Sorry about the long wait!
I've been having some… personal issues to deal with and hopefully things will get better… but anyway.
Jk owns them!
On to the chappie!
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"Where in the name of Merlin have you been, Mate?" Ron asked him first thing when he oh so calmly entered the common room half past noon.
And though the red head expected to be either shrugged off or yelled at, his best friend only gave him a soft near-smile and said "Just… around"
"Just around? We were bloody worried about you, you've been gone all night! We looked for you everywhere" he started, seemly going into rant mode. "We thought you were gone! Captured or something!" he said, looking at Hermione for support.
The girl looked a bit sheepish though. She turned to Harry with knowing eyes, but nonetheless nodded fervently to her boyfriend "You really scared us, Harry, you should have said something" she preached half-heartedly.
Harry couldn't help but smile at her, it was very clear she knew where he'd been. And she even had the consideration to pretend she was as worried about his disappearance as Ron, not that the red head would ever imagine the truth.
"Sorry, I just… needed to vent a bit" he offered walking up to them and sitting on the chair opposite to their couch.
The red head mumbled something, but the fact that Harry seemed like a whole different person – or rather like who he was before the Department of Mysteries' incident – refrained him from complaining much. Whatever thinking his best friend had done by himself had really done him good.
"Did you have any lunch at all?" Hermione asked, watching him like Mrs. Weasley used to do.
"Ahm… no, actually, it's what made me come back" he said awkwardly "I'll just… you guys just wait for me here? I'll leave these stuff upstairs then I thought we'd go to lunch together" He suggested, gesturing to the cloak and map he held in hands.
Ron frowned, surprised by his friend's sudden change in attitude, but nodded fervently. And as soon as the boy disappeared upstairs he turned to his girlfriend.
"Did you see that? He's… acting normal." He said matter-of-factly.
"I guess he really needed some time… alone" Hermione answered, the hidden meaning in her words left unnoticed.
--
They agreed to go back to how they had been before, and that was enough to change his entire mood, his entire mind. When Harry had woken up earlier that day, he'd kept his eyes closed, hoping that when he opened them the blonde would still be there and afraid of what it might do to him if he wasn't.
But Draco had been there, he had been awake, observing him as though he had done it for the whole night. And the three words said before had come back to the messy haired one as he stared back into the silver eyes. The slytherin had indeed, very pointedly admitted that this consuming feeling shared by both was… love. And for the first time in the past week Harry had actually laughed. "It was very gryffindor of you to say it" he had told Draco.
It wasn't that the incident of the Department of Mysteries was forgotten or the pain he felt vanished. But as Harry walked into the Great Hall, both his best friends by his side, and his secret love smiling discreetly in that aristocratic way as he saw him, he felt much stronger to deal with the losses fate had inflicted on him.
He smiled with the corner of his mouth in a very accomplice way and held the gaze between green and silver as long as he could.
"Bloody Malfoy is staring at us oddly" Ron announced all of a sudden, looking very pointedly at said slytherin. "You'd think the foul git wouldn't be showing his face around anymore now that his father's been locked up. Too much to ask, I guess."
Harry opened his mouth, ready to say something, but closed it again. Ron had no idea.
"I bet he's planning on how to get back at you, Harry, we better keep an eye open."
"I don't know… he doesn't look like he's scheming" the Boy-Who-Lived said softly, looking away from Draco. "But you never know" he added in the end, to sound a bit more convincing.
"For the time being he's only plotting the death of his own lunch. Can we concentrate on more important things now?" Hermione intervened, glancing at the slytherin table before looking at her friends.
"Like lunch!" the red head exclaimed enthusiastically as at that precise moment lunch appeared all along the gryffindor table.
That said, they sat down at their usual places and dug in.
It did Harry a lot good to be surrounded by his gryffindor mates, four of which had fought alongside him in the last battle. Some people were still annoyingly tiptoeing around him, but the closest ones understood what Harry really needed, which was to be treated normally.
They talked about silly things; most of it concerning today's plans or the upcoming OWLs. And between looking at the blonde slytherin only a table away, and avoiding Hermione's questioning glances, Harry had a very passive role in the conversation, nodding and humming when he was addressed and making monosyllabic comments here and there. Still, it was progress.
After lunch the trio headed towards the gates, planning on enjoying a Hogsmeade weekend like they'd have done any other time of the year. But just like the last time, Harry already had something else in mind.
Ron didn't fight him as much as he had expected, maybe the red head was so impressed by his change that he'd let him be from now on. Whatever kept him improving…
Hermione, however, was clearly dying inside to talk to him. Harry could see the curiousness in her eyes, her desperate need to know and understand what was going on. After all, back in the Room of Requirements he didn't get to tell her anything, so she was still trying to figure it out. The thought made him smile faintly, she'd never change.
He started heading back to gryffindor tower, wanting to grab his map before he went to meet Draco, seeing as they weren't going to their usual meeting place. They thought it'd be ok to meet outside of it since the school would be pretty much empty.
"Harry!" someone called from behind him "You're back I see" they said in a dream-like tone, speaking slowly and softly.
He turned around to find two bulging gray eyes looking at him intently.
"Luna" he acknowledged, breathing out heavily.
"I didn't know you were back" she said again, and looked elsewhere as though thinking about something unrelated.
"I was at lunch just now, weren't you?" Harry asked and as he thought back on it, he didn't remember seeing her at all. As a matter of fact… the last time he'd seen Luna had been back at the Department of Mysteries.
She was quietly watching her surroundings and looked as though she hadn't heard him, but eventually her answer came "I suppose I should have been, but I was busy looking for my things. They go missing a lot, see" she told him in her usual calm dreamy voice, her spooked eyes looking into his again. "Although, I would have appreciated some pudding…" she said in a near whisper, mostly to herself.
He frowned and was about to say something, when she continued.
"But they always show up later, I don't usually look for them, but this time I really needed my book." Sighing, she shook her head, as though trying to keep her attention from waning.
"Err… what does it look like? If I find it, I'll let you know" he said, trying to be helpful and at the same time not wanting to go off volunteering the time he should be spending with another silver-eyed blond.
She looked at nothing in particular, frowning as though trying hard to picture it. "It very…" her expression relaxed a bit "…old"
Well, that about described three fourths of all books inside Hogwarts Castle, very helpful.
He wasn't quite sure what to say so a very incoherent noise left his throat. And it didn't matter, really, since the Ravenclaw started speaking once again.
"Oh, but… it doesn't matter much right now." Luna said shrugging "It was you I wanted to show it to"
The Boy-Who-Lived frowned "Me?"
"I thought it might have interested you, Harry. See, it talks about magical artifacts that have unknown effects." She explained simply, and at his frowning face, she went on "The veil." She said matter-of-factly, as though reminding him of something.
"What?" he asked at once, she had found something about it?!
"I don't quite remember everything, but the important thing is… no one knows what that veil is for. All they know is that no one that goes in ever comes out. One man did, though" she added on a side note, as though that was the most irrelevant piece of information.
"Are you serious?! Someone has come out of the archway? How? How did they do it? Does it say what it's like inside? Where did they go?" he asked as fast as he could muster. Hope he didn't even know he had was rising up inside of him and even though Luna was known for believing in the most unreal and insane things, he ignored it for that moment. Just because she could go on about Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorckaks didn't mean she was completely daft, right?
"Well, that's just it, isn't it? It doesn't say who they were, only that they were completely mental." The blonde said sadly. "They never got a straight answer".
And there went his hope.
"But… but they came back right? They did come back? Mental or not, they got back out?" he asked, he had to know as much as he could even if it was an unbelievably farfetched idea. "So.. the veil… doesn't kill?" the question came out soft, as though it was meant only to himself.
The girl shrugged softly "I don't know… it is a very old book. And it doesn't even talk about the Department of Mysteries at all. It's so old that maybe in the time it was written the veil wasn't even there. But I suppose that… since someone got out, it can't really kill you, can it?" she reasoned "And… the voices… you could hear their voices too, couldn't you Harry? You could hear their whispers just like me. So that means… they're still there, somehow."
His eyes widen. Yes he had heard them! But he hadn't said anything! He'd just be called crazy and now, now he wasn't the only one! And if he could just read the book then maybe-
"Did you try accioing it, Luna?!" he asked, his voice coming out much more desperate than he had intended.
"Oh… " she murmured, looking around again "I thought about it, but it's got anti-theft hexes protecting it, it can't be accioed." Her explanation brought him down again.
He was so anxious on getting his hands on it that he was about to offer his help, but a glimpse of a blonde head that had just climbed up the stairs caught his eyes. He couldn't help but watch Draco as the slytherin went outside, certainly going to their meeting place already.
Which obviously meant Harry was the one late.
Still the idea of having something, anything, that could help him find a way to bring his fathers back from the dead – or... from the living wherever they were – was too inviting. But Luna's avid imagination and easily mislead mind wasn't something a person would… really rely on, so in the end he decided to talk the thing over with someone first. He wanted to know if something like that could be possible before he got his hopes us just to have them crushed again. And, well, Hermione was off in Hogsmeade with Ron which left one Malfoy with the title of resident know-it-all.
"Luna, if you find it… will you remember to tell me? I'm really interested in what it has to say" he said very slowly, as though explaining matters of life and death to a five year old child.
"Tell you?" the girl asked dreamily, looking at him as though she had just forgotten what they were talking about "Oh yeah, I'll tell you when the book shows up" she assured with a smile.
He nodded to her with half a smile "Thanks, so.. ahm… I'll see you around"
"Yeah…"
When he started walking away though, Luna stepped forward and said "Don't worry, Harry, everything we lose… always comes back to us. Even if it's not in the way we had expected" then she turned on her heels before he had a chance to reply, humming away happily as she skipped along the corridor apparently oblivious to the fact that she was missing one of her shoes.
--
"That mental case?" Draco asked very skeptically as soon as he heard the absurd idea first hand from the hopeful Gryffindor. "If I'm not mistaken she also believes in Wrackspurts and Blibbering Humdingers."
"But this wasn't her! It was in the boo-"
"Harry, she reads The Quibbler, no, scratch that, her father is the editor of that rubbish. Do I have to say anything else? Who knows what kind of 'literature' they have lying around the house. She got all of her other insane ideas out of books too, I'm sure." He said very matter-of-factly.
Finally the Boy-Who-Lived, who was walking up and down on the grass, let out a frustrated growl and sat down.
"…I just… magic is so… there's always a way for everything…" he mumbled, feeling his unhealed emotional wound opening again as he was reminded about how permanent his parents' absence was. "So why wouldn't there be one now? I wish you wouldn't…"
"That I wouldn't tell you what you already know yourself?" the pale boy asked, sitting up from where he lay.
Draco could tell Harry was angry at him – or, rather, at the situation – but the gryffindor's thoughts were very clear in his head. The Boy-Who-Lived was as skeptical as he was, no matter how much he wanted the possibility to exist.
He breathed out heavily and shook his head. He didn't really want to play the comforting friend – which was something he'd never been good at – but still the other seeker's emotions were really… devastating.
"Look, what I'm trying to say is that you're already feeling like shite, and then if you get your hopes up because of something that comes from a very unreliable source and it fails you then you're only going to be worse."
"I just-" Harry started to say but his words died in the way.
"I know" the blonde said softly, brushing his fingers against his.
Their hands interlaced as though driven by the same pull that ruled their conversations. It always happened like that, sudden physical needs to feel that the other was still there.
Harry stared at their linked fingers mindlessly, rubbing his thumb over Draco's pale hand as though it was second nature to him. Then, wanting to forget about what Luna had brought up few minutes ago he decided to change the subject to something else.
They still hadn't talked about Lucius' involvement in the ministry's battle, or his subsequent arrest for that matter, and though it crossed Harry's mind – and Draco's as well – to say something about it, in the end he realized it didn't matter. He knew very well Malfoy senior had been there, he knew he'd been arrested, he knew Voldemort's thoughts on the matter and he was sure the blonde boy knew it all as well. It would only be painful to bring it up at all, to both of them.
And it was actually comforting in a bizarre way that both of them would lose their fathers in the same battle. Never mind that the circumstances were completely different.
So because Harry couldn't think of anything else he'd want to say he just kept his gaze down and entertained himself with tracing the long, ink black tattoo that scarred Draco's left arm as said slytherin lay back down in the grass, bringing the Boy-Who-Lived with him.
--
A.N:
What an annoying little bridge chapter! Christ! I almost couldn't bring myself to write it at all! Arghh I hate these bridge scenes ¬¬ anyway, I spent like millions of years trying to write a bit more so I wouldn't end it here, but I gave up when I realized I was just taking too long to get this out, so yeah… don't kill me, there's actual good stuff coming up ahead.
As an apology, here goes a link to a drawing made by me that illustrates Harry and Draco moments after this chappie ended :)
http: // aaraujo. deviantart. com /art/ While-You-Sleep-93527575
Just paste it in the adress bar and take the spaces out :P
Answer to Reviews:
darkmoon0829: Thank you :) This chappy is very emotional, I'm actually very found of it.
Hogsmead: No o.o I meant I hate when Remus is paired up with anyone, escept Sirius :P
Ice Fata: Ohhnn come on! Give me some credit kkkk there there
NiceAsPie: I'm glad you think so hehe, sweet is about right :D
.Planned: Kkkk no he didn't. Errrrr I'll see about Narcissa, but let me deal with the crazy stuff first hehehe TY!
Airlady: Thank you! I get so nervous when I write lemon scenes!
ga-4-ever: I guess I want to show how Draco is also completely addicted to this as well, since most of the time I concentrate on Harry's feelings. Thanks :)
Nenifer121: Owwnn bare with me? :3 -puppy eyes- Thank you! I love writing him :D
Atrea Severin Orion Black: Kkkk I know I know, but please hold the guns kkk Ohn thank you :) This scene is very special to me!
PhoenixShadow: Yeah I know I'm evil Ohh thank you :) Errr I'm not answering that XDD
anony: O_O -goes off and kills herself- well, this was a very....sincere review. Oh god :O I won't say anything, but...what I can say is... everything is already written, so just.. read to find out whether you will love me or hate me. I'm going now kkkk
Fantasyfan4ever: Thank you so much :) yeah I know, I was mean to remmie and siri :O and I loved doing the harry draco thing! Thanks!! Kisses!