Harry was the first to awaken the next morning. He rolled over to see Draco squeezed all the way to the edge of the bed, turned away from him and curled into a ball. It was almost insulting how extremely he was lying to get away from him even in sleep. Then he saw a small flash of light and as he sat up he saw Draco's hand slipping away from his wand. "What was that? What did you do?"

"Huh? Wha?" Draco did a bad job of acting as if he'd just awoken, although he did appear rather groggy. He couldn't have been awake long.

"Don't 'Huh? Wha?' me, Malfoy. I know you weren't sleep spelling. What did you do?" Grabbing Draco's shoulder, Harry rolled him over onto his back. The ivory sleep shirt had ridden up on his belly exposing a small patch of skin with a platinum trail of hair that led down into the drawstring pyjama pants. Harry was mesmerized by how it glinted in the rays of the morning sun.

Draco sat up and yanked his shirt down. "What wand are you really interested in knowing about, Potter?" He leered at Harry, slapping his hand down on the sheets. The movement seemed a little odd, but Harry was too flustered to comment.

"I'm just waking up! I don't have my glasses on!" The protests just made Draco appear more bemused than he already did. Harry ignored the cocksure grin. "Anyway... what were you doing?" He reached back for his glasses and pushed them onto his face.

"I was grabbing for my wand, waking up with you is creepy. I was scared," Draco said in a mocking tone as he rolled out of bed.

"Snape isn't around to hold you so you went for your wand?" Harry clapped his hand over his mouth in regret, it sounded quite jealous as it came out of his mouth.

"Something like that." Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm heading for the shower first since you seem to have some denial to straighten out."

"Wait! I'm not done with you! You can't go until I say so!"

Pausing in front of the door to the bathroom, Draco crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. "And why not?"

"You're still considered hostile. You're a prisoner!" Harry bounded out of bed and headed towards Draco. He wanted to know what was going on with Draco and the wand, or so he told himself. There were loads of other answers he wanted out of him; the wand issue seemed a convenient start.

"A prisoner? After I-- after the-- I'm a prisoner? Are you going to chain me to the bed next?" They both stared at each other, both refusing to admit how dirty that sounded. Perhaps even appealing.

Harry cleared his throat. "I don't think it will come to that. I just want to know what you were doing with your wand."

"Y'know, Potter... I think I've earned a bit of trust with you. I gave you that Horcrux, even though I was wrongly protecting you from it. Then I gave you the means to destroy it. I think I've earned the right to handle my wand in bed." Harry pressed his lips together to try not to laugh. "You know what I mean!" Draco's shoulders stiffened and he did his best not to acknowledge how embarrassed he was by that.

"Fine, then. Just tell me this, then. Why were you snuggling up to Snape like an alley cat looking for attention?"

Draco perked a brow. "Alley cats are feral. They don't want attention."

"You know what I mean!" Harry stepped closer as Draco gave him a curious look.

"To distract him from the herd of elephants who thought they were sneaky sidling up to the door for a listen."

"I didn't... I wasn't making noise then," Harry insisted, remembering his little outburst didn't come until after he'd seen Draco's pettipants. He blushed at the memory of that perfect, pert arse covered in fluffy ruffles and looked away.

Opening his mouth for a moment while his eyes cast over Harry's face, Draco looked just about to say something and then changed his mind when Harry looked away. " I made up another story about the kids; to cover the second... noisesome distraction. You lot need to sort out how to move more quietly. At the time I didn't want him to know you all were here, but I suppose he should be informed."

"Are you going to firecall him?"

Draco shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. I can't contact him. It will have to wait until he checks in on us again. Even then..."

Harry took a few steps back and sat down. He'd let Draco shower first. "You don't trust him."

"Of course I trust him. He killed that senile old man for me." Draco's glare dared Harry to remark on that.

"He wasn't senile. Don't ever talk about Dumbledore like that again." Harry kept eye contact with Draco until the other boy nodded. Then he continued. "I doubt Snape was doing it for you." Looking down, Harry realized didn't know that for a fact. However, he couldn't imagine Snape doing something for someone else with nothing to gain. Unless what he hoped to gain... "It's a little weird that he'd... want to touch you like that, isn't it?"

Draco tilted his head and appeared amused. "Well, I don't know how weird it is, really. It's not terribly uncommon in the upper echelons of British or Wizarding society for an older man to take a younger male lover."

"What? You mean... like... gay?" Harry's eyes widened. All he could do was gape at Draco's insinuation.

"Given how you've been... " Draco cleared his throat and looked down at his shuffling feet. "Err... I wouldn't think that concept would be so alien to you."

Finding that statement incomprehensible, Harry turned his back on Draco. Somehow Draco's coyness made the whole thing even less bearable. "Um... right then. Well... err... I think we'll be destroying the locket after breakfast if you umm... want to see." He winced. Want to see? It might be interesting, Harry couldn't quite recall what happened the first time very clearly, it was lost to a haze of being poisoned. When he didn't hear a response, he turned around to see Draco gone and the door shut. The water started and Harry was left with an unidentifiable feeling in his stomach about Draco's nudity just beyond that door. Rather than confront or embrace what that feeling was, Harry fled the room for breakfast.

--

Like many boys his age, Harry practiced a morning ritual of showering and wanking. This practice had been stunted by having to live at the Burrow where anyone could walk into the bathroom at any time and often did. While there was little in this world worse than living with the Dursleys, at least they left him alone so he could get in a good toss before he had to cook breakfast. Needless to say, between a month of stunted masturbatory practices and thinking of the way Draco's arse had undulated under those ruffles, he was feeling quite tense at breakfast.

"Figures Malfoy would hog the bathroom. Probably in there primping." Ron nodded sagely and nudged at Harry's arm as he took a bite out of the fried bread. Hermione rolled her eyes at the wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

Harry paled at the thought that perhaps if he did take a longer shower than usual at some point that Ron and Hermione might discuss what was taking him so long in the shower. "Some people just take long showers. There's nothing wrong with that!" Harry protested.

Ron snorted. "You keep thinking that, mate. I don't blame you. Who would want to think of that ferrety git doing something like that anyway?"

Catching Hermione's moony look, Harry felt a spark of irritation that she was likely imagining it. "Doesn't look like Hermione minds thinking about that."

Hermione immediately looked shocked at Harry as Ron glared at her, having caught a mere trace of her blissful expression. "What?"

"Were you thinking about him?" Ron's face brightened to red. His jaw set as her cheeks turned rosy. "Well-- I-- that's..." Hermione sputtered.

Instantly Harry regretted his brashness. Ron had his back up and Hermione was already muttering things about hormones and it only being natural and other, less rational things about how Won-Won didn't have room to criticise. It was looking to be World War III when Harry banged his fist on the table to get their attention. "Look, we have a Horcrux and I thought today would be a good day to destroy it. But if you lot want to continue discussing Malfoy in the shower, I'll do it myself." With that, he pushed himself up from the table, leaving his half eaten breakfast on the table as he headed to his room.

The gold locket glinted innocuously in the morning light next to the elfin blade he was going to use to pry it open and destroy that bit of Voldemort's soul. He would've liked to have had a shower, but the tap was still running. The door wasn't quite shut tightly and the bright, citrus fragrance poured into the room. Deciding to knock on the door to see if Draco wanted to watch him destroy the Horcrux, Harry was stunned when the door noiselessly opened.

Draco's forehead was pressed against his forearm, which lay across the dingy grey tile. The opaque green curtain was back just far enough for Harry to see Draco's fist as it moved in and out of view. His glasses started to fog, but he fancied he caught glimpses of Draco's purpled prick poking through the pale fingers. Draco's gasps only barely sounded over the sound of the water. The side of his face was blotchy and pink, his hair slicked back on his head with only a few dripping tendrils out of order. His mouth opened wider and his gasps were more pronounced. Draco raised his head, the crown was drenched by the streams for them shower as his hand slowed. He blinked a few times and then his head lolled to the side. It took Harry a moment to realize that Malfoy's grey eyes were fixed on him. He thought he caught a faint, open-mouthed grin before the screech of the shower curtain being pulled closed obstructed his view.

--

"It's probably better he doesn't come out here, Harry," Hermione whispered, looking over her shoulder at Ron pacing in front of the house. The sun dappled his red hair as he kept glancing at the door to Snape's house and then back to Harry. "What did he say to you that has you so rattled?"

Whilst Harry realized that Hermione was just trying to be a good friend and that she rightly believed that there was little to nothing Draco could say that would rattle him this badly, he really didn't want to talk about it. "He... he didn't say anything. Look, it's not important. Tell Ron to come back here," he said as he tried arranging the locket on the blackened tree stump as if the display would make it any easier to pry open.

"Do you know how to do it? How did you destroy the journal?" she asked as she waved her arm at Ron to come back when she caught his eye.

"I just... I don't know. I just... stabbed it. I didn't know I was doing anything particularly clever. So I guess that's all I have to do. This is supposed to cut through anything so..." Harry held the hilt in his fist and prepared to stab at it when he heard an odd rhythmic inorganic susurration.

"No one invited you," Harry heard Ron say. He whirled around to see Malfoy, his hair still slightly damp from his long shower dressed in his prim maid's uniform. The bright white of the pinafore was almost blinding. Using his hand to shield his eyes from the son as if it would help, he noted that most of Draco's face was cast in shadow thanks to a tree branch. All Harry could see was the trademark sneer.

"I thought Potty was trying to," Draco cleared his throat pointedly, which caused Harry to blush and look away, "extend an invitation earlier."

Harry couldn't even turn around to look again. "Why are you wearing that?"

Hearing Malfoy's approach, he tried not to look at the black, pointy-toed shoes with the straps that tied up the ankles. Yes, his thin ankles, lovingly crisscrossed in black mesh that led up to his-- "Well, it's your Horcrux, your big day. I just thought I'd wear your favourite outfit. Was there something else you'd rather I wear, Potter?" Harry thought he could hear the leer in his voice.

"I just thought you might want to watch this, no special attire was required. I don't care what you wear, Malfoy. I don't have a favourite outfit of yours. You could run about naked for all I care." Even as the words left his mouth, he knew they were poorly chosen. He dearly wished Ron or Hermione might say something, but they seemed to have also been shocked into silence.

Peripherally, he could see Draco's knees as he moved closer, and then all at once, Draco was on his knees next to him. The frills of the petticoat stuck out from under the black skirt and Draco daintily arranged the white apron, smoothing it out. Though Harry had expected mocking and derision, Draco instead took a demure tone. "Well then, I suppose that you should get on with the destruction. It's what I came out here to see."

"Right." Harry held the locket in his hand and decided to try and pry it open first, rather than stabbing it. It seemed to make sense in a way. Pushing the blade between the gold pieces, it made an irritating scraping sound that made him shiver. He noticed that Ron and Hermione had also sat around the trunk, everyone in a tentative circle, braced to hop up and run should the need arise.

Draco leaned forward at first to peer down at what Harry was doing, but the scraping must've set Draco on edge as well as he'd pulled the leg closest to Harry up, ready to flee. His stiletto heel dug into the dirt. His knee and foreleg were soiled, and for some reason, Harry found himself unable to concentrate on anything other than the fact that Draco's stocking leg was half covered in dirt, from being on his knees. Draco was dirty on his knees in a maid's uniform, with his thin thigh stretched out, and he was unaware that his poufy skirt had ridden up and Harry again found himself gazing at the glinting clasp of metal holding the black thigh elastic. Harry's lips parted as he thought about what it would be like to slide his tongue along the flared skin above the elastic. Would it be soft? Draco's leg appeared to be hairless. He could just... Draco's thigh vanished under the rustling black fabric and Harry was forced to look up into the glinting silver eyes. "Are you going to destroy it, or not?"

All Harry could do was blink slowly and stare at Draco. He was shocked to find that Draco was flushing profusely and seemed to be having a hard time coming up with words, or so that's what he interpreted the soundless mouthing to be about. "I... right. I am." Harry turned back to the tree stump and looked at the golden locket still in his hand. He set it down carefully, "s" side up, as if that might make a difference. Though his instincts tended to be right more than not. Again he wrapped his fingers around the blade, steadying it with his other hand. He plunged the knife in.

Harry had expected the wind to pick up or sudden storm clouds to loom in. What he didn't expect was the small trickle of blood that leaked out between the sandwiched metal. The blade had struck through, a bit low for center, but whatever had happened, it seemed to have worked. Letting go of the blade, he sat back and just stared at it. Everyone remained silent, waiting for something else to happen.

Hermione reached for the blade. Securing the locket down with her fingers, she pulled the blade out with her other hand. The locket sprang open. Inside were a flutter of pictures of people Harry recognised from the Pensieve. Tom Riddle, Sr., Merope, Marvolo and Morfin's faces all fluttered out along with a blurry picture of Tom Riddle himself. They were all faded and pink-tinted as if printed in blood instead of sepia. None of them moved. Harry laid them out for the others, explaining who was who and why they were significant. They all stared somberly as if they were attending a wake for the lost souls. He started to gather them up when Draco put his hand atop Harry's to stop him. "I think you should destroy each picture, too."

"What? Why? You can only put the sliver of your soul in one object." Harry didn't know why, but for some reason, defacing the pictures seemed blasphemous.

"Because he enchanted the locket, if the pictures were in it, that's part of it."

"And next you'll have Harry cutting up the chain?" Ron huffed.

Harry didn't have a particular objection to cutting up the chain, but he still felt uneasy with the pictures. "This is all that's left of them, Draco."

"That would be the point, wouldn't it? You have to destroy the Dark Lord, not just here and there; he has to be completely annihilated. This isn't the time to get sentimental about the people who spawned him." Draco rolled Harry's hand over and placed the images face up on the stump.

"He's right, Harry." Hermione set her hand on Harry's shoulder. "I understand that it seems weird, but if there's any chance at all that Voldemort could use these pictures, then you need to destroy them."

"Bullocks! Harry doesn't have to do anything Malfoy says." Ron reached for the pictures, but Hermione slapped his hand away.

"It is weird that stabbing the locket didn't pierce the pictures." Harry stared down at the angry faces of Marvolo and Morfin and the sad, defeated face of Merope Gaunt. Taking the dagger up as he had before, he decided that Tom Jr. was the easiest place to start. He stabbed the handsome face in the picture and felt a surge of power warm his hands.

"See? It's bleeding." Draco sounded far too smug for Harry's taste.

Without looking, Harry could tell Ron had crossed his arms and gone quietly defensive. He exhaled and pulled the picture from the blade and stabbed into Marvolo. The same surge, the blood dripped over the portrait and began to pool with the other. He repeated the process with the rest of the faces, ending with Tom Riddle, Sr, whom Harry felt the most for. He knew what it was like to be caught up in something bigger than yourself. He couldn't blame the man for running away from Merope. Grisly work done, Harry started to gather together the pictures and the locket.

Draco grabbed the bundle and set it into his white apron. The blood blossomed in bright red stains in the satin. Though Harry might find that more interesting on another day, right now he felt too drained and too sad for all of those people who died because of the sad home life of Merope Gaunt.

"Of course," Hermione said as she got up and dusted her knees off. "The blood. Those pictures were made of his own blood, probably from pictures and memories of those people. The locket was Voldemort's tie not only to the founders of Hogwarts, but also to his family. Pure blood, familial blood, fascinating.".

Though Harry agreed with her, he didn't really want to think that much about it right now. He gave her a quick nod to acknowledge that he'd heard it. Harry stared at the bundle of wasted locket and crumpled paper as Draco wadded it up in his apron. "I'll throw it all into the fire, just in case. Can't be too careful." Then he looked at Harry with something that appeared to be admiration. He nodded and then strutted back to the house, leaving the trio behind.

"I think he likes nancing about in that get up. Look at the way he sways his hips." Ron had wrapped his arm around Hermione and held her tight against him. She rested her head against his broad chest and sighed.

"I don't think he does, and I don't think he's swaying his hips." Though he wouldn't put it past Draco to do such a thing, to Harry he looked more unsteady and unsettled than anything else.

"Then why do you think he wore it out here? D'ya think that he was worried that someone would show up out here and he'd need to look the part?" Ron nudged Hermione to start them walking back to the house.

"Ron, if Death Eaters showed up I think that what Malfoy was wearing would be the least of our collective problems," Hermione pointed out.

Harry quickened his pace as he walked to the house so they wouldn't see him blush, or his strange grin. He had another idea of why Draco might've shown up like that, but he didn't want to get his hopes up. Not to mention that no one he was with would be pleased with the notion. "I don't know, Slytherins are peculiar."

"You can say that again," Ron said. Harry could hear his derisive snort as Harry opened the door and stepped inside. In the relative gloom of the claustrophobic house, Harry grinned.