Ch. 15: Cold, White, and Glowy

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

"Are you sure?"

"Unless the potion was meant to make me go blind, there are no results."

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Alright," as he recorded his findings. "Go ahead and take the next one, it's been long enough between."

Draco wrapped his delicate fingers around the next phial, jumping in surprise. "It's cold," he said softly, feeling his hand go numb.

"It looks like it would be, it's a frosty blue color," Harry said in a gentle tone.

Draco tilted his head back and let the cold, slimy potion slide down his throat. It seemed to settle in his stomach like a block of ice. He blinked slowly and set the empty phial down.

"Anything yet?" Harry said as he readied the piece of parchment and dipped his quill in ink.

"Noth... oh..."

Draco laid his hands on his stomach as he felt the block of ice explode in his stomach, making his throat feel pricked with shards of ice. The ice seemed to climb and fill his head, freezing every nerve in his face. His jaw fell open and he let out a shivering breath.

Harry watched in slight fascination as Draco's breath formed a fog. The blonde opened his eyes as something akin to frost sparkled over his eyes and brought the icy-blue of his eyes forward.

"Everything... everything is so bright," Draco said in awe. "It's not black anymore."

Harry quickly jotted down what Draco had said and questioned, "Can you see at all?"

Draco looked around and said, "Outlines. I... I don't know what anything is, I just see glowing silver lines. Do I look any different?"

"Besides your eyes frosting over and your lips being tinted blue, you look the same," Harry said softly. "And you're shivering."

Draco wrapped his arms around his waist and said, "I'm cold. Did you get everything written down?"

"Cold, makes everything white and glowy. Anything else?"

Draco laughed as the potion began to lose its effect. "Severus is going to love your technical terms. Yes, I believe those are all the symptoms. It's all gone black again, this one fades fast. I'm still freezing."

Harry lay the quill down and walked over to Draco, taking the blonde's cold, smaller hands into his.

"Mmm... warm..." Draco mumbled and brought the Gryffindor's hands to his cheeks.

Harry's jaw dropped slightly and he sucked a breath in through his teeth. He wanted nothing more in that moment; with Draco's eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar, to lean down and kiss the shorter teen's lips warm again.

"You won't forget about me, will you?" Draco said in a slurred tone, taking a step closer to Harry.

The Gryffindor was torn between pressing his body against Draco's and stepping away from him. He finally settled for standing stock-still.

"I won't be able to forget you. Everyone at Hogwarts will want to talk about you," Harry said and shivered as Draco's fingers slid down to gently wrap about Harry's wrists.

"Good. I... I'm sorry I ruined everything. I was having fun here."

Harry sighed and gently ran his fingers over Draco's cheeks. "What did you ruin?"

"Summer. Your birthday..."

"It isn't my birthday yet! You can just get me a great gift and call it even, okay?"

Draco suddenly started laughing. "This is deja vu."

"What is?"

"Your hands on my face. I go from sunburned to freezing."

"And I have the hands for all occasions," Harry said with a smile. "I won't punish you for it or anything.

Draco's face gained a bit of color and he pulled away from Harry. "I'm all warm again. Thank you."

"No problem. You ready for the next potion?"

Draco nodded and sighed. "I guess. I'm kind of tired of doing this. How many have I taken?"

"Two, and I think the first was water."

Draco crossed his arms and said, "Can we have a break?"

Harry bit his lip. "As long as you tell me what you really think about staying here for school."

Draco rubbed his forehead and said, "I already told you, I'll be fine. I'll miss the school, the people, the scandals..."

"Is that it?"

The blonde sighed and said, "And I'll miss being here with you, Hermione, and Remus. I feel like I'm part of a family here. It's... it's nice. I would like to go back to Hogwarts and make your life living hell like normal, but things are different. I'm different."

"I don't really think you are," Harry said truthfully. "I think you are exactly the same. For the first time, you have been forced to trust someone else, is all."

Draco didn't say anything. Harry drew his bottom lip between his teeth and leaned in, laying a cautious kiss on the Slytherin's forehead.

The blonde visible stiffened, holding his breath. "Harry, I..."

"I'm sorry," Harry, said softly, "I didn't think..."

"I..." Draco smiled softly and finished, "I think I'm ready for the next potion now."

Harry mentally kicked himself many, many times. He handed the next phial to the blonde and said, "Okay."

Draco nodded and downed the liquid in one quick gulp.

Hermione Granger was completely and utterly worn out. She had been wandering around Diagon Alley for the past four hours, being continually weighted with more upon more purchases for the birthday party she and Remus had been planning.

It had occurred to her halfway through the trip that she was a witch and that she could shrink her bags down to a much smaller, more manageable size.

She promptly felt like she was the stupidest person on earth.

She was about ready to head back to Grimmauld Place when he passed Flourish and Blotts, spotting a display for what seemed to be a new release. The title read: THE BOY WHO LIVED: The Life, Times, and Struggles of Harry Potter.

Hermione scowled and entered the bookshop. There were quite a few people lined up to purchase the book, most reading in line. A little boy who couldn't be over the age of six tugged on his mother's sleeve and said, "Mummy, I want to look at the pictures again. May I?"

The woman handed the book to her son and said, "Don't fold any of the pages Sam."

A few of the people in line seemed to recognize Hermione from the photos in the book and seemed torn between just staring at her in awe and asking for her autograph.

"Crazy, isn't it?" came a voice from behind her and she jumped. Whipping around, she was rather surprised to find Ron standing behind her.

"Harry hasn't even defeated You-Know-Who yet and they've already wrote a book about him. About his early years with his Muggle relatives, meeting us, meeting Sirius in third year and losing him in fifth. It's even got bit about Oliver in and how they reckon Harry will be with him forever."

"Sounds like Rita Skeeter had a hand in this," Hermione said in an uninterested tone.

"Probably," Ron said softly. "At any rate, I bought one for Harry for his birthday. Thought he might get a kick out of it."

Hermione started to reply but was interrupted by a gently tap on her arm. She looked down and spotted the little boy, Sam, cradling his book carefully.

"Are you Hermione?" he said in a reverent tone.

"Yes," she said and the little boy beamed.

"And you are Ron, right?" Sam said as he turned to the tall, red-haired man.

"That's me," Ron said with a wink and the little boy bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Will you sign my book?" he whispered, holding the book like a Christian holds a bible.

"Sure," Hermione said and took the book from the boy. She quickly wrote, with a quill extracted from her purse,

To Sam

From, Hermione Granger

and passed the book on to Ron, who simply signed his name in a scribble.

"What's it like being friends with... with..."

"Harry?" Ron supplied. Sam nodded feverishly as Ron handed the book back to him. "It's just like being friends with anyone else. He's a normal person, just famous, is all."

Sam opened the front cover of the book and his jaw dropped. He looked up at Hermione and said, "How did you know my name?"

Hermione smiled and said, "Magic" with a shrug.

"Sam, get back over here and leave those nice people alone," the boy's mother said and Sam rolled his eyes.

"All right mum, I'm coming," he said and waved to Ron and Hermione before scurrying away back to his mother.

"Let's go before anyone else realizes who we are," Hermione whispered to Ron and he nodded, leading her out of the store.

Ron took the bag Hermione had, which held all of her other, shrunken, purchases inside.

"Shopping for Harry's birthday?"

Hermione grinned and said, "Yep. We're having a party for him. You can come, if you want."

"Harry is probably still mad at me," Ron said sadly. "I would still be."

Hermione took the bag from Ron as they entered the Leaky Cauldron. I'm sure that if you promise to apologize he won't mind you coming. You're his best friend, he wants you there."

Ron bit his lip and said, "If you're sure..."

"You did WHAT!" Harry exclaimed, raising his voice over the laughter issuing from Draco, who was standing behind him, shirtless and soggy.

The last potion had felt like a fire had been lit under his skin and make him think he was in an oven. He had pulled off his shirt and seriously considered peeling off his trousers before the potion began to lose its effects.

Hermione bit her bottom lip and said, "I invited Ron to your party. Don't be mad, he promised he would apologize. I just think it would be nice for all of us to be together."

Draco tucked his hands in his jean pockets and said, "It's a lovely idea Hermione. I simply cannot wait."

Hermione sighed impatiently and grumbled, "Your sarcasm isn't appreciated Draco. It isn't going to be that bad."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Were you even here while we were fighting, Hermione?"

"If he says anything you can ask him to leave. I think he sincerely wants to apologize. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have gifts to wrap."

Harry huffed and said, "My birthday is in two bloody days. It's not that pressing."

Hermione narrowed her eyes and Harry huffed again, louder than before. "Fine. Come on Draco, I can tell when we're not wanted. I need to work on some homework anyway."

"I thought you said you didn't do your homework until a week before you go back," Draco argued, nevertheless allowing Harry to drag him along.

"I've recently changed my mind," Harry said simply. "Where are Remus and Snape? Do you think they're still in the garden? I bet they are arguing."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt they are arguing. I wouldn't worry about it, you have homework to do, remember?"

"But if I'm going to need to look for a new guardian I might as well start now," Harry said reasonably.

"I'm truthfully more worried about my godfather than Remus," Draco muttered.

Harry pushed open the door to his bedroom and gathered all his books, handing Draco a shirt and the Braille book he had been reading the day before. "Maybe you can make sense of it."

The Slytherin felt around for the bed, having momentarily forgotten where he was, and climbed onto it. He started with the first few pages, where the alphabet was listed.

He felt Harry crawl onto the bed next to him. There was a gentle rustle of parchment and the rhythmic squeak of the Gryffindor unscrewing the lid to his inkbottle.

It amazed Draco how much he was seeing without actually seeing at all. He could see Harry fill his quill by just hearing metal tap against glass. He could see the words forming on Harry's parchment by the gentle hiss the quill made on it.

His fingers hovered over the dots that were to represent 'q' for a long while, just listening to the interesting sounds coming from Harry that painted such a lovely picture in his head.

The spin of the book Harry had gathered creaked as he opened it and Draco was suddenly brought back to his senses. He quickly set back to memorizing the alphabet again, only this time, in Braille.

696969696969696969

Draco was reasonably pleased with himself. He could recognize any word, or at least any word not containing 'r'. 'R' was a bugger and exceedingly hard to read.

He had moved on to reading sentences as was quickly getting accustomed to 'The-Letter-That-Must-Not-Be-Named', as he liked to refer to it as.

"Draco?" came a soft inquiry from next to him. The blonde was slightly startled.

"Hm?"

"Could you help me with my work? You're really good at Potions, the best I can recall," Harry said gently.

"Why don't you as Severus to help you," Draco said in the most sincere voice he could muster. "He is the Potions professor, you know."

"You're bloody mad, you are," Harry said. "I can barely speak civilly to that man, nevertheless ask him for help on something."

"What do you need help on?" Draco sighed.

Harry smiled broadly and said, "Thank you. I don't really understand the difference between Veritaserum and your common everyday Truth Potion. The ingredients are essentially the same, they appear identical, and I just don't..."

Draco rolled his eyes. "They're identical, Potter. A truth potion is the same as Veritaserum."

Harry growled. "Then why would Snape assign an essay telling us to explain the differences between the two?"

"Because he wants to fail you. It's his goal in life. The main difference is that Veritaserum isn't diluted. It is the purest form of Truth Potion in existence. There is an entire section about Truth Potions in Chapter Seven. Just copy it all out of there."

"Okay. Thanks," Harry said and he quickly began flipping through his book. "How's the Braille?"

"I'm pretty much done," Draco said truthfully. "It's hard to recognize a few words but I can pretty much guess. I could probably read a book."

Harry gently blotted the ink on his parchment and rolled up his completed essay over 'How Varying the Ingredients in a Polyjuice Potion Can Be Harmful'. For some reason Harry felt that this assignment was much simpler than the other four assigned by Snape, and chose to do it first.

He unsheathed a fresh roll and began copying the pages in the book about Truth Potions.

"Well bully for you," Harry grumbled. "I'm so glad it was so easy for you to learn to read bloody Braille."

"To be fair, it is more pressing that I know how to read it," Draco said and flipped over onto his back, hugging the book to his chest. "I'm the blind one."

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever."

"So... Two days then?"

"Yep. I'll finally be of age."

Draco shrugged. "It's not all it's cracked up to be. You could use magic outside of school if we weren't in hiding. That's about it."

Harry grinned and said, "Once again I am going to stress the gifts issue. I had better be getting great ones."

"I have a feeling you are," Draco said in a mysterious tone. "Severus brought what I asked to pick up for you when he came."

"He probably sabotaged it," Harry said flatly. "Put all sorts of curses on it."

Draco started to reply but there was a light knock on the door.

"State your business," Harry said, not looking up from his work.

Hermione poked her head in the door and said, "Dinner is ready. Professor Snape cooked."

"Take Draco down with you," Harry said. "I'm not eating anything he has cooked."

Draco rolled his eyes and climbed over Harry to get off the bed, pinching his side in the process.

"Ow," Harry said in the same bored tone.

"Come on down Harry," Draco said in a soothing tone, "I'll even switch plates with you when we get down there, eh?"

Harry finished out the paragraph he was writing and said, "Alright. But if I die, I'm coming back to haunt you, Malfoy."

Thanks to brionyjae for the beta!