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

16. Pristinely Planned Betrayal

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: Oh, I made you wait for this one. I'm sorry! I've been lazy on updating. I won't say anything more. I'll just let you read. However, I do have a response to a review (Dracoluver) that I typed up, and then realized that I didn't have an e-mail to respond to! Dude, let me know your e-mail address! I typed a big, long reply! Don't worry, it's not bad! Anyway, guys, please enjoy! My apologies for being lazy, and my thanks for reading and leaving reviews.

Somewhere Only We Know

Chapter Sixteen

Pristinely Planned Betrayal

It was the middle of August before Harry had time to realize the days had been passing by. He had been incredibly busy doing absolutely nothing, It wasn't his fault that the days passed by rather quickly and, coincidentally, he slept until three and went to sleep at six in the morning. He hadn't been out of number twelve Grimmauld in about twenty days, and he had far since lost his mind because of this. He spent most of his time staring out the windows of different rooms, and when it rained, he would pace from room to room to see how differently the rain looked on the different windows on the different sides of the building. He wasn't allowed outside. Draco was allowed outside, but Harry? No! He tried to get out. He tried to sneak out, even in the middle of the night! Someone was always, ALWAYS there to catch him trying to do so. He had given up, after the tenth night of trying to take a nice little walk in the back yard, which wasn't very big to begin with. Plus, it was fenced in.

No, apparently, even with the fence there, Harry was in too much danger.

Well, that was the excuse that was used.

Harry knew the truth. The real reason was that they thought he was a flight risk—that he would do something stupid, without thinking it through. Even if he had never mentioned doing so, Dumbledore knew him well enough to know he wasn't going to just sit on his hands if he had the option of not doing so. Yes, Dumbledore had made sure that Harry was forced to sit on his hands, at night and during the day, rain or shine, alone or not alone. Surprisingly, Harry hadn't missed being outdoors much. It was a hot summer, and he preferred the air-conditioning.

Aside from that, Draco never went outside when Harry was around. He would stay inside, as if pointedly. He didn't go outdoors much, anyway, that Harry knew. And, Harry did know, because half of the time, he sat in the room they shared and stared out at the back of the house, and when Draco would go outside, Harry would open the window and scare the wits out of Draco by screaming something at him when he was enjoying some random, quiet moment. After the third time, he should have seen it coming, but still, Harry managed to get him at the right moments. That or Draco had just been playing along, as if to pity Harry.

It was a rainy day, that fourteenth of August. Harry was sitting on the ledge of the wooden window of the bedroom. It was wide enough for him to sit on, but not nearly wide enough for it to be luxurious or comfortable, which was why he had put a pillow under his bottom. He the window wide open, and he had his right knee pulled up to his bare chest, and the toe of his left foot resting on the wooden floor of the room.

"What are you looking at?" Draco asked, having just walked into the room. He wasn't surprised to see Harry sitting just where he was. They were together a good amount of the time, even if they weren't talking to each other. They wound up in the same rooms, or just in the bedroom, while Draco read and Harry stared out the window. Surprisingly, there hadn't been any arguments, and when either felt agitated, which wasn't often, he would leave the room to give the other space.

Harry turned his eyes away from staring out at a rain-saturated bright green tree-leaf about twenty feet from the window. It was beautiful when it rained, he had decided. Everything glistened. Everything was renewed. Trees were rejuvenated. The grass was fed to make itself greener. The flowers sung more brightly—yeah, sung more brightly! The flowers! Hey, after spending so much time staring at nothing but the outdoors, he had pretty much noticed every single detail of the backyard and associated ten descriptive words with each feature. He had even named three separate patches of grass which were slightly lighter shades than the rest of the yard.

"Fido," Harry answered, with a laugh, as his eyes landed on a familiar face not far from his own.

Draco leaned over Harry, with his upper body, which made Harry stretch out his inclined knee, a bit, to accommodate to the new position. Draco's fingers clasped over the outside ledge of the windowsill that Harry was sitting on, where it was wet, and he put his weight against Harry, carelessly, while his eyes knowingly moved to the only patch of mismatched grass to the left of their view, "Shockingly, Potter, Fido looks exactly the same."

Harry grinned, lifting his left hand from his stomach. He draped his left arm around Draco's back, just for the hell of it. Boy-touching hadn't been very rare, especially within the last week or so. Everything was little touches, shoves or affectionate slaps. A boundary of awkwardness had let itself go, because they were always in close quarters. This spoke the truth about their relationship: they were getting closer. They were close enough to not be awkward around each other. They were friends. Not just... friends, but good friends, who spent Saturday nights sitting around with older Ministry members, ignoring them and kicking each other in the calves until the other decided he didn't want to play, anymore, and withdrew his limbs.

"Shockingly, Malfoy, you are wrong," Harry informed him.

"Have I told you? I love when you compliment me. My soul boils with warmth, and I feel as if I can do anything."

Harry rolled his eyes, as Draco looked at him, smirking. He ignored Draco's dramatic feed of emotion and looked back out at Fido—which, actually, had been becoming his favorite patch of grass to watch, as it got smaller and smaller as the days went on by. There had, originally, been quite a few patches of mismatched grass, but Harry had fixed that up with some bored wand-work, leaving only three to observe and watch. Oh, his summer was so exciting—confusing, troublesome, in time of war. He couldn't help. He couldn't even leave the house! He felt selfish, and, therefore, hated thinking about what was going on outside of number twelve, "I've been taking swatch captures with my wand. Since Tuesday, Fido has gone up three values of green."

Draco pulled himself up, gave Harry one strange glance, and then turned away.

Harry glared at his back, not truly meaning it, "Stop making fun of me."

"Did I say anything?" Draco asked, with a laugh, as he turned back to Harry, from standing over the desk they shared. Literally, they shared it. Draco got one side and Harry got the other. It wasn't a very small desk, either, but rather a large, chunky, wooden piece that Harry had told Draco was found at the site of an old shipwreck in an emptied lake. Draco had believed it for three days before mentioning it to Remus Lupin, who looked at him as if he were mad, which ignited a ten minute session of Draco beating Harry around the house with a pillow, as they had agreed not to hex each other while indoors—it could cause a lot of trouble. "No!"

Harry watched him, pulling his right knee back to his chest. He wrapped his right arm around it and pulled his spine straight, away from resting against the side of the window-frame. He saw the way Draco was smiling at him. It was trademark. Brilliant. It was a smile—innocent, but an all-too-amused smirk if Harry looked at it for longer than a glance. It was an illusion! Harry didn't know how Draco managed it, but he did, "Oh, and you don't think I hear the snide remarks about Fido from the roundtable at dinner?" They had taken to calling the Order members the "round-table."

Draco plopped down onto his wooden chair, opening up a book, "I never peeped a word about Fido, Potter!"

Harry rolled his eyes and rested back against the wooden window-frame, "It must have been your alter-ego."

"My alter-ego is a porn star. Taking this into consideration, I would care less about Fido."

Harry squinted, turning his eyes away from the gray, cloudy, overcast sky and back into the dim room, "..."

Draco looked at him, smiled, and then looked right back down at his book.

Harry grinned to himself and looked back out the window. He adored Draco. Somehow. It had happened. A camaraderie that he'd never had, before, had shown itself. Before, he had trusted Draco, but there had been this wavering line of shakiness between them. But, that line had stopped squiggling. It was hard, now. Solid, strong, straight. Whatever was thrown between them didn't throw rocks at their line and break it apart. He trusted Draco with his entire mind, body and spirit. Oh, and his heart. His head, as well—just, everything. He, also, knew he'd throw down his life for Draco's. Crazy though it was, it was the realization of this, weeks earlier, that had brought Harry to acknowledgment about being okay with the fact that his friendship with Draco was tipping the scales over that of his friendship with school-mates he had known seven years in a matter of a couple months.

"When was the last time you took a shower?"

Harry snorted, staring up at the sky, relaxed, with the back of his head against the window-frame, "This morning, why?"

"No, you just smelled good."

"Yeah, I couldn't find a bar of soap—Draco—so I opted for body-wash."

Draco bit into the back of his right hand to keep from laughing, his back turned to Harry. He was holding his pen in the fingertips of his left hand, where he had been writing down a list of things that he needed to do in a leather-bound notebook he had been using. Every night, Harry would sit and write in his journal, and after a week of watching him do so, Draco demanded himself a journal and had someone go buy him one, as it was far too dangerous to go to Diagon Alley himself. For anyone. It was way more dangerous than it had ever been, before. He had taken to writing, too, to pass the time, and was almost done with his first notebook, because he wrote in it so much. Thoughts, poems—not in poem form, but rather in form of his thoughts—tiny sketches, lists, rants, raves, scribbles...random things.

Draco peeked over his left shoulder.

Harry was smiling at him. His top teeth were such a perfectly straight vision between two upturned lips. He dropped it.

Draco turned, in his chair, to face Harry. He threw himself back against the back of his chair and tossed his quill to his right, back onto the desk. He didn't feel like writing. He didn't really feel like doing anything, which was a change, because usually he felt like doing something and mentally fumed when he was restricted in doing so. He pushed his shoes off, on the floor, and then pulled his left foot up onto his chair with him. Still, Harry was looking at him, searching him for nothing and everything at the same time, "My body-wash?"

Harry laughed, "You're an arse. Shut up."

Draco laughed, too, and rested his chin down on his knee, "You do smell good."

"It's called being clean—but, I think what smells good is the garden right below the window."

There hadn't been any use of body-wash, and there had been soap.

Their lies were easily spotted by the other. They were so close, in living quarters, that they had been reading each other. Nothing deep, just simple things. They spent most of their time doing absolutely nothing that they had taken to learning more about each other, just by default. They knew what each other did when they were bored. What was said when the other was bored. Nervous ticks. Defense mechanisms—hell, the way one breathed when he was asleep—even the sound, rhythm and speed of their quills to parchment.

Draco laughed, "Yes, you did smell rather flowery."

"You look flowery."

Draco laughed, against his knee, his lips pressed together, and then he took in a deep breath, "God, I'm so bored, Potter. I could cry History-of-Magic tears times fifty. Fuck, I'd kill to be in History of Magic. It's lesser torture."

Harry groaned and finally fell off of the window-sill, putting his weight onto his left foot. He dropped his right foot to the floor, too, agreeing with Draco's sentencing of himself. History of Magic DID sound like an exciting event, anymore. He had been staring at the window for most of the drowsy morning and into the mid-day mark. It was only about twelve-thirty. He had gone to sleep early the night before, somehow, so he had been up at the crack of dawn. He heavily walked toward Draco, and when he reached the desk, he turned around and pushed his body up, with his elbows, until he sat on the top of it, turned toward Draco, "We could play a game."

"What'll it be this time? Twenty-questions gone horribly wrong, AGAIN? I Spy? Who-Can-Keep-His-Eyes-Open-The-Longest? Name-That-Hex? Tabloid-True-or-False, the Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy Edition?" Draco proposed, lazily, and rested the back of his head back against his large, comfortable chair. It was his favorite place to sit in the whole house. Not only was it comfortable, but he watched Harry, so much, right across from him, silently writing away in his journal, without ever hiding away what he was writing in case Draco could see. It was a small thing, but it meant the world to Draco. All of the small things did.

Harry sitting on his side of the desk and looking at him for an answer to cure their boredom was a small delight, too.

Harry watched him. Draco's eyes were staring out the window, now, so hazy with ill-regard of activity, "You okay?"

Draco glanced at him, after a couple of unresponsive seconds, "I want to go to the manor."

Harry hung his head.

Silence settled between them. It was a sad silence, and Draco didn't take his eyes off of Harry's reaction.

Harry's eyelashes flickered away from his hands and slowly back up to meet gray eyes. He didn't know what to say. Draco still hadn't been back to see the Malfoy Manor. No one had let him. Lucius had refused Draco to go, even more so than anyone else. But, Draco could have gone, and they all knew it, but he hadn't pushed himself to do it. It was dangerous for him to go, for anyone to go. Harry had spent a lot of time listening to Draco make small talk about the manor, many nights, in the small sitting room that they preferred, that had been made pretty much theirs and the Ministry members stayed out when they were around. He knew it was going to be hard for Draco to go back. He knew Draco was scared about what he was going to see, inside, and though Harry had been offering him an open ear, and managing small, optimistic, caring reassurances about how it was okay if he needed more time before he could go back, he didn't know what to say, at that moment, because of the way Draco had said it.

Draco looked at him, too.

Harry leaned forward, his toes digging into the dark red area-carpet below the desk and chairs, "Can you?"

Draco laughed. Harry knew him too well.

Harry's eyes followed his change of attention, back to the window, somewhat lovingly.

Draco's answer was a resounding, never-spoken, "No." He banged his head back against the chair.

Harry stood back up. He reached over and gave Draco's shoulder a slight nudge with his hand, "Come on. Let's get some lunch."

Draco pushed himself up, lazily, and as they walked out of the room, through the open door, he sighed, "I hate this."

Harry looked at him, silently, before his eyes fell down, and he continued to walk. He stopped, "You could fly."

"I don't want to fly by myself, anymore. Plus, it's dangerous."

Harry caught up to him, the few feet, and followed him down the first couple of steps, "You could dance."

"By myself? No thank-you."

"Listen to music?"

"I've been listening to music. I'm half-way deaf, by now, Potter, from Axl Rose whining in my ears."

"Oh, you are in a sad state if you just insulted Axl Rose—your personal God."

Draco laughed, as they reached the bottom step. He grinned at Harry, halfheartedly, "Kurt, too. His voice can be so depressing."

Harry laughed, "Well, have you been listening to the same song over and over again? Try some variety. It might help."

"I don't like you being in my head, Potter. Get out. Get out. Get ouuuut."

Harry followed Draco into the kitchen, which was lively, as always, with at least ten Ministry members.

"Oh, good morning, darling," Narcissa affectionately doted, as she passed Draco, following after Dickie, who ran between Harry and Draco, splitting them each to jump to one side of the doorway. She left a pat on his arm before she disappeared, laughing. As soon as she was out of the room, after Dickie, Draco looked at Harry, and Harry looked right back at him. As expected, Harry's left eyebrow was hooked up. Draco knew he had something similar going on with his own face. Truth was, his mother had been beaming, lately. Draco hadn't known if it was because his father—Lucius—was always around, and working as a spy, though he was always very quiet, resistant and begrudging, or the fact that she adored Dickie and looked after him all of the time—oh, and she enjoyed it, too.

Cornwell had never asked her to do it.

Yes, and then there was the issue of Cornwell—which Draco refused to wonder was the reason his mother was happy, and it would be ridiculous to assume so, because they had never gotten along, and there was no way they would have sudden started to like each other. It was strange, though, how this makeshift family had formed for him—and, not only for him, but for Harry, too. Draco did know that his mother and Cornwell got along, or at least pretended to not hate each other, when he was around, and Lucius was always around, too, and when his parents were together, they seemed to truly enjoy it, again, for the first time in... so many years. And, Dickie was like this little beam of light that glued their mornings, afternoons and evenings together. Even when he was whiny and pouty, he somehow managed to bring Draco, Cornwell, Narcissa and Lucius together.

Lucius had taken to Dickie. He pretended not to, but Draco saw him adoring Dickie with genuine smiles when he thought no one was looking. But, Draco knew exactly what the smile was. It was the same smile he knew his father possessed, beneath the aristocratic man who had pledged his life to a man whose mortality, it seemed, could never be questioned. He had seen it while growing up, all of the time. It was void of expectation or allegiance.

Draco had stayed out of the meetings, as had Harry. They had agreed not to get into it unless asked, until they were all adjusted and settled in, and they had had time to cope, finally, with all of the stress of the summer. That, however, did not mean their minds weren't always on what was going on around them, in that very house—The Order's headquarters.

But, in the Order's headquarters, a family had formed.

Draco watched Harry, in the mornings, or when he woke up at five in the evening and made it to dinner, and the way everyone greeted him—but, none more warmly than Remus Lupin, Cornwell and Narcissa. He had them all there for him, and Dickie, too. Of course, Draco. So, it was kind of like a little family for Harry, too, and even if it wasn't by blood, he knew he was being looked after and cared for and asked things of. When he was asked to do the dishes, or Draco's mother would ask Harry for help with dinner—which Draco had found shocking, the first time, as he hadn't known his mother could even cook—at least not big meals—and Harry would immediately take on the task and spend the night in the kitchen, helping, whilst Draco would sit at the table, do nothing, not even be in the room or help, too.

"Harry, up so early?" Asked an Order member, with a grin, as she walked by.

Harry laughed, sheepishly, and itched at his cheek, "I—yeah, I usually sleep late... yeah. Yeah." Yeah? Dope!

Draco mentally laughed. Physically, he rolled his eyes and, as he passed Harry, hissed, "Real smooth, Potter." He didn't look back over his shoulder for a reaction, because he felt a kick at the back of his leg. He laughed to himself, as he walked around the side of the table. He pulled out a chair, latching his eyes onto Harry, who was still standing, awkwardly, in the doorway, and still with his hand against his face. He had his teeth over his bottom lip, too, and he looked anxious about something. This something—more likely who—wasn't hard for Draco to place. Harry had a crush on an Order member. She was about twenty-four, that Draco knew, and a daughter of one of the original Order members. Her parents were still in the Order, of course, but she was always around, and she had been there the day Harry had been outed as... well, Harry.

She was just the type Draco regrettably figured Harry to have. Harry had never been one to pursue the blonde-headed, blue-eyed, typically-bubble-headed girl at school. He seemed to like pale skin and dark hair. The girls he had found intriguing, he had admitted to Draco, all seemed to have rather fair skin, which Draco had found curious. This girl—er, woman—was just up Harry's alley. Her dark-hair was shoulder length, she had bright, bright blue eyes, a few freckles, and an outstanding body, if he did say so himself. But, Draco had never cared to learn her name. He had been watching Harry for the last two weeks as he fawned over this girl, more and more every day, to the point it started to make Draco feel oddly aggravated when Harry would be sitting at a meal, while Draco was talking to him, but be completely ignoring Draco and thinking about her—her! PEG! Pretty evil girl!

PEG. That's what Draco had started calling her, to Harry, and Harry had had no idea what it meant. Still didn't.

Draco cleared his throat and tilted his head, "What's that, Potter?" He pointed at Harry's body, carelessly, as Harry reached the table, having pulled himself away from the door. He was blushing, too, and seemed to be feeling like a complete and total failure. This girl—er, woman—had an effect on Harry. He never really actually spoke to her. and, would he have, as Draco had taken the time to do so, he wouldn't have been too impressed. Personally, Draco thought she was a bit of a bubble-head, but... he wasn't... judging... or anything.

Harry glanced down at his body, and then stopped.

Draco looked up at him for about five, silent, long seconds, before snorting. Really, Potter? All he had to do was look at her and get a hard-on? Ridiculous! But, also, strangely hot. Draco took pleasure in the moment, and threw, at Harry, leaning over the table, whilst everyone was noisily working and talking around him, "I know what it is! It's a PEG-leg! Ahaha—okay, okay, that was brilliant, you can't deny it!" He praised himself. "Go take care of yourself, Potter. This is a family area."

Harry reached across the table, bright red, even though no one had been paying attention to what was being said between them, and swatted at Draco, "MALFOY!"

Draco moaned with all-too-delighted, overjoyed laughter, leaning back in his chair to get away from Harry's hand, his arms over his chest, "Hahaha!"

Harry stared at Draco. He was laughing so hard. Really, really hard. With glittering eyes, too, and a redder face. Even more embarrassed, Harry tore a couple of flower petals off of a stem in a vase, a foot away, on the table, and threw them at Draco, "Stop!"

Draco brushed his hands over his face, as he laughed, "Okay—I'll stop," he assured, through laughter, as Harry slipped down into the chair across the table from him and paced himself, with his hands outstretched on the surface. Finally, Draco made himself stop laughing, though it was hard—hard! Ahaha! He cleared his throat, to stop from his spurt of new laughter. And, just as he calmed himself (or tried), Harry looked up at him, from the wooden table-top, with tightly pressed lips, pointy cheeks and embarrassed eyes.

Draco looked away from him, immediately, because he started to laugh, again. Though, he had never fully stopped.

Harry dropped his forehead down onto the table-top, and then wrapped his arms around his head, cursing himself.

"Draco!"

Harry pulled his head up and looked over his right shoulder, just in time to see a tiny little being hurry around the end of the table, to get to Draco. He, too, saw Narcissa walk back into the room, laughing at something someone was saying from the hallway. Harry had noticed how different she looked. She looked ten years younger, somehow. There was some sort of glowing energy that came off of her. She had always been beautiful, but she had also always been lacking luster and seemingly embracing some sort of enigma. But, gone was that Narcissa Malfoy. She was happy, and Harry was always running into her, around the house, which wasn't hard to do, as there were many people there, but mostly everyone stayed on the ground floor, and the more important Ministry members had set up offices upstairs, on the floor that Harry and Draco shared a bedroom on. Every time he ran into her, her appreciated her more and more, because she was always looking after him. Not in the way Misses Weasley had. Narcissa was hardly trying to mother him, but she had definitely realized she was the only woman, currently, as a central figure, in his life. She peaked in on him, during the day, sometimes, and asked him how he was doing, and, once, she had brought him vitamins, as she did Draco.

Vitamins!

Draco pushed his chair back, grinning, "Shrimp," he greeted, happily. He had played with Dickie for, at least, two hours that morning, when no one had been awake enough to deal with Dickie, who had woken up early. So, Draco had taken him and played with him in a sitting room. A few toys had been brought, for Dickie, from Order members' families. It wasn't safe to bring anything back from the Malfoy manor, as everything and everything could have been bugged or tracked, which was one reason Draco had put off going back, because he knew there were so many trinkets and belongings that he would want to bring back to Grimmauld place.

As Dickie stood beside Draco's chair, he held up something in the air.

Draco looked at it, with a smile, and took it, "Wow, did you pick this yourself?" Dickie nodded, proudly. "Thank-you!"

It was a white flower.

Dickie smiled at him, cutely, and then hurried around to Harry and held up a different hand, with a different flower in his tiny fingertips.

Harry took it, lightly, with a smile he didn't have to search for, "Thanks, Dickie."

Dickie shrugged his shoulders up and mumbled something that Harry was supposed to understand.

Draco laughed, "That means you're welcome, I think," he informed Harry, who glanced at him. "Seriously."

Harry laughed, too, and pressed the flower to his nose, "Smells good."

"Yes, like flowers on a rainy day. Heavenly, isn't it? On the scent on a flower bed below one's window, I swear..."

Harry responded by playfully kicking Draco under the table. Draco smirked at him, harmlessly, in response, "Turkey sandwich?"

"No cheese."

Harry pushed himself up from the table, "No cheese, no lettuce, no mayonnaise. Turkey on honey-wheat bread plus lots of mustard—you really don't need to tell me anymore, Malfoy." They usually took turns making sandwiches, and nearly every single time it was Harry's turn, Draco would tell him not to add cheese or some other little sandwich anecdote. He did it for amusement, Harry figured, because every time Harry went to correct him, Draco was sort of smiling at him, as if to tell him to not bother and to go make the sandwiches. He turned away, as Draco's mother took his seat, and he walked toward the refrigerator.

"Good morning, Harry."

Harry smiled, immediately, turning around to Cornwell, "G'morning."

"That was a suspicious good-morning," Draco drawled. He sighed, dramatically, to pass the time and amuse himself. "Potter, are you sleeping with my father?"

Harry grabbed an apple, next to the bag of bread he had been opening, from a woven basket. He turned around and threw it at Draco, who caught it, flawlessly, while he moaned with laughter again, "STOP! Making! Everything! So! Sexual!"

Draco bit into the apple, grinning, hard, his eyes chatting happily with Harry's from across the room.

Cornwell ignored the exchange of words, for the most part, after he gave Harry a pat on the head. It seemed as if Cornwell had just woken up, which was... strange, because, usually, he was the first up. However, he hadn't gotten much sleep over the prior couple of weeks. Every time Harry had been awake, he had seen Cornwell, and when he wasn't awake, Draco later informed him of something that had happened or been said by Cornwell. It seemed, sometimes, as if Cornwell never slept. And, there were certainly days where he appeared aged by fifteen years, with deadly tired eyes and dark circles below his eyes to accompany them. It was good to see him well-rested. He had just waltzed right into the kitchen, clean-shaven and seemingly full of energy. It was a nice change.

Cornwell walked over to the table and lifted Dickie up off of his small feet, sweeping him into a gigantic, warm hug.

Dickie giggled, as Cornwell smothered his tiny face with kisses, before letting Dickie settle on his right arm, as if it were a seat.

Draco watched Cornwell with intrigued eyes, examining him while he waited, in silence, for his sandwich. It was so good to see Cornwell happy... and... not sleep-deprived. It was good to see him walk into a room rather than slouch into it. The days had been rough, and the nights had been rougher. Someone had finally convinced Cornwell to go to sleep, and whomever that person might have been, Draco mentally praised.

"Good morning," Cornwell greeted him, too, with a squeeze on Draco's shoulder, with his free left hand.

Draco squeezed his hand over Cornwell's lightly, to return the affection, "'Morning."

A few minutes later, Harry dropped a sandwich, wrapped in a paper-towel, in front of Draco, on the table, before he took the seat next to Draco. The table had been filled, completely, and lunch had been ordered—not so much ordered as being whipped up at Molly Weasley's house. Except, Harry had already made his sandwiches, and he didn't want them to go to waste, so he figured they could snack on them before lunch arrived.

It was a very lively morning, one of which Harry wasn't used to being a part of. There had been another table added to the one that had already been in the kitchen, and there were way too many extra chairs squeezed in. Basically, there wasn't much personal space for anyone, during meal-times. But, Harry sat at the very end of one side of the table, next to Draco, so he had a bit more room. No one else really seemed to have assigned seats during meals except for Harry and Draco, who sat side by side—oh, and, usually, Remus sat at the end of the table, next to Harry, and across from Harry was usually Cornwell, across from Draco was usually Dickie who was propelled into the air in an invisible booster seat, and next to Dickie usually sat Narcissa, and, when Lucius was around, he would sit next to her.

Draco glanced at Harry, "Thanks."

Harry nodded at him, as if to say he was welcome, before he lifted his sandwich up.

A small tapping noise took Harry's attention away from eating.

It seemed to steal Draco's attention, too, because when Harry looked at him, Draco looked back.

But, Draco's eyes shifted, to the left, behind Harry and to one of the windows, "Owl-post."

Harry turned his face to the left, too, and saw that there was an owl sitting outside one of the many kitchen windows that lined one side of the wall and above some of the countertops. He could see the letters attached to the owl's foot, so he maneuvered himself out from the table. He walked over to the window and opened it up, as it was the spot that the owls usually stopped to deliver mail. How they knew just where to go, Harry wasn't sure. But, he was curious as to what kind of letters they were getting, publicly.

Harry untied the stack of three or so letters from the bird's foot, and then reached over to the right, without glancing at where his hand was going. He grabbed a tiny owl-treat from a dark blue glass dish he had set out a few days earlier while looking for things to do. He let it roll into his palm and offered it out to her. She took it, without nipping at his skin, as the last owl he answered for had, and then took off, promptly. Impressed with her stamina, he watched after her, for a second—wait, wait! That was a school owl! Hogwarts! He had heard rumors, around the house, and even on the Network, about Hogwarts opening for the new school year. Dumbledore had been around, but Harry had never asked him, as it had been the last thing on his mind.

Harry closed the window and then looked down at the letters, without wasting a second.

Harry Potter, number twelve Grimmauld Place.

Harry pulled flipped the letter up so he could look at the one below it.

Draco Malfoy, number twelve Grimmauld Place.

Harry flipped that letter up, too, and glanced at the letter below it, which was addressed to the Parents of the Student—meaning Draco.

Harry stared down at the letters, and then turned and looked over at the table.

Draco was looking at him, curiously, "What?"

Harry held up the letters, in his left hand, "Hogwarts." He laughed, slightly amazed to hear himself say it. "Hogwarts letters. Two. Draco Malfoy. Harry Potter."

Cornwell turned his head, as did Narcissa and Remus, who had heard, and then some other folks from around the table did the same.

Draco swallowed his bite of sandwich, "What? But... what, you're serious!" It was hardly an exclamation. It was more of a laughing statement of doubt turned false. He turned and held out his left hand. Hogwarts letters? It was too much to believe, but too little to doubt. "Let me see!"

Harry handed Draco's letter right to him and handed Cornwell, across the table, the letter addressed for the Parent.

Cornwell took it.

Harry sat down and slowly began to open his letter. He glanced at Draco, to see that he was just staring at his.

Draco looked right at him, at the same time.

Harry slowly placed the envelope down on the table, and then stared at it, too.

Draco looked at his own.

Harry looked back at him, strangely.

Draco was frowning.

Harry frowned, too, "You open yours."

Draco scoffed, "You open yours."

When Harry looked up from his letter, there were people looking between he and Draco and their letters, strangely.

"It's okay," Cornwell said, quietly, interrupting the rude staring. "You can open them at another time."

Harry placed his letter over Draco's, and then Draco pushed the letters away from their newly-appeared plates.

Draco pulled his hand back, slowly, and looked right at Harry, slightly hesitant to do so.

They were feeling the exact same way. It was strange. They couldn't open them, not there, as if everything were okay, as if it were any normal summer's meal when their letters showed up for them. It didn't feel right.

"I guess Albus decided it was best to keep the school open this year," Narcissa quietly added.

Cornwell had opened his letter and was reading over it. He only offered a small, "Mmm," in agreement with her.

Draco looked at Harry, once more, to see that he was still eyeing their Hogwarts letters. Never had Draco figured it could be so stressful for them be getting their letters to return to school, but so much had changed. That summer had been insane for their entire community. Their entire world! And, so much more than that—excessively life-changing for both himself and Harry. There was a war going on. People were dying, as they sat there. People were fighting, as they sat there, in, probably, one of the safest places in their world, because of all of the powerful, skilled people around and the hundreds—maybe even thousands—of charms and ritual spells that had been placed over the house. They had been kept from battle, by everyone around them, but just the idea of returning back to Hogwarts, to see empty spaces at the tables and return to life, as if normal, seemed absurd.

Cornwell folded up the letter and placed it by Harry's and Draco's letters. He glanced at them, but said nothing.

Harry immediately looked away from him, and Draco's eyes instantaneously dropped to his plate.

The rest of the table could have cared less. They were all still cheerily talking and waiting for the food to arrive.

"Hogwarts, in time of peace or war, is safest for the people who don't share our security. It's not the same for you two. Every other kid who got this letter, today, probably tore it open, and their parents probably felt a huge washing sense of relief. It's going to get your peers out of harm's way; At least, I believe Dumbledore trusts in Hogwarts continuing to be a safe-haven."

Draco looked up, to his father, who had leaned in a bit, to them, across the table, his voice soft, "We know."

"I know," Cornwell returned, almost carefully, and he seemed a bit anxious. Then, he murmured another soft, "I know."

"It's just going to be..." Harry quietly added, but he didn't know how to express the anxiety and anguish he felt. There was one emotion he tried not to feel. He tried to avoid it, even when it was pulsing through his mind. He tried mind-games with himself and, sometimes, spoke really loudly, when he was alone, to prevent himself from being able to eat away at himself, inside. His guilt was horrible. "Hard."

"There's a good word," Draco concluded, a couple of seconds later, once Harry had made his point. He was such a sad fellow. It wasn't his fault, necessarily. He just had a lot of sad things happen to him, and, whatever had been going on inside of him complimented his state, that morning. Harry had his moments, when things seemed okay, and they would laugh for a good few minutes, or spend a couple of hours doing something that didn't let either of them have the time to think about everything they wished wasn't happening, wished they could do or wished wouldn't have happened at all.

When Draco looked up from his goblet, a pair of brown eyes, over the table, were laughing.

"I didn't say anything," Cornwell immediately defended, as Draco went to reply.

Draco fell silent, and then looked at Harry, who was shaking his head, "What! It's a good word!"

"It's a normal word. You can make the word hand into something sexual—"

"I could say a lot of things, involving hands, without trying to make it sexual, Potter. Hands are sexual. I don't even have to reach to find witty anecdotes or examples."

Harry laughed and rested his left cheek down on his left palm, amused and watching Draco, "Of course."

Draco grinned, as he lifted his goblet, "It's true—hand was a bad challenge. I mean, hand-job? C'mon!"

"Draco."

Draco looked up, and then awkwardly pushed his goblet to his mouth when he realized his mother was sitting across from him, at the table. And, even if she wasn't listening to their conversation, and was discussing something with the woman next to her, it was still chancy. Because there were so many people always at meals, people tended to clique off and talk with each other, only, because they sat with the people who they best knew or liked the most, even though the group was friendly as a whole. And, at the end of the table, and at the end of a meal, it was usually Draco, Harry, Remus and Cornwell talking, or Remus and Cornwell, and then Draco and Harry. But, it wasn't uncommon for them all to get into some lively conversation.

"This is just great, my son is talking about hand-jobs," Cornwell wryly threw at Draco, disturbed, while Remus laughed into his hand. He had been the one to throw Draco's own name at him, accusingly, to make him realize what he was saying and in the company of whom he was saying it in. It wasn't proper for him to talk about that, anyway, no matter who was there! But, gone was proper Draco Malfoy! He talked about anything and everything, it seemed, lately. He wasn't vulgar, of course, but he was adjusting to the strange notion of sitting next to someone, at dinner, when it was noisy as all hell, and talking about some random, normal, teenage-boy-speak, and Harry loved it, apparently, because he would laugh and laugh, and then contribute to the conversation with something equally as horrifying to have been overheard.

"Draco equates everything with sex. It's all he can think about," Harry assured, with a snort, into his hand. He was leaned over on his left elbow, against the table. "What else can you expect? I mean, really. Malfoy, you got laid so much at school you probably didn't have any time to think. The silence in your head must be killing you."

Draco looked at him, dead-panned, and then turned his face away, before laughing and looking back with a smug, pleased, self-satisfied smirk, "True."

Harry saw Draco twitch, "What?"

Draco cleared his throat, giving Harry innocent eyes, "What? I didn't say anything—"

"He was suppressing the urge to laugh, because it would make him childish. Head? Killing him? Think about it, Harry," Cornwell prompted him, interrupting Draco's all-too-innocent, practiced, perfected look of appalled shock, from over his own goblet, his eyebrows hooded over. He did seem slightly disturbed with the open conversation, but Harry knew he was amused and probably didn't care, too, because he hadn't stopped it.

"Oh," Harry peeped up, and then he started to laugh, again, at Draco, "I should have known—"

"I'm not the only childish one! You're the one laughing, Potter," Draco interrupted him, grinning hard.

Harry nudged his knee to Draco's under the table, "That's because I think it's funny."

"Oh, you laugh at funny things? That's so strange. I've never heard of something like that, before."

Harry pushed himself up, straight, grinning, hard. His cheeks were hurting, "Yeah, I'm one of a kind."

"Hardly, you arrogant twit."

"Don't call me an arrogant twit, you elitist git."

Draco draped his left arm over Harry's shoulders, heavily, and leaned against him as his own comeback.

Harry hadn't stopped laughing. He rested back down against the table, again, half supporting Draco, too.

"You two have too much time on your hands," Cornwell stated the obvious, as he rested his goblet down. It wasn't uncommon for Draco and Harry to call each other names and insult each other, without malice behind it, to pass the time and amuse each other. It always ended with both of them bored, again, and waiting for something to happen. "Do you have any plans for the afternoon?"

"First, we're going to go get some ice cream. Then, we're going to go dance around in Diagon Alley. Naked."

"No plans, then?" Cornwell challenged Draco, with a good-humored laugh. "I have something you can do."

"I'd rather him have said he had someone I could do to put a stop to my aching, silent head—perhaps a shy school boy who I could corrupt with my evil Slytherin tongue and then soothe with my courageous Gryffindor mouth," Draco informed Harry, against his ear, who dropped his forehead down onto the wooden table, with a thump, still not having stopped laughing, in different stages of it. He was done, now, no longer truly able to contain himself, wheezing with laughter, almost chortling and choking, because he didn't want to get too loud. But, Draco looked back at Cornwell, who had heard the entire comment to Harry, though Draco hadn't intended him to. For a second, Draco caught his father's eyes, and then heard his own silent laughter halt to a tremendous, abrupt stop. He was being slightly stared at, with real shock. Quickly, he lifted himself further away from Harry, though still slightly, innocently, leaned against him, just for the contact of friendly affection. "Uh."

Cornwell didn't respond.

"Uh," Draco impressively intellectualized, once more, "what was it you had... er, in mind?"

"Certainly not a shy school-boy."

Harry lifted his face from being horizontal against the cool wood, and his eyes flickered to Cornwell. Shit, he had heard that? Oh, Draco. Harry tried not to laugh, as he looked at Draco's horrified face. He pressed his lips together, but then something came over him. Laughter, again. It didn't come out normally. It came from his throat and sounded like static. He couldn't help it! It was too perfect; Malfoy being embarrassed and looking like a deer caught in headlights was brilliant. Realizing this, and seeing that his hard laughter brought both the attention of Cornwell and Draco, Harry sat up, really straight, and leaned up over the table, with his chest, his hands folded on his lap under the table. He was half-crossed over in front of Draco, too, somewhat intercepting the conversation so he could redirect it. He bravely announced, to anyone who would listen, to save Draco from further humiliation, "Everyone, I'm in love."

"Oh, God," Draco muttered instead of cheering with appreciation and jumping on the obvious topic change.

Harry elbowed him, without giving Draco a turn of his head, and continued, "It's true. It's a woman named Peg."

"Oh, God, no," Draco added, this time with dread and sympathy. "Not PEG." Anyone but PEG!

"Peg, Harry? Did you name a broom or something?" As in, he hadn't met anyone new in a long time, and "Peg" had never been mentioned. "I told you, didn't I? I told Dumbledore—if you keep Harry in here, too long, he's going to lose his mind, and now he's falling in love with broomsticks in the cupboard," Tonks spoke up, from the other side of the table. "Harry, tell me she, at least, has good pedigree, and she's not from the Synthetic Wood Collection at Dollar Cauldron?"

Harry rolled his eyes at her, though he couldn't help but laugh, "Excuse me, but I did not fall in love with a broomstick!" He sat back and threw his hands out, as if to say, "What the fuck!"

"Stranger things have happened, Harry!" Tonks battled back, mockingly argumentative.

"Stranger things have happened!" Harry exclaimed, with a loud laugh. "What could possibly—nevermind! Don't tell me! I don't want to know!"

"Yeah, I don't think any of us... do," Cornwell laughed, slowly, and then the rest of the table joined in, too.

Tonks scoffed at them all, playfully, "Whatever—Harry, tell us about Peg, your "non-broomstick" friend."

At which point, Harry went to begin explaining his love for PEG. However, a small set of chirpy, boy-ish laughs silenced him. He turned and looked at Draco, as did half of the table. He stared at Draco, for a second, strangely, because he looked like he was going to die from holding in so much laughter, his gray eyes brighter and more sharp than they had been in days. Curiously, and with a tiny smile, amused with Draco's amusement, he pressed, "What?"

Draco laughed the same sort of static-y laugh Harry had, minutes before, before he snorted, his fingertips grasping onto the center of his own shirt, snuggled up, "Hahaha, synthetic wood. Ahahaha."

"You'd seriously be the worst porn-star ever."

"STAR?" Draco exclaimed, not being able to stop laughing. He poked Harry on the chest. "I'll be an ICON!"

Harry exploded with laughter, too. God, Draco was killing him. He was this perfect mix of... everything. He was so beautiful but so... cute. He was supposed to be sharp, intense and secretly withholding his amusements! He wasn't supposed to be so open. Draco had changed so much. Or, perhaps he hadn't. He had just opened up and let his gates down where Harry was concerned. Harry realized he had, too. He liked the Draco he got to know better every day better than the one he had known in the beginning of the summer, "You just lost your mind over hearing the wood—word!—synthetic wood—shut up!" He covered his mouth with his fisted hand, laughing into it, as Draco laughed at him, pointing at him, in front of everyone, though he didn't care if anyone else thought anything was as funny as he did, because it didn't matter what anyone else thought when they were around each other. Because Draco kept laughing, so hard, at his slip-up of a word, Harry irrationally reached out, in the space between them, and hit Draco's arm.

Draco laughed harder, "Oh, God, ah, ah," he kept laughing, trying to calm down. "Synthetic wood! Broomstick! PEG! It's all too perfect! Oh, God, thank-you. Thank-you, God, for this meal." He folded his hands together, in front of his chest, looking up at the ceiling, before he looked down, at Harry, who had his hand over his eyes, leaned in over the table on his opened palm. He was embarrassed. Oh. Draco looked around at the faces looking back at them. Everyone was snickering and looking at each other with pressed lips and widened, amused eyes. Except his mother who looked slightly horrified and awkward. He immediately cleared his throat and gave Harry a tiny, accusatory shove, which made his elbow slip off of the table and his hand drop from his eyes. "I was only laughing, Harry—Harry Potter—because—I mean, the hilarity of shopping at Dollar Cauldron—it's just hysterical, see. I thought she was kidding. There's such a thing as the Synthetic Wood Collection? Appalling—just—ahahaha—ahem—what are you laughing at, Potter? Harry Potter? Oh, God! Your name! Ahahaha."

"Run."

Draco looked at Harry.

"Run," Harry repeated.

Draco kept laughing, until Harry went to tackle/strangle him. He half-fell backward, laughing, hard, and went down, on the floor, on his back and his elbows, with Harry falling over Draco's newly emptied chair to get to him, his hand out, grasping at Draco's shirt, so he couldn't escape. But, Draco, hysterically laughing, shuffled back on his palms and feet, as Harry slid off of the chair and landed on the floor.

Draco moved as fast as he could to get up. He stumbled as he did so, and Harry was just as fast, but Draco was out of his grasp, as they ran around the table and Draco made a jet, like a bullet, for the kitchen door, which was unfortunate for Harry, because he got a grasp on the back of Draco's shirt, but when the blonde threw himself against the swinging door, Harry lost it, and they both stumbled out of the kitchen as free half-men-half-boys.

They tore through the front of the house, until they reached the stairs, which Draco began to take two at a time. He knew Harry had had an unfortunate collision with a table when they were skidding around the corner to get to the stairs, so he had himself a couple of extra seconds. He had heard Harry gasp with pain, but he'd also heard the hurried footsteps after him. He turned around, on the middle stair, his heart pounding, as Harry appeared at the bottom of the stairs, with one hand on the banister and one on the wall, his shoulders tensed, his dark eyes enflamed and entertained. But, Draco had his hands out in front of him, and he was standing still, and Harry wasn't going to attack him, because it would have been too easy to jump the few stairs and grab him, "Ten second time-out—are you okay?"

Harry gave a prompt, taunting nod.

"No internal bleeding? After this, are you up for—no? Three, two, one!" He turned and spurted up the stairs.

Draco wasn't even five feet away from the top of the stairs when a grasp took the back of his shirt. But, he pulled away from it, screaming girlishly, just for fun, and he darted down the hallway, bumping into a random dresser on the way. He turned into one of the Order's rooms and hurried behind a desk, and when he turned around, Harry was sitting on the chair right in front of the desk, pretending to look impatient, as if he had been waiting for Draco to turn around for awhile. Laughing, and with a huge smirk of challenge, to which Harry leapt up from the chair and threw back at him in form of a somewhat happy and definitely sexy close-mouthed smile, Draco pressed his hands down on the desk.

Harry imitated him and leaned in, until their noses were only a few inches apart.

Draco narrowed his eyes.

Harry meanly did the same.

Draco's smile returned, instantly, and made a trick-move to the left, to fool Harry, and moved right. But, somehow, Harry moved right, with him, instead of going left, and when Draco slid out from behind the desk, to the right, Harry was opposite him, still only the few inches away, standing straight to emulate his own stance. And, he was smiling, so smugly, with this crazy, "Oh, did you really think that was going to work!" look, his left eyebrow hooked up, which matched the right side of his mouth—it should have been lop-sided, but damn Draco Malfoy if he found it damn perfect and appealing. Yes. Indeed, he was damned. Damn Potter for being pretty, too, as Judas Cliffdale!

Shit! Draco had thought it was going to work! Though Harry didn't attack him, or didn't have the time to, while they sized each other up for the good one second between them, Draco knew he had to move. He broke right, and, somehow, managed to get out from behind the desk. His feet pounded into the floor as he ran for the door. He slipped on the wood, with his left foot, but caught himself, in the doorway, with his hands, before he pushed himself out, made ground, somehow, with his feet, and began to run for the stairs, again. He made it all of the way down the stairs, somehow, without falling to his death of a broken neck, and then tried to hide himself behind a tall clock, as he heard Harry hit the bottom floor, again.

Harry didn't walk past him, but Draco heard footsteps leading him in the opposite direction.

Unsure of what his plan of action was, Draco stood there for a good thirty seconds. He took in a small deep breath, finally, figuring Harry was done looking for him and couldn't find him. He was going to start back up the steps. As he breathed in, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, about three seconds later, Harry had just turned a corner, to the left, and stopped, abruptly.

Draco forced a huge smile, innocently, before he ran for his life.

Harry was much closer, this time, on the chase up the stairs, where they kept bumping into the wall after Harry would catch the back of Draco's shirt or his pant-leg, and it would trip Draco up, but only for fractions of seconds, because he would manage to get a hold of himself and his speed and keep pulling away from Harry. That was, of course, until he was at the top of the stairs, still free. He was about two feet into his run, when a hand caught the back of his shirt, hard. It was a solid grasp. He was caught, and the strength of the pull, and Draco's urge to run away, again, halfway into it, catapulted him back a couple of inches, and he turned toward his left, into the hand, so he was facing Harry, and looked back at Harry.

Harry let go, smiling, and, as he let go, he closed in on Draco and backed him up against the wall.

Draco was smiling the whole time, his top teeth pulling over his dry bottom lip.

They were moving together, smoothly, to get to the wall, and as Harry backed them up, his palms, ever so lightly, wound up just barely touching and resting over Draco's T-shirt covered sides, at the waistband of his dark gray, fitted, low-rising trousers. It wasn't a hold. It was teasing and not remotely awkward. He was smiling, the whole time, and they were both sort of laughing at each other, because they were playing. Playing. They were being playful, chasing each other around the house, and... yes.

Right before Harry's hips pinned Draco's against the wall, Draco's hands managed to place, confidently, rightfully, in the same exact place on Harry's body that Harry's hands were on Draco's body. But, Draco's thumbs lifted up under the bottom hem of Harry's shirt and they wrapped around the loose waistband of Harry's pajama pants, which were already laying low on his hips, and tugged. He smirked with a, "what now?" approach, but it faded after he saw Harry noticed it. And, when they were finally up against the wall, perfectly still, they were nose to nose and both still smiling, knowingly, at the affection they were sharing, Harry biting over his bottom lip while he laughed, and Draco grinning, shamelessly, with the tiniest bit of his tongue clenched between his top and bottom teeth, which disappeared, and the space allowed his quiet laughter to voice back at Harry, audibly, rather than having it just be noticed between their smiles and their eyes—yes, the eyes. The eyes. Talking, catching, laughing, wondering—enjoying, praising.

Harry laughed, too, but from his nose, mostly, because his lips were suddenly pressed together.

He looked down, between them, pressing his forehead against Draco's.

But, Draco didn't look down, just kept his eyes on Harry, as he examined whatever he was examining.

Harry's eyes pulled up, and then his left hand did. The tip of his nose dropped in, against Draco's, to the right of it, out of no where, and he nudged it, ever so slightly, while his index fingertip rested down against Draco's right cheek. It slipped down to fill the space between their mouths, as it was a space that shouldn't have been there, but couldn't be solved with any other space-filler—certainly not by their mouths touching. No. Oh, God, no. But, his eyes found Draco's, again, as his fingertip plummeted down over the center of the soft, full, warm, dry top lip and fell right onto the top of his bottom lip.

Draco felt the tiny pressure of a push, and he let his already slightly opened lips be pushed further apart.

Harry's top teeth caught onto his own dry, tingling, anxious bottom lip.

The tip of his finger massaged over the very tip of Draco's tongue, and when it went to retreat, Draco nipped it, between his teeth, to catch it. It was soft. He held it there, for a couple of seconds, until Harry's eyes met his, deeply, and hotly, before he released the small, light hold. But, the gentle rub of the pad of Harry's fingertip didn't leave. It rubbed at the tip of his tongue, again, this time while staring at Draco, straight on, and then it slipped out, leaving a small, wet trail against Draco's dry bottom lip. He massaged the center of it, for a few seconds, before it drove Draco completely insane and his chest flipped over with flushed warmth. The rhythm, the feel, the moistness was perfect—it just made him want Harry's mouth all that much more—but, then, sadly, the fingertip left his lip, traced down the center of his chin, and disappeared.

Harry's eyes were so entranced to Draco's lips that they had become their own perfection, right for staring at and touching, and licking—licking, God, how he just wanted to... just... they were just... so... soft... and... full, pretty, fleshy. Warm. Promising. He breathed out, shakily, barely at all, and pressed his mouth beside Draco's. In the process, he collected and picked up a tiny bit of the wet trail his fingertip had left behind, which he mentally moaned at, because it tasted so good, faint though it was. His eyes pulled themselves from the tempting, magnetic mouth he had been trying to deny pleasure in for weeks. He rested, fully, against Draco, and dropped his left hand back down to where it had been, before. This time, his fingertips rubbed over the soft material of the T-shirt, and it felt silky. He murmured, his heart feeling heavy and his body feeling weak for what he wanted, "I want to corrupt your evil Slytherin tongue."

Draco's thumbs settled on Harry's hip-bones, under his light, cotton pants, and he held Harry's hips against his, with closed eyes, as their cheekbones collided together. Harry sounded so helpless, and so sweet, and so confused, "Mmm, and soothe my courageous Gryffindor mouth?"

Harry managed the tiniest of smiles, against Draco's cheek, at the question, "You don't even know how much I want you."

It was ripping through his body, the desire have Draco—to just kiss him, right then, to touch him, to pull him away, into their room, close and lock the door, close all of the windows, shut all of the blinds, block out the world, and give Draco anything and everything he wanted, in every single way humanly possible. There was nothing else to be desired than his mouth over Draco's. Nothing had ever needed, so badly, to be had. Nothing had ever needed, so badly, to happen. No person had ever needed to try with Harry Potter, because Harry Potter had never felt, about anyone, the way he felt, at that moment, with and about Draco Malfoy. No one person had ever pulled out the intensity, from Harry Potter, that made his entire body, brain, mind, heart and soul want, need, desire and ache for something more than Draco Malfoy did.

"I know how much you want me."

Harry smiled, again, at the tiny, tiny squeeze of Draco's hands on his hips, for him to realize the other boy could feel. But, Harry closed his eyes and dropped his cheek from Draco's. He rested his forehead down against the warm shoulder, then lifted his face up and stared, straight, at the wall. He moved right to Draco's ear, lifting his left hand up, once more. He dropped it over Draco's right shoulder, and then it slid down behind his back, between Draco and the wall, which neither of them seemed to mind. Harry's right hand left its spot, too, and slipped around to Draco's back, too, bravely finding its way up under Draco's loose shirt and onto the warm back—ah-ah, and, it felt good. So soft.

Harry was hugging him.

Draco melted into it, too, and cupped the back of Harry's head with his right palm, somewhat protectively.

"I want you so much more than that." So much more than just the physical reaction of their hips and hormones. And, there was definitely a strong physical reaction, which felt incredible, and amazing, and perfect, and... right. It was comfortable, and harmless, and both of them kept their hips together, even as their arms were wrapped around each other in some sort of understanding, confused, interested, intrigued, sweet, unthreatening embrace. It was something Harry had never felt, before. He had had his fair share of flings with girls, in the last year, whether they be one night at a Quidditch celebration, one date or one week, or an angst of months. But, it was different with Draco, and not just because it was completely different anatomy, but because it felt good. Stimulating. Irrepressible. Unfalteringly arousing. Besides, Draco was his height, and that was kind of hot, too, somehow. He liked the way their bodies rested together.

"Draco? Harry? Come on down, lunch is here," called a voice, distantly, from downstairs.

Neither moved, until Draco's left palm gave a tiny, circular rub on the curve of Harry's lower back.

Harry wanted to burst. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually—every ally that had ever existed!

Harry sniffled, a tiny bit, and lifted his nose from where it had been resting against Draco's cheek.

A mesh of incredible warmth settled below his ear, which elicited a tremble of a swallow in Harry's throat and a burst of energy within his chest.

Draco lifted his cheek, too, and pulled his face away, until the back of his head rested against the wall.

Harry gazed over his face, as they looked at each other, face to face, again. Draco looked so peaceful and relaxed. He had nothing to say and everything to feel, and Harry understood exactly that. But, one of them needed to pull away. He knew it was going to need to be him, because, after all, he was the one who had Draco trapped. He knew it wasn't going to be awkward, because they hadn't had an awkward moment. It was sweet, and innocent, and they were trying to figure out what was going on. They cared about each other, in a lot of ways, but there were situations that were more important than any tiny—or monumental—attraction they might have had for each other. It wasn't the right time, for either of them. But, Harry loved Draco—not necessarily romantically but not necessarily unromantically, either—and that was what they were sharing. They both understood that for what it was, no matter whatever else was going on.

Harry let out the tiniest of sharp breaths, as he dropped his left arm, and then his right.

But, still, he didn't pull himself away. He smiled, barely at all, and leaned in to Draco's ear. Something just came over him, and it felt right to say—to do, "You taste good."

Parseltongue.

Draco seethed his pleasure. Had Harry not have been still pressed up against him, he might have had a spasm. His body went numb with fiery grief of the separation he knew was going to take place, and even more so because he had just been hissed something—something that sent his body over the verge of arousal he had never known existed. His entire nervous system shut down and crashed, like a ton of butterflies in the form of adrenaline heartache, and it filled up his entire stomach—not just part of it, or his chest, or the bottom—but the whole damn thing, and it stuck. Stuck, hard, so hard that some strange numbness rendered half of his existence unimportant and made his ears super sensitive enough to have not only heard it but heard it so soundly that it made everything shut off, just to shiver from the tip of his head to his toes. His mind was off, one hundred percent, because his body was the only thing reacting—like it never had, before, and that was okay with him, because it was Potter.

Harry left a kiss, a couple of seconds later, against Draco's ear, then his cheek, and then he pulled away.

Draco watched after Harry. He didn't turn back around. He just walked toward the stairs and disappeared. There was a reason he hadn't turned around. But, because he was gone, Draco could finally breathe. But, he didn't manage to breathe out how he felt he should have. Instead, he somewhat slid against the wall, toward the right, before he peeled himself off of it and used it to support himself, down the hallway, until he got to their room. He walked in, closed the door, and then gasped out a tiny cry. Oh, God. It fucking hurt—every part of Potter hurt him, because he wanted him so much. With a exhale of hot, anxious breath, Draco collapsed down onto the couch, on his stomach, clutching over the center of his chest, to reach his heart, with his right fingertips snuggled up over his shirt and entwined in the fabric, as if he could comfort it, nurture it, soothe it and calm it down, because it hurt a lot more than anything else, currently, was hurting him.

Again, it was probably the first time his heart had ever come in, first, between himself and sexual bliss. He could want Potter, and Potter could want him, but it didn't matter what they wanted. There was a line. A boundary.

When Draco returned to the kitchen, he had missed, at least, twenty minutes. It was still crowded and still noisy—just how he liked it for lunch, on rainy days or sunny days. It was a rainy day, but that didn't even matter, because he had the sudden joy of a sunny day. He didn't know what that meant, but it was there. He looked over at the two combined tables and all of the people still eating. He cleared his throat and walked over toward the table, casually. He walked around the end of it, where Lupin was, and then slid into his seat, next to Harry, who he glanced at.

Harry smiled, hugely, before he bit into a piece of celery and looked away.

Draco smiled, too, hardly embarrassed, and picked up a piece of celery from a dish in front of them, "Good?"

"Excellent, you?"

Draco bit into the crisp celery, as he looked at Harry, straight on, shamelessly, "Fucking fantastic."

Harry started laughing, as he looked down at his empty plate. He hadn't been in the kitchen very long, either, but he had had enough time to pile food on his plate. He just hadn't, mostly because he wasn't too hungry, "I was talking about the celery."

"So was I."

Harry chewed on his bottom lip, staring at Draco, straight on, and Draco was staring back.

They both knew Draco was beaming. It wasn't even in embarrassing way. It was perfect, because Draco was beaming smugness. He was pleased. One of them was trying to ignore it and the other was thriving on it.

Draco took another bite of his celery and then held it up, pointedly, at Harry, "Best fucking celery ever, right here."

Harry laughed into the back of his hand and slouched down, a bit, a mess of laughter, sheepish and joyful

Draco watched it. It was perfect. Innocent and sweet, but knowing and reminiscent at the same time.

"Draco, you're still in one piece," commented Cornwell, as he walked into the kitchen, having already eaten.

Draco looked up from piling pieces of watermelon and cantaloupe onto his plate, "Potter couldn't hurt me if he tried."

Harry smiled to himself, watching Draco spoon the chunks of fruit onto his plate like it was a bowl, "I beg to differ."

Draco didn't look at him, "You don't have to beg to differ, Potter, but you can beg for anything else."

Harry pressed his lips together and smiled, innocently, as people strangely looked between he and Draco.

"Every time I see the two of you, you're always discussing something I can never decipher," Lupin laughed.

"Ah, professor Lupin," Draco responded, with the respect he had grown to embrace his former teacher with, and finally looked up from his plate. "Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are one for the mystery history books. Trying to decipher us is like trying to figure out why penguins can't fly."

"Malfoy, penguins can't fly because their wings can't support their body-weight."

Draco looked at Harry. Silently, at first, before he smiled. Silently, again, and then went back to his fruit.

Harry was amazed that Draco hadn't thrown anything back at him. He had just smiled. Perfectly.

"Draco, you despise cantaloupe," awkwardly remarked his mother, from across the table.

Draco glanced down at the plate, chewing. He swallowed, and then looked back at her, "I despise nothing today. It's not humanly possible for Draco Malfoy to despise anything, on this rainy August day—and, if you want to know why, well... I'll tell you why."

Cornwell had slipped down at the table, again, and was sipping on something, "Do tell us, Draco Malfoy."

Harry chewed on a piece of celery, just as interested as everyone else in what Draco was going to bullshit.

Draco reached over and grabbed the bitten celery stick out of Harry's hand, "This is why."

Harry's right palm slapped down onto the table, between their plates. He mused at Draco, content with the knowledge that Draco could be so incredibly, weirdly possessive, sometimes, in the strangest, most endearing ways.

"How is a stolen piece of Harry Potter's celery proof of you not being able to despise anything?"

"Exactly, professor Lupin; This is Harry Potter's piece of celery."

Harry overturned his hand, "Can I have Harry Potter's piece of celery back?"

Draco bit into the celery, "No. It's now mine. See, that is why I can't despise anything, because if I want something, I have to make it mine. Naturally, I want everything and want to claim everything as mine, and I couldn't possibly despise myself. Cantaloupe, therefore, can't be despised, because I just made this piece of cantaloupe mine."

It was silent, for a very long moment, before Cornwell laughed, loudly, with a sigh, "I don't know what's more confusing, Remus, the fact that I understood, perfectly, what Draco meant, or the fact that I found it strangely brilliant even though it truly didn't make any sense," he said, as he pushed himself up, giving Draco a shake of his head, while professor Lupin laughed, as did the rest of the table. Cornwell pointed at Draco, as he went to turn away, shaking his head, holding his empty, clear glass in his hand. "The first part—the cantaloupe part—made not one lick of sense, Draco. If you don't like the way cantaloupe tastes, why bother making it yours? It's disgusting."

"I think it was the watermelon flavoring that makes it likable," Draco reproached, knowing of his father's dislike for cantaloupe, too. When Draco was little, there entire family had been at a picnic in the summer, including Cornwell, and they had been sitting at the picnic table when his mother made him try cantaloupe—which, up until that point, Cornwell had never tried, either. They had both had less than pleasant reactions to it. Draco had spit it out, because he was a child and was excused, but Cornwell had had to endure it. Looking away from Cornwell, who nodded at him, his eyes flickered to his left side. He sniffled. "Hear that, Potter?"

Harry snorted into his hand, "I take back what I said—you'd be a decent porn-star—sorry, "ICON!""

"This is my cue to leave," Narcissa sighed and left with a woman she was talking to, while Cornwell coughed a laugh.

Draco looked at Harry, smiling broadly, "You offended my mother's sensibilities, Potter!"

"I'd offend yours if I was sure you would like it." He grasped his stick of celery back and smirked, hard.

Draco's nose scrunched at him, and he refused to look up from his plate, "What did I tell you about complimenting me?"

Harry smiled, before he glanced up at Cornwell, who was looking at him as if he had heard wrong, though he was still slightly smiling with a tiny twinge of the left side of his mouth. He turned his face to Draco, straight on, "To do it as much as possible? Or as little as possible? I don't know, Malfoy. I recall you saying something about boiling with warmth; Everything after that was lost."

Draco rolled his eyes, "Way to feed the round-table, Potter, once again."

"What was that?" Lupin asked, out of no where.

Harry snorted and looked up from his plate. He knew exactly what Draco was talking about. As usual, they were sharing casual conversations about nothing, and all of the homoerotic anecdotes of the day, so far, seemed to be candy to the eyes of the Ministry members, "Oh, come on," Harry told Remus, with a lifting left eyebrow, for him to not play oblivious. "Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter make everything homoerotic. It'll be that way until the end of time, mostly due to the fact that we're not normal blokes—for God's sake, he just stole my celery stick, bit it and claimed it as his own."

Draco choked. He couldn't hear his thoughts, anymore, because he was laughing so hard mentally.

Harry laughed at him, innocently, and gave him accusing eyes, "You did! Don't deny it."

Draco looked at him, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Potter! I just wanted a bite of celery!"

Harry's hands lifted out, over the table, and he motioned to the plate of celery, "Shockingly, a whole plate."

"Yours was closer. What can I say? I'm lazy. I didn't want to reach," Draco flawlessly concocted, grinning.

Harry bit into his celery stick, pointedly, and then held it up, beside his face, "Mine!"

Draco stole it, with ease, as Harry hadn't been expecting the theft, obviously. When he had it in his hand, he bit into it and declared, more powerfully, "Mine!"

Harry cracked up and gave him a tiny, happy shove. They were just playing, "If you're possessive over a celery stick..."

"It's not just a celery stick," Draco snootily returned, with a dramatic, indignant snarl of his nose into he air, as he swallowed his late bite. With glee, he added a superficially superior, "Ha!"

Harry turned his palm around and pressed the outside of his hand over his forehead, as if to swoon.

"I feel half like crying and half like laughing—what just happened?" Cornwell asked, seeming very relaxed and amused. The way he often humored Harry and Draco was fun for both of them. Even with everything going on in their lives, and the fight at hand, and the war, and trying to figure out ways to bring Voldemort down, once and for all, they still managed to keep light and make things funny, just for the comic relief, even if it only appeared at meal times which was when they all saw each other most. It was almost an unspoken pact that dinner wasn't to be bogged down by war-time strategies. In the kitchen, as a group or as individuals, they connected on a person-to-person level. It kept them grounded most, it seemed, because whenever someone needed a true break, it was to the kitchen he went.

Harry put his hand out, with his palm turned upward. He pulled his bent fingers into the center of his palm, loosely, expectantly, and Draco placed the celery stick in it, "Draco has fallen in love with a celery stick."

"A whole lot more healthy than a broomstick named PEG, thank-you very much."

Harry dipped his right index fingertip into the juice of the fruit salad on Draco's plate. He lifted it up and drew a heart on Draco's cheek.

Draco ignored him, as he swallowed a piece of watermelon, "Apology not accepted."

"How can you deny a heart, drawn on your face, with watermelon-flavored-juice, by Harry fucking Potter?"

Draco pretended to ponder this, before looking back at Harry. Had there not been anyone else in the room, Potter's mouth would have been his. He would have made sure. As he sat there, with his face turned to Harry's, he forgot what he wanted to say. It was easy for them to put on shows and talk about nothing, together, when they were around other people. They did it all of the time. And, they always did tease each other about their questionable sexuality, even around Cornwell, because it was innocent. There was nothing awkward, at that moment, about turning innocent foods into tools to amuse themselves. Around other people, they weren't the same. The part of them that was them usually wasn't out on display when so many other people were around. Plus, they were both easy-going, so talking about whatever, stupidly, they could, didn't matter.

But, there, in the kitchen, at that very moment, Draco wished they would have been alone.

Harry was turned toward him, as he had been for a couple of minutes.

Draco looked away from him, slowly, and back down to his plate. He lifted his left hand and his fingertips brushed over his cheek and over the still slightly damp heart. It was so sweet it almost hurt. Potter wasn't supposed to do stupid little things that would make him feel so... so... so... real. He looked back at Harry, again, with hesitantly friendly eyes. When he saw Harry's tiny smile, and his light-filled, incredibly sparkling brown eyes, Draco realized that Harry had intended for Draco to be having that very reaction. He had turned something so teasing and light into something sweet and real. A moment. He didn't have to reach up and make a heart on Draco's cheek. He could have just continued the pointless discussion in conversation—in banter, the way it had always been.

Harry was so pretty—or, Judas. The summer light was natural, coming in through the window and hitting the left side of his face. The day was gloomy, but it made Harry's skin, still, glow with something so summery, warm and memorable. Something summery, warm, and fuzzy seemed to paw at Draco's chest. He tore his eyes away from Harry, as his fingertips dropped back down to the table, "You're right. Think of all of the twelve year olds who would cry at the chance to have you draw a heart on their cheeks."

"You think my fan-base ends at twelve year olds?"

Draco smiled, slowly, and then couldn't help but smirk at Harry, truly, with a, "Did you really just ask me that?" look.

Harry rolled his eyes and decided to change the subject, "What are you going to do for the rest of the day while I, self-importantly, sleep?"

"I don't know. Cry, I suppose, until you wake up." He paused. "I'm seventeen and still in your fan-base. While you're unconscious, know that I will be pacing the floor, not knowing what to do with myself, waiting impatiently for you to come to. I might debate about slitting my wrists, but I don't have a high threshold for self-inflicted pain. In fact, if you had to put money on it—or your life—no offense—I'd go for the crying route. I'd much rather cry about you being asleep than slit my wrists, as that would make me pathetic beyond my realm of acceptable flaws involving pride and honor in front of you, Potter."

Harry smiled at him, content in the moment between them. It was a lot quieter, now, in the kitchen, for a reason or a few. He pretended to be informed and uttered a knowing, agreeable, "Oh."

"Yes, it's all very age-appropriate, though. I, myself, wouldn't cry for you to draw a heart on my cheek."

Harry continued to watch him eat his watermelon, "You're out of that phase in your fanship with me, hmm?"

"I skipped the twelve-year old Harry-Potter-love-phase, as you may recall. I was often busy with plotting your untimely—who am kidding? Your timely death—Potter."

Harry pulled back from pressing a small, innocent kiss over Draco's cheek, sleepy with adoration, "What?"

Draco blinked, but he answered, "Nothing," before he could think about analyzing it. He answered with nothing, because it wasn't the first time—hardly—that Harry had given him a friendly kiss in front of other people. There had never been any sort of strange reaction to it—but, Draco had been thinking, so much, about the heart-strawberry-juice-drawing moment, so when Harry even got so much as a bit closer to him, when he was already battling with himself, inside, he had just mentally had a tiny, tiny—perhaps hopefully quiet—breakdown, and he had acknowledged the kiss with more personal intention, as he usually didn't.

Harry pushed himself up, "I'll see you later."

Draco watched after him, and, then, glanced down to Harry's empty plate. He hadn't eaten.

When Harry was gone, and Draco was alone, he finally molded his palm over his cheek. Was it horribly ridiculous to think he could feel the heart, still, outlined on his face, though the juice was no longer there? He didn't know. He didn't know what was going on. Damnit, Potter's affection was always getting Draco in trouble! Whatever it was, however, was hardly a bad thing. Harry always showed affection in front of other Order members at meals—not purposely. It just kind of happened. Everyone knew they were close and mockingly flamboyant, at times. But, his last kiss... was... special. Even as it was happening, Draco had known Harry was just sort of watching him, silently, seemingly half-tired, as he had been since Draco had walked into the kitchen. Draco, though, didn't know what to make of himself or his conflicting emotions, as he sat there, pushing around the watermelon on his plate with his fork.

After a couple of more minutes, Draco took his plate to the sink, left the kitchen and walked up the stairs.

When Draco opened the bedroom door, the bed was empty. He had figured Harry had left to go back to sleep or rest, but, no, the bed was still just as messy and unkempt as it had been, earlier. Though it was drizzling outside the window opposite the door, it was still bright in the room. He peeked around the door, as he walked in, and saw that Harry was sitting at the desk, with his feet pulled up on his chair, with his left arm wrapped around them while he wrote in his journal with his right hand. He seemed amused at what he was writing—no, maybe not amused with that.

Harry didn't glance upward, because he had heard the door open, "I'm telling my journal all about how you disregard my advances," he lamely joked, not trying to make it funny. He was just playing, of course, and bringing the strangeness of their affection, that day, to the forefront of conversation. It was a notable event. Having pushed it aside wasn't in either of their agendas. They usually faced things head-on instead of holding back and keeping it in. Life was too short for that, and they had agreed upon that, though never having spoken about it. It was just an obvious, unspoken fact.

Harry closed his journal and placed his quill down over it.

Draco sat down on his right shin on his chair, leaning up on his elbows over the desk, "Truthfully, Potter, if I wasn't me, and wasn't used to playing with you and walking around on my tip-toes while we verbally spar at each other, day-in and day-out, the hidden flirtation you just pulled, with said heart on my cheek, would have been mildly of my interest." Harry was grinning, just barely, nodding along and humoring Draco's conversational boredom. So, Draco rested his chin on his right palm and pursed his lips, once, before they relaxed. He smiled, too. "However, being that we are both boys, one of us gay—uh—and the other in his own, apparent, orientation, the obvious physical reactions to each other are to be expected."

Harry laughed, easily, relaxed back and now holding his knees with both arms, "I enjoy you, Malfoy."

"Noted," Draco flawlessly responded, without any sort of suggestion. His eyes flickered down to Harry's journal. It was amazing how they played with each other's emotions and presence, but never actually got upset or tried to analyze what it was that ran between them. Those days were long past them, because, currently, they were what they were, and they were all they would ever be, at that moment. "What were you really writing about?"

"A friend of mine—totally nearly got off on the sound of a snake hissing."

Draco dropped his palm to the desk, protesting silently, though he felt a slight flush drain from his face in a slightly comical way.

Harry tried not to laugh at how endearing Draco's quickly defensive expression had become, "You don't know him," Harry pressed, without trying to make it into anything. Draco hadn't gotten angry or freaked out, and Harry swore he saw something that resembled a hardly humiliated smirk hit on Draco's mouth before it molded itself into an impressively convincing frown of disgust. "I know—the thought of hissing being a turn on after all that being a snake implies? Slytherin? Voldemort? Evil? Sharpness? Poison?" He lifted up his quill and tickled himself with it on his cheek, having the urge to feel how soft it was. He didn't take his eyes off of Draco's, though the eye contact was nothing but friendly. "Plus, all of the phallic symbolism."

"This friend of yours might have welcomed that."

Harry pointed the tip of the quill at Draco, quickly, as if he were onto something, "Come to think of it..."

"Do you?"

Harry squinted, "Do I what?" He should have thought about it some more before throwing in his oblivion.

"Want to come when you think of it?" Draco asked, without skipping one, tiny, pleasing beat, and then he slowly, evilly smiled.

Harry cleared his throat, laughing, and looked away from Draco and down to his knee. He could have replied hundreds of ways, but settled on a simple, dramatic, playful, careless, "Ew."

Draco could have died at the way Harry said "ew," like a little five year old boy running away from a girl, because she had cooties. But, Harry was smiling, too, though he wasn't laughing. At least, not until his eyes teasingly came up from his knees, and he playfully jabbed at Draco with them, twinkling. He was wearing a pointed, at-ease expression to match. Draco's smile turned into laughter, too, and he threw himself back in his chair, covering his eyes with his palms, separately, and continuing to sigh with pleased amusement, "Ew, fuck—being gay? Ew."

"Ew, I know. God."

Draco hands dropped to his chest, as he pulled his right shin out from under him and settled, "Ew."

"You feel no more "ew" than I do. I am less gay than you are. I like Quidditch."

"Uh, no," Draco returned, with utmost seriousness. "My masculinity is totally so much more secured than yours. I have a twenty-four inch dick that spasms whenever it HEARS the word Quidditch, and do you know what that means, Potter? It means I win—oh, and my dick also might have ears."

Harry threw his quill up into the air, with his left hand, as he laughed in utmost hysterics. He pointed the tip of his wand at the feather in his right hand. He muttered a spell at it, which left it lodged into the air. He had used it so many times in his life. Amused with it, he turned his attention back to Draco. He looked so comfortable but, at the same time, was bordering on this line of excessive boredom, by the way he was sprawled out over his chair, slouched, with his elbows resting on the sides of the chair and his palms laying over the sides of his face, and completely engaging activity by the way his mouth was set and his eyes were looking between Harry and the quill, lively and sparkling in the way they always did. Deciding he liked the latter, better, Harry flicked his wrist and the quill moved toward Draco.

Draco looked past it and to Harry, "Don't even dare try to torture me with a feather. I will make you writhe in agony you have never experienced."

Harry inched his wand forward, and the feathered quill tip, just barely, brushed over the tip of Draco's nose.

Draco half-smiled, never having looked away from Harry's bright, unthreatening brown eyes, "Charming."

Harry smiled, genuinely, his lips closed together, before he flicked his wrist and watched the quill drop until it was out of his sight. He placed his wand back down on the desk they shared, between the massive amounts of papers and random things, around the house, they had used to separate their spaces, including books and heavy metal trinkets. So many things had been packed away and put into the attic to make room for all of the Order clutter. It was like it had never been a home, now, except for the studies which were still kept decorated fairly the same. But, all of the other rooms were used for Order purposes or sleeping purposes. So, there were all of these little things that he and Draco had spent a day or two, sitting in the attic, looking at, and they had taken a few with them because they were interesting or magnetic to their attractions and likes.

"Hogwarts in a couple of weeks—it's going to be so strange."

Draco looked at Harry. He was talking so quietly, staring at the four-poster queen-sized bed in no particular way. He was good at staring into space, Draco had decided. It worked well for him. He didn't look drugged or high, or even like he wasn't uninterested. He just looked like he was thinking about things that the space was discussing with him—in a non-crazy way, of course, "I wonder what's going to change. Besides the obvious. There's no way everything could be the same. With so many parents having been lost or injured in the war, I can't imagine some of the older kids coming back to school. They'd probably feel like they needed to stay and help with siblings. Or work. Our graduating motto should be Obligations are a bitch."

Harry blinked his eyes away from the bed and set them onto Draco, nodding along and agreeing more than he was sure Draco could possibly understand, "The Order members probably know what's going on. Dumbledore's always around. I'm sure he's asked for their help and opinions. I mean, Cornwell didn't seem surprised. Whatever was in that letter, he only needed to skim it before he tossed it down with ours."

"I bet the letters say something about the changes. It was a bit thicker, folded, than the usual."

"Yeah, I saw a couple of extra parchments."

Draco sat up, slowly, in his chair, and then leaned over his knees, from one extreme to the next, "We should go get them."

"You go get them. I'll stay here."

Draco looked up from the warm, woven, plush area rug he was used to walking on, "..."

Harry shrugged, wrapping his arms back around his knees, "I want to finish my journal entry."

Draco nodded, and, out of no where, the quill that had been resting on the floor, between his legs, shot up. It flew threw the air, in a circular whim of imaginary wind, and landed in Harry's outstretched left hand. With an eyebrow raise, Draco looked him over, suspiciously. What was Potter writing about, anyway? Hell, what was he ever writing about? He was so engrossed in his journal, at times, and he would just write for hours, occasionally with a break here and there, and Draco would eventually tell himself that Harry must have been writing out his life story, with every detail of it, because Draco couldn't imagine writing so much about one random day and its events, especially when most of Harry's days were spent laying in bed and doing absolutely nothing. Then, again, it might have been a good thing for Harry, for it to be that way, because maybe what he was doing was collecting all of his lost thoughts and trying to organize himself in written form when his last years had been so hectic.

"All right. I'll leave you alone. Come down when you're done. Find me, we'll talk about it."

Harry looked at him, deeply.

Draco found this strange, as well as the silence that followed it, while he walked to the door, "Hogwarts letters."

"Oh," Harry quietly answered, and then gave a prompt nod, as if the tiny, unsolved moment had never happened. "I'll find you."

Draco stopped, at the door, with his back to it. His left hand wrapped around the doorknob, but he did not turn it. Harry had looked right back down at his journal. He already had it opened, in front and below him, and had started to write, halfway down his current journal page. A strange sort of surge began to pulse at the back of Draco's mind, and from his mind into his gut, where he felt a physical tug. He bit on his bottom lip, hard, to stop from saying anything that might have sounded paranoid. He forced himself to turn the doorknob, pushing aside the tiniest of a questionable syllable at the beginning of an unclear sentence in the back of his mind. He called it off as nothing.

Harry looked up, at that moment, and glanced at the door, as if to ask what was holding him up.

Draco held his gaze, for a long few moments, before slowly, cautiously stating, "You're all right."

Harry sat up a bit straighter. He shouldn't have hesitated as he did, because Draco caught it, "Yeah."

Draco heard that tiny little voice scratching away at the back of his mind, again, "If something was wrong..."

"I'd tell you," Harry immediately concluded, and turned to look back down at his journal. "Nothing is wrong."

"There better not be, Harry."

Harry slowly looked up at him. Draco had just set out a flat-line threat in front of him. Fuck.

Draco gave the tiniest of nods, lowering his chin, as he ducked out of the room with the door, all the while staring at Harry. Something might have been wrong. Something might not have been wrong, aside from the obvious. There had been one moment where Draco had stepped out of his own perspective, of what he was used to seeing of Harry's behavior, and he had seen something slightly alarming. Granted, it was okay for Harry to write in his journal a lot. There didn't have to be anything sneaky about that, but the amount that he wrote in it... but, then, other times, he would say something about always keeping his thoughts in, which made Draco think that Harry wasn't writing about his thoughts, at all, in his journal, or else he wouldn't have been making certain kinds of comments.

A few minutes later, Draco and Harry sat down in their favorite study and opened Draco's letter.

Harry sat back, on his usual two-person couch, while Draco sat at the center on his three-person couch. Between their couches was a long, dark, unharmed coffee table, and on that coffee table was Harry's letter, two cups, a couple of books, the Daily Prophet and a few pieces of parchment they had used, when playing games, to write down their answers. They spent a lot of time in that very room when they weren't in the bedroom. They were two different atmospheres, but both very much offered the same amount of homey comfort in a house that was anything but easy-going, "Wait, before you read it," Harry interrupted, as Draco opened his mouth, "answer me something."

Draco silently met Harry's eyes.

Harry mentally squirmed, "What's wrong? What did I do?"

"Nothing," Draco admitted. "If something was wrong, I'd tell you." He paused. "Nothing is wrong."

Though they both knew Draco was imitating Harry's earlier words, neither laughed. Draco thought Harry was hiding something, and Harry cornered him on it. Draco had answered the same exact way Harry had, which Harry knew to mean that Draco knew he was lying in saying that there was nothing wrong or nothing going on. What it was, Harry wasn't going to say. To anyone. Not yet. Not for a long time. It would be a regrettable move. It would be brilliant, or it would be the worst failure to have ever existed. Though, no one had caught on, or even seemed to notice, that there might have been something strange or out-of-the-ordinary going on with Harry, because he hadn't let anyone see that. He was good at hiding things. How Draco had figured it out—just the fact that there might have been something going on that Harry shouldn't have been keeping to himself—Harry wasn't fully sure, which was why he had asked Draco if there was something he had done wrong.

Harry's jaw clenched to one side, but he said nothing more, before looking back at the letter.

Draco cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the letter, as well, "As you well know, this summer and this last year have not been the easiest of times for anyone in our community. Witches, wizards, goblins, elves, giants, centaurs, and all of our other most notably important magical creatures and friends have all faced hardships, which I'm sure have not gone unabashed to the spirits of all youth alike. When you received this letter, your emotions might have been mixed. You may have felt hope, relief or joy. You may have felt anger and a sense of disinterest, or, in many cases, I'm sure you might not have felt a thing, either way, when you were delivered this letter of all letters. I, myself, have had trouble trying to decide how to write this to you, and I believe myself to be a man of all trades, never having faltered on writing a letter to my students. Change. Change is something we all must eventually face. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to send the standard letter of required materials to each of our students. This question of my own judgment came as my final and last problem deciding on anything to do with Hogwarts over this last summer. Debating about whether or not to open Hogwarts, this fall, was never a question of it being the safest. It was a question of it being the most comfortable for those who would not feel safe away from family members, from bad memories of the summer, or even standing in Hogwarts, having aged decades over the summer. Regrettably, we have all aged far too much in these last few months, and it saddens me most to acknowledge the stress of maturity that the students, new and old, alike, at Hogwarts, will have now experienced when they—you—next step into the Great Hall, when so much has changed."

"Here is where I share my heart with you, a hopeful student of Hogwarts. I have sent a long letter to your parents, explaining where and how things stand at Hogwarts. Your parent may or may not want you to read that letter, but, rest assured, if you do not, attending Hogwarts will seem easier. There are a few things your guardian has to decide before you are allowed back to Hogwarts. If you must know, which you should know, though you may eventually wish you had never asked to know, ask to read parts of the letter. If you do not, I will share with you some changes that Hogwarts has to, inevitably, make."

"Changes," Harry muttered, having been long awaiting hearing what may have been changed.

"I lie, I will not share these things with you, as you are a student, and I do not wish to burden you."

Harry's eyes shot up from the floor and to Draco, whose voice was high as he spoke the sentence through.

Draco's left eyebrow hooked up, as he continued, "Hogwarts is the safest place for you, as the youth of our community, to be. Any change that has been made to Hogwarts, itself, as an institution is only to further your protection, as it will never be weakened. I refuse for it to be, and have done everything in my power to assure you, as you read this, that Hogwarts is the safest place you could imagine in these times. However, because of the circumstances of these times, requirements have altered the attendance policies of Hogwarts. If you are a new student, and you have never seen Hogwarts, I merely want to express to you how majestically gigantic our school is. To those of you who have seen Hogwarts, you will not see the problem in the next statement—"'

"Ut oh," Harry groaned, with a laugh.

Draco laughed, too, his eyebrows raising up even further on his head, "Holy shit—Hogwarts has dropped its age requirement. Therefore you, as a student, who may usually have turned away from this letter, for reasons such as needing to be with siblings or helping with your family, should know that the school is opening its doors to both you and your family, provided certain paper-work and negotiations with your parents. If you need a home, here you have a home. If your parents do not wish to take shelter here, as many won't, you may still attend. But, for you, the idea of being separate from your family, at this time, may cause a high increase of anxiety, and because of that, such a new option has been opened—"

"Oh my MERLIN! Albus Dumbledore has lost his mind!" Harry was laughing, standing up, awed and stunned. He needed to get a hold of what he had just heard by taking some physical action. He ran both of his hands back through his hair and turned back to stare at Draco.

Draco spoke over Harry, half laughing on the outside and half feeling like he was misreading on the inside, "Some of you may be asking how this is possible. I ask you to take in the grand scheme of Hogwarts and think of all of the hallways, corridors, floors and empty wings of which you have never been, because your classes only veer off in certain proximity to each other. The families who are eligible to stay at Hogwarts are those with children who attend this school. There are ten students per year for each house. That's seventy students per house, which equals the possibility of having two-hundred and eighty families at Hogwarts. It is a large number, but I know, regrettably, many families will turn this option down, so I don't worry about the population aspect, as, I'm sure, if all two-hundred and eighty-families felt it best to be at Hogwarts, as one magical entity, with their children, we would somehow work it out. After all, I would not make such a large promise and write it in a letter to impressionable children if I did not have the means of making it happen."

Harry sat down next to Draco.

"Perhaps your parents will not be pleased I have relayed this option, to you, that I gave to them. I understand why they might be angry with me, but, at this point, having as many options as possible seems like the best situation as possible. Need they not agree, it is their own opinion. But, for now, I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and what I say goes. Hopefully, what I say also begs of you to attend Hogwarts. Oh, and, one more thing, Hogwarts students will be mostly isolated from their families, if they wish, and will go on with the school year as if it were normal. It depends upon the student, the family and their wishes. It is, my dear child, your world. It is not an easy world. It is not a normal world. I am giving you the choice to step up. I am giving you the opportunity to look at your options, as an eleven year old, to attend this school by yourself, with plenty of students in the same situations, or a seventh year returning, having lost school mates and family members. For you, my dear seventh years, I know you have seen a lot, undoubtedly more than any graduating class at Hogwarts... ever. I wish for you to make your choices as young men and young women, not as children. I wish for you to return to Hogwarts. I wish for you to convince your families it'd be best for you to come, or for them to come with you, and I encourage you to make sure you understand that there is no safer place for you than right here at Hogwarts, in your common rooms and in your classrooms. Your education is the best thing for you, war or no war."

Harry was leaned against Draco's shoulder, as the letter was finished being read. His right arm slipped across Draco's, and he pointed at the bottom of the page, "Your parents have been given permission to send me howlers. If you so choose I have overstepped a boundary, feel free to get my information from their letter. Somewhat Hesitantly Yours, Albus Dumbledore." He took the letter from Draco and skimmed over it, in awe over what had just been read to him. He wanted to make sure he had heard right, because the idea of Dumbledore opening up the school to entire families was... was... brilliant! Brilliant, but a whole lot of work!

"We get the option of taking three electives this year, Potter—I guess he wants to keep our minds engaged."

Harry leaned into Draco's arm, again, slouched beside him in the couch, to look at the letter Draco was holding. It was the standard school letter with all of the required materials for the next year's curriculum. In bolded print, Harry could see a line that assured that all materials would be available for purchase at the school and that there was no need to try and buy them elsewhere—as in to ask no one stray into Diagon Alley to get their schoolbooks, like the shops would have even been open, anyway, if they didn't need to be, "Three? Philosophy!"

Draco grinned, elbowing Harry, barely at all, playfully, on his stomach, relaxed with him, "What else?"

Harry looked over the list of classes, with interest, his left shoulder slightly behind Draco's, "I chose Philosophy. You choose one." He offered, turning his attention back to Dumbledore's letter, having to read over some of it, again.

"Art might be amusing," Draco answered.

"Interesting," Harry added. "That's two. We need three—I wonder if parents will really send him howlers."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Draco laughed, still looking over the list of impressive course titles. "I don't want to choose. You choose."

Harry rested his cheek down on Draco's shoulder, sunken way more than he was, now, "Draco-Smells-Good-One-oh-One."

"Sexual-Orientation: The Debate of Wanting Penis or—"

Harry threw his head back and laughed, "Don't be an arse."

Draco grinned, "Oh, for a moment I thought you were going to believe it was a real class."

"You could teach it."

Draco folded the letter up, abruptly, and turned toward Harry, who stayed just as complacent, "Could I?"

"You think with it most of the time, Malfoy, I don't see why you couldn't take advantage of that to teach it."

Draco slapped Harry's cheek with the letter, "Leave my sex drive out of this."

"How is that possible? We're talking about your sex drive."

"..."

Harry smiled, as Draco pulled the letter out of his hands and tossed it, along with the curriculum letter, onto the coffee table. He stayed sitting up, doing something with his hands on the table. Harry's eyes strangely began to wander—and, not in an intrusive way. At first they took in Draco's shoulders, and he mentally complimented the nice structure, which made Harry's thoughts switch to Draco's frame and build, in general, which, once more, Harry complimented. From every one compliment to the next, another new thing about Draco took over his mind, and his eyes would travel to this new spot. He took in the way Draco's shirt fell over his back, and how his arms were just perfect, being that he was lean, but they weren't skinny or wiry. They were a nice, good size. He seemed to be just the right amount of this and that for Harry's taste, which was a little awkward, because Draco's body was overwhelmingly similar to his own, both as Judas and as Harry, himself. Remembering, once more, that he was Judas, Harry rolled his eyes at the reaction he was getting off of examining Draco's back, "Malfoy."

Draco looked over his right shoulder, "What?"

Harry lifted his left hand from his thigh and dropped it on Draco's left shoulder, "I'm having a conflict with myself."

Draco squinted, awkwardly. The conversation was clearly meant to go somewhere. He turned more, "And?"

"I think Judas is gay."

Draco snorted, "I think I've mentioned that to you on more than one occasion."

"No, I know," Harry quietly returned, still sober of laughter. He was being serious, and Draco seemed to now sense it, because he stopped looking like he was going to roll his eyes at the topic being discussed, yet again, in a playful way. "But, we joked about it. I didn't know he was seriously gay."

"I don't know, either, Harry," Draco admitted, more softly. Harry looked at him with confused eyes. "Rumors, that's all I've ever gone off of. There was a boy named JC—it's a little strange, actually, their names? Judas and JC?" Harry slapped his forehead, and Draco realized Harry had never thought it if in that way. "Yeah, people teased about it, at first. They were best friends. Judas has a way, you know. He's pretty—but, he was always very showy. He wasn't afraid to make people think things about him that might not have been true. He was just really affectionate with his friends—girls and boys. He developed a reputation, but I'm fairly positive, reputation or not, he was—is, I guess—into JC. They're total opposites, too. You'd never even think them to be friends. Judas is really clean cut, as you'll know—being, well, him. JC is rougher. Equally as good-looking, just not nearly as pulled together. He doesn't give a damn about what he wears. He's pretty reclusive, too, that I know of. He's never out and about—"

"Malfoy," Harry interrupted, suddenly. "Why hasn't he tried to contact me?"

Draco went to respond. His lips slowly melted back together, and he stared at Harry.

Harry frowned, "If they were so close and always together, why hasn't he sent me... anything?"

"I don't know, maybe they got into a fight."

"No, I mean... I mean... before this happened, Judas and I were in this... place."

"Cornwell said—yeah! A different plain or something, right?"

Harry nodded, "Sort-of—but, I don't know. We never talked about him. At all. He wasn't even mentioned."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it for a couple of weeks. It seems strange to me." Harry frowned. "No one has tried to contact me, Malfoy. Judas had friends. I saw them. He told me about them."

"Maybe it's because of me. I don't suppose Judas mentioned his severe distaste for my life?"

Harry laughed, "No, he definitely did not. I knew about the situations with your mothers, but that was all. He never harbored anger when we talked about you, and we did. We had to talk about quite a few things, actually. I don't remember half of it, or even more than ten minutes of it, really. I don't even know how long we talked. But, we did. Sometimes, little random things come back to me, especially lately," he admitted, with hesitance to do so. "But, this JC, I've yet to hear a word from him—I mean, Maureen was murdered. You think he'd send a letter, if not come see me—Judas—whoever—in person. I feel like something either has to be extremely wrong, like something happened to him, or there's something going on Judas didn't know about—something bad. Bad—bad, very bad."

'Wait, Potter," Draco insisted, as Harry got up and walked around the couch. "What do you mean?"

"It's just really suspicious, Malfoy. I mean, even you and I, right now. You're the Minister's son—he disappeared. Granted, we don't listen to the news very much, but YOU have, pretty much, disappeared off the face of the earth, as has your mother. And myself! What are people saying? What are they thinking? What's going to happen when we show up at Hogwarts and no one has seen us in the last month? What if there's more going on than just this? I feel like Dumbledore can't be controlling everything."

"He's not," Draco muttered. "There is a lot more going on than you're supposed to know."

"I know that—I mean something on an even more grand scale. I mean, why Judas Cliffdale? Why would the Death Eaters be after Gregarold, Maureen or Alex, anyway? That I know of, Gregarold made sure he never had anything to do with Voldemort. Why would your father—Lucius—why would Voldemort send him to off Gregarold, of all people? I know he's very powerful in the Dark Arts, but wouldn't Voldemort want to befriend him, to get those secrets, rather than kill him and have those secrets go to the grave with him? And, why hasn't Voldemort attacked the Cliffdales again? If he wanted Gregarold dead, why isn't he always on the defensive? It's almost like... like... like everyone is lying. To each other."

"Whoa," Draco interrupted, barely at all, pulling Harry from the door. They had only been whispering as quietly as they could. "Do you think... you mean... but, why would anyone want to work with Voldemort? Powerful men, I mean. They know he's going down, regardless of whatever else is going on. There's no way Gregarold Cliffdale would risk his own son—he loved Judas, Alex—Maureen—I just don't—"

"What if they're not dead? What if they set this all up? What if Voldemort knows I'm me? What if this was the plan, all along, to set up Cornwell? To set up Dumbledore? To set up me? Draco—" Harry grasped his shoulders. "There are all of these what ifs going through my head, and none of them have answers. None of them seem any less reasonable than anything else, right now. I don't trust Gregarold, Draco." He leaned in closer and clasped Draco's cheeks in his hands. "I don't even trust Dumbledore. Not Cornwell. Not even you. I can't trust anyone, because anyone could be lying to me, directly or indirectly."

"Harry, I swear on my life—"

"Go ahead, Draco. You can swear, but that doesn't mean you mean it."

"I do mean it."

"You say that, Draco, but how do I know if you're telling the truth?"

"Harry," Draco cut him off, and squeezed his hands over Harry's, hard, on his face, "I am telling you the truth."

"I know," Harry returned, staring into the intensely light eyes staring back into his own. "I trust you, Draco, at least more than I trust Dumbledore, who has been like my pseudo-grandfather over the years. You understand me, right here: You're all I have. You're my only friend. I don't have a family. You are my family. You are one person. I don't have parents to turn back to. I don't have aunts and uncles to go talk to. My best friends in the world—aside from Ron—have turned their backs on me for one reason or another—and, when Ron finds out I'm alive, eventually, I'm not sure he'll forgive me. I've had a hell of a life, and most of it has been based on lies—so, just know that I do trust you, more than anyone, and, I swear to God, Draco, if you lie to me, and you're somehow against me, even though I know you're not, I will rip into your chest, with my hands, and tear out your heart."

"And, what about you lying to me, Harry? Doesn't it go both ways?"

"I am lying to you, Draco," Harry whispered, immediately, "but, lying to you is lying to a person. Lying to me is lying to an entire fight, If you—if anyone I care about, right now—end up having been lying to me, it will have been made that way to prevent me from doing the one good thing I'm meant to do, for the good of everyone. If I lie to you, to anyone, it is for the good of us all. I don't want to lie to you, but you understand, don't you?"

"Harry, what are you doing?" Draco immediately grabbed him back, when he went to walk for the door.

Harry didn't struggle, "Nothing—nothing!"

"You're lying to me! I'm asking you, because I AM your one friend, Potter—tell me what the fuck is going on, or I will go tell Cornwell what the fuck you've been up to, and he will confiscate your damn journal to figure it out for himself, or I will steal it and read it."

Harry allowed Draco to stop him from moving, again, "I can assure you that I've not written anything, in my journal, that has anything to do with what is going on." He paused, while Draco waited, patiently, with darkly narrowed eyes. "It's a story. I work on it to get out of my head. Do you honestly think I would write a journal with my most private thoughts, Draco? I'm not that stupid. My thoughts are my own, accessible only to me, and I've practiced many nights and guarded myself, for longer than I might have possibly wanted, to keep it that way."

Draco dropped his hands from Harry's upper arms, finally, and stepped backward, "Fine, Potter. I have no fucking choice, either fucking way, to let you walk out of this room like nothing is wrong. Whatever it fucking is, it better not get you killed, arse-hole, again. DEAD, as in you wouldn't be COMING back. If you've got some brilliant fucking plan, in your head, think long and hard about how you might FUCK things up, for our entire world, just because you have an idea—this is way above you, now, Harry."

"It's not above me, Malfoy!" Harry exclaimed, wildly. "I have to kill him! No one else can do that."

"What happens if you walk into a trap?"

'I don't walk into his traps, Malfoy. I stumble into them, and history is proof of that! He's waiting for me. Somewhere. Maybe he's listening to me, right now. Maybe he knows everything about me. Maybe he knows me like the back of his hand—he's a powerful thing, Malfoy. A monster. But, he's fucking brilliant. He has the capabilities of spells we've never dreamed. The possibilities are endless, and if he knows everything or anything about me, at this point, he's going to know the same things when I go to kill him, when it's "okay," in some planned-out battle—we don't DO planned out, battles, Draco. We're not the Ministry. We're not on each other's teams. He has his followers, but they won't battle the way he does. I have the Order, but I won't battle the way they do. It has nothing to do with them. Neither of us is trying to fight the other for the FIGHT, Draco. It comes down to one thing and one thing only—he dies and I live, or I die and he lives—it has nothing to DO with blood, now. It's his mortality that he wants, and he could care less about any damn one of his followers who stands between it and me. If he offs me, then it'll be about blood, but until then, he's waiting, He thinks I'm a tease—as Judas, or Harry, or whoever he thinks I am—and, I can nearly feel it in my veins."

Draco stared.

Harry turned around from a window, "As long as my blood runs though his veins, he can feel it, too. He wants it. He wants it over. He wants his power back. I need to find the advantage, somewhere. Every time I have faced him, in the past, it has been chance that got me there and luck that got me out. I never planned to show up and duel him to death. I never even tried to kill him, and he nearly killed me every time. A plan is needed, Draco—not a plan that fourth years can figure out. Not a plan that Dumbledore will catch before I go into it—something that passes all of them and gets me right to the source. It has to be perfect. And, I have to be perfect for it. I can't wait around, anymore, Draco! Every day, I am less and less like Harry Potter and more and more like Judas Cliffdale, because he's the only one of us, right now, whose had a stable life. He's easier to adjust to. His family isn't even mine, and I fondly recall memories he told me about them—you just don't get it. No one gets it. No one else, in the world, is Harry Potter, with Harry Potter's conscience, or Harry Potter's pressure—and, no one else understands that Harry Potter isn't going to sit around and wait for the Order of the Phoenix to devise something, while they're already fighting a war. Their minds are clouted, and if someone did devise a plan, it could easily get back to Voldemort, had we a spy in the house. It's up to me to figure it out."

"You're fucking... Potter, you can't... you're not supposed to... I know you're... just..." Draco rubbed over his heart, subconsciously, but then slid his hand up to his neck and then to his jaw. He clutched it, agonizing with what to say. "I know everything you just said is the truth, Harry; It's your fight. I know you feel you have to take it upon yourself—any, maybe you probably should, and everyone knows it—but... Harry, there is SO much they haven't told you. Maybe they know something you don't. Cornwell told me that there is an extraordinary amount which has gone over your head—more than we could probably even guess. Trust him, Harry. Please. Wait it out for awhile more. Don't jump into something, it's dangerous. And, if Voldemort does know you're you, he will probably will expect you to do be rash and impatient, because you always have been. He knows you, Harry, like you know him. He knows you want it done with. He knows you can assume how much he wants you dead. He knows your pride, Potter—it's your biggest, most obvious flaw—you have a big, good heart. You're the model Gryffindor, for Fuck's sake. He's not banking on your patience. At this point, the best thing you can do is make HIM wait. Make him CONTINUE to GUESS, Potter—WAIT, WAIT, WAIT—Potter! WAIT!"

Harry looked at him.

Draco threw his hands out, "What the fuck, Potter! Voldemort DOES think you're dead! What the fuck are we even talking about?"

Harry looked away, "He knows something's not right. Something's going on, Malfoy. I can feel it."

"He saw you die, Potter."

"If he's working with Gregarold, Draco, it was a setup—"

"You're being monumentally paranoid. He's not working with any of these men, Potter. They're on the good side."

"How do you know, Malfoy?"

"I just do."

Harry looked at him, "That's supposed to be good enough?"

"No, it's supposed to be good enough that my father was your father's best friend, who started the Order of Phoenix with him, whose fight is OLDER than yours, and almost equally as just, being as how they were your parents, but still, there's no fucking way Cornwell would be trying to harm you, in any way. He's not hovering over you, Harry, like Dumbledore has always done. Dumbledore's working with the Order, okay? Cornwell's on your wavelength more than I think you realize. Trust him, Harry. Don't screw him over, not after everything he's done for you."

Harry looked away, quickly, and Draco knew he had struck a rare chord. For once. Finally.

"Harry, if you don't want to be the weapon, and if you want the answers to all of your questions, go sit it on the meetings all day. Perhaps it's time you should."

Harry turned further away, silent.

Draco watched him, awkwardly, "Just tell me you don't have a plan that's going to get us all killed."

Draco feared that response. He stepped backward, for the door, "Pretend to care about what I have to say, even if I'm not as important as you are to the world. Pretend to care that I actually do care about you, Harry, and if you get killed, you will fucking KILL me. I'll hate myself, forever, because I was never important enough for you to listen to, and even though I asked you and asked you, you still fucking ignored me. Don't ignore me, Potter—I'm telling you not to do anything rash." He ran his hand back through his hair. He saw Harry turn his head, to the left, slightly over his shoulder, as if to relay the message that he was listening and not ignoring Draco. "Wait it out, Potter. No one has been able to kill Voldemort, thus far, and even if you are the Boy-Who-Lived, there is still a lot about him that is unknown, and just because you shoot Avada Kedavra at him doesn't mean he's going to fall down and die. You said so yourself, Potter, he's brilliant. He has means we've never known about or seen—he's a legend, above all other things, because of his skill. I don't want you dying, Potter, when you could have held off." There was a long pause, before Draco, just barely, managed to murmur, "Don't screw me over, Harry."

Draco didn't realize that this chord was a whole lot more sensitive than the one about Cornwell had been.

Once Harry saw Draco leave, in the window's reflection, he turned around and flung himself onto the couch.

Draco was right. Everyone was right. He needed to wait.

Except, Harry knew they were wrong. They were so wrong for being right that it was wrong.

Harry knew Voldemort wasn't working with Gregarold. He knew Voldemort thought he was dead. He could feel it, at night, before he went to bed. He could nearly hear Voldemort's voice, in strange situations, and it always sounded laced with almost human-like glee, innocent and pure. What Harry hated, most of all, was thinking about Voldemort, and that was what drove him, every day, toward the idea of needing to act when Voldemort wasn't expecting it. He needed to act on his own. He needed to act before word leaked out that he was alive. It was impossible for something of that magnitude to be kept inside the tightest of circles. He knew it would eventually leak—someone would eventually break and become a spy for Voldemort. Maybe it was paranoia or maybe it was pure knowing and a sense of what was going to come. He had been around his fair share of traitors, and had been around plenty of situations enough to give him reason for never trusting anyone completely. Someone was always lurking, waiting for Harry Potter, in the shadows.

Judas Cliffdale had been visited by one Voldemort, in dream-state, every other night of the last week.

Harry was absolutely positive that Voldemort had no idea and not an inkling, and why should he have?

Harry let him believe that Voldemort was breaking him down, getting into his mind, trying to get him to turn against his supposed "father," Gregarold. He was always trying to talk Harry into it. He was the smoothest, most conniving, manipulative person Harry ever could have imagined. The way he worked was incredible. Had Harry not had a good grasp on his entire being, it would have been easy for Voldemort to pull him in, as Judas, and he had let Judas go to it. He had played the part, and because he had, at times truly succumbing to questions and the answers Voldemort offered him, Voldemort saw him as more and more genuine.

Harry had an excellent base of a foundation. However, questions of Voldemort's had been hard to dodge. Harry had to start answering questions—about where he was, who he was with, what was going on... Voldemort knew Judas was with Draco, but other than that, he knew of nothing but the fact that Draco, Narcissa and Cornwell had moved out of the Malfoy Estate and Death Eaters had ripped it apart looking for them. It was obvious that Voldemort might have thought Harry—Judas, really—was up to something, because he was, most likely, with the Order, which meant he was always around them. But, he let Voldemort pull him in. He let Voldemort believe he was a weak link, and he did get sucked in, more, every night, playing it up as if he were not Harry Potter. It was easy to play Judas as a lost kid trying to find himself after tragic events. It was also disgustingly believable, because Harry wasn't necessarily pretending.

That night, Harry turned to look at Draco.

It was dark. Draco had been asleep for awhile. Harry hadn't. He turned into Draco, fully, and tilted his face down to the opposite, peaceful one. He rested his forehead, just barely, against Draco's. The tip of his nose repeated the same tiny touch against Draco's nose, as his eyes floated down between their faces. He closed his eyes and lowered his mouth, shakily—and, then it happened. It was slight. Quick. It could have been accidental and thought of as nothing, had it happened from a run in or something of the sort. But, it was intentional. Purposeful. It was wanted. By Harry. It didn't have a reason attached to it. He did it because Draco was... pretty much... the best friend he had ever had. Ron, sure, had always been his best friend, and Harry still loved him and missed him, but Draco... was a different sort of friend. Their relationship was stellar. It was teasing. It was taunting. It was harsh, but a hundred times more loving. They had gone from intense enemies to intense friends. Draco wasn't just the kind of friend to stand by his side or battle with him. He was the kind of friend to have Harry stand at his side, or have Harry battle with him. There was no Harry Potter stigma attached to their ultimate relationship, because Draco's sense of self was far too evolved as a Malfoy—someone brought up with just as much power and prestige as Harry had ultimately been given. There had been an understanding running between them. The kiss? The kiss was just a kiss, in case something happened and Harry would never get to explore what the possibility was.

Though, he immediately fought with himself for doing it, lifting his mouth away.

Draco was still sound asleep, his features all peaceful and relaxed.

"If you were awake, you'd never let me live this moment down, and if you somehow remember this, I will deny it, and I can't believe I'm actually saying this and having to defend myself to a half-asleep Malfoy, but: you are so beautiful, it makes me sick." Harry murmured, pathetically, with a heavy chest. He pressed his lips down against Draco's forehead, more heavily, and rested down, again, a bit more, so Draco had to be moved to feel the change in position. And, he did, because he sort of went to bury himself into Harry, a bit more, in his sleep. It was the kind of contact Harry was searching, hoping and praying for. He wanted Draco to hear him, in a state of drowse. He nudged Draco's chin, with his mouth, and Draco made the smallest of murmurs, which Harry immediately reacted upon. "If you need me, open my journal and read it."

Draco was awake enough to hear him, but not awake enough to register it, "Mmmph."

Harry buried his face into the pillow over Draco's shoulder and clutched him in a hug, overwhelmed, "Please don't hate me. Please."

Eventually, Harry got up, in the trousers he had never changed out of that day, and walked toward the window. Once it was open, Harry pulled out Judas Cliffdale's wand. It was the wand he had been using from day one as the Cliffdale heir. He looked it over, in his hand. He felt like he was truly hurting, and a heavy weight began to press down on his back and his arms, and he wondered how stupid he might have been, to be standing there, in front of the open window, about to apparate out—something he had never done, before, because he knew it had been dangerous. The option had always been there for him. Truth was, he could have left at any time, but he had known better.

Harry turned around, to look back at Draco, his guilt getting the best of him, as he pressed the wand to his throat.

Draco was sitting up, fully, looking horrified. Suddenly, he jumped into action and half-flew, half-stumbled off of the bed, "Potter, don't do it!"

Poof.

The last thing Draco heard was a, "Fuck!" from a despaired, never-having-closed mouth and a pair of huge, guilt-ridden, deep brown eyes. The image was etched into his mind, he was sure, forever, but he didn't have time to think it over. He was out of his room within seconds and in the main dining room seconds later, having thrown the doors open and barged in on some resting Order members who often fell asleep at the table while working. "WHERE'S CORNWELL?" Draco screamed at them, which they all jumped at. Coffee spilled, here and there, and some papers slipped off the table from the whirl of wind the sudden movements had created in response to Draco's hurried demand. But, he was out of the dining room as soon as he saw that no one was in the right state or mood to answer him. "CORNWELL! CORNWELL!" He stormed into the kitchen, meeting a hugely wide-eyed Cornwell, who had seemed to jump up to go to meet him when his name had just been yelled.

Cornwell was not alone in the kitchen. Lupin was with him, as were a few other more trusted members of the Order.

Draco clutched his chest, out of breath, but then threw his hands out to Cornwell's chest, "Harry! He apparated! He's gone! He left! He was—earlier—he had some plan—or something—he wasn't going to—and, I heard him say something, and I woke up, and he's standing by the window, and he's got Judas's wand, and I went to lung at him, but he apparated—he's gone."

"FUCK!" It was a common consensus around the table, and everyone was immediately springing out of the room to get to other rooms, leaving Draco just standing there, with his hands on the top of his head, staring into Cornwell's eyes.

When the room cleared, Cornwell pulled Draco's shoulder toward him and embraced him.

"He's so fucking STUPID," Draco fumed, refusing to cry. "He'll get himself killed—"

"Draco. Draco," Cornwell interrupted him, "calm down."

"Why are YOU so calm? Calm UP!" Draco irrationally shouted at him, panicked and confused. "Potter probably just ran off to—"

"Wherever he went off to do, Draco, is his right. I thought he would have been gone a week ago. I offered Remus a bet, but he's not a betting man, and made sure to tell me so, even as I am hardly a betting man, myself. He thought Harry would have been gone a week ago, too."

Draco was so unbelievably confused. He couldn't utter a word, because he had too many questions.

Cornwell walked behind Draco, took his shoulders and led him toward the kitchen table, "He'll be okay."

"But—isn't this what you were supposed to PREVENT?"

"That was the idea, yes," Cornwell said, as he sat Draco down, and then sat next to him. "I wasn't trying to prevent anything. I told you, Draco—Dumbledore has a plan for Harry. Harry has a plan for himself. He was all over the place, today. He's been sleeping so much, but he was so tired this morning; It was in his eyes—he was tired of waiting, not physically tired. It was draining him."

"I don't understand why you're not panicked that he's going to FUCK everything up!"

"He won't, Draco, and if he does, who's to say something wouldn't go wrong when it was the "right" time?"

"He could get himself killed."

"Oh, Draco," Cornwell suddenly murmured and draped his arm over Draco's shoulders. "That... is what Harry would have to face, anyway. He'll die or he'll survive."

Draco dropped his head down onto the wooden table, "I fucking hate him right now."

Draco distinctly heard something from Cornwell in terms or relation to, "Love him."

"He's my best friend—it's so fucking weird—everything with him is so fucking weird—special—strange."

"You're both weird-special-strange kids," Cornwell threw at him, but Draco sat up and glared. "Look... I told you, weeks ago, that Harry wasn't under anyone's thumb, no matter who thinks they've got him. He's loyal. He loves Dumbledore. But, Harry is his own man, now. This is his house." He sort of motioned around and looked up at the ceiling, and then Draco followed his eyes, as if to realize it, too, in a way he hadn't before. "He's been through a lot, Draco. Whatever happens, now, happens. By now, every Order member has been contacted from the people who just darted out of here. Dumbledore will be over here in a pop—everything, Draco, from here on out, is under Dumbledore's control. Much as I've told you about the way Dumbledore looks at Harry, I don't doubt he's been expecting this. Harry Potter is still Harry Potter. He's been calling the shots, regarding his own fate, for years; Time of war is hardly different. I don't want you to panic, and I know that's a lot to ask, and it seems ridiculous to ask, but... you know him, Draco. He's... Harry." He paused. "Trust the best to come out of this, because assuming Harry is in danger is going to make you think about it all of the time."

"I'm going to think about it all of the time, either way, Cornwell!" Draco protested, so shaky with emotion.

"I'm telling you to trust Harry, Draco."

"I do trust Harry. I just don't want him to get killed."

"Harry won't get killed."

Draco screamed into his hands, and he swore he heard the whole house freeze into silence. But, did Cornwell? No. Perhaps he had seen it coming. He looked at Cornwell, who hadn't stopped the small circular rub he had been giving Draco's left shoulder with his left hand's thumb, "I think Harry's as powerful as you do, Cornwell, but he's not fucking invincible! Voldemort ALREADY killed him once! Everyone seems to be overlooking that—including Harry!"

"He was invincible on his first birthday, Draco. He loathes Voldemort too much to get killed by him—the universe is too much on Harry's side to let him get into that situation. It just won't happen—put it out into the world, Draco. I know you think I think he's invincible, like he can't die—I know just as much as you do that he's just a seventeen year old kid, like you, who burps and fails and can't do jack when it comes to potions, okay? But, that's a different Harry Potter than the Harry Potter who just apparated out of the Order of the Phoenix. He knows what he had, here. He could have waited. He's been waiting. Draco, had he thought it was the best idea to do so. To me, the kid pretty much is invincible. He's not super-human. He trips over his feet, and he never brushes his hair—and you two have some sort of confusing, hormonal relationship going on—okay, I know that he's already dead. I know Voldemort killed Harry Potter, already—okay? But, Harry was too fucking strong to die—that DOES make him invincible, Draco. He's not going anywhere. You're going to have to trust that."

Draco growled, pushed himself up and turned toward the doorway, where he ran into his mother.

Narcissa's eyes enlarged so very much, and she immediately stopped him, "What? What is it?"

Draco cried, frustrated, finally. It was mostly irrational tears, "Harry—he's a fucking idiot. He left."

"What?" She gasped and looked at Cornwell, as if she hadn't heard Draco right and needed more input, still holding Draco from leaving, clasping his wrists in her own hands. "He left?"

The kitchen, then, exploded with people, and, in the commotion, Draco got away from his mother. As he walked toward the stairs, down the hallway, he seethed to the universe, "I swear to God, Potter, if you think the next time we see each other, you're not going to get hexed into oblivion, assuming, of course, you're not dead, you have another delusional thing coming," he threatened the air around him, hoping, somehow, Harry could hear him make the threat or just acknowledge the fact that Draco was going to feel quite agitated that he had left, abruptly, by himself. "Idiot."

"Malfoy?"

Draco slowly turned around, and his eyes landed on a red-headed, tall boy of seventeen, standing there. Weasley? Not just one Weasley, either, but two. Weasley and his sister. Had he not been so distracted, and perhaps if he didn't like Potter so much, he might have thrown a childish insult over at the two of them. But, he had no reason to. Quite frankly, it was perfectly fitting that they were there, even being that it was early in the morning hours. At Harry's request, the Weasleys had not been told that Harry was Harry, and, when Arthur and Molly were around, he was spoken of as Judas. They weren't the only people it had been kept from, because the only people who truly knew Judas was Harry had been in the room the day Draco had outed him. No one else had been told. It was just the regulars, most of whom actually slept and lived at Grimmauld place, anyway.

Draco was hardly in the mood to waste his time on being petty, "Weasley?"

"It's true, then, the rumors. You are staying here."

"No, actually, I'm not. I'm walking around, half naked, in a stranger's house, just for the hell of it—of course I'm staying here, Weasley." He grumbled his disdain, mentally, for the conversation, and then set his eyes onto the red-headed girl behind Ron. She was eyeing him, and, after a couple of seconds, during which Draco felt mildly amused, he took a step backward. He wanted to get back upstairs and continue to curse Potter's entire existence. No, he just wanted to be alone. "As flattering as your eye-lingering may be—not so much flattering as uncomfortable and annoying—I'm not much in the mood to be silently fawned over. If you'll excuse me, I'm quite exhausted, as it has been a long day, and I'm quite worried about my best friend's fate, I'm going to go to sleep." He started up the first step and called, since he had lost them in his range of view a couple of seconds before, as he had been walking down the hallway while bidding them farewell. "Try not to break anything."

Damnit, Potter.

When Draco was back in the bedroom he had been sharing with Harry, he threw some vicious words around and, somewhere in between slurring obscenities, muttered a spell for the candles to ignite. They did, and Draco tossed his wand away from him, not trusting himself to have it when he was feeling so utterly betrayed. It was betrayal. He was furious that Harry had left, even if he knew, ultimately, it was the right thing for Harry to have done. He should have been preparing for an occurrence, such as the one he, and the rest of the house, was dealing with.

Draco combed both of his hands back through his hair, with eager, itching fingertips. He strolled over toward their desks, noticing that all of Harry's possessions were still there. He hadn't had anything when he had apparated away. Draco's state didn't give him much of a conscience or a sense of privacy to Potter's—not Harry's, not right then—material possessions. Possession! Son of a bitch, Draco was possessive of him, and what was he getting back? Nothing. Potter had screwed him over and left him to sit there, by himself, and wonder what in the fuck was going on and where Harry Potter was, what he was doing, and if he was okay. He was in for a rough rest of the holiday, and probably a rough school-year. He couldn't think about it! All he could do was think about Potter's stupid, stereo-typical personality flaw.

Draco walked around to Harry's side of the desk. His attention set right onto Harry's journal, and, without hesitance, he threw the heavy, hard-cover off of the waiting pages. He didn't know what he was after. He wanted to invade Potter's life. He wanted in to Potter's mind. He wanted Potter to somehow feel that Draco was invading the journal Harry had nearly been protecting with what was left of his life. And, he held his hands to his sides as he glanced down at the one page facing up at him. It was blank except for some scribbled, scratchy writing in the center.

Draco leaned down, a bit, adjusting his eyes.

Draco :D :D :D :D :D! Enjoy.

"What in the bloody... hell," Draco hissed, slightly appalled with Potter's use of little smiley faces and half amused with them at the same time. No—he was completely amused, and had he not been trying to stay focused on cursing Potter's existence, he might have let himself mull over how endearing such a message to Draco was—anyway, why WAS there a message to Draco? Oh, good lord, he was such a fucking idiot. As he plopped down into Potter's chair, he sighed and dropped his mouth to his palm, which was being supported by his bent elbow on the wooden armrest. His eyes stared at the journal before him, and he then lifted his face from his palm and reached forward to the journal. He took it in his left hand, his thumb holding over the split of the page.

Potter must have had been planning on leaving for a long, long time.

Draco licked his fingertip and then bravely, without hesitance, flipped the page to see what it was that awaited him—to see what it was that he had been watching Harry write for longer than he wished he had been there to see. There was a title—again, at the center of the page—and it read, "Pristine Shoelaces." Draco snorted and flipped the page, again. This page was far more progressive and evident of the work Harry spent so much time furiously working away at. It was littered with words on the right side, and the left side, on the page of the supposed title page, was a scribbled scene that Draco find rather impressive. As soon as he began to read, he started to smile and relax back into the chair. It had nothing to do with Hogwarts, or magic, and everything to do with two little boys comparing shoelaces, in an attempt to rid themselves of boredom, on a hot summer day, while they drank lemonade and sat on a patch of grass they had lovingly entitled Sido—as Harry put it, Sido was a distant relative of a patch of grass Draco had never been fond of, but Harry had, named... Fido.

Draco stood up with the book in his hand, laughing and walking toward the bed, "Potter, you are truly a question mark, but you had outdone your fucking self this time," he told himself, slightly in awe of what he was reading. Potter had actually been writing stories in his journal. STORIES. Not thoughts or rants, but actual fucking stories of people who hadn't ever existed, before. But, now the existed, and they had names—names Draco mused over. One was named Perry, and the other was named Waco—and, Perry recalled, in the story, that he was sorry some school boys had once referred to Waco as Wacko-Waco. Of this anecdote, as he fell onto his back onto the bed, and into the mess of blankets and pillows he usually loved to dissolve into, Draco snorted with laughter and found himself eagerly turning the page, "This shit is amazing."

Draco fell asleep with the book opened over his chest, but clutched in his protective, delighted hands. He only feel asleep, because he had finished reading Pristine Shoelaces, which had been a ten page short story. When he had finished reading, he had let the book rest on his chest, only taking his hands away, once, to rub over his face as he took in a strangely intense deep breath and tried to rationalize all of the emotion he had just taken out of a tiny short story. Perry and Waco were, undoubtedly, little versions of himself and Harry, and the whole story of Perry and Waco—as Draco had peeked into the next story, to see that Waco and Perry were still the characters—was the story that had never been between them. It was what could have been, had they been little, innocent but still with some of the same traits. And, of those negative traits Draco was sure Harry hated about him, they were written in sweetly and came off that way, too. What Draco took away from it was astounding. Just the fact that Potter could write was not only impressive but quite touching, as Draco was pretty positive Harry had never written stories and shown them to anyone else. He would have heard about something like that. Harry would have told him something about that during one of their conversations.

Draco fell asleep picturing two little boys—not necessarily identical versions of himself and Potter as children but close in coloring and such—sitting in front yard of lush green grass, having chugged down an entire pitcher of lemonade, and then walking to a pond hidden away in a forest around Waco's property, and sitting on a rock. Right before he fell asleep, he very much thought of how strange it was that Waco got upset that his shoelaces got muddy, so Perry switched shoes with him, and when Waco got Perry's shoes dirty, too, they both laughed, and Waco no longer cared, because neither of them had something better than the other. Indeed, it was an interesting story, and on the last page, Harry had drawn some really amateur, but, once again, still somewhat impressive, images of four shoes and sprawled shoelaces on the ground. The shoelaces were all shadowed with dirt and little pin-pricks of particles of ink, too, and they were bewitched to make little journeys behind the words on the page, and at the bottom, they all lined up and one of the shoelaces pointed, like an arm, to the bottom right hand corner of the page, when he was done reading, as if it knew, for him to turn the page.

But, no, Draco had only peeked at the next story title page. He just wanted to bask in the joy he got out of the little story.

When he next awoke, Dickie was tucked into the bed next to him, and he was sound asleep. The only reason that Draco had awoken was because he hard heard the sound of the door opening. His eyes adjusted to the still candle-lit room, and he took in Cornwell, standing there. He flinched, as if he had not meant to wake Draco, and was just there to check up on Dickie. Amused that Cornwell had tucked Dickie in with him, probably for Draco's comfort, sometime earlier, he sat up on his elbows and closed the journal—er, anthology—over his chest, with his protective right hand. He held it to his chest, as he sat up, and Cornwell approached him.

Draco noticed that there were only about three candles still it.

Cornwell's expression was very somber, and he leaned over the bed a bit, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"No, it's... fine," Draco dismissed, his voice groggy and gruff, though he felt surprisingly awake and alive. "Any news?"

Cornwell sat down on the side of the bed, with Dickie in between them, "No, Draco," he quietly returned, "I'm sorry."

"When I was a baby—or, at least Dickie's age—what was my favorite thing to say?"

Cornwell didn't appear to think this was an awkward question. He thought it over for a second, "You didn't say much at his age. He doesn't say much, either, except for his attempt at names. I remember the first word you loved to say, though, and you said it for about a year—twinkle, but you said it like, "Twweeeen-kul." He laughed, though, at Draco's expression. "I used to sing you Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star every night. It drove everyone mad, especially Lucius, and even a couple of the house-elves, who I noticed rolling their eyes when you started trying to sing it without me. You may or may not be influenced by many a-things having to do with stars and astronomy."

Draco half-smiled, relaxing back into the pillows next to Dickie, "Why didn't you name him something... starry?" He was tired, and it was Cornwell. He had nothing to prove.

"I tried. The closest I got was his middle name—but, I've thought about just calling him something else, but I think that might be a little... I don't know, he's a Dickie. He's just not a Dickinson."

"I agree—what's his middle name? You never told me."

Cornwell laughed, "Tycho."

Draco laughed, too, but said nothing. Instead, he looked right at Dickie, "Dickie Tycho Black." He paused, his eyes observing the sweet little face that was resting in resounding peace and comfort, snuggled in. He was such a little light for Draco—and, not just for Draco, but his family. Yeah. His family. This acknowledgment somewhat tugged at Draco's heart-strings, and the resulting sound was mildly delightful. He didn't hear anything out of tune, either, amongst the symphony of warm sound that had radiated through his chest. "It sounds a bit like a law firm."

"And, much less pretentious than Dickinson Tycho Black. I much prefer Dickie."

"Yeah," Draco chirped, agreeing, his eyes fixing onto Cornwell's, "he's suited as a Dickie. Dickinson..."

"I know exactly what you mean. I've thought about it, too."

"Cornwell?"

"Hmm?"

"She didn't want him?"

Cornwell's eyes left Dickie's sleeping form. He had been rubbing his small foot, from over the cover, so lightly, and Draco had watched. He hadn't ever really cornered Cornwell on the happenings of why his marriage fell apart. He couldn't imagine what kind of woman wouldn't want such a sweet little boy like Dickie. He was a gem, he truly was. He was so sweet, sensitive, and just a completely loving little specimen. He was so innocent and amazing, and rarely ever cranky, shockingly, apparently. He was beautiful. So beautiful. Granted, he did look like Cornwell, as Draco did, and when Draco looked at Dickie, he didn't see anything on him that he immediately traced back to his mother, except, maybe a certain roundness. But, Cornwell's face was fairly rounded, even if it was intense and sharp. His face wasn't narrow, neither was Draco's. But, still, Draco wasn't sure if it was just because he was a baby that his face was rounded in the way it was. It just made him fifteen million times more adorable, especially when his cheeks scrunched.

Draco didn't feel intrusive, though he had only managed to ask Cornwell in a whisper, hesitant.

But, Cornwell reached out to Draco and patted his foot, too, with somewhat of a sad smile, "Draco, I don't want to talk about it in front of him. I know he's asleep, and even if he wasn't, he probably wouldn't ever comprehend, but I feel like, if it's said in front of him, it'll somehow weigh on his psyche as he grows."

Draco frowned, because he hadn't expected that as an answer, "I guess that answers my question."

"There are more complications, but yes. You have your answer."

Draco fell back down into the covers and attacked Dickie in a light, protective hug, smiling.

Dickie's eyelashes flickered open, sleepily, at the gentle prod of a hug that had overcome him, and he looked up at Draco.

Draco nuzzled his nose to Dickie's, "Personally, I'm very pleased you look like your daddy and not your mommy. That awful skin complexion would have clashed horribly with mine in family portraits. Yes, we don't want you to have to deal with blemishes and such. At least, we can only hope. Of course, we are magic, and there are potions to help with skin problems, but you won't need that. It's a blessing, you know. I will spare you details of watching your friends poke at their faces and make you feel as if you never want to eat, again," he sighed, his fingertip making a tiny circle against Dickie's small cheek, while he heard Cornwell sigh a laugh from a couple of feet away. He looked at Cornwell. "We do have superior skin. I'm not being dramatic. I'm speaking the truth."

"Yes," Cornwell imitated him, "we don't want him to deal with blemishes."

Draco grinned and looked back at Dickie, resting his cheek down on his pillow, "No, I'm only kidding. I was just looking at his skin. It really is beautiful, almost translucent. Did I have skin like he does?" He looked back at Cornwell, as Dickie began to wake up. He was so sleepy, so he didn't do much, and he was relaxed, so he only attempted to move his small arm, before it slowly migrated back to his chest, bent, and he stuck his thumb into his mouth and looked from Cornwell to Draco. "No, but really—I'm glad you look like your daddy. Your mother was—"

"Draco."

Draco rolled his eyes, but kept his attention on Dickie, "Lovely. She was lovely."

"Thank-you," Cornwell pointedly shot at him. "Do you want me to take him? I'm sorry for waking you up. He might fall back asleep with you."

"No, it's okay," Draco sighed, and pushed himself up on his left elbow, still looking down at Dickie, and peering into his sweet, sparkling, drowsy brown eyes, "I'm up for awhile. What time is it?"

"Four."

Draco looked over at his father, who was standing beside the bed, now, looking at them with a tilted head, "Four—that means someone is most definitely preparing to make breakfast. I'm there." He pushed himself up. "It's okay, I've got him."

Cornwell had a lot to do. The least Draco could do was take Dickie off of his hands, for awhile, so he wouldn't have that extra stress on him, too. Draco knew that it was appreciated, too, when he would sit with Dickie in a study and read to him or play with him for hours. It was something Draco loved to do, and Dickie was someone Draco loved wholeheartedly. Dickie was his little brother, and that was a bond Draco had never imagined feeling so intensely, at the core of his chest. He'd do anything for Dickie. He'd do anything for his family, for the people he loved and cared about. It was a small circle of people, but it had never been a large circle. More than ever, it was the most emotional, tightest set of emotions he had ever had for any one group of people. It was his mother, Lucius, Cornwell, Dickie, and Potter, and, for them, he felt the intensity of nothing that seemed plausible to compare his love for. And, outside of that tight group he called his family—because, they were his family—he had another family who he had grown to care about. The Order.

As Draco walked Dickie toward the bedroom door, a couple of minutes later, following Cornwell, he couldn't help but look back over at the bed he had been sharing with one absent Potter and the journal that he knew was buried beneath the covers. He laughed to himself when he thought of how good it was going to feel to punch Potter in the face, or hex him senseless, the next time he saw him. He also thought of how good it was going to feel just to see Potter and have the ability to punch him in the face or hex him senseless. Not that he wanted to abuse Potter, of course. He was just beyond pissed that Potter had left him out of his plans, when it had always been a spoken AND unspoken acknowledgment that whatever Harry was going to do, Draco was going to be there for it. Yet, strangely, Draco could not tell himself he had been left out, because there was a very large part of his instinct that was telling him that Potter wouldn't have left such a door open if he had wanted it closed. Whatever Harry was doing, Draco was waiting to be alerted to what Harry was going to pull him in to doing. There was too much between them for Harry to not eventually feel it best, or once he got established, to reach out for Draco's assistance. His gut didn't lie, which was why, when he did next get to see Potter, he wasn't so sure he was going to have the opportunity to punch him in the face.

No. That, too, would have to wait.

Whatever Potter had never planned... had been planned perfectly.