Usual Disclaimer: Unfortunately this world and its wonderful inhabitants do not belong to me, they belong to J. K. Rowling, I'm just borrowing them. I am making no money from this it is purely for the enjoyment of those few who choose to read it. Thanks J. K. for lending me your ready made world of magic.
A/N: Thanks to my reviewers, namely: JacksApprentice, FancyFantasyFairy, SheWolfe7, Superstar09, Siriusly Black 2, Fuzzy-Bumpkins, tamachann444, RilieDeAnnPotter5569, Raven, Fallen Angel(Hope you got my email), Separatrix,
And TigerLilly (Yes I will continue 'As Time Goes By' until it is finished but it's taking longer to get chapters ready than this story so please be patient.)
Thank you all for continuing to read my story and for your great reviews!
Extra Disclaimer: The lyrics below do not belong to me, they belong to All Saints.
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"My head's spinning, and boy I'm in a daze.
I feel isolated, don't want to communicate.
I'll take a shower, I will scour, I will roam,
To find peace of mind, the happy mind I once owned."
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Chapter 17 - Something So Wrong Yet It Seems So Right
Harry felt Draco's lips press softly against his own as he awoke, very early, the next morning. He opened his eyes and, as usual, the world was a blur until Draco gently put his glasses on.
"Morning." Harry murmured and he felt his mouth freshen as Draco performed a breath-freshening charm for the both of them.
"Are you happy?" Draco whispered. He was not smiling. This was the first morning Harry had woken up with Draco and not found himself looking at a smile, his smile, the one only he could draw from the Slytherin. This upset Harry because Draco was upset. The whole situation was getting to him. His sleep pattern had been disturbed through his growing insecurity and, unusually, he had woken before Harry, reflecting on his problems.
"Happier than ever." Harry whispered in reply without hesitation, kissing him softly.
"Really?"
"Yes really." Draco gave a small smile but his beautiful silver eyes glittered with tears as he quietly got up and began to get dressed.
Harry followed suit, dressing quickly and quietly. "What's wrong?" He wrapped his arms around Draco's waist, resting his chin on Draco's shoulder. They were standing in front of the full-length mirror and Harry looked into Draco's eyes via his reflection in the mirror.
Draco turned in Harry's arms. "I don't want to change the relationship you have with your friends, what you have with them is special and I know how important they are to you."
"You won't, I promise. If they care for me as much as I do for them then they will come to terms with this and... and I won't have to choose because they have to understand that I couldn't." Harry stared deep into Draco's soul, inspiring as much hope and certainty as he could in him. "You're doing so great Dray. Could you have even imagined playing chess with Ron a few months ago?"
"No..." Draco answered truthfully.
"And you did the right thing last night by the way, very subtle and effective."
"You noticed?" Draco hadn't realised it had been noticeable that he had purposely made a false move at the end of the chess game the previous night.
"Yes but stop worrying. Ron didn't notice, he was too wrapped up in winning and proving that he's as good as you." Draco looked ashamed for a moment before more insecure thoughts raced through his mind.
"What if it all goes wrong?"
"It won't. I have a feeling. Do you know what I was thinking as I fell asleep last night?" Harry asked, turning Draco around to look back onto the mirror while he picked up a hairbrush and began gently teasing out the few knots which marred Draco's silky platinum locks - the spun gold that only Harry was allowed to touch.
"No. What?"
"That I couldn't have been happier with how things went yesterday. That I wouldn't change a thing. That everything is going to be all right after all."
Draco smiled making Harry catch his breath. There was the smile, the one that belonged to Harry. He pulled Harry to him and they shared a long, soft, intimate kiss, making everything around them disappear - all that mattered was that they were together and that nothing could change that.
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
Hermione woke early the next morning, getting up with the intention of making her way to the bathroom to answer a call of nature. She made her way into the hall quietly, so as not to wake anyone but as she padded silently towards the bathroom she heard whispers coming from Harry's room.
Concerned that Harry might be having a nightmare, she crept quietly to the door of his bedroom, which happened to be ever so slightly ajar.
What she seen through the crack shocked her and made her breath catch in her chest. She clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from making any telltale noises. She couldn't help but watch raptly however, as Harry picked up a hairbrush and began tenderly brushing and stroking Draco's hair. She could tell by the intimacy of the moment that this was not simply an innocent encounter. They were talking in whispers but Hermione could not hear what they were saying as her attention was irrevocably caught by their reflections in the mirror.
Raw emotion flooded their faces and eyes, hiding nothing from each other. They were completely laid bare and they radiated a powerful sense of being. Hermione was hypnotised by the scene before her, it was intimate and tender and they were enraptured by each other, completely unconcerned and unaffected by the lies and betrayal of the outside world.
She immediately understood why they had not ventured outside (despite Harry's tendency to ignore rules - which had caused her to be most surprised when he said they had not been out). They felt no need or desire to. They were safe and content with each other and did not want to chance jeopardising what they had by thinking about the outside world, which was so easy to ignore or forget inside the secure, impenetrable walls of Grimmauld.
She caught Harry's words "I wouldn't change a thing. That everything is going to be all right after all."
She almost gasped aloud at Draco's smile when he turned to face Harry. It was stunning. He really radiated a unique beauty when he smiled. Then they kissed and despite her shock, deep down, Hermione thought it was the most beautiful, romantic and intimate thing she had ever seen, or ever would see for that matter.
They pulled their lips apart, leaving their foreheads touching, and Harry whispered "you better go before anyone wakes up."
Hermione, having forgotten that she wasn't supposed to be there and that she was eavesdropping, jumped and rushed as quickly and as quietly as she could to the bathroom where she remained for quite a while, trying to recover.
Her heart was racing as she thought about what she'd seen and about how close she had come to being caught spying on them. Her mind was spinning wildly as numerous thoughts struggled in vain to sort themselves out. They had seemed so comfortable and intimate yet this was a huge, strange... huge revelation. The surprising thing was that they had seemed so right together, the picture perfect image of them together would not stop haunting her. 'No! It's wrong!' She told herself over and over but failing miserably to convince herself that they were making a huge mistake.
'They were perfect together.'
'But they shouldn't be! It's so strange... wrong... bad.' She struggled to think of appropriate words to describe it.
'Why does it seem so right when it should be so wrong?'
It was as if there were two little voices locked in a battle inside her head.
'This means that Harry is gay! It means Draco is gay! And they are together!' Her mind screamed at her. It had only been three weeks since she had last seen Harry and the development of their relationship seemed to have happened so fast.
It had done Harry the world of good though, she realised as she remembered the depressed and distance Harry she had seen three weeks ago and compared him to the happy, relaxed Harry she had just witnessed without a mask hiding his true self.
'Why didn't Harry tell us?'
'Because he knew you would react like this.' One of the voices told her.
'They are perfect together.' The other voice pointed out.
'How can you concede that from a few minute worth of watching them?' Hermione contemplated her own question for a while, thinking about their complete openness with each other.
'Because they are so alike.' It seemed a strange statement. She had never thought of Harry and Draco as being anything alike before but it made sense. 'You can see their link in their body language, in their eyes. They don't hide from one another like they hide from you.' Her mind told her.
"They hide from us." She mumbled to herself. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She looked mad. Her hair, not yet brushed, was sticking up everywhere, her eyes were wild looking as her mind still spun and to top it all off she was arguing with herself.
This statement set her off on another train of thought. What had affected her most besides the intimacy of their relationship, had been the raw and open emotion she had seen in them. She had seen something she would likely never see again but would never forget. She had seen who they really were. Pain, love, anger, happiness, it had all been there and she realised just how much Harry must care for them to want to protect them from who he was. And on top of it all, there had been that smile. Draco's smile. It had radiated goodness and purity and put her in no doubt that he was a good person. She had heard girls whispering at school about how gorgeous he was, but they were wrong. He was so much more. He was beautiful. Nobody who had seen that smile could ever disagree. Little did she know that she and Harry were the only ones to witness the heart stopping expression of happiness.
After a while she got up and splashed her face with cold water, patted it dry and flushed the toilet before leaving the bathroom and returning to her room. Once in her room, she lay on her bed for a long time, turning over various thoughts and feelings and replaying the scene that she had witnessed over and over until she had exhausted the subject and decided what she was going to do.
She would accept it so long as Harry was happy. She would let him tell her in his own time because she knew that he would, eventually.
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
"Mmm, smells good." Ron said appreciatively as he drifted into the kitchen later that morning and began helping himself to the freshly made bacon, sausages and eggs Harry had just laid on the table. Draco and Ginny were already eating.
"Where's 'Mione?"
"She hasn't come down yet." Harry said.
"You're kidding?" Ron raised an eyebrow as Harry sat down across from him, next to Draco.
"No why?" A look of worry crossed Harry's face.
"She had us all up at half seven every morning at ours and it's half ten now."
"No need to worry, I'm here." Came Hermione's voice from the doorway.
"Morning." Harry greeted her.
"Morning." She returned avoiding Harry's eyes as she took a piece of toast and sat down.
Draco and Ginny resumed their conversation about potions. Despite all odds, Ginny was extremely good at potions and found that it was her favourite subject (glad that Snape left her sufficiently alone for it to be so). She was a talented potion maker but she lacked the adeptness that came naturally to Draco and he was giving her tips, for the sake of improving a relationship with at least one of Harry's friends, and it was going quite well. Ginny found that when the atmosphere was relaxed enough, Draco was incredibly easy to talk to, even more so since they had something in common to talk about.
Harry and Ron began a conversation about Quidditch, Ron filling Harry in on what he'd missed and giving detailed accounts of a few victorious games by the Chudley Cannons.
Hermione found herself taking in every detail of Harry and Draco as they were now.
Harry was Harry as she knew him but he was not quite the same Harry she had seen that morning. The Harry she had caught a glimpse of had the weight of the world on his shoulders and relied on Draco, who willingly did so, to help him ease the load. He had looked sensitive, vulnerable and bare while they Harry she was used to was tough, unaffected by much and shielded everyone from anything he thought might hurt them. This she had known, she knew he had always hidden parts of himself from them but now that she had seen what was inside, she knew she would never for get it.
Draco was the same. Everything was locked away except to those who held the key. Himself and Harry. The Draco sitting at the table with them was not the ice-cold prince of darkness that she had once believed him to be, but he was still not complete, as he had been that morning. She believed that she had seen his soul that morning. The soul he laid open for Harry and Harry alone. She had never seen anything so beautiful as when he smiled yet he had never shown it to her, Ginny, Ron or anyone else for that matter, she presumed.
'There bond must be really deep.' The thought came to her once again and she couldn't stop thinking about how they had been with each other. She looked quickly down at her plate as she realised Harry had seen her staring at them.
She felt guilty about eavesdropping and slightly awkward about what she had seen. The intense beauty and intimacy of the scene would stay with her forever but for now it was still hard to deal with Harry and Draco as friends let alone... lovers.
"You okay 'Mione?" Harry asked. "You look a bit... off." He looked concerned.
"I'm fine." Hermione replied in a strangely high and falsely bright voice.
"Okay." Harry reluctantly accepted her answer, still looking concerned. "I have something to show you all after breakfast." He directed at Hermione, Ginny and Ron. He had not planned on telling them about the Den so soon, but he found that he could no longer keep it from them. It had been on his conscience since they had arrived and now, he decided, he would tell them. They were, after all, Marauders.
