco via the house elves). Everything was there, and Harry made sure that he locked the trunk before making his way to his bed, or what he assumed was his bed by the fact that the pillow cases were a bloody, red color. Very funny, Malfoy, he thought in Draco's direction before climbing in. This was when he realized that the sheets (and the blood red pillow cases for that matter) were silk. Harry blinked... twice. And then decided that he really didn't or shouldn't care. Whatever message Malfoy might or might not have been trying to send by that was not going to be received by him, at least not tonight.

Harry was vaguely aware of the water shutting off in the room which Draco had disappeared into, and was even less vaguely aware of Draco padding into the room in black silk pajamas, and was even less aware of the whispered "Nox," which cast the room into almost complete darkness. But he could not sleep. Not even when his eyes adjusted to the gloom to the point where he could watch the steady rise and fall of the other boy's chest three feet away could his brain seem to shut itself down for sleep. It almost wasn't fair, his sleepy mind thought. It's not fair that Draco can be more at ease than I am about this. And Harry drifted off to sleep before he could even register that he had just thought about Draco Malfoy using his first name instead of his last.

Harry was now starting to enjoy falling asleep at night, especially with the complete halt of nightmares, which he would grudgingly admit when awake, came with the announcement of Draco's Veriae blood. It was nice to have dreamless sleep in which the only thought which was shown to him was one of complete comfort and protection. After so many instances where he had to protect himself from the world, it was nice to feel protected, really protected. And as Harry drifted through this sleepy haze that was his dream world, he felt the silken caress of the ebony wings which surrounded him, and there was something else soothing too. Almost as if someone was there with him, something that he had never experienced in any form of a dream before (unless you count Voldemort's nightmares as people being in a dream with him). But this person, a male, was unobtrusive, and seemed just as calm as the aura of the dreamscape. The two seemed curled up together as if nothing in the world really mattered to them, as if nothing would ever break the serenity of this dream...

That is until Harry's eyes opened to make out in the dim light, sleepy silver eyes that were also opening, and when both Draco and Harry jumped apart from the embrace in which they'd been cocooned in with identical shrieks.