Black Truth

Chapter Twenty-Five: Snitches and Kisses

As her last class of the day ended, Hermione caught Ron's look from across the room and nodded discreetly. Ron flashed her a smile and turned to the door. Hermione sat a few rows in front of Harry and Ron in Transfiguration, so they were closer to the door than she was. She smiled slightly when she remembered the small argument they'd had about seating in the first week of school, how she'd been adamant that they should take their own notes instead of always coming to her. After all, when they left Hogwarts, they wouldn't be able to come to her with every little problem. Secretly, Hermione hoped that they would still come to her with their problems. But they still needed to be somewhat self sufficient. And so, in their first big argument of the year, Hermione had moved her seat up three rows from theirs in Transfiguration. They'd dropped the subject, Hermione secretly thought that Ron had dropped the subject because he didn't want to upset her and that Harry hadn't really been part of that decision to begin with, and so Transfiguration was the only class in which Hermione sat far away from her two best friends.

Ron was, as he had asked in their silent exchange, waiting for her near the doorway and the two of them began the walk to the Room of Requirement.

"Harry went ahead" Ron said awkwardly. He'd been somewhat awkward around her ever since he'd asked her out. If they were alone for a while, he would eventually relax but in the short times that they had alone he was… awkward, there was no other word for it.

"That's fine. I don't mind walking with you." Hermione smiled at the redhead, who was fighting back a blush. "In fact, we could do this more often."

The two entered the Room of Requirement to find Draco and Harry sitting in what had become "Draco's Corner", talking about something in low voices. Draco's only acknowledgement of their presence in the room was to end whatever conversation he'd been having with Harry. This was the routine. Whenever Harry was with Ron or Hermione, Draco made himself nonexistent, either leaving the room or ignoring them. In fact, the only time Hermione could remember Draco talking in their presence was that one time when Harry'd been stuck on the potions ingredient and Draco had told him what to look for as he left the room. While such behavior around them could be considered insulting, Hermione understood that Draco did it so as not to start any fights with them, and thus upset Harry. Ron still muttered under his breath whenever Draco purposefully ignored them, but Hermione didn't mind being ignored. In fact, she didn't know if Draco realized why he was staying away from Harry's friends, but she knew the reasoning. Any fights that, say Draco and Ron, got into would cause Harry to choose a side. So Draco kept his distance and they allowed him to.

"Ready for tonight?" Harry asked as he joined them. They had decided to work on an advanced healing spell for this DA meeting. It was rather basic, but if you concentrated on it, it would heal and protect you during a battle or duel. Little things like scrapes and cuts could be healed instantly if you got good at it.

"Yes" Hermione replied.

"When isn't she?" Ron asked, earning a small shove from the girl next to him. "So, Harry," Ron asked, shoving Hermione back "When are you going to tell me what made you almost late for Divination?"

Hermione turned to Harry and he could see a lecture beginning to form. "I wasn't late, Hermione, I was almost late. There's a difference. And I've got a good reason for it."

"You had better, Mr. Potter." Hermione scolded, sounding strangely like a certain Transfiguration teacher when she did so.

And so Harry began to explain.

The DA meeting had progressed to the dueling stage, with all of the members trying out the continuous healing spell in a duel setting. Because everyone needed to try out the spell, the staged duels were shorter than normal, timed and without a true victor.

From his section of the room, Draco looked up from his Potions studying to see Harry ascending the dueling platform. Sighing slightly, Draco rested the open book on his lap and watched the duel. No one noticed this extra pair of eyes.

In the first few weeks that Draco had been sitting in the corner, there had been a lot of speculation about his presence. But once the other DA members figured out that he wasn't going to do anything, they left him alone. In fact, most forgot about his presence during the meetings. Which suited him just fine.

His eyes watched as the duel progressed. It was obvious that this was one of those times when Harry was in his element, but still he was wary.

Harry dodged a bolt of blue light as he concentrated on keeping the healing spell inside his skin, something that was easy when you didn't have four other people to watch. Ginny sent a curse at him and he jumped to right… right into another spell of red light.

His head came up to see the spell, just inches from his skin, veer off course and spin, heading towards the boy who had cast it. Harry blinked. He hadn't done that…

His eyes drifted off to the corner of the room directly behind the boy who'd cast the spell at him. They locked onto Draco's eyes and Harry saw the source of that protection. "That's cheating," he mouthed in Draco's direction, ducking under another well placed curse. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Draco shrug, uncaring.

The next day Ron came down to breakfast looking like Christmas had just been canceled. Seeing Harry's questioning look, he shook his head, sitting down in his customary seat across from Harry.

"Don't ask mate, you'll see soon enough."

And Harry did see, or hear, when Hermione came down to breakfast a few minutes later.

"Harry," she asked as she began to load her plate with food. "Do you know when exams are?"

Exams? Harry hadn't even thought about exams. They were… four months away after all. "They're four months away, Hermione, give or take a week." This was the last week in January… so yeah, about four months.

"Exactly! Four months! Only four months!" Hermione said this as if it was a bad thing.

"That's a lot of time Hermione-" Harry started.

"I missed a whole month of studying! Normally I start when there are five months left to the exams, but I missed almost all of January!"

"What?" Harry mouthed, disbelieving, to Ron, who shrugged. They would never understand Hermione's logic when it came to exams.

Harry flopped down on the couch, completely bored. He had excused himself from breakfast, leaving Ron to Hermione, and found himself with an entire Saturday of potential boredom Normally he had something to do, an essay or something, but today he found himself with no school work at all hanging over his head.

Draco, who was sitting in a chair across from him, didn't comment on his state of boredom, if the blond even realized that Harry was in the room. His head was bent over some parchment of homework, an open book lying on the armrest of the chair.

Watching Draco calculating some angle--or something that looked like an angle… whatever it was it was some form of Arithmancy--from where he stood, Harry thought of something to do with this free Saturday afternoon. He turned back into the bedroom and sought out a small box from the depths of his trunk. He hadn't tried out the practice snitch he'd gotten at Christmas yet. Grabbing his Firebolt in the other hand, he headed back into the other room.

"Draco, let's go play Quidditch."

Draco looked up with a look that clearly stated that Harry was approaching insanity.

"Come on It's a beautiful day and I have no homework." He pointed at the Arithmancy (or whatever it was) with the handle of his broom. "And I bet that isn't due until Friday, knowing you. So let's go outside."

Draco sat back against the chair. "And suddenly seeing two rivals playing a semi-friendly game of Quidditch will look normal to everyone else in Hogwarts?" he drawled.

Harry pouted trust Draco to find some problem with his idea. "We'll find some place that they can't get to then."

Draco thought for a moment.

"Come on, I want to see how I do against a Veriae." Harry was almost begging.

A slow smile played with Draco's lips. "All right, you're on. Meet me at the edge of the Forbidden Forest in ten minutes."

Harry followed Draco through the Forbidden Forest down a path that he had never been down before … if it could truly be called a path. It seemed, though, that Draco knew exactly where he was going, and in a few minutes the two boys had reached an overgrown clearing that was only a little smaller than the Hogwarts Qudditch pitch. Sunlight splintered down through an overgrowth of leaves, turning the grass a golden green color.

"Not bad" Harry murmured in appreciation.

"I used this clearing when I was learning how to fly" Draco offered in explanation.

"So you can fly with only your wings now?" Harry asked. "I see you didn't bring your broom."

"My wings have reached their proportional size. They'll continue to grow as I do, but there won't be any more drastic changes. So, yes, they'll support my weight in flight."

Both boys removed their outer school robes, draping them over a nearby tree branch. Harry then began fiddling with the practice snitch's controls.

Practice snitches worked exactly like real snitches, except that one could restrict where they went. It wouldn't do, after all, to be chasing the snitch all over the Forbidden Forest itself. Harry estimated the size of the clearing, thinking there was maybe 1/8 difference between the clearing and the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.

Draco met him in about the middle of the clearing, holding a practice bludger. Practice bludgers were controlled the same way as practice snitches, but you could also set how hard they would knock into you.

"I set it to be reasonably annoying." Draco smirked as he let it go. The bludger arched out of sight, into the treetops, but both boys could hear it moving over their heads.

"Ready?" Harry held out the snitch.

"Always."

Both boys let the snitch go. Harry then mounted his Firebolt and kicked off the ground as Draco leapt upward, wings extending as he did so.

Almost instantly the bludger arched down through the leafy canopy and whizzed by Draco's ear. It headed for the ground and then arched upwards to follow after Harry for a while as he tried to evade it.

Harry had never considered how absolutely wonderful beaters were, as when there was no way to deflect the bludger. You had to evade it until it got bored of you and went after the other player.

"This is 'mildly annoying'?" Harry yelled to Draco after the fifth time he had to evade the bludger.

"Yes. We could set it worse if you want."

"No, this is fine."

Hermione was buried in the library, all of her course books (and even some that weren't required for the courses she took) spread out over the table in front of her. She was writing furiously, working on some study guide, and Ron approached the table with some trepidation. She had been working since the end of breakfast and it was now late in the afternoon. Even Hermione would need a break after that.

"Umm… Hermione?" Ron asked quietly.

Hermione made some sound of acknowledgement, her hand never stopping the furious speed that it was working at.

"You know, you've been working since the morning, and it's about four right now…" a nod was the only thing that let Ron know she was even listening to him. Somewhat more boldly than he felt, he continued, "And anyone would need a break after that… so I wondered if you… might want that walk now?"

The writing slowed and stopped. Ron braced for a lecture on how work was more important, blah blah, and was surprised when Hermione put down the quill. The admonishment he'd been waiting for turned out to be a smile and a "That sounds like a good idea. Let me clean this up, and drop my books off in the dorm, and then we'll take that walk."

As Hermione began to put her books back into her bag, Ron blinked in amazement. Not that he was complaining though.

Harry ducked under the bludger and twirled into the greenery above the clearing, successfully losing the annoying thing. Of course, now he couldn't see where he was because of the leaves and dove back down… right into the path of a rather large tree limb.

"Watch out!" He heard Draco yell and he pulled on the handle of the Firebolt in an attempt to swerve out of the way. It wasn't enough.

The air seemed to shift around him, and he was pushed under the branch. He could hear Draco hiss as one of his wings scraped the underside of the branch and both boys fell towards the ground and landed in an undignified heap. They rolled, Harry losing control of his Firebolt, which skittered away a few feet before coming to a standstill. Harry braced his arms against the soft grassy ground to fight their momentum and the two stopped with Harry's arms on either side of Draco's head, their legs entangled in the soft grass, Draco's wings spread out on the grass around them, and his mouth a few inches above Draco's own.

Harry froze, his eyes locking on the silver-gray pools that were looking up at him with no trace of a sneer. Just looking.

The clearing, the forest itself, was silent, waiting for what would happen next. Slowly, as if fast movement would break the stillness, one hand rose to caress the nape of Harry's neck, pulling him down slightly as Draco's body rose underneath him. Their lips met in the silence of the clearing. Harry relaxed and, leaning into the kiss, turned chaste more passionate.

Draco's wings, silken curtains of night, came up to wrap around Harry's body in a way so similar to his dreams. Draco's mouth began to explore his neck, trailing wet kisses down to his collar bone before returning to Harry's mouth again.

Harry's fingers trailed down the sharp aristocratic jaw line and down to the nape of Draco's neck to tangle in the soft platinum strands. His mouth followed his fingers to Draco's ear, pausing to whisper, "Is this you or the Veriae?"

Silver eyes caught his own. "Both."

"Good." And any other words Harry might have said were lost to Draco's mouth on his own.