DISCLAIMER: All canon characters and the Harry Potter-verse belongs to J K Rowling, and all "Malfoy Ambition" related things belong to Goddess Blue. Everything else belongs to me.

WARNINGS: Female Harry, Draco/Harry pairing, spoilers from possibly all the Harry Potter books, slight OOCness, cliches, and a bit of coarse language that will appear here and there.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE ATTEMPTED SELF-COMBUSTION OF THE FINGER

'I, Hariah Potter, am engaged to Draco bleeding Malfoy?' Harry's voice had reached new peaks and it did not seem like she would calm down anytime soon. Not unless someone told her that her friends had had their brains removed in some freak incident that she had not been informed of. 'How in all the pits of Hell can I possibly be engaged to that – that – that git?'

'Harry –,' Hermione began but was cut off.

'This is a joke, right?' Harry looked at her with narrowed eyes. 'This is just a sick joke some sadist played on me, isn't it?'

'I'm sorry, Harry, but I don't think it is –'

'This has got to be a joke! This can't be real!'

'Harry, Harry, please relax,' said Hermione as gently as she could, 'it's not that bad.'

'Are you out of your mind?!' shrieked not only Harry, but Ron too. Hermione quickly leaned away from her two best friends while Ginny watched the three dazedly with a hint of amusement on her face.

'Of course it's that bad! It's Malfoy!' hollered Ron while Harry exclaimed simultaneously, 'I can't be engaged to Malfoy, Hermione! I refuse! And I'm going to get this thing off my finger if it's the last thing I do!'

'Alright, alright!' yelled Hermione rather uncharacteristically and finally, her best friends calmed down though the both of them were breathing hard like wounded rhinoceroses. 'It is a bad thing; there, are you happy now?'

Harry and Ron both treated her to icy glares.

'Thought not. Anyway, you must please stop shouting, Harry; else, you're going to get nowhere.'

A hint of shame grazed the other girl's face. 'Sorry,' she mumbled, 'I dunno what came over me.'

Hermione shook her head slightly. 'Why does Malfoy rile you up so much?' she murmured mostly to herself.

'What?'

'Oh, never mind.'

Harry gave her a suspicious look before returning to the problem at hand. 'OK,' she said with forced tranquillity, 'I suppose that I need an explanation about this ring and this ... engagement to ... well ...' she trailed off, reluctant to say the name of her fiancé. She flinched at the thought of addressing Malfoy Jr as her "fiancé" and decided that she would never ever call him that.

It was Ginny who supplied the answers to the young heroine. 'It appeared in the papers a couple of months ago. Apparently the Malfoy family have enchanted engagement rings which very few pureblood wizarding families have and ...' The youngest Weasley proceeded to explain how the rings worked and everything else she had read from the Daily Prophet including some details her own mother had told her sometime earlier about such rings. When she finished, a long silence stretched while the Girl Who Lived struggled to stomach all the information she had gained within the short space of fifteen minutes.

'Let me get this straight,' she muttered finally, 'these weird rings are enchanted to find the perfect wife or husband based on a person's wishes?'

'Yes,' answered Ginny cautiously, wondering whether this calm exterior Harry was suddenly displaying was all but a facade and she would go supernovae on them again.

'And the Malfoys have a pair of these rings?'

'Yes.'

'And he has finally wished upon these rings to find his ... wife?'

'Yeah ...'

'And this ring came to me; but why? Why me?'

'Well,' Ginny chose her words carefully, 'obviously your personality and character matched Malfoy's description of a suitable wife.'

Harry snorted. The day that Malfoy would ever want someone like her was the day that it snowed in Hell. However, she decided not to make that particular comment and instead asked, 'But he doesn't know who has the ring yet?'

'No.'

'But he's looking for me ...?'

'Well, not really. I mean, the circumstances are such that he would be forced to wait for the girl to come out and show him that she got his ring. He wouldn't exactly know where to look for her, now would he?'

Harry perked up slightly. 'So, if I don't tell him, then he would never know?'

'Basically, yeah ... what are you planning, Harry Potter?' Ginny looked at her brother's best friend with narrowed eyes.

The Chosen One grinned disarmingly. 'I'm planning on not telling him, ever. There is no way that I'm going to get married to Draco Malfoy!'

'Good plan,' said Ron brightly while Ginny rolled her eyes. As for Hermione, she leaned across her seat and looked Harry in the eye very severely.

'That "plan" is not going to get you anywhere, Hariah.'

'What are you talking about?' Harry leaned back comfortably, completely at ease now. 'I'd be free of him, wouldn't I?'

'No, you wouldn't.'

'And why not?'

'Because you can't remove that ring from your finger, nor can anyone else. And as long as it is on you, you're legally his fiancée and you cannot get married or even have a relationship with anyone else. The law and the magic that binds you to Malfoy won't allow it. So unless you wish to die single and a virgin, I suggest that you reconsider your master plan.'

Harry slumped in her seat. In her ecstasy of thinking that she had found a way out of the engagement, she had utterly forgotten that the ring was stuck on her finger. Damn it, she's right.

'Way to burst her bubble,' Ron commented dryly to the bushy haired girl upon seeing the forlorn look on Harry's face. Hermione frowned at him but chose not to dignify his words with a reply.

'I have to get this thing off,' Harry said suddenly. 'I can't walk around with this ring on my finger forever and I sure as Hell am not about to tell Malfoy that I have his stupid ring. And I most certainly shall not marry him!'

'Hear, hear,' Ron said encouragingly.

'Please, you guys,' Harry looked at her friends pleadingly, 'I need your help to remove it.'

'We're with you, mate,' Ron said at once.

'Stop it, Ron; you're just getting her hopes high.'

'But, Hermione –'

'No, Ron.'

Harry stared at the girl genius of their generation. 'I thought you said you'd support me no matter what my decision is?' she asked, sounding hurt.

Hermione had the grace to look slightly ashamed and guilty. 'I'm sorry, Harry, I really am but it's just not possible to remove it. We could all yank at the ring or try magic on it but the enchantment is much too powerful. It is simply impossible to just take it off.'

'But there must be a way! There is always a way.'

'Well, there is one way,' Ginny piped up.

Harry turned to her desperately. 'Yes?'

'You're not gonna like it.'

'I don't care.'

'I read in the paper that the only one who can remove it is ... well, your fiancé.' Ginny looked at Harry apologetically. 'There's no other way.'

With a scowl, Harry turned away from her. 'I think I'll pass on that one,' she groused, crossing her arms. 'And stop calling him my "fiancé".'

'But he is your –'

'No, he is not. I don't believe that this is a proper engagement and I refuse to believe he and I are engaged. All that I care about is just taking this ring off.'

Hermione sighed tiredly. 'Whatever your beliefs, Harry, you are engaged – and legally, too. You can't change that just by denying it.'

Harry glared at her. 'Well, then, please help me to call off this so-called engagement,' she forced through gritted teeth.

'Harry, I've told you, it's just not possible to remove that ring! Else, don't you think that I'd have already done it for you?'

'OK, this has gone too far,' Ron said abruptly, bringing the argument to a halt. He held out his hand to Harry. 'Give me your hand, mate.'

Feeling curious, Harry meekly obliged. She watched as Ron took her hand carefully in his and raised it to his eyes, inspecting the ring closely, but with a caution that implied that it was a bomb that might blow up in his face any second. He turned her hand this way and that, eying the ring suspiciously for a long moment before letting the tip of his finger just graze over the hexagonal diamond. Harry rolled her eyes impatiently.

'Trust me when I say that it won't bite you, Ron,' she said sarcastically.

'I'm just checking,' he said defensively before looking back down at the ring. After a moment's hesitation, he began to tug at it, gently at first, but then harder.

'Do you think that I haven't tried that before?'

Ron changed tactics and tried to twist the ring around her finger. Harry tried not to wince at the slight pain. 'Tried that, too, Ron.'

'What about soap? Or grease? Or - ?'

'Doesn't work,' Harry interrupted heavily. 'Even my spit refused to do the trick.' She ignored the irked expressions that crossed the faces of Hermione and Ginny.

'Magic?' Ron suggested, raising his eyebrows at her.

Harry slowly shook her head. 'No ... but, what spells can we try? I can't think of any that would be powerful enough ...'

'Accio ring!' Ron pointed his wand at the finger; unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

'Ron,' Hermione said finally in a gentle, but firm voice, 'magic won't work on a ring of that sort. The enchantments cast upon them are very strong and can't be removed by such simple spells ...'

Ron was not listening, however. He looked thoughtfully at the small ring for a moment before an expression of grim determination settled on his face. 'Right,' he muttered, 'I can think of only one way ... Hermione, what did you say was that spell you used to free Sirius from the tower in third year?'

'Hmm ... I think it was bombarda - wait, Ron! Why did you -?!'

Harry realised what Ron had in mind at the same time as Hermione did. 'Ron, what the hell - no!' She tried to yank her hand out of his grasp, but heck, he was strong!

'There's nothing for it, Harry,' he said grimly, aiming his wand at the ring, all the while keeping a firm hold on her hand. 'We're gonna have to blast the thing off!'

'Ron,' Harry said desperately, fruitlessly pulling at her hand, 'I've already considered diffindo and reducto, but I decided that I like my finger enough that I don't want to lose it! Somehow, I doubt that bombarda will leave my arm, let alone my finger, intact!'

'But if it can free you of that ring, it'd be worth it, wouldn't it? Unless ... you want to spend the rest of your life married to Malfoy and have a dozen or two of his little blond, smirking babies ...?'

He had said enough. In less than a second, Harry had snatched her wand from her pocket and aimed it at her hand, and was just about yell, 'Bombarda!' when two hands reached over and bonked her a good one on the head.

'Ow!' Harry groaned, rubbing the back of her skull, barely registering the fact that her wand had been hastily removed from her numb fingers, and that her hand was now free thanks to Hermione who had taken the liberty of hitting Ron on the back of his head as well.

'What was that for?' Both Ron and Harry snapped at the same time, glaring at Hermione and - in Harry's case - Ginny.

'Because you're acting like a pair of morons!' Hermione shot back.

Ginny merely snorted and muttered something that sounded like, 'Understatement, much?'

'Honestly, blowing up her hand?' Hermione continued loudly, looking back and forth between her two best friends. 'I've never heard something so idiotic!'

'But Hermione,' Ron said earnestly, 'we have to remove it and this is the only way!'

The brown-haired girl rolled her eyes. 'Don't be ridiculous. Of course there is another way. Harry can just simply go up to Malfoy and ask him to remove the ring.'

'No way!' Harry and Ron said loudly.

'I'm not approaching him with a ten foot broomstick,' Harry added, 'and certainly not to tell him that I am his fian – I mean, to tell him that I got his ring. Forget about Malfoy for a second, can you imagine the rumours this'll start if it gets out?'

'Harry, you've never been one to care so much about rumours.'

'I will if they involve me and Malfoy in a romantic situation!'

Ron gagged.

'You're hopeless,' Hermione shook her head while Ginny watched on, amused.

Harry looked pleadingly at Hermione again. 'Mione, please help me. Yes, I know that you say it can't be done, but isn't that only what the Daily Prophet reported? Surely there must be more to these rings. There can be another way to remove it; you know there can be! We just have to find it. Please, Mione, please.' Harry looked at her friend with sincere eyes.

Hermione sighed. 'Fine, when we get to Hogwarts, I'll see what I can find in the library. But I'm not guaranteeing anything, mind.'

'Oh, thank you, Hermione!'

'And what if there really is no other way?' Ginny asked curiously.

'Then Harry will just have to tell Malfoy,' Hermione answered matter-of-factly, making Harry grimace.

'Well, I say that we leave that as the last resort,' Ron spoke up firmly.

Hermione rolled her eyes for what must have been the umpteenth time that day. 'At least tell me that that part comes before you subject her poor finger to deadly combustion,' she said dryly.

'It'll come after,' Ron said stubbornly and a part of Harry could not help but agree with him.

'You're incorrigible. Well, Harry, until such a time that we finally find an answer on how to remove that thing, we first need to plan a way to hide it. It won't be long till someone notices that you've got a diamond engagement ring on your finger, much less a Malfoy one. But it won't be easy because I don't think any magic will work on it, so invisibility spells are out of the question. We'll have to do it manually ...'

'Hmm ...' Harry contemplated the problem, 'I've got an idea. Come, help me, Ron.'

With Ron's aid, Harry soon had her trunk down on the train floor. She opened it and rummage through her belongings until she finally found a pair of thin, black gloves. Taking the left one, she quickly performed a Severing Charm and removed the fingers of the glove but took care to leave some stubs, each of them about half an inch or so in length. Harry slipped her left hand in it and was pleased to see that the stub of the ring finger perfectly obstructed the engagement ring from view. Grinning, she slammed the lid of the trunk close and Ron heaved it back onto the hold.

'Impressive,' Ginny remarked, eyeing Harry's hand. 'You can't even see it.'

'People won't suspect, will they?' Hermione looked at the fingerless glove with critical eyes.

'I don't think so,' Harry shrugged. 'People don't often look at hands, do they? Besides, the glove is black and will probably be camouflaged when I wear my robes.'

'Hmm,' Hermione looked slightly skeptical but made no further comment.

'And if anyone asks,' Ron added flopping down onto his seat, 'Harry can just make up an excuse.'

'Yeah ... but I hope no one does. My brain has a tendency to go blank when I have to make up lies out of the blue.'

'Which is just as well,' Hermione replied crisply. 'Lying is a horrid habit.'

As their conversation turned to more normal topics, the case of the ring was erased gradually from Harry's mind. Soon afterwards, Neville and Luna turned up; they had been sidetracked, they informed them, by some other seventh year Gryffindors. As they continued to chat and catch up with each other, and eat when the lunch lady with the food trolley arrived, Harry completely forgot about her newest piece of jewellery, her engagement and her fiancé. She was to be reminded of them harshly later on.

Blaise Zabini was one of the few people that Draco actually considered a friend. He was a recent one, but a friend nevertheless. Before, there had been Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, but they had never been friends; more like bodyguards. Or minions, depending on how you looked at it. Draco had never truly shared any of his personal life with them. He had only allowed them to follow him around because a) they did whatever he wanted, b) their fathers and his father had been friends and fellow Death Eaters back in the day, and c) they always proved useful in a fight, especially if it involved fists.

Then the war had begun, ensued and before the end, Crabbe had died in the fiendfyre that he had created himself; and though Draco had not cared for either of his bodyguards much, his death had affected him; but not as much as it affected Goyle who had been much closer to Crabbe. Contact between Draco and Goyle had decreased and finally fallen to zero and Draco had been all alone, without so much as a bodyguard or a mere acquaintance ... until the Zabinis came along.

They had been completely neutral in the war, opting for neither the Light nor the Dark, but choosing to blend in with what could be called the shadowy side of Grey, where they could offer their loyalty to whichever side claimed victory in the battle. A true sign of the Zabinis: always choosing the path where they could be sure of survival and no true enemies. And when the Light had won the war, they had duly pledged their allegiance to that side, thus anchoring their safety.

When the Malfoys had changed allegiances, the Zabinis had come to stand by them, recognising them to be useful allies. An acquaintanceship had been formed between the two wizarding families that had slowly morphed into something more until it became a steadfast friendship. Draco had learned to trust Blaise just as his parents learned to trust Madam Zabini, and soon, Blaise had turned from a mere fellow-Slytherin-with-whom-I-share-my-dormitory to a true friend. He understood Draco and Draco understood him.

This was why Draco was currently telling Blaise everything concerning his engagement in greater detail and also trying to explain why he was so eager to find his fiancée as they trudged through the corridors of the train which had stopped at Hogsmeade Station.

'It is strange; at first, the very thought of marrying so young was positively revolting. But afterwards, I've become rather taken up with the idea.'

'I figured that much, Draco. But what I cannot understand is why. How can one change their mind so suddenly?'

Draco flushed slightly, feeling a little embarrassed, but he answered nevertheless, dropping his voice so that the students around them, most of whom had taken up making doe-eyes at him, would not hear him, 'Ever since I began to see that the Dark Lord was insane and my ideas about blood and power began to change, it's like as if all the other ideas and views I've had of this world changed too. Money, power, status, blood and everything else, they did not seem so important. And the surprising thing is that I think my parents' views of them have also changed just like mine. Material just seemed to become ... immaterial, if you know what I mean.'

Blaise raised his eyebrows at him as they squeezed past a group of nervous "new" first years as they continued to make their way towards the crowded doorway. 'That still does not answer my question.'

'How do I explain it? I suppose that you could say that before my change of heart, if I had to find a girl, I would want no one less than gorgeous, with a lot of money and status, a Slytherin and also who is pure-blooded. But after my views turned the exact opposite, I've always wondered what it would be like to be with someone who I actually care about, who would truly love me, with whom I could be happy as opposed to being with a beautiful, wealthy girl only to boost my status.'

'And I'm guessing that you wished upon the ring to find such a girl, did you?' Blaise grinned rather mischeivously.

'Yes,' muttered Draco, his pale cheeks going pink, 'I did. And now that the ring has found her, I really want to know who she is; I want to find the girl who is exactly the sort of person that I really want ... find her, and claim her as my own.'

Draco realised with a start that he had once again made quite a sappy speech; his brain seriously needed some bleach if he were to stop spouting such rubbish! He quickly glanced at Blaise and was not surprised to see the smirk that was curling his lips. Draco scowled.

'Don't you dare mock me, Zabini; else I'll personally make sure that you regret it.'

Blaise chuckled amiably as they finally reached the doorway that opened to a dark, cold night. 'Alright; it's just that I did not expect you to be such a romantic under that cool Malfoy exterior.'

Draco glared at him before turning his back and descending from the Hogwarts Express. 'I will have you know, Blaise, that I am most certainly not a rom –'

'Draco, watch out!'

Startled, the young aristocrat turned around to ask what Blaise meant. But he could not even get a word out before he heard a series of loud crashes, a pained yell and a warning shout and then something crashed right on top of him. Instinct kicked in at once and Draco took a step back with his right leg to keep his balance and his arms automatically went around what had fallen on him – or rather, who.

His eyes, which had closed, shot open and his breath caught in his chest as he found himself staring straight into familiar pools of emerald green.

'Strange, isn't it,' muttered Ron as they made their way through all the students to get off the train, 'to return to Hogwarts?'

'What'd you mean, Ron?' asked Ginny, throwing her brother a confused look.

'I dunno ... it's just, we're back, but it doesn't feel like coming back to Hogwarts; I can't explain it.'

Harry personally did not need Ron to explain what he meant; she knew. Before, coming to Hogwarts had always been pleasant and filled with happy memories ... and now, everything had changed. There was no Dumbledore, so many former students had been killed in the war including a few under-aged ones, and the place would be filled with the memories of that bittersweet night when they had fought Voldemort from dusk till dawn. So many things had happened ... Ron was right; it felt strange, perturbing even.

No one else said anything to Ron's words (except for Luna who hummed Celestina Warbeck's "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love" under her breath) when they got the gist of what he was saying; there really was nothing that one could say to that.

In an obvious effort to change the topic, Neville piped up, 'Wonder if McGonagall is going to continue teaching Transfiguration now that she's been made headmistress? Or do you think that they've found a new teacher for that?'

'I don't know,' Hermione answered with a shrug. 'I haven't heard anything like that.'

Silence fell upon them again. Soon, they were within sight of the door that was, as always, crowded with students. Harry led the way, 'politely' pushing her way through everyone, eager to leave the suffocative atmosphere of the mobbed train. She was almost at the door when she heard Ron and Neville both shout out at her in alarmed, warning tones.

More than a little surprised, she turned her head back to see what was happening while her body reacted instinctively and moved to get out of the way of anything that could harm her but – too late. On first turning her head, Harry had already seen the girl slip and fall forward, the heavy stack of books she was carrying falling to the ground with many a crash, and her arms flailing wildly to regain her balance. She now saw the girl crash against another girl who happened to be right behind Harry, making her fall forwards too –

Next thing Harry knew, something slammed heavily against her back making her cry out with pain and she experienced a sensation of flying as the impact sent her hurtling forward out of the train. Harry squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to feel the hard roughness of the ground against her front at any moment, but that moment never came. Instead, she felt something warm and lean cushion her fall; there was a winded grunt and she felt arms going around her and she realised with heightened embarrassment that she had fallen not on the ground, but on someone.

She opened her eyes, ready to apologise, but saw that the other person had his eyes closed and she worried at once that her fall had injured the person. Harry leaned her head back slightly so as to properly see the blurred features of the one who had broken her fall, but it was completely unnecessary. Next moment, the eyes had opened and Harry found herself gazing with shock into liquid mercury orbs that she could recognise anywhere.

Oh no, not him; anyone but him.

Time seemed to come to a standstill and everything else blurred and paled into insignificance as Harry and Malfoy stared at each other, both of them speechless. She could feel shivers running down her back when the realisation of how close they were came to her as Malfoy's warm breath fanned over her flushed face; they were mere inches apart. Harry also grew vaguely aware that her arms had become looped about his neck, probably when she had fallen on him and her cheeks grew redder. It did not help that Malfoy was still holding her up and she was pressed flush against him; Harry could easily feel the heat radiating off him through the fabric of their robes.

Growing very conscious of how much she was blushing, Harry tried to look away from him but it was nigh impossible; her eyes were drawn to his, like the ocean to the moon ... and how like the moon his eyes were! She had always known they had been a gleaming greyish in colour, much like Sirius' eyes (no wonders, there; they were from the same family), but Harry had never really bothered to look; which was probably why she had never noticed the soft shades of silver in the irises and the light, granite grey that outlined them ... and right around the pupils were the lightest shades of blue she had ever seen. Harry gazed deeply into his eyes which seemed almost fathomless, marvelling at the beauty she had never noticed before. They were almost like sparkling diamonds ... just like the hidden diamond that rested on her finger right now...

Diamond...

...diamond engagement ring...

...engaged to Draco Malfoy...

...Draco Malfoy...

Fiancé.

And she abruptly came to her senses and full realisation of the kind of position she was in hit her like the ever clichéd ton of bricks – not to mention what the scene would look like to watchful eyes. Speaking of which...

Someone wolf-whistled and a few giggles were heard, and all the background scenes and noises that had seemingly disappeared from around them both were brought to point-black focus. A quick glance showed that many students had stopped to watch them, eager to see what would happen next; it was not everyday that one got to see the two top rivals of their school, who hated each other with a passion, fall into a very suggestive – not to mention romantic – position. Harry cursed inwardly for her bad luck.

Her eyes returned to Malfoy who, too, had noticed the small crowd gathered around them. He gave her an unreadable look and Harry almost expected him to drop her; but, to her immense surprise, he set her down rather gently on the ground, those intense silvery orbs of his fixed on hers all the while. She quickly dropped her arms from his neck and he removed his from her waist. A sudden blast of cold air enveloped her as he stepped back, taking the warmth of his body away from her. For a second, she almost wished that she was in his arms again, but next moment, she chided herself for even thinking such thoughts. This was Malfoy! She had no right to wish that she was in Draco Malfoy's arms, not even if she had his bloody engagement ring...!

Oh no, the ring! Harry immediately slipped her left hand into the folds of her robes so he would not see the ring, conveniently forgetting that it was already hidden by the black glove.

Malfoy stared at her for a moment longer before turning to walk away, followed by a smirking Blaise Zabini who Harry had not noticed up until that point. And Harry, being Harry, called a soft 'Sorry' after her rival, recalling with mortification the way in which she had nearly crushed the life out of him. She immediately regretted apologising, though. Knowing Malfoy, he would probably just ignore her or sneer at her and make her feel like a fool for apologising. But her arch-enemy shocked her for a second time that night by actually pausing and turning around to give her a curt nod to acknowledge her apology before hurrying away again. Harry gaped after him; how many more shocks could she take in one day?

With a shake of her head, Harry turned back to the train, pointedly ignoring the hushed whispers and snickers that were still emitting from the on looking crowd. Her eyes were met with the site of Ginny stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to stifle her laughter, Ron looking somewhere between clubbed in the head and ready to hurl, Hermione smirking at her with a knowing look in her brown eyes, Luna busy counting the stars in the night sky and Neville looking downright confused.

Harry glared at them in annoyance. 'What?' she snapped.

A/N: ::bangs head on wall:: Ugh, I feel so ashamed! ... I think I just took the "describing Draco's periodic-table eyes cliche" to a whole new level ...!! ::bangs head some more:: Ah, but what the heck! It was fun to write and I did warn you about cliches! LOL XD

As for the spell that Ron mentioned, 'bombarda' - I borrowed that from Prisoner of Azkaban movie; that spell is not mentioned in any of the books. It's not mine and it belongs to ... Rowling, maybe? I dunno.

On another note, the next chapter is sort of like Part 2 of this one 'cause it takes place in the same night. I seriously considered putting the two up as one chapter to make the story go faster, but then I saw how freaking long that was so I cut 'em in two. But don't worry, I'll post the next one very soon. Maybe not in the next five minutes, but still SOON, OK? :)

Also, looking back on the previous chapters, I just realised how long-winded I am (OK, so I've known that for sometime now considering the ridiculously long one-shots I've posted, but still!), so y'all be warned: this fic will be a slow romance, so please be patient. I will throw in Draco/Harry interactions here and there, but those two are a duo of blockheads drowning in "The Nile", if you get my drift. :P

COMING REALLY SOON: CHAPTER SIX - Lions and Snakes Can Be ... Friends? 0.o