Somewhere Only We Know

by Kris RL

Summer of 6th year? The wizarding world is at war with itself, and secrets, hidden pasts, biological fathers, staged deaths, broomstick rescues, band T-shirts, funerals, stifled laughter, new truths, and an old rivalry's new best friendship come into play

13. How to Brave a Fall

Disclaimer: The story plot and the original characters are mine. You know what belongs to J.K., and so do I! The only thing intended with this story is for entertainment purposes.

Spoilers: I'll say the first 5 books, just to be on the safe side!

Note: Thanks for reviewing, guys:D! I hope the next chapters might answer some of your questions! I hope, I hope! And, I hope some more! And, I hope even more than that that you enjoy this chapter. Because... yes! Thanks, again. :D!

Somewhere Only We Know

Chapter Thirteen

How to Brave a Fall

Draco was lounged out over his couch, with his eyes closed. His head was hurting. His heart was hurting. His damn chest was aching, and it wasn't even physically. Damnit, he hadn't hurt so bad, emotionally, in years—in fucking fact, the last time he had felt so deathly, emotionally ill was when Cornwell had left. He sighed, toying with the collar of his T-shirt, aggravated that he was wearing clothes. He felt hot. He wasn't sure if his temperature had actually risen, if it was hot in the room, or if his body was just in such overload of emotions and blood-boiling that it was just a reaction of his inner self trying to claw out of his body and break free of his life. He could no longer keep it in, and thoughts just started spewing out of his mouth, "Jesus Christ, the fucking bloody bastard—I should have fucking known, Potter! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! What in the... what is wrong with me? Fucking BASTARDS! All of the things that never fit! Why Lucius never forced me! The bastard knew! I don't know what it is that they know and I don't know, but I SHOULD fucking know why I've been sold to the GOD-DAMN dark lord since I was born—I'm cursed, god-DAMNIT."

Harry stood at the side of the soda, closest to Draco's feet, "You're not cursed." That was all he could manage.

"Oh, fuck-you, Potter."

Harry took no offense, "At least you know that Cornwell is against the bastard, Draco. Isn't that a better—"

"I DON'T GIVE a damn about that, Potter! It's not the fact that he is who he is! I don't even know who he is! It's the fact that no one has ever told me what he is. I was always told I couldn't handle it—and... and, then I fucking get sucked into a nightmare where I learn that Cornwell—my fucking father, Cornwell—is not the bloody saint I was hoping him to be—shut up, Potter, okay? I know, I know, I fucking know that, whatever he is, he's against Voldemort. That's so bloody fitting, isn't it? Did you hear them, Potter? Did you hear? That bloody monster talking about my father like some enemy—MY FATHER is an ENEMY of VOLDEMORT, POTTER! And, not only that, but we don't even know why! And, he comes back into my life, with a little boy, and a cheerful smile, and I just accept it like it's nothing, because I care—and, he's not even here for me, Potter! He's not here for me, he's here to finish off what—something, because that bastard, POTTER, is after ME—fucking, a bloody—bloody... God, I'm YOU."

Harry picked up a pillow from the end of the couch. He walked behind the couch, listening to Draco ramble on about how angry he was. Draco knew perfectly well that Cornwell cared about him. Lucius had even said that Cornwell hadn't wanted Draco to know what he was—no one was supposed to know what Cornwell was, and it appeared that only a handful of people did know who he was, and why he had even been brought up in conversation. With a giant gurgle of annoyance, Harry dropped the pillow over Draco's face, just to shut him up, "You're not me, Malfoy. You're not dead, not yet, so don't jump the cauldron." When he saw Draco paw at his shirt collar, Harry continued. "You know he's here for you, Draco. You're probably the ONLY reason he's here, obviously. If you weren't at risk right now, and he felt you were in danger, he wouldn't have come out of the woodworks like he did, would he have? But, he did, Malfoy, okay? For whatever reason that may be outside of you being his son, he wants to protect you."

Draco sat up, took the pillow and threw it onto the floor, frustrated, "From what, is the question, Potter. I want to know."

"What, and you don't think I do, Malfoy? Granted, he's your father, but he's a huge piece of my entire life, a piece no one ever fucking even gave a damn to tell me about while I've been trying to wage this god-damn war on my shoulders! A war, Malfoy." Harry stood up from sitting on the side of the couch, his forehead wrinkled. "No one thought to tell me about Cornwell while I was alive.. If someone would have told me, maybe I wouldn't be... dead! He's obviously a huge part of whatever the hell happened with the Order." He knew he was talking and thinking in circles. So, he turned back to Draco. "You need to be partial here, okay? I know, that makes me a gigantic arse for telling you not to be so devastated over the fact your father wasn't who you thought he was, and that Voldemort, apparently, wants you because of what Cornwell is, but look at what we know, now, versus what we didn't know before."

Draco was so unwounded that it worried him. Potter had a very large, stable point.

Harry turned around from standing in front of the bright, unlit fireplace, thinking over Draco's silence. But, Draco didn't appear to be angry over Harry's words, which was good. He did care about what Draco had learned, but at the same time, they had just learned a huge piece of information that brought them so much closer to a truth that they were further-than-ever from finding. They didn't even know what they were looking for, but they had just been given a piece of a puzzle. Harry couldn't help but wonder what else had been kept from him, and if there were anymore other secrets lurking around that no one had ever thought important to tell him, "You heard what Lucius said, Draco. Cornwell's a good man, and you know that. Whatever he is, or was, it was kept from you for a reason. He's here to make sure you're safe, and, apparently, he doesn't want to be blatantly involved in bringing Voldemort down. He wants me to do that—and, you're supposed to help me. He set it up that way, undoubtedly knowing all of the risks for us and you, especially, and maybe he sees something between us that we see in each other, Draco, and no one else does. Trust Lucius, Malfoy. Trust Cornwell. Trust me."

"I do trust you, Potter, and I trust them to a certain degree, but I can only look past so much of my own history before it becomes impossible to keep on turning my head," Draco returned, resting back against the plush cushion behind his sitting form. He smoothed his hands down his thighs, over his pants, nervously licking over his bottom lip. He was angry over being lied to. He was angry that no one had ever made it a point to tell him that Cornwell had been a major player against Voldemort. But, then, again, Lucius had been, and still was, apparently, a major player for Voldemort, who also had never known that Draco even knew about Cornwell being his father. It wasn't Draco who had been betrayed the most, that night. It was, without a doubt, Lord Voldemort.

"I want to know who he is."

Harry collapsed down beside Draco and sat equally as still, dazed, "I want to know what he did."

Draco's top teeth pulled over his numb bottom lip. He looked away from a drawing of a dragon hanging on the wall that they were both staring at. It was a large, very tall wall, with paintings and wall-hangings of all different sizes and themes scattered in a way that made it look just right. It was homey, and warm, and each of the things hanging meant something to him. His study was the outer most part of his soul. It was the only place, in the world, that he felt truly at home in, and that was because he had made it his own, and no one had ever told him what he could or could not do with it. It was the one thing, the one place, the one instance, where no one else could dictate his ideas and theorems and philosophies. "How am I supposed to face him, Potter?"

Harry lowered his eyes from a random dragon drawing. It had been the first piece to catch his eye on the wall, which was interesting because it wasn't the largest, and it certainly wasn't the most colorful or noticeable. He didn't know what to say to Draco about Cornwell. He just didn't. All he could really do was sit there and listen. Harry had never even had a father in his life, so giving advice about what to do with Cornwell, especially when the situation so extremely affected them both, just wasn't going to happen. He didn't have an answer to give Draco, to make it seem easier than it was. Because, it wasn't an easy situation.

When Harry's eyes lifted to Draco's profile, he felt so helpless that it made something in his gut feel ill. He looked down at his opened hands, in his lap, thinking over Draco's predicament. He was looking at Draco so differently than he once had. Sometimes, Draco was a friend. Sometimes, Harry felt something in him that cared for Draco like a brother, like that very instant, while they were sitting there, side by side, thinking over the same questions for different reasons. Other times, of course, Draco was... well, just Draco and every possible emotion that Harry felt was not susceptible to human understanding. His relationship with Draco was its own planet, its own cycle. It had its own principles. "At least we know that it can't possibly be a bad thing, can it be? He's against Voldemort." He paused. "That says something, doesn't it?"

"It says he's against Voldemort, Potter, and that's all it says," Draco responded, quietly, as he turned his head.

As if that wasn't an important fact! Of course, to Draco, it wasn't going to be. Harry tried again, "You need to ask him."

Draco snorted, and he looked away from the brown eyes looking back to his. After a moment, he stopped his bitter, cynical laughs, and his eyes flickered back to those still seriously waiting for his own. Potter wasn't kidding. It wasn't like Draco could just go in and ask Cornwell what he had done. It would be far too suspicious. But, then, again, there were easy ways to side-step the suspicious parts of it. Draco was a good-enough actor, and no one had ever been able to argue that. He wrapped his arms over his chest, his eyes beginning to float up to the ceiling, in a lost calamity of a mind. He was so void of something that he could not place, "You looked like you."

"Huh?"

Draco smirked, though in a friendly way, "Dark hair, green eyes, glasses." And, his eyes set onto Harry, cautiously. "You know, you.'

Harry remembered this. Whereas Draco seemed to find it fascinating, Harry found it heart-breaking, "Yeah."

Yeah? Draco's eyes slowly slanted down toward the left, "You looked good." What? Draco! Jesus. That's good, Draco, go ahead and tell him he looked good in a body that he no longer has! Idiot.

"You mean, not dead, pale and stiff?"

Draco lowered his chin to his chest. All thoughts of Cornwell subsided, and all he could do was feel awkward.

Harry shifted, and he tore his eyes away from his hands. He looked at Draco, battling with himself, inside. Draco was just staring at him, with his head tilted down. He didn't seem offended, just unsure of what to say. Granted, Harry had bitten his last comment very hard, at Draco, which he probably shouldn't have done, considering the events of the last hour or so. It was just that thinking of himself, and remembering how it felt to be in his old body, it really broke his heart. He could feel the knocking at his chest when he thought about how good it had felt to pull his old glasses off of his eyes and then shove them right back on. He remembered how well his hands had fit over his face, and how all of the curves on his face felt good, how it felt right, and how, as Harry sat there, with Judas Cliffdale's face, everything seemed even more foreign than it had ever been, "Sorry."

Draco didn't look away from Harry. He felt something grumbling in the back of his head. He simply urged, "Potter."

"Slytherin." Harry couldn't just call him Malfoy, anymore! But, he couldn't call him Black! And, not Draco! Calling Draco by his name, during such a vulnerable moment, was something Harry wasn't sure he was ready for. At least, not yet. He hadn't meant "Slytherin" in a nasty way, either. It was just what had come tumbling out of his mouth, and when he began to realize it, he grimaced, but when he went to take a glance at Draco, Draco was hardly offended.

Draco tried not to laugh at the accusing name thrown at him, "For what it's worth? When I saw your face, I nearly cried."

Harry and Draco looked at each other, and Draco was the first to snort with embarrassed laughter, as he looked away.

Harry turned his head away, chuckling deep from within his throat as he crossed his arms over his chest, "Did you?"

When Draco looked back to the equally-aged wizard beside him, the wizard who had his best and worst secrets, and the best and worst of Draco's memories, he couldn't help that he was smiling, again. He wasn't grinning. He wasn't smirking. He wasn't even giving a half-hearted try of an expression. He was simply smiling, teeth and all, and he could feel it. He hadn't grown up smiling a lot, and not because he hadn't had happy times, but just because his grin and smirk had always come natural to him. But, Potter's appearance in his life was far too confusing and disconcerting to treat as if things were the same as they once had been, and they shouldn't have been. He rubbed at the side of his face, and as his hand fell, his eyes fell with it, "Since when do Malfoys cry, Potter? I think you should ask yourself that."

What a punk. Harry rolled his eyes, not scuffled, "I see. I suppose it's good thing you're not just a Malfoy, then."

Draco lifted his eyes from his hands, and they were still squinted with wrinkles of contented, friendly, soft amusement.

When Harry's eyes found Draco's questioning his own, he squinted.

Draco immediately imitated it, as if almost pointedly.

Harry hadn't ever realized it, but he squinted his eyes a lot. He didn't know if that was a trait of Judas Cliffdale or of the fact that he no longer had glasses to help him see, and without them, it was just natural habit to squint as he had done when he was in his real body. But, Harry wasn't bothered by Draco's imitation, so he put his attention back onto the wall. And, in the surfaces of the glass-frames in the distance, he saw blurry objects—them.

Them.

Harry, Draco. And, it felt right—not awkward, not strange, not even confusing, anymore. It was just them.

Harry smiled, suddenly. He wondered how he and Draco had been so separated when the things in their past had put them so closely together. Of course, Draco had known more than Harry, but Harry hadn't known a damn thing, on the ultimate scheme of his past. He knew the basics. He had once thought that nothing could have surprised him about his father—what, with having a Werewolf as a best friend and having been able to transfigure himself into an animagus at such an early age, and having done so brilliantly. But, Cornwell? Draco? Two very distant parts of his life. And, though he knew, at that moment, as he sat there, silently, beside Draco, that their fathers did have a close past, he couldn't help but wonder what the reason was that everyone had kept it from him. "There are parallels that we have to our fathers, you know."

Draco didn't need Harry to say anything else, "Hmm," he quietly added, his eyes returning back onto his hands—those of which Cornwell had given him and nurtured with time and patience and Lucius had skilled with ideals and lessons, some of which had, admittedly, gone over Draco's head. "Our fathers—I'd toast to that."

Harry sat up and leaned forward over his knees, setting his attention down on the floor. He didn't say anything to respond to Draco, but rather let Draco's words settle into the room. Fathers, in general, had impacts on the lives of their children, but for Harry and Draco, the cases were so much more monumental than just the average impact. Their entire lives, it seemed, had been set out before they had the chance to ask anyone otherwise. They had not asked for what they had been dealt, and it seemed that Draco, too, like Harry, did not seem resentful to the idea of his fathers, though neither had made his life easier. This meant, to Harry, that Draco was far more mature than Harry was sure most people were, even at their eldest ages. He frowned, turning toward Draco and resting the left side of his face on the left hand that was supported by his knee, "He wants you, Malfoy."

There was no hesitation or question of who Harry was speaking of.

Draco looked up from his lap and to Harry, with cloudy and sharply serious eyes. Harry's expression was clearly honest. He had spoken quietly. The original problem of Cornwell's relationship with Voldemort had begun to fade, and it, therefore, gave a whole new set of questions time in the spotlight between them. Cornwell, Draco knew, would always be open for discussion between he and Potter. That wasn't something that was closing. That was something that was going to be hovering over them every day, especially because Cornwell lived in the same house as they did. "He can want me all he wants."

Mentally, Harry asked himself how many men and women wanted Draco all they did, and had Draco not give a damn.

Harry just kept his lock gazed onto Draco, seriously, "What do you know about Cornwell's past?"

"Essentially nothing," Draco answered, honestly, with a helpless flutter of his numb lips. He looked away from Harry and to the end-table next to the couch they were sitting on. He leaned over the couch and lifted up a picture-frame from the table. He returned back to sitting, handing the picture-frame, casually, to Harry, who took it and began to examine it. So, Draco did, too. "I was seven, there. That's at Diagon Alley, in the old pub that used to be between the Daily Prophet's Diagon office and Stort's—Stort's was an old wizarding family's private astrology place. Cornwell took me there, once, because I wouldn't stop bugging him about going there. He didn't have the heart to tell me that the Storts were all bogus and phony, so he let me figure it out by myself. Shortly after I told Lucius that they told me I was going to die a horrid death at the age of nine, the place shut down—coincidence? I know."

Harry laughed at the idea of a seven-year-old Draco being told he was going to die in two years. The image was oddly amusing, but, at the same time, as Harry's eyes wondered over the smaller version of Draco, in the picture, so innocent and sweet-faces, void of all Malfoy demeanor, he felt less amused. There had once been a time, it seemed, when Malfoy had simply been a small boy making his way through the world, just as any other kid had. But, his face was so innocent—so sweet, so loving. And, in the picture, it was Cornwell sitting in a booth seat, laughing at Draco in such a warm way, in a dark room, though candles were lit on the table. And, Draco was just gazing at Cornwell, with such pride and true love, as if completely stolen of all ideas and thoughts while his father was laughing at him, in such a joyous way. Their love, even through the picture, was something that Harry hadn't even seen between Ron and his dad.

It was the kind of picture that made Harry wish, more than anything, that he had the same sort of memories.

Draco looked away from the picture and to Harry's half-smiling mouth, "Looking back, it's not hard to see how Cornwell hid his identity. When we went to the places we did, he was always accepted with such warmth and such celebration. Those people must have been important to him, and he must have been important to them for them to have held his secret back, to have kept it off of the streets that he was still around, and, albeit, with me. We never trolled through Diagon Alley, outside. We used Floo to get into the places we went, or he apparated me." He had just never given it thought, because he had never been suspicious as to why they had never walked around, outside, in public places, outside and off of the Malfoy property.

Harry's right index fingertip placed down, lightly, over the table at which the image was taken over. The way Cornwell and Draco looked at each other was so momentous. It had always been clear to Harry that it had not been easy for Cornwell to leave Draco. Even just by the way Harry had first seen Cornwell look at Draco, he had wondered who could have looked at Draco in such a way—of course, the answer came down to be Draco's father. But, Harry had known, also, that Draco had chosen to take Lucius's guidance over Cornwell's, and he had wondered just how much Cornwell had meant to Draco. But, there in the picture, he could finally understand that Draco's love for Cornwell was just as great as Cornwell's for Draco. It was obvious.

"You weren't supposed to know about Cornwell."

"Apparently not," Draco quietly murmured back, both staring down at the picture for different and probably, somewhat, similar reasons. Draco remembered every memory he had ever had with Cornwell, and pictures were such a way of re-expressing the past and bringing forth, to Draco, what he had been trying to leave in the past. After Cornwell had left, Draco had been more than hurt. He had been furious. It was, Draco knew, deep down, Cornwell who was the factoring of Draco's decisions in the past two years. In his fifth year, Draco had been so racked with guilt over Cornwell's absence from his life, and that was the year that he had been asked to begin participating in Death Eater meetings and such, but, it was when he was fifteen that he realized he didn't want what Lucius's life. He had wanted his own. And, what he had heard Lucius say—that Draco had practically been born with hate for Voldemort, in his blood, was suddenly making sense, because Draco had always known that there was something about Voldemort of which he did not take to, from the first times he could remember, even though he had been raised to believe Voldemort was brilliant—a genius—a do-gooder. "I'm a horrible son."

Harry was not surprised by Draco's sudden guilt, "No, you're not," he quietly assured, placing the picture-frame onto the coffee table sitting in front of them. As he did so, Draco leaned over his knees, too, and dropped his face into his arms. The only response that Harry got was the running of Draco's hand through his platinum hair, in a tersely delicate manner, as if he were trying not to pull it out as he did so. "Had Lucius not cared about how good of a son you were, he wouldn't have cared that you didn't want to be what he was. If he thought you were a horrible son, he wouldn't have defied Voldemort, and you shouldn't be feeling guilty about that. That has nothing to do with you—that has to do with him being a good father to you, Draco, and realizing that your need to be yourself was greater than that of whose blood and upbringing you had."

"I know that, and I went and scolded him, wrote him off as nothing more than a brainwashed puppet!"

Harry watched, helplessly, "Lucius wouldn't want you to feel this way—he obviously never meant for you to find out the way you did." The way Lucius had looked at Draco screamed of guilt rather than anger, but Harry did not want to bring that up, not when Draco was feeling terrible, as well. But, his words didn't seem to do anything other than make Draco sigh with frustration at himself and clutch the back of his own neck. "At least he's safe, Malfoy. Voldemort can't get to him, even if he wanted to, and by the way it sounded, Voldemort would rather cut off his own wrists than kill Lucius for what he did. He did it to protect you, and Voldemort seemed to find nothing wrong in that, even if Lucius having done so went directly against what Voldemort has been trying to accomplish for, apparently, the last twenty years."

"Did you see the way he touched Lucius's head?"

Harry snorted with laughter, but then he tried to suppress it.

That was, at least, until Draco lifted his head from his arms and started to laugh in the same sort of way, "He almost looked like he was going to cry," he chuckled, though hesitantly, feeling guilty about finding something so amusing when the actual situation was not funny at all. But, when he laughed, Harry laughed. And, when Harry laughed harder over his words, Draco laughed harder and turned his attention back to the picture on the coffee table, as his laughter began to fade away. "He wants us—you—as you, Judas, and me, and he wanted you as Harry. I just... we need to know what—no, who—we need to know who Cornwell is."

"He's your father."

Draco choked on a small breath of air, taken in a startled amount of honesty. He cleared his throat, "Obviously."

"He's your father, and he's protecting you," Harry extended who they knew Cornwell as. He pushed himself up onto his feet, slowly, taking his time. He was very tired, and he still had a pretty decent headache. All of that, however, just had sort of been put on the back-burner since he had awoken. Draco was his first priority, at that moment. Draco was his first priority, anymore, period, even above what he was there to do, because what he had to do could not be done without Draco, and with the new information about how Cornwell had planned for Harry to be Judas, for Harry and Draco to meet, again, under different circumstances, it was clear that Draco was essential in what was going on. It wasn't just Harry. Sure, Harry had to be the one to bring Voldemort down, but Draco was a huge part of the equation.

"He's not in history books. He's not in rumors. Trivial, but he's not even on Chocolate Frogs. Who he is, is secret. It's been made that way for a reason." Harry continued, just talking it out, as he walked toward Draco's fireplace, with interest, examining the trinkets that littered the mantle in an elegant, yet warmly comfortable way. Nothing in Draco's study was cold. Even though Harry didn't know what ninety-nine point eight of the things in the room meant, he could still sense, and he could still see, that everything seemed to suit Draco's persona. And, when he reached the fireplace, he looked over a few objects—a Slytherin crest, a Hufflepuff leaving-feast clothe napkin that appeared quite dated, a wooden carved eagle, and a few golden and silver trinkets, which Harry had not a clue of their importance, were scattered around amongst other, more large, obvious momentos. "The only person who is going to give us the truth is Cornwell."

Draco suddenly sat up, and he awkwardly stared after Harry, "He knows you're... you."

Harry turned around, slowly, and slipped his hands into his pockets, his shoulders shrugged, "I guess what he saw wasn't complete lunacy, was it? We haven't killed each other." Draco, who had just stood up, and was running his hands back through his hair, as he walked around the back of the couch, away from Harry, looked back with confusion. "Lucius said he saw a picture with us in the Prophet, and thought we wouldn't kill each other."

"Well, he knew something we didn't," Draco quietly acknowledged. "He knew our blood, and his connection to your father." He was adjusted to the news of the night. It was hard to hear, but not, at all, hard to process. Nothing in Draco's life had ever been as easy as said. He had been dealing with levels and layers of lies for most of his life, starting from when he was a boy and having known that Cornwell was the father to him that Lucius was not. It had not been hard to realize who Cornwell was, to him not after having been raised by him, and then having had the epiphany of a mirror reflecting back a smaller version of Cornwell. "You may not have ever liked me, Potter, and I never gave you reason to. But, he knew that my hate for you was based on what could have been. It always was, because I always knew who my father was to your father, and you never knew, never cared, and could never have known. You heard Cornwell, Potter, back on Gemini Avenue; I never hated you. Quite the opposite."

"Well, I did hate you, you know," Harry threw back, mocking seriousness.

Draco smiled, lightly, with closed lips, "You never hated me, Potter. You just couldn't figure out my issue with you. It infuriated you, because you had done nothing to me. That would make your hate based on something liquid, rather than solid, so you couldn't have found a solid foundation for hating me. Initially, at least."

Harry walked around the couch, too, taking his time. Draco had a point, "Yeah. Yeah, you're... right."

Draco sat down on the side of his desk, leaning against it. He crossed his right ankle over his left, crossed his arms over his chest and rested his chin in his waiting right hand, contemplative of what they were talking about, "Voldemort wants me. He wants Judas. He wants power. He wants opposite of whatever Cornwell does—whatever anyone with a heart does," he began, speaking through the cracks in his fingers. His eyes shifted to Harry, and Harry was leaning opposite of him, against the back of a couch, listening as if he was hearing something in Draco's tone that Draco could hear, himself. He just didn't know what it was, yet. "If we take us from the equation, and take away Cornwell, the Death Eaters, your father, Dumbledore, Gryffindor—if we take away Lucius and we take away all of the loyalties Voldemort has ever had, he's still only after one thing."

Harry, frustrated with Draco's words, which were obviously known facts, only nodded his head along.

Draco dropped his palm from his chin and stared, simply, at Harry, "Anything?"

"Gee, Malfoy, if I had known the answer to any of this, I don't think we'd be sulking here, brooding about it."

Draco ignored him and stood up, straight, again, but this time with a determined sigh, while he grinned. He grinned because it was funny to see Harry so out-of-it and unfocused, "You were just talking about parallels to our fathers, were you not?" He circled around his desk, carefully, with squinted eyes. He heard a small murmur of agreement. as he turned his body and sat down at his desk chair. Across from him, Harry was already seated and leaning up over his desk. This time, he appeared to no-longer be rolling his eyes for Draco stating the obvious, and he knew, because of this, that he and Harry were on the same track, and both were probably going in rightfully separate ways in terms of ideas—of strategies—of plays, of spells—of some brilliant, simple answer that no one had ever thought of, before.

They just simply were not going to find an easy answer. It was not going to happen, and they were already aware of that.

"You heard the way he was talking—if only James and Cornwell could have—if only Potter and Draco had known... what about James and Cornwell? What about Potter and Draco? What is it, that we have or could do, that would bring him to his knees?"

"Even if that is a rhetorical question, Malfoy, I can't answer it. No one can. Only Cornwell—"

"No!" Draco interrupted Harry, leaning over the desk, as well, to meet Harry's eyes, very pointedly. "Harry, we are our fathers."

"You've gone and lost it."

Draco watched as Harry pushed himself up and went to walk away from the desk. Obviously, it was late. Harry's head was hurting, and he was in no mood to be analyzing anything. He was sure that the after-effects of Harry's silent-room spell had nearly made it so that concentration was impossible for Harry. He was tired, and Draco understood. If it had been at any other point in the day, Draco knew the tables would have been reversed, and Harry would have been very interested in what Draco was talking about, but Harry did not seem to be in the mood to look into anything deeper than what the facts of that very moment were. This, however, was not acceptable to Draco. Therefore, he wasn't going to let Harry walk out when they had learned so much. And, even if Harry did not leave, he couldn't just sit there and not put thought or effort into all of the possibilities they had staring straight up at them.

Draco pushed himself up from his chair, feeling a burst of energy hijack his veins. To catch up with Harry, Draco took a shortcut, and he gave himself a strong support on the top of his couch before he pulled himself up, bounced his feet up, hopped onto the top of the heavy, stable couch, onto the cushion, and, then, at last, onto the floor, where he had the leverage to catch up and corner Harry with hands placed outward into the air between them.

Harry stopped, as Draco slid in front of him, coolly, with a silent plead to stay.

Draco held up his left hand, "Potter—you just said we had parallels to our fathers, did you not?"

Harry blinked, as if to try and wake himself up. Whatever the kick Malfoy was on, Harry had, apparently, missed it. Draco seemed onto something, now, rather than just spouting off something—anything—as they had been doing for the last couple of minutes. It didn't take much to get Harry's attention, after he realized this. Instead of pushing Draco away to collapse on the sofa, as he had first been determined to, he started to smile, awkwardly. Malfoy appeared to be endearingly cute when he was determined—with a furrowed, wrinkled forehead and platinum hair falling messily over his forehead, which he kept excessively tossing back with his head, "Yes?"

"Exactly," Draco pointed at him and then at the couch, strongly. "Sit down. Hear me out."

"For the record," Harry muttered, as he took a heavy seat on the center cushion of Draco's couch, obeying the command to do so, "I wasn't planning on leaving, I was just looking for a seat—you know, with the drum-line, pounding headache and all—like some bloody drummer has made it his personal duty to bash my head in." He quietly spoke this, even softer than he had before. His poor head. His poor, poor head.

Draco frowned, put-off of his objective by default. It was a moment he hadn't expected, and as lightly as he could manage, taken with honest concern, he took a step forward, his face scrunching up in an attempt to show sympathy, "It's getting worse?"

"Yes," Harry quietly answered, as to not infuriate the pain that had doubled in the last couple of minutes. "Much."

Draco tilted his head. When he did, it fell in front of his eyes, and he swore, mentally, over it. At last, he lifted his left hand and pressed his hair off of his forehead, holding it back, He dropped it, though, as he held his head straight. Miraculously, his hair didn't dare fall, again. But, he was too concerned with Harry's state to care about the settling of his hair—besides, it was just Potter, and Potter never cared about how his hair looked.

Carefully, Draco approached Harry, and then sat down on the coffee table. His knees touched Harry's, and Harry looked up from the floor, with his cheeks buried in his huge palms, "I don't mind if you'd rather this wait—for tomorrow, perhaps? I didn't have a plan. I was just going to babble about our fathers and trick you into doing so, as well—in hopes we'd pull something out of us—some... answer... that would help us. But, it can wait until tomorrow."

After a hesitant moment passed, of Harry's silence, Draco leaned forward a bit more, "It's not polite to pretend you haven't heard me, Potter." When he saw a glimmer of a smile on Harry's lips, he couldn't help but press his charm on a little more thickly, innocently. "I'm quite worried about your health, you know. You better take the opportunity to acknowledge it before I deny it ever happened."

Harry smiled into his hands, dropping his face down. He rubbed his hands over his face before straightening his position and dropping his arms and hands over his knees, crossed at mid-forearm. He cared a lot about Draco. He liked spending his time with Draco. He liked a lot of things about Draco Malfoy, and even with his splitting headache, he wasn't going to walk away from the room, not after what they had just learned, "Why, Malfoy, I am ever-so flattered that you care, but, no, I do not need to give it a night." Harry chuckled, feeling something that resembled appreciation. At Draco's only reaction—a blank, expectant sign for clarity, he gave a childish laugh. "Just talk, Draco. I'm listening."

Draco didn't need any further encouragement. He stood up from the coffee table, and as he did so, he affectionately swiped his hand over the warm, flushed cheek he had noticed opposite of him. He patted Potter's cheek, as it to tell him that, while Draco hoped he felt better and soon, there were far more pressing matters at hand. And, as he began to walk around the coffee table, the very tips of his fingers slid down Harry's face—never completely leaving until they absolutely had to. "First, our fathers met not knowing they were wizards. That's opposite of us. We met in Diagon Alley, and they met in a muggle park."

Harry simply nodded, watching as Draco began to pace in front of the coffee table. Not realizing it until he had taken the chance to acknowledge his own movement, Harry's hand had cupped over his cheek, where Draco's hand had just affectionately, but, still, somehow, distantly, emotionally-coldly, touched him. Faces were intimate things. And, while his face was Judas Cliffdale's, he still felt as if Draco had touched his own cheek—because, for the first time, a touch did not feel foreign to a foreign face. Perhaps Judas and Draco had shared a similar experience when they were children.

"Second, after your father learned about who Cornwell was, he didn't tell Cornwell, now did he?"

Harry, this time, shook his head from side to side. Draco seemed to be thriving on the task at hand, suddenly.

"Do you suppose there was a reason why your father never told Cornwell?"

Harry's interest heightened, his attention finally came into focus, and his posture straightened a bit more, "That's a good point—keep on."

Draco nodded, "You seem to know about as little as your father's past as I do mine. Am I right?"

Harry blinked. He hated feeling so close to his father in some ways, and so clueless in others.

Draco didn't need much more of an answer. He moved on, "Both were powerful wizards, neither of whom do we even know why they were, or how they came to be that way. We'll put that at the end of our equation for the night. Ex times Ex, divided over Ex, equals the importance of our fathers—are you up for it?" He finally stopped pacing in front of the coffee table that separated he and Judas Potter—ha, Judas Potter. It quite summed up who Harry was to Draco. "We can put the music-note spell on you, if you'd rather not deal with the pain, and you can write out what you have to say. As for our first problem of the night, if you choose to go ahead with sleepless brilliance—though I can't guarantee anything will come out of it—we will take these two factors into consideration."

As Draco spoke, he wrote out, with the tip of his wand, in a glittering green color, in long, elegantly-formed cursive words, complete with very long, thin, oval curves and twirls, JamesDraco, CornwellHarry.

The statement stayed in the air, staring down at Harry and producing the silence of the room that followed.

Finally, Harry lifted his eyes to Draco. Why hadn't Draco said that, aloud? Slowly, Harry pressed forward, "How do you figure?"

"That depends on how you feel like spending your night."

Harry couldn't help but smile, as he rolled his eyes. He pulled his wand from his pajama pants pocket and lifted it.

This had better be good. After an affectionate pause, in which they both looked at the shimmering gold words, Harry added a cutely spiteful, traditional, angrily-written, italicized, Malfoy!

Snorting with laughter, Draco shrugged his shoulders up, burying one hand into his let pocket. But, he was delighted with Harry's answer, and felt like he was ready to have a go on the puzzle pieces which they had just been dealt, Draco gave an appreciative nod of his head. He quickly swished the tip of his wand through his writing, and the letters swirled before they disappeared, completely. He turned and pointed his wand at the door, with a deliberately hesitant, deep voice, and spoke, "Ephorasolufia!"

The jet of light sprung out of his wand, in the same way it had Harry's, and it flew out through the room. Perhaps he hadn't noticed in the church, but the spell did a very quick, nearly bubble-like scan of the room, almost like it was graphing each and every single centimeter and nook of the place, before the orange-toned glow of color disappeared and everything returned to the normalcy that he and Harry had been facing.

When Draco turned back to Harry, Harry was just staring at him with an expression that bordered on awe.

Draco did not hesitate. He walked away from his track in front of the coffee table, and he circled it. He sat down next to Harry, "Those who live together must suffer together. You said we're a one-meal deal. If you're going to suffer for this, I'm going to suffer for it." He was speaking of the after effects of the spell he had just cast over the room. It wasn't so bad, especially because they had two ways of improving the headache the next day. If anything, putting a music-note spell on himself, or having Harry do it, might have been the smartest move, anyhow, just in case he saw Cornwell and decided to have a go at him, verbally, which Draco wondered would come out as classical tones or war-like barks. His best-bet was on the shrill, hard, unfriendly chords which his words would relate to the most.

"We're going to suffer together, huh?" Harry asked, with a light chuckle. "To be honest, I'd rather suffer with you than alone."

Draco looked at him, silently. After a paused moment, he gave one small nod of his head. He didn't need to say anything more, he was sure. He wasn't going to admit to Harry that it felt good that they were working as a team, that they were working together, and that Harry didn't want to be alone in what he was doing. It felt good to know that neither of them were going to have to suffer alone, for anything, that summer, even when things were seeming so dark on the brightest and gloomiest days they had ever seen, "Are you ready to hear this?"

Harry rested back into his cushion and motioned Draco up, with his hand, "Go on, Malfoy. Show me your brilliance."

Draco pushed himself up, but not without a wry smirk at Harry, "I'm going to ignore the responses I have to that."

Harry snorted, rolling his eyes, "That's noble of you, ignoring your instincts for the good of the cause—wow."

"Oh, fuck you—and, yes, I am doing something for the good of the cause. Don't you forget that, Potter."

"Me? Forget you doing something for me? I could never!"

By the time Draco stood in front of the coffee table, again, he was laughing, "Would you cut it out, and let me be serious?"

Harry pulled his left leg up on the couch and rested his left heel on the cushion, so his knee was bent. He wrapped his arms around it, at ease, to get more comfortable, all the while smiling, shamelessly, at Draco. Sometimes it was fun to just forget what they had to do and just pretend that the only thing they had to do was converse with each other about things that didn't matter. Nothing mattered more than that, anyway, at the end of the day. Regardless of what happened with Voldemort, Harry already knew that what he had with Draco, and what was going to come out of what he had with Draco, over the next months, would far outweigh the pointlessness of not being civil toward each other. He was free to be a person he had always been, deep down, but his standing had never allowed him to be—he was a weapon, he was a brain, he was an answer and a solution—that's who he was to everyone else. To Draco, and of Draco to him, he was just a well-understood kid, "Okay, be serious."

Draco smirked, his left eyebrow hooked up, strongly, "Was that a demand, Potter? No one ever demands a Malfoy."

'Sorry, I'm pretending that your father was my father's bitch, and he barked Cornwell around, so you have no case."

"Idiot," Draco assured Harry of what his reasoning made him be, with a hard laugh, his hands falling from his sides. He shook his head from side to side, while Harry laughed and pulled his other foot up onto the couch, so his socked feet were sticking out just over the edge. And, while Harry was busy laughing and looking at the coffee table, Draco took in the wizard opposite of him, with very friendly, caring eyes. God, damnit, Potter was brilliant—"In equation one, we'll call you Cornwell and we'll call me James, based solely on the fact that James knew of who Cornwell was, like I knew who you were. I grew up with magic, as did James. You didn't, like Cornwell. You were kept away from it—albeit, for very different reasons—just like he was. So, I'm James, and you're Cornwell, and we've been best friends since we were, what, seven? I find out that you're magic, and I never tell you. Now, why wouldn't I tell you?"

Harry didn't hesitate, "It wasn't your business or obligation to tell me—"

"But, are we sure about that? Supposedly, James was a power source all his own. Did he know about Cornwell?"

Harry licked his bottom lip and leaned forward, with squinted eyes, over his knees, "He could have..."

"We'll assume that he did. We'll assume that he spent five years, at least, knowing about Cornwell. And, we know that James stayed with Cornwell a lot during those years, up until he was sixteen. Even when his parents took Sirius in—like a son—James still never told him about Cornwell until Sirius actually questioned him about it. But, why? Why would James keep his friendship with Cornwell away from Sirius? Away from everyone?"

"Perhaps there was no motive, Malfoy. I never knew my father, but I'm positive that he wasn't that sort of way."

"No, I don't mean he had a motive, Potter. I mean, maybe there was something he knew about Cornwell—this issue of Cornwell's power—that he felt. No one could have possibly known, because it appears that no one knows, now, what Cornwell was, except for, we assume, a handful of people—people who are already powerful," Draco continued, standing, immobile, while Harry stared at him, listening and nodding along with thoughtful glances away for a second or two at a time.

"Plus, Cornwell only attended Hogwarts for his sixth and seventh years. He was twenty-four when he disappeared from wizard life, so that leaves an eight year span of which he was in magic. Somewhere in that eight years that he knew and embraced magic, he became powerful—but, can someone so young make himself that powerful in eight years? Can someone, whose life hadn't been planned out, forever, turn into something so powerful? Adding in, of course, that Cornwell is not only one of the nicest-possible human beings, ever, but very lovely and well-mannered, and while he's not a saint, I am positive that he's not the type who could have manipulated and stepped on people to get power."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, quickly. "Factor one—we'll assume that Cornwell was born powerful."

"Excellent," Draco decided, of what he had been getting at. Finally, he moved, with his right hand covering his chin and his left hand squeezing his side. He walked a couple of paces to his right, and then back the could of paces to his left. He started to do this, again, but then stopped himself and turned back to Harry, with his right hand leaving his face to motion about in the air. "Where does that kind of power come from when you're born?"

Harry went to respond with one thing, but only produced another, "A prophecy, like mine."

"A prophecy."

"We're back to square one, aren't we?" Harry asked, with a frustrated, cynical laugh.

Draco groaned, slightly leaning forward with closed eyes, "I don't think we ever even left square one to begin with, Potter."

"All right, then let's put aside the prophecy idea. Even if it is a prophecy, there is no way we could know what it was, unless, of course, we broke into the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry or if we, again, just ask Cornwell, neither of which we can apparently do. That seems to leave only one option open—we'll have to focus on James—I mean, my father—because, if he was as powerful as they say, and he could sense that in Cornwell, and, say, wanted to protect Cornwell, there has to be a reason. There has to be record—there has to be something, somewhere, because they couldn't have erased Cornwell from my father's entire life, like they did mine. If they were friends until the end, they must have had momentos—memories—journals? Pictures, even! In fact, other people had had to see them—what about your mother? Even though she didn't know either of them in school, I'm sure she knew OF them—"

"Gringotts," Draco interrupted, suddenly, looking up from the floor. But, when he saw Harry, he shook his head back and forth, fervently, and moved on, at first. "You're right, my mother, she probably knows more about them than we think! I mean, damn, she and Cornwell were..." His voice faded, and even in that very moment, a silence prevailed, and it succeeded in making Draco feel completely dead.

Harry bit into his bottom lip, awkwardly, and cleared his throat, "We'll ask her, tomorrow—what about Gringotts?"

"Nice segue, Potter. Could it have been any more obvious?"

Harry did chuckle, softly, as Draco collapsed back down onto the couch next to him, ungracefully. His demeanor had changed. He no longer seemed excited. It was like a big thunder-cloud had just settled above him and had ruined the plans for the rest of his entire life. He even lifted his foot from the floor, and for the second time that night, he succeeded in kicking the heavy wooden coffee table so hard that it slid about another foot away from them on the wooden floor. Without hesitating, Harry unwrapped his left arm from around his knee and threw it over in front of Draco's chest, looking down his shoulder at him, "You know, technically, you're a full-fledged Black. Not only are you Cornwell's son—whatever power that obviously has given you by birthright—but you're a Black. Powerful sons of bitches, or so I have heard."

Draco glowered at Harry, sunken down onto the couch and slouched, "I'm inbred, Potter!"

Harry laughed.

Draco stared at him, at first. But, Harry didn't seem ashamed of his laughter. He pulled his arm back and covered his mouth, instead, as if he were trying to make his laughter spiral to a faded close. It didn't really work, because he seemed to find something truly funny, which infuriated Draco. Draco easily took offense to things when discussing his parents, and Potter knew that, too! Before he could restrain himself, and nearly foaming at the mouth with obscenities, Draco's right hand came up and he shoved it against Harry's head, which succeeded in pushing Harry over, because Harry went without an argument, and he laughed even harder, "WHAT THE FUCK IS SO FUNNY?"

Harry moaned with laughter, his arms still wrapped around his knees, his feet to Malfoy, ""I'm inbred, Potter!""

Draco frowned as Potter started coughing his laughs, hard, as if he did not dare stop himself, "How is that the least bit funny?"

Harry pushed himself up on his right elbow and turned his head toward Draco. He stayed silent for a moment, but found it hard to keep from laughing moments afterward. He knew Draco didn't find it, at all, funny, but the situation had really amused Harry. Instead of sitting himself back to his position, he pushed himself up onto his butt and faced Draco. His legs folded in to a pretzel-like shape, and he finally felt himself beginning to come down off of his laughing high, "Malfoy, you're not inbred, okay? They were COUSINS! Cousins who hadn't ever known about each other by name! It wasn't their damn fault, and it's not your fault—aristocratic society is so fucked up, I wouldn't be surprised if they were even related at all. Wasn't there a lot of cheating that went on at that time? Anyway—stop saying it like you should be ashamed. Do you KNOW the sick mating rituals of aristocrats—hell, you SHOULD know. Okay, just... you could have it loads worse. Be thankful that you're normal enough to know that it's dysfunctional."

"I was only expressing my thoughts, Potter. I suppose next time I should just—"

"Would you knock it off?" Harry cut him off, softly, with a quiet, harmless laugh. Draco had been going to get up, but Harry reached his left arm out, again, to stop him. He lowered his arm, when Draco's threat to get up was ceased, and leaned over his own lap. "Look at me, Malfoy."

Draco glanced at him, but then quickly looked away, smirking with conviction, "You're not going to tell me you care about me, again, are you?"

"Yes," Harry snickered, shamelessly. "I do, Malfoy." It was innocent and friendly. "Stop beating yourself up about your parents, okay?"

Draco scoffed with stubborn disbelief. Never minding the fact that Potter was laughing at him and giving him advice on how to not take himself so seriously, Draco found the moment to be oddly endearing. He wasn't at all taken aback. He felt a corruption of friendly curiosity take over his body, "I'll stop just because you told me to, oh-so-powerful Potter."

"Malfoy, do you like your life?" There was no answer. "Scratch that—I know you like your life. Be thankful for what you've got."

"I am thankful," Draco spitefully admitted, under his breath. It hissed at Harry like a scared snake. "Now, back off!"

Harry found himself trying not to laugh, again, "What—whoa—am I making you uncomfortable?"

"I wouldn't flatter yourself, Potter. I just don't like discussing my parents with anyone—"

"You want to discuss it, Malfoy, because you just did," Harry interrupted him, with a serious laugh. There was nothing Draco had to be ashamed of talking about, not to Harry. He had never had the sort of friendship he had with Draco. He did love Ron, in a way no one could ever know. Ron was like his brother, his comic relief, his sanity in times of the insane. But, Draco was much different than that. Regardless of how little time they had spent together, in the ultimate scheme of their last weeks together, there was an undoubtedly strong bond that was already solidified. He didn't mind when Draco randomly sputtered things out. He just didn't like it when Draco took them back, as if he felt he shouldn't have shared his thoughts, at all. That was the last thing Harry wanted. He was amazed that, up until that point, neither had cracked under pressure. He cared about the state of Malfoy's mind as much as he did his own. "Now, look at me."

Draco forced a very straight-forward face and looked Harry straight on, blandly.

Harry grabbed Draco's warm chin, pointedly, before Draco could tear his eyes away, "I said look at me, Malfoy."

Draco grumbled something, growling and sputtering, tiffing stubbornly and hesitantly. Fine! He locked eyes, again, with those waiting for his. Damnit, Potter! All of his stupid affection! Who was so affectionate, anyway? Surely no boys that Draco had ever been around. He had had friendships, of course, with many other boys in his life, but none like he had with Harry, who, apparently, did not like hearing others talk down on themselves. Who would have figured Potter to have changed so severely? Not that Draco had ever known him, however. He had always figured Harry to be the non-emotional type, always centered on keeping his real emotions and such, inside, while only thinking and caring about bringing Voldemort to his knees. Who did Potter think he was, anyway, to be so... so... so personal with Draco! Damnit, and why did Draco never want him to stop being that way? He growled, "There, I'm looking. Are you happy, now?"

Damn those stupid big, brown eyes!

Harry said nothing, just half-smiled.

Draco glared at him, not backing away from the challenging eye-contact, "Well, Potter, are you happy?"

Harry purposely lowered his voice and playfully jested with suggestion ringing in his throat, "I'm happy."

Draco rolled his eyes up, once, but then caught Harry's again, with a genuine, shy grin, "Now, what is it you want to say to me?"

"I bet your eyes have made half of Hogwarts forget what they wanted to say."

Draco felt pale, which was saying a lot, because he was well aware of the state of his skin, already.

Harry blinked, after a very long moment, and then snorted laughter down against his own left shoulder, pulling his eyes away. Good God, that had come out horribly wrong! The expression on Draco's face had made his own embarrassment well-worth the mistake and play on words that had come floating out of his mouth. Truth was, Draco had incredible eyes. He was an incredible-looking person, and to disagree was just not appropriate. To men and women, alike, Draco was appealing. He was a pretty boy, and to deny a pretty boy as what he was did not seem, at all, to ever make sense. He had heard tones of girls at Hogwarts gushing over Malfoy—and, when Gryffindor boys talked about him, they threw in the word "pretty boy" as if it were a horrible curse on level with the unforgivables. But, it wasn't a horrible thing—just a pretty thing. "That was not a line!"

Draco watched him, intrigued, having felt the blood return to his face, but more abundantly, "It sounded like a line."

"It right wasn't, Malfoy!" Harry assured, still laughing embarrassed laughter at himself. "You just have nice eyes, is all. And, I was going to tell you to stop feeling so bad about it. I know that me telling you to do so isn't going to change anything, but I get it. If you want to talk about it, I don't mind. I don't mind listening to what you have to say, Malfoy. I'm just not going to sit here and let you sulk over something you had no control over and can't change. They both love you. They're both alive. On top of that, you're Draco fucking Malfoy and have everything that goes along with that. Really, what more could you want?"

"A white pony with golden hair, glittery green horse-shoes, and the Slytherin crest branded onto his neck, proudly."

Harry grinned, "Um, good luck with that,"

Draco grinned back, not breaking the friendly eye-contact, "Like you never wanted a pony when you were four!"

"I just wanted food to get me by when I was four."

Draco's eyebrows furrowed, awkwardly, "What?"

Harry glanced away from him, "Don't act like you haven't heard the stories after all of the Prophet and Quibbler articles on me, Malfoy, because you used to flash them around in my face. I had—have—a horrible muggle family who doesn't want me?" He looked back at Draco, who was staring at him as if he were a mixture of mad and delusional, which was saying a lot on its own, because Malfoy's expression seeped with that of a deranged wizard-boy who had just been told his magic had been taken away from him. Confused and alarmed, Harry's eyebrows rose up. "You know, sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs?"

Draco blinked, once.

Harry leaned forward a bit, his eyebrows now furrowed in frustration. How could Malfoy seem so surprised?

Draco pulled his eyes from Harry's and concentrated on the pictures sitting on his off-centered, crooked coffee table, a good foot and a half away from where it usually was. He didn't really know what to do with himself. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to answer. He just didn't know. He had heard all of the "rumors" about where Harry Potter had come from, but they had never truly been confirmed. It was one of those things, early on, that peeved Draco off about Harry Potter—who had been made to seem like some poor, innocent little orphan boy, and not the powerful, important, magically-raised boy Draco had been taught to think of Harry as while he was growing up. He was the son of Lucius Malfoy, and Lucius had played on Draco's innocence about Harry since Draco could even remember. But, after awhile, he hadn't known what to believe.

As he sat there, silently, he just couldn't fathom how far away he felt from Harry. He had been horrible to Harry, because he had figured that no one had ever been horrible to Harry, as if he had grown up being worshipped, and if not worshipped, at least loved and cared for. But, those rumors now appeared to be true, and Draco wasn't sure what to make of himself, in the past, because of it. He had been a little monster to Harry. Albeit, that was before Draco had grown a set for himself and understood that everything his father told him hadn't always been true—of course, Cornwell had never been around when Lucius had spoken poorly of Harry and James—the Potters, in general—and no fucking wonder, now! Cornwell probably would have hexed Lucius into the year twenty-ten!

Harry felt troubled, and that was all he could describe it as, inside. Malfoy appeared to be so hurt, so damaged. Had Harry said something that he hadn't been aware of? What could have offended Draco so much that his usually-flawless, set angry face was no longer angry, but rather livid—with a lot of wrinkles, and a hard, clenched jaw. Carefully, he cleared his throat. "Malfoy?"

Draco, at last, blinked his eyes away. They fell from the picture of himself and Cornwell, that he and Harry had been examining earlier in the night, and they flew back to the lean, hesitantly moving figure beside his, bravely. Before he could stop himself, he set his posture straight, wrinkled his entire face with complete and utter disgust, lifted his hands into the air in front of him, as if to say "what the fuck!" and spat out, "They made you sleep in a cupboard!"

"What.. yeah?" Harry didn't know how to respond. He awkwardly eyed Draco, feeling more vulnerable than ever. "It had a bed, though." Yes, sleeping under the stairs was horrible, but he had at least had a bed. With a groan, Harry couldn't help but feel ashamed of himself. It came off like he was trying to defend the Dursley's, but he was actually only trying to make himself seem like less of the pitiful orphan-like boy everyone pegged him as, though he was pretty much exactly that.

"Are you fucking with me, Potter?"

Harry's eyes blew wide, and he laughed, startled and stunned, "No!" He defended himself, monstrously defensive of his childhood life and how Draco seemed to be thinking it was all a lie. Hardly! Harry WISHED it had been a lie! He wished he would have been able to grow up with a family in Malfoy's standings, but he hadn't had that luck. And, though he stared at Malfoy, and Malfoy stared back at him, his laughter started to lighten. "I hardly grew up like you, Malfoy. I was pretty sure everyone knew that—the articles and—well, I guess not everyone knew it." He itched at his chest, over his heart, unintentionally. "Clearly not."

"Oh, shut your mouth," Draco bit at him, as he pushed himself up. He walked away from the couch and Harry.

Harry didn't know what to do. Frustrated and confused, he gave a heavily deep sigh. He didn't know what was wrong with Malfoy, to have turned so shove-off-ish over something that didn't even concern him. Indeed, it did not concern him at all. He licked at his bottom lip and went to say something. He stopped himself and just decided to give Draco the go-ahead, because if Draco wanted to say something, Harry knew it would come. He didn't want to piss Malfoy off—as it seemed quite easy to do, at the moment.

Mentally, he was flabbergasted and utterly lost.

Draco's left hand placed on the mantle above his fireplace, and he leaned his weight against it, his head tilted down to where his eyes could easily stare at the floor. He was part of that floor. He had been so low to Harry. Of course, when he was younger, he had been... well, just that—young. He had been young, stupid and brainwashed. And, Harry seemed to believe that it was stupid to look in the past, because nothing could be changed. But, that didn't take away the guilt Draco felt, and the disgust he felt, "Bloody muggles, I have three-fourths of a Malfoy mind to go cover their faces with pillows."

"Just forget it, Malfoy. They weren't pleasant people, but I hardly want them dead."

"You always say the same thing," Draco returned, after a very long silence settled had between them. His voice was low, gilled with groveling angst. He slowly looked over his shoulder and toward Harry. He opened up his body, so he was actually facing the seated wizard, but he was still leaning against the mantle with his arm and hand. When he saw the anxiety on the face staring at him, as if the face were searching for some huge clue, Draco dropped his hand from the mantle. "If you go through your life forgetting everything that has upset you—I mean, they made you sleep in a bloody cupboard, Potter! You should WANT them to suffer—"

"Don't patronize me as being a fucking saint! I didn't say I liked them—or even cared for them—I said I didn't want them dead, and there's nothing wrong with that! I don't want them to suffer, because I don't want ANYONE to suffer anymore than they necessarily have to!" He exclaimed, raising his voice. As he did so, the pounding in his head became heavier. He struggled with himself, for a moment, as he walked around the coffee table, tightly squeezing the back of his neck and shrugging his shoulders up to match the tenseness he felt inside.

"I slept in a cupboard—okay, so it was horrible, and they treated me like a dog that they were forced to take in—because that's what I am! That's what I always was! But, just being bitter about it isn't going to do anything about it! It made me who I am—it made me appreciative of the things I never had. It made me LEARN how to treat people. You know, that whole bit about treating people how you would want to be treated? Putting yourself in someone else's shoes? Well, I was the only PAIR of damn shoes in that house, and no one ever wanted to see how it was to spend an hour in them, much-less gave a damn to even PRETEND to take my feelings into consideration, so don't go getting angry over something like them shoving me into a cupboard—at least I bloody-well had a bed and food, and sure, I was a scrawny little thing—shy, with issues and more than a bit miserable—but, I'd like to think that all changed when I got to Hogwarts, and I'm NOT the same kid who was sleeping in the cupboard, anymore, and I don't let it just DEFINE me! They hated me, so! I hate them, too! And, sometimes I wish I'd never have to see them, again, and, hopefully, because I'll be seventeen next week, I'll be legally able to hold myself without their housing, and, hopefully, by the end of this fucking year or sooner, I won't HAVE to worry about Voldemort coming to attack me, so I wouldn't need to go back there, anyway! So, Malfoy, if you WANT to do anything for me, help me not to ever have to go back to those people."

Draco had followed Harry from the couch to the door, silent the whole time. He felt like a little boy after a scolding.

Harry opened the door and turned around to him, "I'm going to sleep. We'll discuss this tomorrow, because God fucking knows that one damn night of talking about the father I never knew is HARDLY going to bring about the answers we're missing."

Draco hugged the door-frame, lightly, while Harry walked down the hallway, "Wait."

Harry turned around, simply.

Draco stood tall, "Look at me."

With no hesitation, a pair of brightly impassioned eyes found his own. The way Harry had reacted to his own past was frightening. He seemed to so easily put the past behind him. However, it was clear that the emotions his past brought about were a completely different story. Harry had managed to separate his past with what he had learned from his past, and when he spoke of the actual events, something seemed very frightening and heart-breaking about him. And, it was even harder for Draco watch, because he wasn't even watching Potter, physically. He was watching Judas Cliffdale, and it took away the certain amount of closeness that Draco knew he felt toward Harry.

Draco's eyes hooded, and he just gave a small shake of his head, "You say you care for me—you say you care about me." Harry gave one slight nod. "Then, you'll understand the concept that I might care for you as much as you care for me? You know I care about you—enemies, friends, whatever we are—I care about you." Harry did nothing. He said nothing. He appeared to know, feel or think nothing, either. He just stood there, his eyes glazed over and emotionless, but this was something Draco was sure was a defense mechanism of Harry's. "Potter, even if you've forgotten it and put it behind you, can't you see that I'm appalled with what they did to you? You were a little boy, like Dickie—innocent, pure, sweet, quiet, a doll in all ways possible, I'm sure—and they made you sleep in a cupboard. And, I swear to God, and I swear right now, on our relationship, on my dreams—on my fucking life, no matter how hard-core and overly-dramatic it sounds—that if I ever run into one of your family members and they so much as tick me off with a breath too loud for my mood, I'll kill. You don't make little boys sleep in cupboards. You don't make MY Harry Potter sleep in a cupboard."

Harry could only manage to shake his head, once. His foot shuffled on the floor, too. He didn't know how Draco did it. He didn't know how Draco pulled out of Harry what no one ever had. He didn't know what it was that made him blurt things out to Draco, things he didn't ever admit to feeling around anyone else. He hadn't gone into that summer having any idea that what he would have had with Draco would have been more comforting and friendship-inducing than anything in his life had ever offered him. He knew exactly why they were good together—it was because they were, simply, two different boys to each other than they were to the rest of the world.

Keep friends close and enemies closer, wasn't that the saying? His enemy was no longer his enemy. Draco was Harry's only confidant, and Harry knew that, had there been fifteen other brilliant people who he could have confided in, none of them would have compared to Draco, because he knew what they were in a way that he couldn't put in words, put in thought or even put forth into an ideal standard for any sort of relationship.

And, even when he got mad at himself for being someone he loved to be, around Draco, and went to get back into the spirit of the lonely, brooding, world-shouldered boy he had always been—still, in many ways, a little boy in a cupboard in his loneliness—Draco managed to pull him right back in and make him realize he was being a total moron for feeling as if he had to go back and keep his emotions tightly bottled up.

Simply, Draco cared.

They cared about each other.

And, to each other, they were what no one had ever been to them. They had grown up not knowing each other, but rather despising each other, and there was no better solution for curing that sharpness of enemies than learning about each other. Their opportunity to learn about each other was far greater than it might have been with anyone else, in their lives, because they WERE, indeed, who they were—in society, in school and to each other.

They were open to be who they wanted to be, and under the pressure that they faced, it was probably a brilliant idea to have put them together. They would change each other—and, they both knew it, because they both knew it had been happening in the short time they had been in each other's lives as more than casual, child-hood dislike that had made them feud and battle with each other's presence from the very moment they had met.

A smirk hit the very-most corner of Draco's mouth, "You are my Harry Potter, aren't you? No one else knows you as I do."

Harry only backed away from Draco, with light, stead-fast steps on his heels, eyes twinkling in full-fledged diamond-like reflections. He felt his cheeks scrunch up, but he never let himself laugh, "Goodnight, Malfoy."

Draco watched him turn to leave the hallway, and he smiled, gently, "Goodnight, Potter."

When Harry stood in the center of the doorway, he briefly turned back to stare, curiously, at Draco, "Wait."

Draco stepped out of the doorway.

"I think you should ask Cornwell."

"You think the right way." He smiled, easily, as Harry yawned into his arm. "Sleep tight." What! Oh, Draco.

"Of course, but only if I'm dreaming of you." He smiled, cheekily.

"I'd be careful what you wish for. Our dreams are hardly our own, anymore, are they?"

Harry drew himself up completely straight, with impeccable posture, "Hmm, how little you know about me." He pointed to his mind, as if to suggest there was something in it that could keep out unwanted dreams. Draco seemed to know exactly what he meant, however. He had put it together quickly. He didn't ask anything else, just curiously looked over Harry's forehead, even though there was nothing that he would have been able to see that was out of the ordinary. Harry went to turn away, again, but he added a quick and stuffy, "Cheerio, mate."

Draco laughed, "Yeah, Cheerio, Potter." When Harry went to turn away, Draco muttered. "Twit."

"I heard that!" Harry exclaimed, with a huge grin, reappearing. Truth be told, he had been expecting it.

Draco smiled, "That's because I wanted you to. See, Potter, now we separate and bid each other farewell—farewell, my friend, and do have a lovely slumber—and, it just so happens to work out that I'm in the lead and have the upper hand." He smirked. "Goodnight." He closed his study door before Harry could say anything, or everything, to make their conversation drone on for the rest of the night. But, Draco knew Harry's head was hurting, so he withdrew his placement in the conversation. Besides, Harry hadn't had time to take his thrown, once again, as the one to jumble up Draco's night. There was already enough jumbling them both up.

Harry turned away from Draco's closed study door and walked out through the hallway, again. He closed the door behind him and then began taking careful steps down the hall. There was a strange feeling that he had, now, when he walked. It was like he was afraid that someone were following him, hearing his every thought, seeing his every move. He felt like he was under a microscope, but he knew that he wasn't. The situation didn't make things easy or light-hearted. Things were dark. Times were dark. His mission... mission—like some bloody word could describe what he had to do!--was not easy. The pressure had been building up on his shoulders for weeks, and it was beginning to get to the point where he could feel the extra weight.

Well, it might have been the few boxes of cheese-snack-crackers he had wolfed down, too... what the! "Flora!"

As Harry turned the corner into the grand entry room, he halted to a stop. Flora was standing with a tray of drinks, her forehead wrinkled. She immediately gave a small hop and looked relieved that he had shown up. She had been kicking at the air, apparently, and seemed very distraught.

"Sir, I can't get past this spot, sir!"

Harry looked at where she was kicking and realized that her foot hit an invisible boundary. For a moment, he was perplexed, but then bit into his bottom lip. Draco hadn't retracted the spell, and if he forgot, the effects of using it for too long when unaware were dangerous—loss of hearing, subjects of artwork on walls would lose their voices and ability to hear, etc.. He stepped forward, "Oh, I think Draco has his invisible wall up—you know all about that." Obviously not, as it was a total fib. "If it'd be all right, I'd take the tray and take him the drinks."

Flora shook her head, furiously, "No, sir, I can't be asking you to do such a thing, sir. It is the work of a house-elf, sir!"

"Please, Flora, I wouldn't tell," he urged, his voice raising into a cuter, more charming tone. She eyed him, suspiciously, not so adament about saying no. Harry could see there was almost a, "What's in it for me?" sort of expression taking over her eyes, which should have, because he had been wearing it on his own face. Flora was a perfect house-elf for Draco, Harry decided. He leaned down, closer, lifting his left eyebrow. "Go into the kitchens and say you're snagging some fudge for me. You deserve some fudge—and, I'd ice those toes, too. Are you all right?" He looked down at her foot, worriedly.

Flora's eyes widened, as Harry squatted down to be even with her, his eyes pensive, "I'm fine, sir!"

"Well, I simply don't believe you are fine, and I ORDER you to go steal a block of fudge and eat it while you lounge about for the rest of the day in attempt to better your foot, as I'm sure it'll be quite sore, and who wants to see you limping about? Certainly not me—and, certainly not Draco." He stood up, tall, again, mocking stern seriousness. "Flora, did you hear me? Direct order—you-kitchens-fudge-day off." Still, she wavered. Harry squinted. "Fine. If you refuse, I'll make you give Draco a sponge-bath."

Flora's entire face brightened up with horrified amusement, but she said nothing.

Harry winked at her, taking the tray from her hands, without the slightest resistance, without another word. He turned himself back around, with the shiny, reflective, flawless silver tray in his hands. He took quick strides, keeping his eyes down, rather than up, concentrating on the two cups of coffee and the one bottle of Butterbeer. As he entered the hallway that contained the door to Draco's study, his quick hurry to get there was slowed. There was music playing—nothing lyrical. It was the sound of a lone piano, coming straight from Draco's study. It was far too perfected and flawless to have been being played by Draco, and Harry did remember that Draco had listened to classical music, once before, when Harry had intruded on him. But, the music coming from the room wasn't necessarily classical. It was just instrumental.

But, as Harry stood in front of the closed study door, a small erroneous key was stricken, and a small curse uttered.

Harry held the tray on his left arm and carefully, quietly, took his time in turning the doorknob with his right hand. Once he got it cracked, it swung open. Harry jumped back, but nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Everything on the tray had miraculously not jumped or jingled, and the door had not creaked. There, sitting at a piano, was, indeed, Draco Malfoy. It was the piano in the left corner of the room that Harry hadn't figured had ever been given much use. He must have been wrong.

Draco's back was turned to him, his posture was relaxed, and he kept taking small stops on the keys below him.

Harry realized that the pauses were part of whatever he was playing—playing! Malfoy played piano. Surprising, as Draco had not mentioned it during previous musical conversations at random meals. It should have dawned on Harry that, being a Malfoy, Draco was schooled on the arts. Draco had told him so, but Harry just hadn't figured Draco to know how to play an instrument, just know about them. Stupid, really, as he thought back on it.

And, at last, words in the silent room were uttered, "I can see your reflection in the window."

Harry jumped a bit, finally brought out of his slight trance on the sound of the keys in the room, "Drinks," he weakly offered out, holding the tray out with both hands, again. This time he was looking at Draco, in the distance, through one of the windows, and he saw, very clearly, both of their reflections. Draco was looking back at him. But, the face turned away, and Harry was met with a direct glance, instead. He set down the tray on a table behind one of the couches closest to him. He stood up straight and slid his hands down his stomach and into his pockets—but, he didn't have pockets in his pajama pants, so he quickly placed his hands on his sides, giving a shy step toward Draco. "You play piano."

Draco didn't say anything, just turned his attention back down to his keys and away from Harry.

Harry walked until he was standing behind Draco, looking down over his right shoulder. Draco played a short little snippet of something catchy. It didn't last very long—about three seconds. But, those three seconds of music thrilled Harry. Draco's fingers moved about the keys, up and down the scale, like unrelenting lightening. Harry had never seen someone actually play the piano—well, not live. Once, on Christmas, when he was seven, there had been a Christmas special on the television at the Dursley's, and a man had been playing along with an orchestra. But, this was real. It was right in front of him.

Draco watched Harry's expression in the window, about six feet away. Even from where he sat, he could see the awe and innocence of complete bewilderment. It didn't have to seep into Draco to see that Harry was awed. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, and his lips were parted open. His eyes were traveling the length of the piano keys, and he seemed to, at last, find something to say. But, he failed, and after he failed, his face began to droop. It almost seemed, in the window, that Draco was staring at Harry Potter, rather than Judas, because the facial expression was so overwhelmingly Harry Potter-esque that it made Draco breathless—really.

"What..." Harry's voice cracked. It was soft and low, and he didn't want to ever walk away from the moment. Something about Draco and his piano pulled him in. Draco was the one to play the piano, for Harry, before his very own eyes. Something so little, something Harry had never even thought or cared about, had become so important to him—so very important. He cleared his throat, as quietly as he could. "What was that you were playing?"

Draco's eyes floated down onto the cold ivory keys, where his fingertips were still resting. He cleared his throat, too, because Harry had. Harry seemed so interested, and so curiously naive that Draco would have felt like a gigantic bastard to turn it into some smart-ass situation. It was almost as if Harry had never heard the piano played, before, and nearly as if he had never seen someone play the keys. He glanced up over his right shoulder, without an answer, and let his fingers do the talking.

Harry smiled.

Draco grinned right back, and after a few moments, he opened his mouth and accompanied the keys as so they would not be lonely in an anticipating room, "My heart was broke, my head was sore... what a feeling." He looked up at Harry in the window to see that Harry was just staring at him, as if he were mad and he hadn't known what room he had walked into. But, Draco rolled his eyes to himself. Potter was enjoying every single second of sound, and Draco wasn't sure he was going to get Harry to leave, that night, even with the apparent massive headache he was harboring. It wasn't such a bad thing, to have Harry there all night with him—to have Harry anywhere with him.

Harry pressed his lips together. He could feel his face brighten. Draco was singing—and so brilliantly well.

"Tied up in ancient history, I didn't believe in destiny, and I look up..." Draco looked at him, as Harry bravely stood beside the piano-bench that Draco was hogging. Harry looked right back at him, and for the first time, Draco could see the anxiety and sweetness building up in Harry's eyes. It was a physical change. The brown orbs had begun to glow in a bright way, and he seemed truly fixated on what was being heard, said and felt. For a very brief moment, Draco gave a pause in the music, before he continued on and grinned, pointedly, staring at Harry, just making something up, "...you're standing next to me—oh, what a feeling."

Harry began to laugh, without a flush or a blush in sight. He just watched Draco sing, infatuated with the skill. The tone of Draco's, the drawling growl that Harry had always heard, was just as present in the way Draco sang. But, it was pure. It was amazing—beautiful, astounding, breathtaking. The way he sounded made Harry's blood pound faster. Plus, he played the piano without even looking down when he didn't have to, and Harry found that even more fascinating—out of all of the things in the world, all of the great powers in the world, all of the miracles and wonders—it was Draco and the piano that made him feel, for the first time, in a long time, like a child learning about the most brilliant, heart-clenching, exciting thing for the first time in his entire life.

Harry recognized Draco's words—heart broken, head sore, tied up in ancient history, and... it was them, one hundred percent.

Draco stopped playing, the pain in his jaws and cheeks becoming overpowering and nearly unbearable. He tore his eyes from Harry's, boyishly, and carefully lifted his fingertips up from the chord he had been fingering over. The smoothness of the keys had always been a constant in his life—something he easily remembered and had a hard time forgetting. He had spent many Saturdays of his life attached to a piano. No one had made him sit in front of it. No one had made him learn. Of course, he had been pushed to find an instrument he would have enjoyed to play—Lucius suggested the trumpet, his mother suggested the harp, and Cornwell had suggested the guitar. Naturally, Draco fell into the hands of the piano—or, perhaps, the keys of the piano fell into his. He had been a natural. His fingers were long, skillful, elegant and thin. They were fast fingers, and for some reason, his brain had always thought in terms of the sound of a piano, because he had learned very quickly, and it made sense to him.

Draco did something he had never done, before. He slid over to the left, "Want to play?"

He offered to let someone else touch his piano.

Harry just stared at him, speechless for a long moment. He was still adjusting to all of the warmth and joy he was feeling. It was such an obvious moment—a connection. He was so inspired by Draco. He was so—so—so—completely enchanted with Draco, that he could hardly process the question. But, in one very small, timid breath, he quietly urged with a shake of his head, "Oh, no. No, I can't play. I've never even touched a piano."

Draco watched the other boy's shy expression. For a good five seconds, he was completely shell-shocked. POTTER was his, at last! He had Potter right there, shy and envious of him. It was clear that Harry was very taken with Draco's ability to play the piano. The development just shivered through Draco's veins, like fire. He felt good. He felt thankful. He felt like he needed Harry sitting beside him, at his piano, because that the right place for them to both be, at that moment in time. He shook his head, finally, "No, come on. Sit down, play," he insisted, happily.

Harry involuntarily began to fidget, and he shook his head from side to side, with an embarrassed flush, "I can't."

Draco stared at him, not sure what to say.

Harry felt his face begin to fill with warmth. Draco had never looked more appetizing or more splendid. His face had brightened. It was suddenly at aglow. It wasn't the face of the smarmy git that he usually saw. He wasn't even smiling, but he was certainly not frowning. He was waiting, patiently, with more-widened eyes, searching Harry for an answer. He was different. He was superbly... Draco. He was a superb being. He liked Draco looking at him the way he currently was, as Draco seemed to take pleasure in doing so—and not in a smug, mocking sort of way, but a true, deep rush of impassioned happiness—true friendship.

Draco lifted his right hand from the bench and pushed back his hair, fully, from his forehead. It was long enough that it all fell into some sort of catastrophe on the top of his head, he was sure, but he didn't care. After he pulled his hand away, he reached it out to Harry, expectantly, and waved it inward, as if to motion Harry to sit next to him, "Come on!"

Harry realized he was awkwardly standing there, fidgeting, so he tried to fix himself, and he put his hands behind his back, "No, you play. Really. I like to watch."

Draco slid over to the center of the bench, again. He just glanced at Harry, casually, as he did so. But, then he reached out with his right hand and grasped onto Harry's bare elbow, with a friendly and excited urge. He grinned, again, as if to sway Harry, when Harry looked at him with even more of a hesitant resistance to sit down at the piano and touch it. Draco didn't know what it was about the piano that Harry was too afraid to conquer, to even touch or feel or be closer to, but he wanted to change that just because of the way the piano influenced Harry's entire persona and aura after only a few notes, "Come on, Harry. At least touch it."

Harry went to protest, embarrassed, "I don't want to touch it!"

Draco suddenly chuckled, softly, and he tugged at Harry's elbow. It came down, willingly, "You do, too! Touch it!"

Draco's entire hand, still softly wrapped around Harry's arm, slid down. It didn't release and then re-grip. It just slid down to Harry's wrist, which was thin and very pale, whereas the rest of his body was a bit more tan. The touch took the heat from the candles in the room and threw it into Harry's fingertips. It literally felt like a fire had been lit right beneath his hand. The sensation traveled up his left arm, to his shoulder, across his chest and to the other arm and down. But, the hand Draco never touched never burned and throbbed with the liquid-type warmth. But, his right hand did just that—it was so physically affected that he was sure Draco would have felt it if Draco had been even an inch within his palm, so they would be palm to palm. He breathed, quickly, feeling himself shake at Draco's request, "I shouldn't touch it."

Draco instinctively tightened his grip around Harry's wrist. Sure enough, it went to make a quick get away, but Draco had been prepared. The wrist did not budge from his grasp, but it was hard enough of a tug that Draco slightly stood up, half-bent over, facing Harry, leaned over the bench, a bit. He had been staring into the brown eyes—god, DAMN, those brown eyes. He swallowed, pulling Harry's wrist toward the keys, "You SHOULD touch it! There's no reason you shouldn't touch it. It's HERE for you to touch. I'm OFFERING you to touch it—so, touch it!"

Harry went to protest, again, but Draco proved to be far more determined than he was.

Draco grabbed onto Harry's hand, with both of his own, each hand holding around the sides of Harry's, "God-damnit. Harry, touch it." He pulled the hand over the center of the piano, though Harry tried to pull it away. Draco didn't want Harry to get away without touching the piano, hearing it and having the room fill with the same sort of sound Draco knew Harry craved to hear, again. He just didn't trust himself, was all, to sit down and attempt to conquer and take victory over something that affected him in such a powerful way, when everything in his life had been about power—power he had conquered.

Draco slammed their hands down on the piano, but made sure only Harry's palm and fingers touched the keys.

Harry hadn't expected any sort of sound, but knowledge taught him that pressing down, carelessly, on a group of keys, would sound horrid. But, it didn't. It didn't. It felt... it felt so good. It sounded so good. It sounded... it sounded... he just stared down at Draco's hands, covering his own. He could feel the keys still vibrating beneath his fingers, as the sound gave way to the room. It shocked sparks of victory through him—but, it also sparked a lot more. He immediately took in a deep breath. Because Draco had tugged him, Harry had ended up with his knees on the bench and had been shoved against Draco, so Draco's right shoulder was pressing against the center of his own chest. It was full-contact—chest-arm, arm-arm, hand-to-hand.

Draco turned his face, just barely, toward the right, and he smiled.

Harry quickly diverted his attention back down to their hands, and he, at last, breathed an innocent laugh, "There."

Draco turned his face, again. He still smiled at Harry, who was so close to him. Draco wasn't able to repress his mouth-warmed action. He almost went to tell Harry that he was going to let go, like he was a father teaching his son to ride a broom, and, for the first time, taking his hand off of the back and releasing the safety-net-aspect of the new skill, thrill or adventure. It took a bit of willpower to even begin to lift his palms from over Harry's, but he reluctantly did so. He did cherish the moment for a second, however, and he knew Harry probably recognized it as what it was. But, when he did let go, he dropped back down onto the bench and looked up at Harry, to the right, with sparkling eyes.

Harry tore his eyes from where he had been staring, at the piano, and set them on Draco.

Draco gave a nod of his chin, as to not pressure an obviously statuesque Potter moment, "Sit down."

Harry did as he was told—he did what he wanted to do. He didn't want to not sit down. He immediately moved his feet and slipped in through the tiny space between the bench and the edge of the piano keys. He sat right down next to Draco, and lifted his other hand onto the keys, too. He noticed that Draco had kept his hands off of the keys, and was just watching Harry's fingers, as if curious as to what would come out of them on their first go. And, too, Harry wanted to know. He wanted answers straight away, and he wanted to produce some big spectacle of emotion, through the piano, in furious rhythms and messages—a grand opera of the fingers and the piano! He wanted to be—he wanted to produce greatness, because all of his emotions were suddenly feeling like they were going to burst through his body, and the piano was the perfect place to put them.

But, Harry's fingertip made the decision before his mind had even stopped analyzing what to do.

The only sound that came out of Harry's emotional knots, inside, was the one, tiny, unsure, wavering ping of an E.

Draco stared, as Harry quickly pulled his fingertip back, and rested his hands on his lap. He looked distressed. Unsure of what to do, and unsure of what to say, Draco could only act on the moment. He leaned in closer to Harry, who was to his right. And, he stared right at Harry's neck, from five inches away—and, then three. He tried not to breathe—or move—or... smell—or... feel, but God knew he was feeling so much for Harry that it took a swallow of air to catch himself as still alive and still breathing when he felt the world was suddenly centered on Harry. He quietly breathed, "Play it, again."

The hair on Harry's neck stood straight, and his whole entire left side began to fill with goose-bumps. It shook through him in a giddy-like fashion, as by the sensation's rights, themselves. He swallowed down the gigantic swell at the base of his throat, and as he did so, his slightly-parted lips were forced to close together. He was confused. He was turned on my the piano? The symbolism of the piano? No, fuck no. Draco? Draco. Or was it all three together? As he shyly touched his right index fingertip over the key he had first played, a hard shock took him over, his shoulders filled with chills, and he decided that it was all three put together—but, it might have had to do something with Draco's breath being... right... there... by... his... neck—panicked by the feelings twisting in swelling in his chest and stomach, over the entire situation, Harry took in a harsh deep breath and slammed some fingers down on the piano, as if it would erase the whole entire moment.

The attempt failed.

Draco could not pull himself away. With weak enthusiasm, he managed to murmur a soft, "Better."

Harry took in a swallow of deep breath, his fingertips glued onto the keys he had just pounded. As they keys rose up, Harry could feel himself begin to shake, starting from the very inside of his chest, down to his stomach, ravenously through his lower body, and, then, at last, to his legs. He was sure that if he would have been standing, he would have fallen. Draco had not moved. The attempt had not been successful in the slightest, and Harry wasn't sure if he even cared about anything—about attempts or keys, people or his past—with the incredibly tender, heart-racing anxiety that Draco was suddenly bringing to him. Literally, his heart was racing. He was afraid to turn his head, so he refused to do so, "Yeah, better. You... uh, play, now."

Draco had every god-damn urge in the entire world to lean in closer, his mouth beginning to water and crave the soft, flawless, milky skin his eyes had become enchanted upon. He didn't know why, or how, or what was wrong with him, but he knew it felt good. He knew Harry was sitting right there, with him, knowing perfectly well of what the weather of the situation was, and he hadn't gotten up and run away, as he might have at the start of the summer. He wanted Harry fucking Potter—it was official. He just... he just wanted... a taste... a... a something. He wanted something of Harry's. He wanted a taste—but, it wasn't Harry he would taste. He wanted a touch—but, it wouldn't be fully Harry's touch. He wanted a kiss, but a kiss... a kiss... would... mean... everything—shit.

Abruptly, Draco withdrew the closeness of his face, having been purely and simply intoxicated. He still was, but he was trying to talk himself out it. Sure, he was attracted to Potter—to Cliffdale, too. Sure, he had been honest with Harry about how his feelings had been—or had he? He had never actually told Harry that he found him truly attractive. Judas was a gorgeous being, physically, and Harry wasn't much further behind on the looks department, but it wasn't JUST the physical that Draco was drawn to. It was far more than that—and, they both knew it. But, at the same time, they knew NOTHING of it.

Draco cleared his throat, sniffled and hit at the corner of his nose with his index fingertip, "Can you sing?"

Harry smiled down at his hands, mentally in awe. Good lord. Malfoy was torturous, yet still incredibly righteous, "No."

"Everyone can sing, Potter."

Harry turned his head to the left, suddenly, and went to say something.

Draco looked at him, cautiously.

Harry closed his mouth, squinted at him—a squint of which Draco returned—and then awkwardly looked away.

"I think it's safe to say that you've stolen the upper hand from me... again. Damn you, Potter. Damn you!"

Harry smiled at him, immediately, blatantly, without restriction. Draco was such a perfectly lovable bastard, and Harry cherished it, adored it and mentally celebrated it. He loved it even more that he knew where he could catch Draco being just plain lovable without the bastard part of the equation. He wasn't, at all, put off, by Draco's words. To go on and ignore what had just transpired would have been ridiculous. They were open-enough to each other, and far too involved with each other, to pretend it hadn't happened—but, they made it what it was without analyzing it—and, nothing needed to be awkward between them, because they weren't those sort of people—at least, not any more. It was, simply, just and only what it was.

Draco smiled back at him, with a great smile of his own.

There! He had made mention of it!

Harry looked down over the keys, and then back to Draco with a full smile, "Play something. I'll sing."

"You said you couldn't sing!"

Harry shrugged at him, carelessly, "Fine, then you sing."

Draco's eyes narrowed at him, nearly sweetly, and he felt a happy flush take his face, "Gee, look how that works out."

Harry laughed, finally, loudly, and draped his left arm over Draco's shoulders, "Yeah, well, we always work, don't we?"

The only thing Draco did was grin and answer back in key-strokes and a lowly added, "What a lovely feeling in my soul."

"Yeah, I'll bet it's brighter than moonshine," Harry chided, out of no where, enjoying the music and the endearing lyrics..

Draco didn't snort or laugh, but he did keep on smiling. He also kept playing, while Harry added in his little snippet of randomness. It was cute, actually, the way Harry had just thrown some words in there, as if trying not to make it obvious that he was intrigued by Draco's words during their small piano-session. He lifted out his elbow and nudged Harry's side, tilting his head to the right, at Harry, and smiled rather brightly, without shame, "I'm yours, and, suddenly, you're mine," Draco slightly spoke and slightly sang, but he fully stared at Harry, while leaning in a bit closer to Harry, for effect. "Me and you, what a feeling."

Harry's left eyebrow cocked up, but he didn't stop grinning at Draco. They were humoring each other, "You keep your mouth three feet away from me!" It was a new rule! But, it really wasn't meant to be.

Draco stopped singing but kept playing. He looked back at Harry, unabashedly, "But, I have such a pretty mouth."

"No one said you didn't."

As Draco leaned down and beamed at the keys he was playing, Harry saw a dimple appear in his cheek, for the first time, ever. With a grin, too, his eyes widening a fraction at the new development on Draco's face, Harry lifted his lightly-draped arm from over Draco's shoulders. He tilted his elbow up, as he watched Draco's dimple get deeper and deeper. Malfoy was beautiful. He was a boy, and he was unbelievably fucking beautiful—no one could deny it. And, anyone who did deny it was simply lying or incapable of seeing a man as beautiful instead of rugged. Draco was a total pretty-boy, and he wore it well. But, Harry had never seen Draco with a dimple. This meant that he had never seen Draco smiling as hard as he was smiling, at that moment. There was nothing more flattering to Harry, and he felt himself take a rather large chunk of pride and glee over seeing Draco so jubilant

With aching cheeks of his own, Harry cupped the back of Draco's neck, squeezed, and then dropped his hand away.

There were all sorts of little twinkles and lights sparkling between them when they glanced at each other, once more.

Draco sat up, straight, at the eye-contact, "Potter, coffee or bed? Are you feeling brave?"

"What about coffee in a bedroom? Preferably mine, so I don't have to get up and leave once I'm warm."

Draco made no odd face, just nodded as he played, "Sounds good. To your bed we go, Potter."

"Bedroom, Malfoy!"

Draco stopped playing the piano, at last. He looked at Harry, with bright gray eyes, "But, I'm very cuddly."

Harry snorted. He did nothing for a long moment, before he groaned and stood up, "Find a boyfriend, then. The prospects are probably very high, if any of your friends indicate interest by their awkward gazes at you."

Draco laughed, hard, and he heard Harry doing the same as he walked toward the coffee tray, "What? Who, then?"

Harry glanced over his shoulder, his forehead wrinkled, "Do you truly not know who I'm referring to?"

Draco turned around on the dark-wooden, polished, sparkling piano bench that matched the same as his piano. He didn't get up, though. His eyes watched Harry walk. God, it was such a nice walk. It wasn't Judas Cliffdale's walk. It was Harry Potter's. It was nice to watch, as it was one of the only physical resemblances of Harry in Judas's every-day, familiar face. Draco had grown accustomed to seeing the dark hair and dark eyes of Judas Cliffdale, but he yearned, again, to see Harry, but he never spoke of it, because he knew how much it killed Harry to discuss something he was never sure he would have back. It was a touchy subject, and that had been made very clear on many different occasions. During their dream-trip, earlier in the night, he hadn't really been able to focus on Harry. He had just seen him from far away, and other, more important things had been on their plates—things which demanded far more attention than how Harry Potter looked.

"What do you mean? Who?"

Harry felt a very small sense of pity for Draco's honest naiveté, "I'll tell you, upstairs. Revoke the spell, then meet me up there."

"Why can't you just wait for me, then, Potter? Revoking the spell will take five seconds, won't it?" Draco's eyes lit up.

Harry turned away from him, with the coffee tray in his arms, "Give me five minutes, Malfoy."

"Five minutes? Oh, dear, Potter. Bless your little heart."

Harry glared at him, but he wasn't truly frustrated or annoyed, "You're not THAT tempting. I assure you."

Draco laughed, as he stood up from the bench. He followed Harry's footsteps toward the door, "How dare you! I am delicious!"

When Harry opened his bedroom door, at least ten minutes later, he wasn't surprised to see that Draco was already there. He was laying on his stomach, on Harry's bed, facing the end of it. He had two dark-green pillows with him, which Harry immediately recognized as pillows from Draco's own bed, and over him was a comforter—yes, a dark green comforter with tiny, tiny golden stars thrown all over it. He squinted his very suspicious and quizzical eyes at Draco, pointing at him.

But, Draco was just laying there, with his hands under his two pillows, staring right back at him. How had Malfoy managed to get his pillows and comforter from his room and take them to Harry's, when all Harry had done was run the tray of drinks to the kitchens before hurrying up to his room so he could wash his face to refresh himself, because he was feeling quite faint, and still had a mild headache—which had been extremely worse when he had left Draco's study.

All of Harry's once-open windows were closed, and it was cold in the room, which felt amazing on the hot night.

Draco pushed himself up on his elbows.

Harry walked toward him, wrapping his arms around his chest. He pointed with a fingertip, "You're on my bed."

Draco collapsed back down into his pillows and closed his eyes, "Yeah, it's the best place to be."

Brighter Than Sunshine - Aqualung