Disclaimer:

Loosely based on '10 Things I hate about you', which was based on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'.

You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters (JKR does). But if I did, something like this would happen to them...

---

He opened his eyes. When he moved his head a stab of pain shot through it. His mouth was dry and his throat was sore.

Where was he? How had he gotten here? If he could only remember what happened last night…

"Good morning, Blaise!"

"Piss off," Blaise croaked, shielding his eyes from the bright light as Pansy threw open his bed hangings.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, failing to hide her smirk.

"I feel like a bunch of Blast-Ended Skrewts are having a party in my head."

Pansy took a vial of hangover potion out of her pocket. "Well, sit up and drink this."

"Can't. Move."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Drama King of Slytherin! Allow me, your Majesty!" Pansy began to tickle him under his arms.

He struggled to sit upright, weakly fighting her off. He snatched the bottle from her and drained it in one gulp. "Drama King? Draco is far worse than me."

"Oh, I know." she replied, walking over to Draco's four-poster. "He's the Drama Queen."

"Well, you better wake him up and give him some potion. Otherwise we won't hear the end of it all day."

---

Harry gave his Firebolt a final wipe down and placed his Broomstick Servicing Kit back in his trunk. He was up early despite the previous late night.

"Are you ready, Ron?"

"What?" came the groggy reply.

"Quidditch."

Ron groaned. "But it's a Saturday! We don't have practice in the morning."

"I know, but you need to work on your Starfish and Stick." Harry ripped open Ron's curtains and began to poke him with the handle of his broom.

"Ouch!" Ron yelped, sitting up in bed. "Watch it, Harry!"

"Hurry up then," Harry replied impatiently.

"We can't practice this morning." Ron rubbed the arm that Harry had poked, trying to think of a way to get out of Quidditch. "Because…er…because we're supposed to visit Hagrid this morning…yeah."

"Since when?"

"Since he invited us. Don't you remember?"

"No."

"Well, he did, so…er…looks like we'll have to leave practice for another day…or week…"

"All right then." Harry sighed. "Let's go see Hagrid."

He knew that Ron was lying, but he decided to go along with it. It had been awhile since he had seen Hagrid and the visit would be enough to keep his mind occupied for the morning at least.

---

Pansy and Blaise stood in front of Draco's bed looking in. Blaise peered past Pansy's shoulder, running a hand through his night-tousled hair. Draco's bed was empty. It smelt unused.

"He won't be far away," he muttered, in response to Pansy's shocked expression.

"He drank as much as you did last night and you couldn't move until you took the hangover potion." Pansy patted the bedclothes, as if she might be able to detect the warmth of Draco's body, before turning back to Blaise. "He must have been out all night."

"He probably only went, only…" Blaise's voice trailed away as he tried to come up with an explanation for Draco's absence. Draco didn't have friends, not outside their exclusive Slytherin circle. There was only one other person who knew Draco as well as himself and Pansy. "Potter."

"That's not possible," Pansy said grimly. "Dean and I were hanging out in the Gryffindor common room last night, just an hour or so. I left because it's kind of heavy there right now."

They were boxed in by truths that had been easier not to confront and now by unthinkable new possibilities. Pansy took a breath and launched herself at them. "It's heavy because of what you and Draco did, okay, and there's stuff going on. Dean said that a group of them were going to take Potter out for a bit and try to cheer him up. They wouldn't have let Draco anywhere near him."

Blaise pressed his hands together to try to ease the tension that twisted his sinews. He walked the confined width of the room and back again before speaking again. "He was really drunk. He probably just passed out in one of the corridors."

"You might be right," Pansy agreed. "If so, we need to find him before one of the professors does."

"Where did Dean say they were taking Potter last night?"

"I don't know. He didn't say."

"All right, first we'll go to Gryffindor Tower and find out--"

"Are you crazy?" Pansy cried. "You'd be as welcome up there as a Muggle-born in Slytherin. I'll go. You stay here in case Draco comes back."

Draco didn't show up in the time in which Pansy was gone. Dean had been reluctant to share any information about the previous night, muttering something unintelligible about the seventh floor corridor.

Pansy and Blaise checked all the empty rooms and prowled back and forth along the seventh floor. They were about to give up and start searching somewhere else when something caught Blaise's eye.

"Look!" He pointed to a highly polished door that seemed to suddenly appear in the wall. "I could have sworn that door wasn't there before."

He reached out, seized the brass handle and pulled the door open.

Inside the room was filled with nothing but trees, so tall that the branches seemed to stretch beyond the ceiling.

Silence swelled and rushed away before becoming a vast shell containing tiny noises – the furling of leaves, the whisper of the breeze, and the rustle of something moving in the vegetation ahead of them.

Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Pansy stepped onto the path that revealed itself as a discernible glimmer of pale ground.

"Don't." Blaise grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "It's probably one of those tricks that the Weasley twins left behind last year, like that swamp or something. Let's go check the Quidditch Pitch."

The day ticked on and slid into a motionless afternoon. Blaise and Pansy searched all the usual hideouts to no avail. Draco had simply vanished.

They trickled back to the castle, having found nothing, except the awareness that there was so much space and so little for them to go on.

---

Harry and Ron stood on Hagrid's doorstep, knocking for what seemed like ages. There was no answer.

They turned around and were about to head back to the castle when they caught sight of Hagrid. He was striding out of the forest with a large shovel slung over his shoulder. He spotted Ron and Harry instantly and quickened his pace.

"Mornin'!" he called cheerily. "Wha' are yeh doin' out here so early? Shouldn't yeh be at breakfast?"

"You invited us over." Ron provided quickly.

"I did?" Hagrid looked confused for a moment before smiling. "Well, come on in then. I was 'bout ter put a pot o' tea on anyway. I'm exhausted. Fluffy's bin tearin' the forest apart. Gotten inter the habit of diggin' holes, the silly dog. Got up early this mornin' ter start fillin' 'em in. The unicorns keep fallin' inter 'em. I'm getting sick o' fishin' 'em out."

Harry and Ron emerged from the hut a short while later, nursing several chipped teeth from attempting to eat Hagrid's rock cakes.

They made there way silent-footed across the grass. Harry was surprised when he felt something crunch under his foot.

He reached down and peeled a piece of parchment off his shoe. His stomach flipped when he noticed the familiar script.

He remembered throwing it at Seamus, and then Seamus tossing it aside in their dormitory. How had it gotten out here?

Perhaps Seamus had disposed of it out the window and the wind had carried it to the edge of the forest. But there had been no wind. Perfect Quidditch conditions, as he had repeatedly mentioned to Ron. Growing more curious, Harry glanced into the forest.

When he had returned from the Room of Requirement he had found his bedclothes twisted and pushed aside. For reasons he couldn't begin to fathom someone had tried to sleep in his bed. He had seen the evidence, but had forced it to the back of his mind.

"You right, mate?" Harry snapped out of his trance at Ron's question.

"I'm fine." Harry shoved the parchment into his pocket before Ron could notice it and start another rant about the Slytherins. "I've just got a bit of a toothache."

At lunch and dinner, Harry's eyes kept turning to the Slytherin table. He noticed that Malfoy was absent on both occasions and Parkinson and Zabini were looking around the Great Hall anxiously, snapping their heads to the doorway whenever someone entered.

As Harry lay down for sleep that night, his stomach churned with a mess of unknown forbidding and grief, as though something wasn't right, something that had everything to do with him.

---

After dinner, Blaise and Pansy sat in the Slytherin common room, waiting, willing Draco to appear.

They waited in excruciating idleness, making detours around each other, opening and closing textbooks that neither of them wanted to read.

Darkness fell early, bringing with it a shower of sharp rain. The change in the weather seemed to come within the space of a single day. Yesterday it had been full of sunlight, but today there had been a smoky, wet-leaf warning.

In the middle of the night, Blaise and Pansy headed up for bed. Twenty-four hours since Draco had last been seen.

---

When Draco opened his eyes it was on the other side of some long, distressing interval. Time had passed, but he had no idea where it had gone. At first he could see nothing but blackness and his eyes searched the margins of it.

There was a cage of pain around his head, and his mouth was ragged and sticky with thirst.

'My head hurts.' He tried to call out, struggled so hard that the cry should have been deafening, but no sound came.

Hurt, hurt, hurt.

He was lying in a pit like a grave. There were black crescents of earth in his fingernails and his neck and legs were twisted. When he reached for his wand, he noticed that the impact of his fall had caused it to snap in two. He felt droplets of rain prickling his face and in an agony of thirst he tried to drink them.

---

The night following Draco's disappearance passed and there was still no sight of him.

Blaise and Pansy slept hardly at all. In the very early morning it had rained again, a heavy shower that thinned to a drizzle, then stopped altogether. The light brightened and by seven o'clock the sun shone in a clear-washed sky.

Warmth drew out the scent of wet earth and the blameless beauty of the grounds was an added reproach. The turrets of the castle stood out in sharp detail. There was no one to be seen on their decks or down on the grounds because everyone was either at breakfast or still in bed.

Harry went down to breakfast alone. The Great Hall was practically empty, with only a few students enjoying an early breakfast. Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson were among them. Harry shot a glance at them.

They looked more anxious than yesterday. Their heads were pressed together and they were talking in sharp, frantic whispers.

Harry's decision was resolute. Now, he thought, if I'm ever going to. He stood up and strode over to them.

Pansy and Blaise noticed Harry approaching before he reached their table. They pulled apart and abruptly stopped talking.

"Where is he?" Harry demanded without preamble.

"We don't know. We haven't seen him since Friday night," Blaise answered.

Harry turned to him. It was a shock when their eyes met because it happened so rarely. "That was two days ago."

"We've looked everywhere!" Pansy's eyes reddened with sudden tears.

"I found this on the edge of the forest." Harry pulled the parchment out.

Blaise gaped at it before asking, "The Forbidden Forest or the forest on the seventh floor?"

"There's no forest on the seventh floor."

"Yes, there is. When we were searching the seventh floor corridor for Draco yesterday, this door appeared and--"

Before Blaise could finish his sentence Harry had whirled around and was heading for the exit. "Are you coming?" was all he called over his shoulder.

"What? Where are we going?"

"The forest. For some reason he's in the forest. We have to find him and get him out."

"Which forest, Potter? The one--"

"There's only one forest! What you saw was just - just - just come on!"

"If he's in the Forbidden Forest shouldn't we tell Professor--"

"There's no time for that! He's already been in there for two nights. Need I remind you what type of things live in the forest? We can't afford to waste anymore time."

The three of them headed down to the forest. After several minutes, Harry broke the awkward silence.

"Why would he go into the forest? Hagrid had to practically force him in for that detention we had together in first year, and by the way that turned out it didn't look like he was planning on going anywhere near the forest ever again."

Blaise and Pansy glanced uneasily at each other. Blaise was the one who answered. "We think Draco's going off has got something to do with you."

"Why?"

"He was upset on Friday night. We started to drink Firewhisky and talked about…things. Like how it was before we all split. We think he went looking for you."

"Why would he go looking for me in the forest?"

Pansy shook her head dejectedly. "The type of crazy things you think of when you're drunk."

"He must have gone to my room first," Harry deduced. "Found the parchment and…gone to the forest? None of this makes any sense."

"No, it doesn't," Blaise agreed. "All we know is that Draco got drunk, stumbled into the Forbidden Forest and didn't come out."

"All right, Parkinson, you wait here." Harry instructed when they reached the forest edge.

Pansy began to protest but Harry silenced her.

"We need you to wait here in case something happens to us. If we're not out in two hours, go get help. If we return without him, then we'll go to the professors. Hopefully it won't come to that."

Pansy nodded. The effort of keeping her tears back made her glare.

"Zabini, we'll search at a distance of about ten or twenty yards. We'll cover the most ground that way. If you get in any trouble send up red sparks."

"And if I find Draco?"

"Green sparks." Harry withdrew his wand and Blaise did the same.

Pansy's glare dissolved for a second as Blaise put his arms around her shoulders in a quick hug before he followed Harry into the forest.

---

Blaise dragged his aching legs through the next tangle of briars. He was vaguely surprised by Potter's stamina and tenacity. He thought he was strong himself, but he was breathless and flagging in comparison with Potter.

The dragging process across the inhospitable forest was exhausting and the hopelessness of it chafed at him. He could only think of finding Draco and it seemed impossible that they were doing anything productive out here; surely the professors would have a better chance of finding Draco than they did.

"Hagrid said that Fluffy has been digging holes in here, so be careful," Potter had called out to him at the beginning.

"Fluffy? What's a Fluffy?"

"Just watch your step, alright?"

---

Draco opened his eyes again. Huge segments of time seemed to pass, yet he couldn't populate them with thoughts or sensations beyond generalised pain and tormenting thirst.

How many hours or days had he been lying here? Would he have been missed? Were they searching for him?

Somewhere in a dream or a delirium he had been calling out for Harry, the name was still shaped on his tongue.

He had dreamt about his father as well. They were superficially harmless dreams in which he served a family dinner of live Flobberworms at the Manor, or appeared smiling in a classroom at Hogwarts dressed in Death Eaters robes but with the mask held out in his hand for Draco to take.

He was more properly conscious now, and the only thoughts that filled his head were of Harry.

Harry was so admirable and strong. Weak tears collected in Draco's eyes when he thought of how much he loved him. He pressed one finger into his eye socket and tried to lick the moisture off it. His tongue was swollen and cracked.

Harry would think that he had given up. He would think that he had left him again.

It became suddenly of supreme, immense importance to relieve Harry of that thought.

No one was going to come and get him out of here, not Harry or Lucius or anyone else. He would have to extricate himself or die in a hole. Leave Harry. Screw things up for him for good. The whispers would follow him. "Gone… his parents…his godfather…then Draco Malfoy…did you hear?" Harry would have to be harder and brighter and tougher than ever to make up for it.

Climb.

Climb out of here and crawl home. Forget the cage of pain and the thirst.

The lip of the hole wasn't so far away. Perhaps twice the height of his head. He reached up with clawed hands to the stones that jutted overhead. A knuckle of rock made a place to wedge his foot. His face scraped against the sour earth.

Not that way. The better way was to press his back to the side of the hole and jam his feet against the opposite face. It hurt his legs and there was a hot pain stabbing through his braced shoulders. A shower of small stones and chucks of earth rattled down, but he was able to lever himself up by a foot, then a few more inches.

The light overhead seemed to come no closer and the pain radiated from his shoulders to possess the rest of him. He braced himself once again and shuffled another step upwards, then one more. But the effort of holding his legs straight was too much. His knees folded and he fell back down, the shock of impact jarring a moan out of him.

He raised himself on all fours and looked upwards again. He saw that the only route was after all to climb using the knobs and tiny protruding ledges of stone. This time he moved slowly, considering each hand and foothold. Whenever he achieved an upward lift he hung motionless for a long moment, his face pressed to the earth, conserving his tiny store of energy. For a long, agonising series of movements the sky seemed to come no closer.

Suddenly the bottom of the pit was far below, a considerable drop. If he fell now he would be badly hurt; to climb up again would be impossible. The lip of the hole was within reach of his fingers as they strained upwards. He brought his feet level and hung on with his fingertips. He could see nowhere that might offer the next foothold.

Up. He focused on the thought with the last reserves of his willpower. There was a place about ten inches above his present toehold, no more than a shallow groove of dirt, but it might be enough. Cautiously he slid his right foot upwards, jammed it into the recess and tested his weight on it.

His fingers scrabbled higher and somehow the purchase held. Now his right hand found roots and stems growing beyond the edge of the hole. He grasped them and brought his left foot level with the right. His body was balanced on his toes, his fists desperately clutching the grasses.

There was a jutting stone higher to the left. He planted his foot and launched himself upwards, and there was an agonising moment when he had to give up his handhold and grope for another beyond it.

He found a thorny stem, which tore his palm, but still he grabbed and hauled himself up by it. Both feet were level again; his face was mockingly tickled by the fronds of grass. His breath sobbed in his throat.

"Help me," Draco whispered, but he had no expectation that help would come.

"Again," he commanded.

He tested his handholds by pulling on them. They seemed firm enough. Then he sprang up from the foothold. His feet flailed and scraped as he tried for a purchase. It seemed that he was slipping downwards, but somehow he hoisted his hips over the edge of the hole.

His feet swung in empty air and his face was smothered with soil and wet leaves. He dragged one knee over, then the other. He found himself crouched on all fours, panting like a dog.

Behind him was the pit, ahead and higher up was the oak tree. The chinks of sky visible through the canopy of leaves were a mild, smoky blue.

Draco began to crawl. His hands were torn, but he couldn't find the strength to stand upright.

---

Harry had lost sight of Zabini. He figured that the agreed distance between them had widened and he was much further over to his right. He stopped walking and cocked his head to listen.

There was the soft hooting of some owls and the gentle rustle of the trees, and he made to block them out. There was something or someone moving in the scrub below him, too close and in the wrong direction to be Blaise Zabini.

Harry took a step forward, then another, and stopped to listen again. The crackle of leaves and twigs had stopped.

"Draco?" he called. "Draco, Dr-ra-aco…"

There was an answer, a thin cry. "Help me."

He broke into a run, wildly crashing forward and slowing immediately because he made too much noise.

Draco was below him, not far away now. He could hear the repeated cry much more clearly. He ducked under the shadow-spreading branches of an old oak tree and saw him. The tiny white oval of his face was turned imploringly upwards.

---

Draco knew that rescue and safety were approaching, and then he saw who it was.

He stopped crawling and crouched with his arms crossed. He was very tired. His eyes flickered and his head was heavy, much too heavy for his shoulders. The bars of his pain cage were closing in, tighter and tighter.

"Please, Harry," Draco begged. "I-I--"

"It's all right," Harry whispered, locking his arms around Draco so that he whimpered with the pain of it. "You're found. You're safe now."

He held Draco's head against his chest, stroking his hair. He called out." He's here! I've found him!"

Harry pointed his wand to the sky, producing a spark of bright green light. Draco held onto him and looked into his face. There was enough light for him to see where the glimmer of Harry's hair bisected the sky.

He could feel the bars close in further and he opened his mouth to breathe. Instead of tactful and obliterating darkness the daylight now seemed bright enough to dazzle him. The need for reassurance, his own reassurance, made him speak in a voice that was barely a gasp.

"Harry, I…"

Harry didn't speak. He bent his head so he could hear Draco better. Their mouths were almost touching.

"I love you." The words finally wrung themselves out of him, burning in his parched throat. The words were like a foreign language, scratchy and unwieldy on his tongue, but he had uttered them. "Harry…"

The bars clamped down. Draco's eyes shut. He was too tired to stay awake for any longer. Later he remembered that Harry had picked the leaves and twigs tenderly out of his mattered hair.