Chapter 7:

Confessions and Green Auras

Beta and co-author Lukanicus

Harry was feeling more anxious than normal this morning, not only brought on by worries over his classes but also by the fact that he got virtually no sleep last night worrying about the pending interrogation from Hermione. He realised that the questions Hermione was going to ask could possibly change their friendship forever. What should he tell her? Could he pretend that he was having a row with Draco? Yes, he could use that as an excuse. With the past history of Harry and Draco, anyone would believe that the pair was having a prolonged dispute throughout the day.

Harry's mind wondered back to the night before. He had spent a couple of very pleasurable hours masturbating whilst speculating on every conceivable deed he could perform on Draco. Then he had obsessed on some things that he wanted carried out on himself. He had pictured every delectable position that he could imagine with Draco on the next occasion that they might get alone together. He remembered the luscious smell of his skin and the succulent taste of his lips. The mere thought of it was starting to arouse him again so he quickly tried to steady his thoughts elsewhere.

Thoughts of the dream came back again. 'These fucking dreams,' he thought, 'why do I have the same ones over and over again?' At least last night, he had something new in the dream. This time he had a red glow emanating from his hands when he was trying to get his angel to let him save Draco. Harry was grateful when he woke up before Draco met his demise.

Gathering his thoughts again on this distressing morning, Harry returned his mind to the task at hand. What to do about Hermione? Tell her nothing and hope she failed to deduce what was really happening. Would that work? That was not probable when someone as brilliant as Hermione was involved. Fuck, Harry realised that by doing this he would be breaking the first rule of friendship. He had been so insistent that Draco adhered to it. No, there was not another tolerable alternative for Harry. He would have to tell Hermione the truth with the hope she understood.

Since Harry could not get back to sleep anyway, he showered and got dressed and left the dorm early. Being half an hour before breakfast, he decided to slip out of the still sleepy Gryffindor Tower and head for the Owlery and Hedwig. He had barely reached the bottom of the stairs to the boy's dorms when he was confronted face to face with Hermione.

"I thought you would try to avoid me so I got up especially early. I have been waiting for you."

"I'm really busy Mione can we do this a little later. I'm just heading to send an important note before it gets too late?"

"Who are you sending the note to Harry? I need to go to the Owlery as well. I'll accompany you and we can walk and talk."

She looked at Harry and smiled with an expression that said she had the upper hand and headed for the common room. Turning to a rather flustered looking Harry she said, "Shall we?"

Together they left the common room through the Portrait of the Fat Lady. Harry was in such a state of high anxiety that he could barely bring himself to look at Hermione. Luckily the corridors leading to the Owlery were completely deserted this early in the morning so no one noticed the strained look on Harry's face or the smug self satisfied one that was firmly residing on Hermione's. They walked along in relative silence for a couple of minutes before Hermione broke the quiet, "Do you trust me Harry?"

"Yes of course, Hermione. I trust you with my life."

"Then stand still and tell me in one clear breath why you spent eight hours in the company of your biggest enemy and why you have no scars or visible damage to show for it."

Stopping just outside the entrance to the West Tower, Harry had managed to compose his emotions but was still staring at the ground between Hermione and him. He hung his hope of preserving their friendship by continuing his strategy of misleading Hermione.

"Project work for Professor Snape, its all to do with the Order and stuff, highly classified, top secret even." Harry tried to feign a little laugh as if to cement his story.

"Ok, that was rather good for the boy who-is-crap-at-lying."

Hermione spoke in a raised voice, "I'm going to give you a second chance. Let's see if you can try and credit me with some brains, really Harry, tut…tut."

Harry knew that his plan of deception were useless when Hermione was the target. Hermione's pompous attitude was making it difficult for him to reconcile his feelings for her. He was still torn with the belief that neither Hermione nor Ron could handle the truth or his behaviour yesterday. However, it still came back to the same rule of friendship that one never told your friends a lie. Begrudgingly, he realised that there was no realistic choice but to tell her the whole, absolute truth. 'Ok, here goes,' Harry thought. "I've been having dreams where Draco is…"

"What, you are having dreams about him, HARRY!"

"Not those sort of dreams, I am being guided through all of these dreams by what I can only describe a Dream Angel."

"Really Harry, I'm sure that I would know if a Dream Angel was …."

"Do you want the truth or not?" Harry said getting quite cross at Hermione for not believing him.

"I'm sorry. Yes, please continue."

"Thank you, as I was saying, the Dream Angel sort of has this green glow around her. She leads me across a beautiful field of red poppies and then I can't go any further. Then I see myself trying to battle to save him but then I always end up seeing him die, its horrible Mione."

"What's that got to do with you spending a day with him? Teaching him to kill dragons were you? Just taking an axe to his mum would be a quick lesson there." Hermione smiled at her triumphant outburst. She liked the dragon statement. She would use that one again.

"Ha Ha, if you are going to be nasty I will just let you make your own conclusions and we can leave it at that."

"Oh, I'm only joking. How often do I get a chance to slag off a Malfoy? Sorry Harry, please continue."

"These dreams have been going on for two months since back when term started. And well, when he came over to me at breakfast yesterday and asked…"

"Draco Malfoy asked you to do something? Did he have his Slytherin posse with him to threaten you into submission? Was Professor Snape there with a pain of death potion if you didn't talk to the bastard? Why on earth would the most evil little sod to have walked the earth…"

Hermione was flying off the handle at him now. It was not that she was particularly bothered about Harry speaking to Malfoy. It was just that Malfoy could even dare to assume that he had the right to ask Harry anything. But Hermione had crossed over that undefined line of going too far. Harry had reached his limited of her abusive rhetoric about Draco and was determined to end it.

"Now stop right there," Harry stopped Hermione in mid sentence. "Draco is his name and whilst you are around me you will refer to him as that or you shall not speak his name. I'm serious Mione. Draco came over and said sorry to me. Then he asked if I wanted to hang out for a while with him. I told him to fuck off at first, but when I looked at him I could see that he was genuine."

"Yes, genuinely wanting you dead." Hermione said as Harry threw a very stern look.

"I went to get my invisibility cloak and arranged to meet him in the great hall."

"He was talking to one of the house elves when we saw him. I think we may have said a couple of things actually."

"You did, and because you did that made me more determined to see if he did just want to talk to someone. And feeling strangely guilty that I couldn't save him in my dreams, I said yes."

"Right, ok Harry; I still don't understand why you would spend so much time with him. He could have had you kidnapped, or killed or tortured."

"I had my guard up at the start of the day. But as the hours went by, we had some food and he did a comedy routine. And well, I sort of started to be happy that I was with him and that I was having a good time. I am really sorry that you were worried but I was perfectly safe. I just didn't realise the time. It seemed to pass so fast."

"A comedy routine, you've got to be kidding Harry. Malfoy doesn't have a bloody sense of humour. And how on earth can he do a comedy routine?" Spat Hermione, in a very bitter manner. Harry had not seen her so caustic about anyone since Rita Skeeter had trashed Harry quite some time ago.

"He did and he was wonderful at it. I laughed until I fell asleep."

Harry didn't care what Hermione knew. Now it was painfully obvious that he was not going to win her over on this change of events. She would have to get used to the fact of the matter that Draco and he was going to be an item and that there was fuck-all, that she could do about it.

"I had that same nightmare during my nap. When I woke Draco sang to me and held me close trying to take away the pain I was feeling"

Hermione's face was one of sheer horror. She had just heard her best friend say that he had fallen asleep in the arms of his enemy. Not only that, he had been serenaded by said enemy and held close and hugged in the bargain to boot. Hermione was becoming more flustered and baffled with every word of Harry's diatribe.

"And I sang to him. Then I wanted to kiss him. But Hagrid came and interrupted us."
Harry felt like he had just run a marathon. He was exhausted. But he had done as his friend had requested. He told her the truth. Now it was up to her what she did with it.

"There, are you satisfied? You have all the gruesome details now, save Draco and I kissing outside the Slytherin common room. Then I came back here and you…."

"You kissed him? And Hagrid, where the bloody hell does Hagrid come into all this? This is way too much information. What the bloody hell have you gone and done Harry? Ron, oh my gods, what is sweet Ron going to say? He'll have another kitten. You remember how strange he got over the last one."

"Hermione, I told you the truth because you insisted on it. If you can't handle what I've said … well … I'm sorry. But from today onwards, I'm going to be dating Draco Malfoy. And Merlin can be damned if anyone thinks that I will let them stand in our way.