I have decided that, as per complaints, I will take author's commentary out in the middle of the chapters. If I find the information vital to the story and not some inane babbling on my part, I will put it at the end of the chapter. I am going to be doing this for the rest of my fics also, so if you'd like to read those as well without the 'distractions' please do so.

This was written with a mix of Linkin Park, Slipknot, and, yes, you guessed it, The Used. I had an idea for this floating my head the whole time…

Disclaimer: Do you really need me to repeat this? It's not mine, nor has it ever been, so please don't indulge in the mistake that I do claim it to belong to me, trademark and all. Because, once again, it is not mine! Oh yeah, neither is the part of the song in here by The Used.

-Chapter 3: I Caught Fire-

The founders sat in a conference chamber just off their quarters. They all had separate rooms, but chose to have them located in one place for convenience.

"I must say, this is rather unexpected," Salazar spoke, breaking the silence, finally. He was hit in the back of the head by Godric. Other than a twitch in his eye, he showed no reaction.

"I wasn't expecting him to find his mate so quickly… of course, he doesn't know that," Rowena stated tiredly.

Helga sighed before crossing her arms on the table. "We're going to have to tell him, you know."

"Tell him what?" Godric inquired as naively as he could, something that only worked on the female founders.

Salazar's hand had found the inside of his thigh and pinched it sharply, shaking his head and tsking, "Godric, dear, you've gotten out of shape! There was fat there for me to pinch!"

Gasping in outrage, Godric poked the founder of the snake house in his stomach, which, to his dismay, was not at all flabby, something he should have well known, and ended up hurting his own finger instead. He grumbled with his head down into the collar of his robe.

"Boys!" Rowena shouted, slapping her hands on the table angrily. To her left, Helga was stifling her giggles at their antics. They were normally like this. It was a comfort for all of them to see something similar when their world was changing before their eyes every day.

"Yes, well, for all the dimwits here," Salazar aimed a poisonous glare at his lover, "we have yet to inform Harry about his future position in the wizarding world. And, not to mention the fact that he has just initiated the beginning of bonding with his life mate. And, by the way, that we still don't really know what he even is."

Helga and Rowena sighed as they tried to think over their priorities.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Harry had laid there in the bed with the comfortable weight and warmth of Draco on his chest for hours just basking in the content he felt. At the moment, a song came to him, but, he really couldn't be bothered to try to remember the name or the artist. All he could remember was a few lines:

Seemed to stop my breath
My head on your chest
Waiting to cave in
From the bottom of my...
Hear your voice again
Could we dim the sun
And wonder where we've been
Maybe you and me
So kiss me like you did
My heart stopped beating
Such a softer sin
(1)

Alright, so it wasn't as good as describing how he felt right now, but it just popped up.

Draco stirred in his sleep, mumbling something crazy about mutant purple gnomes fighting to take over the world (2) before he opened his eyes blearily to look at a chuckling Harry. He looked around a little unsurely. Maybe this was just another dream… Just in case, he decided not to push his luck. "Good morning, Harry," he mumbled cutely, only to be responded with another chuckle.

"Um… Draco, it's not exactly morning right now."

"Oh." Nervous laugh. "Right. I knew that."

"Sure you did."

"No, I'm serious. I did."

"Uh-huh."

Huffing angrily at his mate's desperation to not believe him, he poked him harshly in the chest. "If you must be so insistent, then I'm… going. I wonder if Hogwarts is any different," he mumbled after crawling off the bed, taking great pleasure in stepping on his mate's feet. (Oh wow. He had a mate! He still couldn't believe it, nor could he convince himself that it was not, in fact, a dream.)

Harry frowned worriedly. Sure, he wasn't exactly sure if the blonde's mood swings were over or not or if this was even part of them, but he still couldn't bear it if he was still sick. Oh, no, he had not forgotten the events of the previous night, rather, he would rather not think about them at the current moment.

"Are you okay, Draco?"

"Yes, Harry, I'm fine," Draco replied with a sigh, knowing it was pointless to be angry or moody to his mate. "Just a little confused, is all."

"Well then, what are you confused about? Maybe I can help… clear it up for you."

So much for not pushing my luck, Draco thought sadly. Maybe he would wake up before he got rejected.

"What exactly happened last night?"

It was Harry's turn to feel uncertain. What if his friend – he still wasn't sure what they were – did not agree on the events? What if he wanted to kill Harry for kissing him? What if, what if, what if!

He decided to try to get on level ground. "What do you think happened?"

His skin paled a bit, if that were possible, but he answered nonetheless. "You… kissed me," he replied nervously, but smiled slightly nevertheless.

"Yes, Draco, that did happen. And I meant every shred of what I felt and said, too."

Draco flat-out smiled now, and Harry smiled with him. Finally, he got up out of the enormous bed to stand beside Draco so he could kiss him on the cheek tenderly.

"I do love you, Draco."

"And I you, Harry," the boy in question replied firmly.

Sadly, this was the scene both Helga and Rowena walked in on, resulting in many 'awww's and much sniffing back of tears. Harry could have sworn that he heard something along the lines of, "our little heir is growing up so fast!" which caused him to shudder. Dear people, the women were slightly scary. But in a good way. In a… heartwarming way.

Salazar and Godric stood amusedly in the doorway, where they proceeded to pry the girls off the two polar opposites. (Neither founder could deny the way they balanced each other out, if only by their looks.)

"I figured that the two of you should be awake for dinner, so come!"

Harry and Draco laughed light-heartedly, as if they hadn't been through hell and back for most of their lives, and shared one last kiss before they joined the others at the door, where they proceeded to fight over who got to go first.

It warmed the hearts of the four founders. Really, it did.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was now two o'clock in the morning and neither teen could sleep. Damn those founders for letting them sleep so late! Now their sleeping schedule was just as fucked up as the authoress' was a year ago!

The dark haired boy sighed and leaned back in the arm chair he'd been curled up in, absently stirring his hot chocolate.

"Draco. I'm bored."

Draco snorted ironically. Of course the boy was bored! Who wouldn't be! They were the only ones awake right now!

"Don't I know it. You've said the same thing for the past three hours. Getting a bit redundant, love?"

Sulking – beautifully, mind – the battle-scarred martyr pouted at his mate. They had already discussed the matter hours ago when they had first been left alone and came to the conclusion that they would be 'boyfriends' for the time being until they really knew much more about both species – or more specifically, which species Harry was.

He mumbled, "damn you, Sal," before sighing again.

"The least we could do is explore the castle more."

This brought another disdainful snort from the blonde. "Harry, we discovered that the castle is no different in structure than ours was. And you know that one better than the back of your hand."

"But Draaaco," he whined persistently, "I'm bored!"

Blondie had to restrain himself from strangling him, and instead settled for just shutting him up.

How you ask? Well, I highly doubt that you need to, but still.

He kissed him. End of story.

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the founders went to check up on them that morning, they found a wired Harry jumping around the room excitedly. Draco, who sat on the couch, looked like a human spider-web. Apparently, Harry'd decided to play connect-the-dots with Draco's freckles, something that the victim was none too happy about. (3)

"You just had to tell the house elves to get him whatever he wanted, didn't you?

"You should know that someone that hyperactive normally would be a nightmare hopped up on caffeine and sugar."

Salazar chuckled nervously, as did the rest of the founders.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The rest of the day/morning was spent avoiding Harry as much as possible while he was still on a sugar high. And he kept singing off-key renditions of Queen songs! Dear gods, he had to mock the classics, didn't he?

Draco had a feeling that his mate would be paying for that one soon.

He just hoped he was around to see it.

Oh, he sighed dreamily, the blackmail opportunities!

Author's Notes Regarding This Chapter:

1 – That came from 'I Caught Fire (In Your Eyes)' by The Used. Give them a hand, ladies and gentlemen. I couldn't help it; I can connect almost anything with a song.

2 – I give all credit of that to JaDeD with ScArS... who still owes me the purple gnome.

3 - My friend was so hyper this morning on the bus, she tried to do the same thing. Damn you, Alex… Wouldn't let me listen to my angry morning music either!

I hope I put enough dialogue in this one, as some people complained about that for one of my other fics.

Responses to anonymous reviews can be found at only-gray. livejournal. com/ without the spaces. I highly doubt you'd even read them, but still, it's nice to know they're there.

So sorry for the length of time this hasn't been updated! I know this chapter seems like it could very well be the end of the fic, but it is not!

Until next time,

Cher