Thank you to ALL my reviewers and to ALL my readers!
Disclaimer: see previous chapter.
Thank you to Merlin and GoldenSunnyGrl for being such great BETA'S.
ENJOY!
JOHN
Draco had to be sedated after they told him. He hadn't been able to understand what was happening. He had sat silently for a few minutes after Ron had explained the letter Harry had sent him telling him about John, his friend Sheila's uncle.
"But he loves me." Draco said in an uncommonly small voice. He had changed since he woke up and the only explanation anyone could come up with was because of the bond.
"He does." Ron agreed softly.
"Then why?"
"Because he thinks you don't love him."
Draco stared at Ron silently as he fought an internal battle with himself. Should he tell this man everything? This man whom he had jeered and sneered at for most of their acquaintance.
"I have loved him all my life it seems." Draco said so quietly that only Ron could hear him.
Ron stared in silent speculation. The changes he had witnessed in Draco were amazing. Oh, he was still a right bastard when he wanted to be but...there was a vulnerability to him now. Something he had only associated with Harry up to this point. The normally calm Slytherin was shaking and looked two seconds away from a major breakdown.
"Then don't you think it is time to tell him that?" Ron asked softly.
Draco shook his head frantically. He didn't know what was wrong with him, he just knew that it had started the day Harry had left. He was scared. A very un-Malfoy like feeling. And he didn't like it. He started to shake even harder.
"He'll be happy with him, won't he?" He asked in desperation.
Ron shook his head, "no he won't."
"Why not?" Draco asked as his teeth started to chatter due to his shaking.
"Because he can never love him. Right now, he is lonely. He's trying his best to deal with this. It's not easy for him." The red head pointed out gently.
Draco was shaking violently now, "it's not easy for me either, Weasley."
"True, but he doesn't know that." Ron said calmly though he was eyeing the visibly shaking man with some concern.
"What is wrong with me?"
Madam Pomfrey stepped up to him and gently placed a calming hand on his shaking shoulders. "We don't know, Mr. Malfoy."
"Harry would know." Draco said with conviction.
"Since he is the one causing it, I tend to agree." Snape said dryly.
"What do you mean?" Draco asked sharply tying not to bite his tongue off with his chattering teeth.
"Look at yourself, Draco. Since when do you sit there and shake with fear? Since when do you show others any emotion? Since when are you in love with Harry Potter?"
"Are you saying this isn't real?" Ron asked sharply.
The Headmaster shook his head, "only Mr. Malfoy can answer that. What I am trying to say is this: Mr. Potter has had three years to handle this, too, if not understand what is happening, to cope with it. Draco has had a little over a month in which to realize years worth of frustration and loss. It is no wonder he is acting differently."
"Not differently," Ron pointed out with a grim look, "exactly like Harry after he woke up."
Snape and Pom nodded in agreement. "I fear we will have to put off our plans until Draco can handle himself better." Snape advised sadly.
"We can't!" Draco cried out.
"I am sorry but we must."
"But he has met someone else." Draco gasped out. He struggled to breath in but his chest seemed to have been frozen in his fear. "He can't..." Draco tried to continue to speak but he couldn't.
"Breath Mr. Malfoy." He heard Madam Pomfrey cry out but it was too late. He slid from his chair unto the floor in front of the Headmaster's desk, unconscious. Madam Pomfrey levitated him down to the infirmary where she settled him into the bed before casting enervate on him.
They kept him sedated until, when he woke, he had stopped screaming. It took eight days.
----------XXXXX----------XXXXX----------
Harry didn't love John. He knew this but in the short month he had known him he had come to respect and like the quiet man. John never pushed Harry. He never asked why he would sometimes go quiet and look as if he was miles away, eyes shining with unshed tears. He never asked why he wasn't allowed to go to his apartment. He never asked why Harry wouldn't kiss him though Harry could see the question in his eyes. And he never asked why he stiffened and paled any time he did anything more physical than hold his hand. Yes, Harry liked John, just not that way.
He was grateful for all that John did but he knew, deep in his heart, that no matter how good a man he was, John wasn't who Harry loved. He thought he could do it, find someone and force himself to be with them but he was wrong. He liked John, he really did, but the thought of doing anything sexual with him made him physically sick.
In his quiet way he explained everything to him. He told him that he was sorry if he had led him to believe that there could ever be anything more than friendship between them.
"You love another?" John asked quietly.
"Yes." Was the only thing that Harry could reply. Details were not necessary and Harry wasn't sure he could give them if asked.
They were sitting on the couch in John's living room. He had cooked dinner for them as Harry had done a rotation at the local hospital and had gotten off to late to go out to dinner.
"I am sorry." Harry whispered into the tense silence.
"Harry, we have known each other for a month, it is okay. I do appreciate you telling me before I became too involved." John said honestly. He refused to look at Harry but he could still see the wetness to his eyes.
"I did not want to hurt you."
"Thank you, still friends?" John asked with a forced smile, his bright blue eyes sad.
"I would like that." Harry said softly as he smiled back.
They talked for hours cementing their friendship and when Harry left he tried to explain once more.
"If I could, I would want it to be you." He said softly as he hugged the other man tight.
"Yeah, me too." John said sadly and then closed the door after they made plans to do something called repelling that he insisted was fun. Harry was doubtful but was actually looking forward to it.
----------XXXXX-----------XXXXX----------
For once in his life Harry Potter found something that terrified him more than Voldemort ever did. And that was hanging off a cliff, 75 feet in the air, by a 1 ½ inch rope. A 1 ½ inch rope! Oh yes, this was fun. NOT!
He was gripping the rope so hard that it wasn't able to move through the ring thing that John had said it would. Where was his broom when he needed it?
"John?" He called softly and as calmly as he could through stiff lips. "I would like to get down now."
"You have to loosen your grip on the rope, Harry. You can't move until you do." John called from above him where he was standing on the nice solid stone.
"No...I do not think I can do that John. I repeat I would like to get down now." Harry called a little louder but still in a soft but shaky voice. He SO wanted his broom! His breaths were coming in short, painful, gasps now and his grip on the rope was tight.
"Let go of the rope, Harry." John said from beside him.
Harry lifted his frightened gaze from his white knuckled hands to the laughing blue eyes of the evil, evil man who had talked him into this.
"No," he mumbled.
John grinned at him and with a smirk said, "what? The Great Harry Potter afraid of heights?"
He was so startled by what John said, it reminded him of the one he was trying so hard to forget, that he jerked away from him. His foot slipped and Harry found himself hanging, upside down, from the rope strapped securely around his waist.
"No...no...no...no..." Harry whimpered as he dangled fifty feet from the ground. Unfamiliar curse words flew from his lips and he shocked himself so badly that he fell silent. Hanging there brought back memories of flying on his trusty Firebolt and of falling from 100 feet high in his third year. Those memories led to memories of silver blue eyes glaring at him in anger and he had to swallow another whimper. He wasn't scared of heights, never had been, but right now, trapped in the memories he was trying to forget, he was terrified. He gave a quiet sad little whimper and let the blackness overcome him.
His last thought: where the fuck was his broom?
----------XXXXX----------XXXXX----------
He had a concussion and a broken arm and had to stay in bed for three days. John was very sympathetic and took the time out of his busy schedule, he was a lawyer, to keep watch over him. Harry could have healed himself but then he would have had to explain to John how he could have a broken arm one minute and a perfectly working one a day later. He would give it a few weeks and then he would take the cast off.
He'd had a hilarious time writing to Ron about it. Ron had shared his horror only stating that this proved muggles were crazy. Harry decided to rag him the next time he saw him about the big plot of ink after that statement. He obviously didn't check to make sure Sally, his muggle wife, wasn't standing behind him when he was writing back.
"After all, I do feel slightly responsible." John had said with a grin when Harry had said he could go.
"Why?" Harry had asked from his couch where John had helped him too when he had come over for lunch.
"Just do...say, isn't that an owl?" John asked. Harry looked and noticed Hedwig sitting outside on the ledge. With a sharp shake of his head, which sent it to pounding, Harry indicated to his owl to come back later. With a hard peck on the window pane she flew off.
"Where?"
"It flew off. Weird. Well, I have to go now. I'll see you later tonight?" John asked.
"If you want." Harry replied softly not really paying attention to what he was saying. His mind was on Hedwig and the fact that she had come this close when he had a muggle in his apartment was not good news. He hoped nothing had happened.
----------XXXXX----------XXXXX----------
The once proud Slytherin was reduced to a crying, miserable, lump of a man. A lump that refused to remove itself from his bed.
"Get out, Weasley." He growled for the fifth time in as many minutes.
"Oh no, I'm not missing this for anything." Ron said with a grin.
"What are you talking about now?" Draco said with a sigh. He had been trying to get him to leave for the last ten minutes. He absolutely hated that goofy grin on that freckled face.
"He is talking about 'The Plan'". Came the silky voice of the Headmaster as he leaned against the door to his Potions Master's bedroom. A room the man hadn't left in days.
Ron let out a loud laugh at the astonished look on Draco's face.
"Get up Draco, and take a bath, you stink. Meet us in my office in twenty minutes." He said before he left in a swirl of black robes.
Draco lifted hopeful eyes to see Ron grinning down at him, "really?"
Ron nodded and then laughed as Draco scrambled out of his bed and ran into the bathroom. He laughed even harder when seconds later the door was flung open and Draco raced out of the bathroom, ran to his closet, grabbed the first pants and shirt he came across, stubbed his toe as he turned and hopped over to his dresser, cursing, where he flung open a drawer and removed a pair of red silk boxers. He then hobbled to the bathroom and slammed the door.
Ron burst out laughing again. He didn't like the Ferret all that much but sometimes he was just plain, damnfunny.
----------XXXXX----------XXXXX----------
There! All those nasty reviews I got about John! Ha! Serves you right.
As if I would do that!
Heheheheh!!!! Damn that really doesn't look like an evil laugh does it. Ya'll just think that is my evil laugh, okay?
Well, the next part we see what 'The Plan' is.
ENJOY!
LMG