Part 5

The next day passed easily. As if the Order of the Phoenix had decided to wash their hands of him, none of them did more than stare. Draco woke, tended his mother and Severus, returned to the green house and spent the day teaching Hermione and working himself into Harry's good graces. Then dinner, a smile at Harry, and then sleep. The house was tense but quiet. The routine lasted for a week, then two weeks. Three.

No one noticed the tiny changes Draco made.

"Don't be satisfied with what you think you see," Severus always told him. "Look at what people actually do."

He doubted this was exactly what Severus had in mind, but he'd learned a lot spending so much time around Harry. The hero of the wizarding world would never make any hero-worshipping witch happy with wedding bells. Harry did his best to hide it, so much so that at first Draco had wondered if he was simply imagining things.

But no. Harry never noticed any of the girls in the old magazines lying about. Draco caught him lingering over the quidditch players, the photographs of globe-trotting wizards defeating banshees and dragons. The photospread of several handsome aurors had been dog-eared, and the pictures of their female counterparts ignored and visibly envious of the attention lavished of the men on the opposite page.

Unlike Ron's bedroom or those of the other Weasley boys, there were no posters of witches on Harry's walls. Harry never commented on girls the way the others did. If he did, it was prompted from the twins who expected him to agree that a witch was beautiful or not. Draco, listening in from the greenhouse, could tell a bad lie told by an amateur.

So day and night, Draco listened to every word Harry said. His smile with Harry lasted a half-second longer before he turned away shyly. He needed Harry to reach the petals high overhead and Draco needed to guide his hand, never minding as Harry pressed against him. No one noticed as he whispered to Harry, trusting him with secrets and little fears he'd never confessed to anyone else.

He began keeping his hair bound loosely. From the way Harry's eyes turned distant whenever Bill was mentioned, Draco assumed he preferred longer hair. Judging by how the boy watched him, he guessed that Harry's denied hunger could give the appetite of Draco's wolf a real run for its money.

Draco knew he wasn't handsome, too marred by hunger and fighting and his curse, but he doubted Harry had ever given into his urge with any boy. Harry was starved for attention, and Draco was not too proud to use that. Every night Harry lingered a moment longer. Every night Draco slid deeper into Harry's confidence.

And every night Draco added poison to Narcissa and Severus' potions.

Not enough to hurt them, not really. He knew they would have approved. He needed them to stay out of the way while he worked into Harry's good graces. Not only would their presence have set Harry on edge, but having Harry's mudblood friend nearby would have made them draw back from her touch. Every day he answered her questions, found the rare ingredients she wanted tucked in the recesses and corners of the greenhouse. A clump of angel mushrooms along the floor, white clover growing in the sunny patch near a clear window-- she gathered her ingredients alone and kept out of his way, only asking him how to process them. He knew she was making things in secret, but he didn't expect the Order to let him in on their plans. None of her ingredients worried him. She was probably working on instant fog or poison rain, enjoying her foray into dark potions.

It was hard enough not to gag in her presence, not to sneer if she came too close. If her skin touched his, he could mask his revulsion as a nervous flinch, but being on guard all the time was exhausting. At the end of each day, his eyes drooped and his shoulders slumped and his words began to slur into each other.

He hated to poison his only family, but he had no choice. If he could barely stand Hermione, he knew his mother would be physically ill next to her. He had to fight himself to sit next to her for so long. She sat at his left hand, pouring a silvery white concoction of feverfew and cobwebs into a pitcher and covering it before the resultant smoke could escape. Wisps of her hair brushed his hand and he leaned aside to grab another handful of foxglove petals, moving conveniently away from her touch.

"Almost finished?" Harry asked.

Draco blinked and shook his head to wake himself up. Harry's voice cut through the creeping fatigue and the smothering fumes of his cauldron. He'd spent most of the day feeding the flames and stirring, and his head was spinning.

"Wonderful," Draco mumbled. "Is it evening already?"

"You've been working hard," Harry said, standing next to him. "I'm sure the days are flying by for you."

"On the contrary," Draco said with a yawn. "Felt like months crawling."

He looked up at Harry, knowing exactly how his hair fell across his eyes. Another good reason to keep his family poisoned upstairs. If they saw him acting like this with Harry, they'd never look at him the same again. He knew they wouldn't try to stop him, but to lower himself like this would have been too humiliating for them to bear.

Should he have felt humiliated? Fenrir had already violated him more deeply than anything he could imagine. His very soul had been tainted. What did it matter if he sold himself so cheaply?

Harry touched his shoulder. Warmth spread from beneath his fingertips to Draco, who let his head tip towards his hand. His eyes half-closed and he sighed.

The days of living in the Slytherin dorms seemed a lifetime away. He hadn't lain with anyone since he'd been bitten. Cheap or not, having Harry this close made being alone easier.

If he was honest with himself--and Snape had trained him to be honest with himself if no one else--then he knew it was his own weakness. Harry showed him kindness, shielded him from the Order. Everyone else had given him pain. Harry alone had healed him and even given him hope. In just a few weeks, Draco found his disdain softening until he was glad for the other boy's company.

And because he was honest with himself, he knew it was his loneliness and fear that made him find a little relief in Harry's presence. Pathetic, but he justified his neediness with the hope that he might convince Harry to help save his father. He would worry what Lucius said about his affection for Potter afterward.

"I'm done here," Hermione said, gathering her pitcher and her notes. "Going upstairs to finish it. Night, Harry, Malfoy."

Making a small noise that could be taken as goodbye, Draco watched her leave, then breathed out in relief. His shoulders relaxed now that he didn't have to be on his guard around Hermione.

"Thank you for teaching her," Harry said. "I know you don't like to."

Draco half-shrugged. "She learns quick. Stays out of the way."

"Does that make it easier to be near her?"

Silence. Draco glanced up and found Harry staring hard at him, his green eyes unblinking. Harry was getting better at restraining his anger.

"She..." Draco looked over his shoulder at the door to make sure they were alone. "She saved a lot of spilled plants that would've died."

The answer didn't satisfy Harry. Draco could feel it simply in the way he stood, leaning over him and watching without moving. It felt horrible. Draco hated to feel things looming over him. He turned away, adding another handful of crushed leaves to his potion and then covering it.

After a moment, Harry sat down beside him and didn't say anything, quietly helping Draco clear the table. Petals and stems went back in their jars, jars went back in their nooks. The cauldrons were cleaned out and a handful left to simmer.

The pressure faded with Harry's anger, and Draco became antsy as the exhaustion crept up on him. How late was it? Moonlight filled the greenhouse around the small circles of candle glow. The Order must have all been asleep by now. They were alone.

Draco stiffened. They were alone. He was alone with Harry. He glanced sideways and Harry was staring again, but not with anger. Several seconds passed before Draco's drowsy mind recognized that look. Hogwarts wasn't so long ago that he didn't remember the exhilaration of flying with Harry, their brooms side by side as they reached for the golden snitch. And the look on his face then--focused determination. Harry wasn't flying through cold wind and heavy bludgers, but the look was the same.

"I haven't done anything wrong," he blurted suddenly. "Just the potions you wanted--I haven't tried to leave, you know that."

"I know," Harry said, startled by his outburst. "It's all right. Calm down."

Taking a breath, Draco look around again to see if they were really alone. "Is Lupin watching? One of the Weasleys?"

"No. No one's here but me." Harry winced at how that came out. "You're safe, Malfoy. I didn't want anyone down here when I did this."

"Did what?"

Glancing away for a second, Harry reached into his pocket, then slowly withdrew a smooth, pale stone as large as his palm. He held it out for Draco to see, holding it still as Draco leaned close. Milky white with clear streaks, it looked vaguely familiar, and he brushed the surface with his fingers. The moment he touched it, he drew back.

A veritae charm.

Draco eyed the stone as if it were a snake about to bite. They were deathly hard to make and with veritaserum so readily available, no one ever bothered with charms anymore. They weren't easy to use. They couldn't be slipped into people's drinks. They had to be in the open, directly between the two people using it.

"Quartz and white clover," Draco said softly. "That's why Granger wanted those. She was making this for you."

Harry nodded.

"Why now?" Draco asked. "Why alone like this?"

"Because Remus forgot to question you," Harry said, half-smiling as Draco turned his head. "I didn't want to remind him. He can't think objectively around you or Snape. But I need to know."

Refusing to look at him again, Draco studied the cracks in the floor tiles. The silence stretched, and he realized that Harry expected him to say something.

"You won't like what I say," Draco warned him.

"I don't imagine you're a saint," Harry said. "But I meant what I said before. We can fix the world together, but only if we can trust each other."

He would have felt insulted if he hadn't felt panic seizing his heart. Draco knew he didn't have a choice. Harry tapped the stone to activate it, then set it on the table between them.

"What is your name?"

"Draco Draconis Malfoy," he answered, not bothering to hide his discomfort.

"Draconis?" Harry repeated.

"Just a charm," Draco said. "Like asking for protection from a saint."

"Oh. Um, okay. Do you still work for Voldemort?"

"No, and please stop saying his name."

Harry blinked. "You're really afraid of him?"

"My whole family is afraid of him," Draco snapped. "Mother told you that herself. Why is it you aren't afraid? The whole world can't even say his name and here you are trying to get his attention."

"What?" Harry asked. "How could I get his attention? He's not here."

Draco opened his mouth to snap again, but Harry's confusion was too obvious. His answer, dragged out of him by the stone before he could collect himself, came without heat or mockery. Sometimes he forgot how much muggleborns grew up without learning.

"His name is a word of power," Draco answered. That was all the stone required, but he continued to explain, gratified that Harry was listening. "Names give you power. They sum up everything about you. A name is--it's you. It's like a spell."

"But no one treats any other name like it's special," Harry said.

"Because other names don't belong to powerful evil bastards. And because they don't use people's full names. It's always just Draco or Malfoy, rarely both. But the dark lord, he only has one name. It's stronger."

He watched Harry and sighed impatiently when he didn't appear any less skeptical. "Look, don't you sometimes get a chill up your spine? Haven't you heard that it's someone talking about you?"

"Well, yeah, but that's not real," Harry said. His eyes widened slightly. "Is it?"

"It's real. Even just your first or last name is strong on its own," Draco said.

Harry thought about that and looked like he might ask more about it, but Draco couldn't stifle another yawn. Harry glanced a this watch and sighed.

"I'll have to ask you more about that later. Tell me, why did you come here?"

Relief flooded Draco. If this was as specific as Harry could make his questions, dodging them would be easy. Remus had asked pointed, detailed questions about Death Eater plans, things that had happened to Severus and Narcissa during their school years, things that he could verify quickly and continue to verify as time passed. Only his family's cunning had kept their plans concealed. Harry, however, didn't know how to frame his questions.

"To escape from the dark lord and his death eaters," Draco said. A good answer, broad and general.

"What else?"

"To escape Fenrir," Draco added. It was part of the first answer, Voldemort's chosen method of execution for them, but Harry didn't know that.

"What else?"

"To help stop the dark lord," Draco said.

Harry paused. Draco's relief began to fade. He'd seen Harry's style of magic, powerful and single-minded. Harry's quidditch style was the same, based on powerful flying and deadly focus. It seemed Harry's interrogation technique was similar, less a technique and more of simply plowing straight ahead.

"What else?"

A cold knot welled in his stomach.

"Because the rest of the world isn't safe," he said. "There's no where else we could go."

"What else?"

Draco squirmed. The real answer filled his mouth, desperate to leap out, and at the last second he thought up another reason to take its place.

"So I can make the potions that keep me from turning into a monster," he said.

Tilting his head slightly, Harry visibly mulled that over. Draco wondered if that would be enough. If he confessed his hopes for freeing his father, he was sure Harry would balk. There was too much hatred and anger there to bridge.

"Are you really safe when you're a wolf?" Harry asked. "I saw Remus as a werewolf once. You don't look the same."

"I'm safe," Draco said, leaning on the table and resting his head on his arm. At least Harry seemed satisfied with his previous answers, but he desperately wanted to get to sleep. "You heard Severus before. I'm not poisoning my wolf. It's calm. The potion takes away the pain and the bloodlust, the fear."

"Do you remember anything afterward, when you become human again?" Harry asked.

"Sometimes, bits and pieces. I'm still me when I'm a wolf, I just can't think very well."

"Like an animal," Harry said.

It wasn't a question, but Draco nodded anyway. "Dark wizard, Slytherin, Malfoy...werewolf just finishes the picture."

"'Picture'?" Harry echoed.

"Evil," Draco said. "I guess pureblood fits, too. They hate us, you know that, right?"

"Who hates you? Wizarding society?" Harry asked, then cut him off before he could answer. "You mean for wanting to kill muggleborns?"

"They'd hate us even if we didn't."

"Why?"

"A stricter view of life." Draco half-shrugged and sighed deeply. "Potter, please, I'm very tired."

A lock of hair fell over his eyes, and before he could move, Harry was already leaning and reaching out to push it back. Draco flinched, and Harry paused, his hand in midair.

"It's all right," Harry murmured. "I won't hurt you."

It wasn't a question so Draco didn't respond. He let Harry smooth his hair aside, returning his look if a little sleepily. He found he liked looking into Harry's eyes. They were so clear he could see his reflection if he looked close enough.

"I believe you," he said. "I won't hurt you, either."

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it before he saw Harry's suspicous look. Lucius needed rescuing. He needed Harry to help rescue him. If the two met, he knew there would be a fight, that he would have to choose his father's side. Would cursing Harry with an imperio count as hurting someone? Surely Harry thought so, and yet Draco had been able to say he wouldn't hurt him. Either Draco was confused, or the stone was.

Across from him, Harry also knew something wasn't right. Draco never looked confused if he could help it. Confusion meant weakness, and Draco did everything he could to seem in control. Maybe Malfoy had lied and was surprised he'd been able to.

"I--is this thing working properly?" Harry looked at the stone as if he expected it to turn colors or spit out smoke like a broken muggle machine. "Damn, I can't--Malfoy, lie to me."

"What? About what?"

"I don't know--um..." He remembered a few conversations overheard in Hogwarts, snatches of information about Draco that he hadn't found a use for until now. "Favorite quidditch player? Famous wizard?"

The chair slammed sideways on the floor as Draco threw himself backwards, moving blindly until he hit the glass wall. He pressed his hands against his face and turned his back, muffling Harry's name in his sleeve. What kind of luck did Harry have, asking questions with his name as the answer? Or did he know already?

"Malfoy?"

To his relief, Harry only sounded surprised. When Draco looked over his shoulder at him, he was still sitting at the table, although his hand had fallen to his wand at his side.

"Malfoy, what's wrong?"

Harry's questions turned stern. Leaning heavily against the glass, Draco turned sideways to see him easier. He faced him for a moment, then lowered his gaze to stare at the floor.

"Please don't ask me those things."

"But isn't it just Transylvania's..." Harry's voice trailed off as he understood. "It's not Verzeni or Morgan le Fey, is it? It's--"

"It's not the dark lord," Draco hurried to say. "It's not any death eaters. It's no one bad. Please, leave me some secrets."

Bewildered, Harry pocketed the stone. The easiest questions had became the most intriguing.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning," Harry said, still puzzled.

"Tomorrow," Draco nodded, retreating to the corner beneath one of the tables. He had a small nest of two blankets and a pillow now, and he curled up there as if going to sleep. The door clicked locked, and then all he heard were crickets outside and the wind blowing over the greenhouse, whistling through a tiny crack in the ceiling.

Damn, but he knew Harry would speak with Hermione about his reaction, and she was smart. She'd analyze the conversation, comb through his replies, and unless being a mudblood blinded her to the less mentioned aspects of wizarding culture, she would guess. And she'd tell Harry.

Could he poison her too, like he poisoned his mother and Severus? He shook his head. No, he'd never be able to without getting caught. Arguing that the poison wasn't lethal didn't seem like a good idea. He pulled the blanket around himself like a shield and tried to think of how the next day would unfold, wondering what he could do if Hermione guessed, if she didn't guess, if Harry guessed, if Harry began questioning him again and found out his plans to save his father.

His mind ran in exhausted circles all night, and he finally fell asleep as the sky turned pale.

tbc...