Hi,

here's chapter 4, a rather short one, but I hope, you like it all the same! Please review!

Now, on with the story...

4 The Hospital Wing

The Boy-Who-Lived was slowly gaining consciousness. At first he only felt the soaring pain in his right forearm. Then he began to realise that he heard someone whispering to him.
"Harry, wake up now, we need to talk. Come on, Harry, now, before someone else comes."

He was not able to identify the voice, he heard. Damned, it had to be someone he knew. He just could not recognize, who it was. The person must have heard him groaning as he started to realise the pain. Still not being totally awake the Gryffindor started to open his emerald eyes. First he only saw white walls and immediately recognised that he was once again in the hospital wing. That was amazing. How did he get there and why was his arm hurting? He realised his arm was heavily bandaged, but why? And then: whom did he hear whispering just a moment ago?

Harry slowly started looking around and suddenly thought he had become unconscious again. What he saw, could not be real. He must have fainted again. He closed his emerald eyes and slowly opened them again. The phantom was still sitting beside his bed. Harry shook his head to become clear. He noticed a pair of shiny silver eyes watching him. Was it really… could it be…

"Malfoy?" he asked with a hoarse voice.

"Thank Merlin, you're awake at last."

"Me? You have been sleeping in here all week. You owe me an explanation but no, you prefer sleeping a whole week instead."

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you and not start fighting again. We have done that for years now and I think it is time to grow up at last and stop that childish behaviour."

Harry was dumbstruck. There was his enemy of six years telling him to stop being childish, to stop fighting. As if Harry had been the one to start the fighting…

"Harry, you could at least have the decency to answer. It is not as if I would ask you to be friends. I'm just trying to be civil, maybe we can come to a truce."

"What the hell has gotten into you Malfoy? Are you under the Imperius?" 'Maybe it is someone using polyjuice potion to look like him…' Harry added in his thoughts.

"I am able to resist the Imperius curse just as well as you are, Harry. So, that is not an option."

"What is it, that you want, Malfoy? Why are you doing this?"

"You have not been there. How could you know? Please let me explain and I have to start at the beginning for you to understand what happened."

And as the Boy-Who-Lived no longer argued, Draco Malfoy began explaining what had happened to him and his mother since his father was imprisoned. How Voldemort had come to him and his mother. How the Dark Lord had given him the order to kill Dumbledore. How he had felt that this was as a revenge for his father's failure. How Narcissa had nearly broken down and Draco had accepted the task only to save his parents' lives. He reminded Harry of the encounter in the bathroom, when all the pressure nearly caused a breakdown on him. Harry nodded; he remembered meeting Malfoy and nearly feeling sorry for the boy, because he seemed so desperate in there.

Malfoy continued with his story. He told how he had stood in front of the headmaster and had not been able or willing to really kill him although they were alone on top of the tower and he had already disarmed Dumbledore.

Harry had not thought about the fact that Malfoy did not know, that the Gryffindor had also been there and had watched everything. The blond thought there had been no witness of that situation. The Boy-Who-Lived was really astounded that Malfoy was telling the whole ugly story and not trying to embellish anything. That made his enemy appear in a new light to Harry. He had never expected Malfoy to be honest to him. But Harry made sure, he did not let show his astonishment or the fact that he did already know that part of the story.

And Malfoy went on how Snape had come up there and killed the headmaster in the end. And how he did not understand, why Dumbledore had not fought Snape but just said,

'Severus … please …' (1)

And how he, Draco, would have been able to save the old wizard, if he would have seen earlier that he would never be able to murder him.

He went on how he fled with Snape and the other Death Eaters and was brought directly to the Dark Lord, where his mother had already been held hostage. And then the punishment; how he had been tortured with the Cruciatus curse for not following Voldemort's order. How he had to watch them torturing his mother. He didn't know for how long the torturing went on as they were in a dark dungeon with no day light coming in.

Then the moment when he awoke from his unconsciousness. He did not know how many times before this had happened, he had lost count between being tortured to unconsciousness and waking up again only for the whole procedure to start anew. But this time was different. It was quiet around and he could only hear some footsteps vanishing in a distance. And then he heard a heavy door opening and in came a small beam of light and suddenly he knew where he was.

They were held prisoners in Malfoy Manor, in their own home. He looked around carefully, but it seemed the Death Eaters had no longer bothered with guards for them, seeing how weak they both were. He managed to gather enough concentration to wandlessly Accio his wand, which he hoped would not be too far from him. And really it came flying from the bigger dungeon room to his right hand side. He grabbed his mother and apparated to Hogwarts where he levitated her and then met Harry.

"So here I am, I awoke only half an hour before you started stirring and groaning. I tried talking to my mother but she seems to still be unconscious. For how long have we been in here? You surely were not serious, when you said, I had been sleeping a whole week?"

"I was bloody serious, Malfoy. But I don't know, how I landed myself in here and for how long I've been unconscious. Maybe we should try calling Madame Pomfrey."

"Maybe we should just do that, but could you previously tell me, if you do believe what I just told you? Can we call a truce?"

"Yes, I do believe you, as unlikely as it seems. For the truce – we can try. However, I'm not sure, it will work out. There have been so many things between us within the last years, how can we be able to overcome them?"

"Thank you for believing me, Harry, it means so much to me. For the things between us, I'd say that we are on the same side now. We have the same enemies to fight. And that changes a lot. You see, I had a lot of time to think, down there, awaking from unconsciousness, waiting to be tortured again and I understood at last that my father was not the strong and powerful man I always thought he was, but only a slave. And he had always been.

I also saw the evil the Dark Lord is capable of. I was brought up believing his way was the right one but now I see things in a different light. Until then I just looked up to my father and followed his views. I apologise for being so blinded and causing so much trouble with it."

Harry was truly amazed that Malfoy apologised to him. He had never thought the spoilt brat would ever do so. But he looked into the silver eyes, which were so much like Sirius' had been, and he accepted the apology and so the two enemies made a truce before they went searching for Madame Pomfrey for some answers.

The nurse was very upset with both young men being out of bed. She put them back at once and denied giving them any information. Instead she gave them a dreamless sleep draught and stood with them until both dozed off.

ooooooooo

When the blonde Slytherin awoke after a dreamless sleep he found the medi-witch fluffing the bed, the raven-haired Gryffindor had been lying in the night before. He sighed. It seemed Potter had left without a word…

(1) JKR HBP, p. 556