Mirror of Paths

by AtherisHiss

5th yr - Sirius has died. Harry's learned the truth of the prophecy. The weight of his destiny is heavy on his shoulders. Regret over years of wasted chances to learn and better himself plague his mind as he's faced with an opportunity to gain the knowledge of a more studious version of himself. But what price does that knowledge come with? Drarry mentor!Voldemort grey!harry slash

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Despite the tremendous relief Harry felt the night before, the next morning, and the days following, were awful. Every time Harry would start to get hopeful, wondering if Marvolo would really have some good suggestions on how Harry might go about fixing his own version of the Dark Lord, another part of his brain would remind him exactly what it would mean if he did succeed at such a goal.

It wasn't like he was going to be turning his life into the life of his alternate reality counterpart. His relationship with Draco was looking decidedly up, but that was just one piece of the puzzle. The rest of his other-self's Slytherin friends, and pure-blood friends, all desperately hated him, and despite everything, Harry couldn't bring himself to feel the same ways about certain things that his alternate self felt.

He'd changed, but not that much.

And that all wasn't even the biggest problem. He realized that if he really did manage to 'fix' his Marvolo, and joined him… that would mean turning traitor.

Everyone he loved and cared about and everyone who loved and cared about him, would feel utterly betrayed. They were all counting on him. They were looking to him to somehow miraculously save their world from Voldemort, and here Harry was seriously considering how to go about saving, and even joining him.

It was proving to be quite a mood killer, so of course, Ron and Hermione had both noticed that something was wrong. They both pestered him for details on his meeting with Dumbledore, which only really brought out a foul taste in his mouth as he remembered the tampered memories he'd been shown, and wondered about what else Dumbledore had told him or shown him, that had been skewed to show certain things in a certain light.

More than the betrayal, it was the shame that was really crushing him. The realization that he'd fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. Dumbledore had completely pulled the wool over his eyes and Harry had not once doubted him. The closest that he'd come to it was his explosive temper-tantrum after the debacle in the Ministry the night Sirius died, and even then Harry still hadn't considered the possibility that Dumbledore was doing anything dishonest intentionally.

Manipulation after manipulation. Mind-game after mind-game. Harry was just so so sick of it. But then again… he'd been good at it. He'd been a fantastic liar. He'd gotten so good at the Slytherin Game that he probably could have become top-dog even without having basically been the adopted son of the Dark Lord. He could maneuver a person into a position that most benefited Harry, while leading them to believe it was really for their benefit… he could give the most convincing lies, totally straight-faced…

When Harry actually thought about it, he didn't want to be that person any more than he wanted to be the old Gryffindor-him who was so gullible that Dumbledore had totally fooled him.

Maybe… maybe it was better this way. He told himself that several times. He could see the flaws in both versions of himself far more clearly now, and he realized he didn't really like either of them. The Gryffindor-him to was too stuck in the moment; incapable of actually planning out anything, and with no self-motivation to improve himself without someone else kicking his arse in gear. The Gryffindor-him was too trusting. And honestly a bit too loyal. Loyal-to-a-fault, they call it. Looking back, Harry still couldn't believe he'd taken Ron back as a friend after what he'd done during the first task of the Tournament in fourth year. That was a massive betrayal. And Ron had been a dead-weight dragging Harry down for years. That outburst back at the start of term where Hermione had railed on Ron for being too lazy with his school work, and turned on Harry for dumbing himself down to avoid triggering Ron's insecurities… well, she was right. Harry had avoided doing things that might show Ron up too much in their lessons. He had actively avoided making Ron feel insecure. Plus it was just so much easier to give in and goof around when you had a friend goading you into it…

This line of thought brought with it a river of guilt, as he thing realized just how awful he was being to his best friend who had stuck by him for most of the toughest and most trying times Harry had faced. Sure, Ron had bailed on Harry when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, but as soon as he'd seen the danger Harry was in after that blasted battle with the dragon, he'd changed his tune and apologized.

This sort of back and forth filled Harry's head constantly, and it left him sullen and touchy. He'd snapped at both Ron and Hermione at various times, as they'd tried pestering him for details on the meeting, and on what exactly had his panties in such a bunch.

The worst was one time on Wednesday during lunch when Hermione had been pushing Harry's buttons just a bit too far, too often, that he caught himself mere seconds away from using the word mudblood.

He'd caught himself beforehand though. The fact that he'd even thought it was enough to horrify himself, and he'd stood right up, abandoning his meal, and left.

He needed air.

Harry found himself outside, even though it was miserably cold. But at least the wind was still, and just as he'd found himself a nice stretch of castle wall and leaned against it, trying to clear his mind, a sliver of sunlight broke through what had been a solid sheet of gray overcast. The clouds had parted just enough that a small patch of blue sky could be seen beyond them, and Harry stared up into that sky and heaved a heavy sigh.

"You're a mess," a voice came from just beyond where Harry had perched himself against the wall. Harry turned his head and was surprised to see Draco making his way towards him.

"Draco!" Harry exclaimed and looked around quickly to check for any observers.

There were none. No one else was stupid enough to come outside right then. The weather had been abysmal for days, and as it was, lunch had only started some ten minutes earlier.

"What's up with you?" Draco asked as he came over and leaned against the patch of wall right next to Harry and looked at him curiously.

Harry couldn't put words to how startlingly strange, and yet oddly familiar it was to be next to Draco like this. They hadn't spoken since Harry had gotten Draco back down to the dungeons using his invisibility cloak, Monday night.

"I… I don't know," Harry grumbled and shrugged. "I'm just a mess, that's all. I… I was a very different person in the other world, and the Gryffindor-me would not have liked him at all. The Slytherin-me wouldn't have like the Gryffindor-me. And now I'm both of them crammed into one person, and it's like I'm constantly at war with myself. Finding a middle-ground is… complicated. Plus… it's like, as soon as I let myself get hopeful or optimistic about the idea of… uhm… you know… I'm suddenly reminded that succeeding in that means betraying everyone I've ever cared about. In times like that I'm… I'm just not sure I can do it."

Draco hummed in understanding, nodding his head slowly and keenly observing Harry. "This is still really fascinating to me."

Harry snorted and grinned despite himself. "I'm glad you're getting something out of my massive discomfort."

Draco shrugged unapologetically.

"I'd be more careful about how you act around your friends, if I were you," Draco send a few silent moments later.

Harry turned and looked at him worriedly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, they know about this mirror thing, right?"

Harry nodded.

"And they know that it's Slytherin memoriesthat are affecting you. And clearly, these memories are affecting your behavior, because it's the only obvious reasoning for why you're acting like a manic nutjob. If they get too worried, I wouldn't put it past either of them to skip you all together and go straight to Dumbledore with their concerns. Especially Granger. She'd convince herself that she was doing it to help you or some such rot."

Harry groaned, let his head fall forward limply and then nodded it bleakly. "You're right. Honestly, she's been pestering me for weeks to talk to Dumbledore about what happened. The fact that I've gotten more and more insistent in my refusal is probably making her even more worried. I wouldn't be surprised if she goes to him soon, anyway."

"You need to convince them that you're fine," Draco said firmly. "You need to get your shit together, Potter, or else this is all gonna come falling down on your head before you've made any progress in getting alternative options lined up."

"Alternate options," Harry echoed with a cynical snort.

"Well, if what you say it true, then Dumbledore basically wants to make sure you end up dead. He just wants to use you first, and wait to have you die until it's most convenient."

Harry groaned and his head fell limply forward again. "I think he wants to use me to find the horcruxes for him. Probably intends to make it look like some great quest that I have to take up in his stead, once he finally succumbs to the curse and kicks it."

"Right. So his plan right now, is for you to do all the dirty work, and then die. He's laying this foundation so that his plan will continue to work, even after he dies. But what's he going to do if it suddenly looks like his plan isn't going to work after all? He's dying Potter. He's going to be desperate. If he gets even a whiff of things going foul, he's probably going to take care of that last horcrux he has access to while he's still around to take care of it."

Harry looked over at Draco, speculatively. "You think he'd actually try to kill me?"

"I think he'd try to set it up so someone or something else did. He'd probably arrange it so you'd end up face-to-face with the Dark Lord again, but this time the old goat would fail to save you."

Harry snorted bitterly. "You're probably right."

"All the more reason to make some progress on this goal of yours to fix the Dark Lord."

"Which might not even be possible," Harry pointed out.

"I was thinking though…" Draco began slowly before turning his silver-grey eyes full on Harry. "You said that in the other world that being on the Elixir of Life from that Philosopher's Stone healed him whole, so long as he was on it, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well.. there's always that. If his soul really is destroyed beyond repair, we can at least get him sane while he's on the elixir."

"But the Stone was destroyed," Harry argued shaking his head.

"Says who? Did you see it get destroyed?" Draco asked pointedly.

Harry frowned and hummed in agreement. "Good point. Honestly, I thought it was a bit mental that so much trouble was gone to to protest the blasted thing, just to end up destroying it, instead of giving it back to Nicholas Flamel. Dumbledore said that Flamel had enough of the Elixir left to put his 'affairs in order' and not to worry about him… if we assume that the stone really was destroyed, which looking back, it probably wasn't, there's still a slim chance that Flamel might still be around and might still have some elixir left."

"More likely that he's just still got the stupid stone," Draco drawled.

"Yeah… yeah, he probably does."

"So there's another fall-back option. If the Dark Lord's soul really is toast, then we can go with trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone instead."

Harry snorted. "You say that like it'd be an easy thing. Plus, even Marvolo from the other world hated the idea of being dependent upon the Elixir just to remain sane."

"So maybe that'll be incentive enough for our Dark Lord to start brainstorming on some solutions of his own. Getting him sane in the first place is going to be the hardest part. After that, it sounds like he'd work towards doing the rest of his own free will. This other Dark Lord of yours did, anyway."

"You're really okay with doing all of this scheming against The Dark Lord?" Harry asked curiously, looking over at Draco.

Draco make a small scoffing sound in his throat. "I… I'm terrified of him to be honest. I remember father talking about him when I was a child, making him sound like the most amazing, powerful, and genius wizard ever to live. Then I actually meet the man and…"

"Significant let down," Harry offered.

Draco snorted. "To put it mildly. But it sounds like the version that my father spoke of, and the version that you remember from this other world, might have a lot more in common than the broken version we're stuck with now. If what you're doing really has a chance of fixing that, then I have to do this. The creature currently running things is basically out to make my life, and my families lives, absolutely miserable. This is self-preservation, Potter."

Harry found himself silently observing Draco for several moments after that. Long enough, in fact that it was clearly making Draco uncomfortable.

"What?" he snapped.

"I just… you seem a lot more comfortable talking to me today is all. I was kind of marveling in that…"

Draco rolled his eyes. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, that's all. Which brings me to another matter. I'm going to be spending the evening in the Room of Requirement tonight working on… my task."

"You're task?" Harry echoed slightly confused. "But I thought your task was just to… er, kill someone whose dying anyway."

"That's only half my task. The other half is giving me just as much trouble, to be honest. I suppose a second set of eyes might be of some value. And you did suggest that the two of us might make efforts to… get to know each other," Draco said, looking mildly embarrassed.

Harry found himself grinning widely. Draco noticed and a pink flush seemed to take over his cheeks. Clearly frustrated with his own embarrassment, Draco switched to an annoyed scowl and glared at Harry.

This honestly familiar behavior only made Harry's grin grow wider. It was comfortable in the familiarity. But Harry had to keep reminding himself that this Draco had never known anything but antagonism between the two of them and he still had to tread carefully.

"I'd love to join you. And hopefully I'll be able to help in some way. I'll take a look at whatever it is you're doing, anyway. How do you want to set this up? Will you have Vince or Greg guarding the door again?"

"Not tonight. But it's still not a good idea for the two of us to show up at exactly the same time. The room I'm going to summon is 'a room to hide things in'. Got it?"

Harry's eyes widened and he blinked. "A room to hide things in?" he echoed.

"Yeah."

"That's where one of the Dark Lord's horcruxes is hidden! What are you doing in there?!"

Draco's eyes widened dramatically. "Come again?"

"Merlin," Harry exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "It's a wonder that anyone can ever use that room under the assumption that no one else has or ever will use it. I mean, it's the most cluttered monstrous mess imaginable, so it's obvious that it's been used by other people. And what more common a request could you imagine other than a place to hide shit?"

"So… you're saying that the Dark Lord used that same room to hide one of his… soul vessel things?" Draco asked, his voice cracking almost comically at one point.

"Yeah. I know where it is. Honestly, this is a good opportunity to get it anyway. I'm gonna need to collect the remaining in-tact horcruxes anyway, just so I can try to work out what I might be able to do to get them back into the Dark Lord. I should have asked my Slytherin-counterpart to ask Marvolo where they are all, actually. I honestly don't know where the rest are located."

"That does sound like an essential detail that you're missing," Draco drawled.

Harry sighed and nodded. "I should make a list of all the things I need to ask Marvolo so I can ask the other me next Monday. Anyway, lunch is going to end soon and Ron and Hermione are bound to come looking for me. What time do you want to meet tonight?"

"I'm skipping dinner," Draco said with a rather helpless shrug. "If I can't manage this, it won't matter if Dumbledore kicks the bucket on his own by June. I'm still as good as dead."

"Unless we succeed in what I'm doing," Harry pointed out.

"Yes, but at the moment, I have no idea how good or poor our chances are of that, are. Until I do, I'm going to keep working on my problem."

Harry nodded. "Well, I'll see if I can come up with an excuse to get away from Ron and Hermione tonight. I still doubt I'll make it there until after dinner, though."

"You could tell them you ran into Snape in the corridor and managed to piss him off so he gave you a detention tonight. Sounds like a very believable set of events."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, it does. I'll probably use that. But Hermione is a Prefect and she could always look up and confirm if it were true."

"Weasley is a Prefect too," Draco pointed out, smirking in amusement.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Ron is only barely a Prefect, in that he has the bloody badge pinned to his robes. The last time he took a Prefect duty seriously, it involved dolling out punishment to firsties who were buying his brothers' banned products, and the only reason he did that was so that he could confiscate the products for himself."

Draco snickered. "Well, anyway, I'll see you tonight."

"See you after dinner," Harry confirmed, pushing himself up off the wall and glancing back up at the sky. The spot of blue was growing smaller again as another thick blanket of grey clouds slowly rolled in.

Draco pushed off as well, turned, and walked away without another word. Harry watched him go, trudging through the sodden ground and back towards the front entrance. Harry waited several minutes before following behind and making his way back through the castle to find his Gryffindor friends and try to repair some of the damage he'd been dealing the last few days.

— —

The excuse about getting a detention from Snape was taken without question or doubt from Harry's friends, so Harry was able to rush through his dinner and rush off without any real complications.

Harry had made efforts to seem more normal, but he knew a few hours of more normal wouldn't be enough to counteract the days of moodiness and a short temper. Not to mention he still hadn't given either of them a clear answer as to what happened Monday that had affected him so drastically.

He knew that he was going to have to dip into those Slytherin talents he remembered, and start putting up a front with them. However the idea left a rather foul taste in his mouth. It was like it was the first step down a very shaky path that most likely ended with total betrayal of his friends, and being hated and loathed by everyone Harry cared about.

It wasn't exactly an appealing idea.

He tried to shove those ideas out of his mind and focused instead on making his way to the Room of Requirement.

He walked past the blank stretch of wall three times thinking about needing a room to hide things, and on the third pass the door appeared. Harry pushed his way inside and peered around for any signs that Draco was already in there. He was quickly greeted with the sight of Draco hunched down next to a large cabinet, some distance from the entrance in a small area that had been cleared of clutter.

Draco sat up straighter and turned, looking over his shoulder in Harry's direction. Their eyes met and Draco gave him a curt nod of his head, acknowledging Harry, but then instantly turned back to whatever he was doing.

Harry made his way through a short winding path of clear floorspace until he came upon Draco and whatever he was doing. Harry looked at the cabinet, as it became instantly obvious that this was the object Draco's efforts were focused on. Harry quickly realized it was familiar.

"Hey, isn't there another one of these in…" his voice trailed off as his brain suddenly supplied some more details about the object. "It's a vanishing cabinet," he said with dawning understanding in his voice. "He wants you to open up some sort of secret entrance so he can get inside the castle's wards."

Draco heaved a tired sigh and sat upright, sitting on his feet as he had been crouching over the back of it, looking to examine something along the back of the base.

"Yes. He wants a way to get Death Eaters into the school."

Harry's expression hardened. "That would be a slaughter."

Draco sighed again. "I'd rather not think about that," he muttered.

"So what's wrong with it?" Harry asked crouching down beside Draco, and leaving the previous subject abandoned for a time being.

Draco looked grateful that the consequences of succeeding were being dropped in favor of focusing on just fixing it.

"Everything," Draco groused. "It doesn't work. I don't know why. Peeves dropped the blasted thing in the entrance hall once, to distract Filch from something else… I didn't really get any details. I've tried to mend it, but I honestly don't know what I'm doing. Troubleshooting an faulty enchanted object is hard enough when you have some idea how its supposed to work, but this thing is so complicated and touchy…" he heaved a defeated-sounding groan and seemed to sink in on himself.

"Hmmm…" Harry hummed thoughtfully and began looking around it. "You said it was dropped?"

"Yeah. It was cracked and splintered in several places, but I mended all of that. I think that there's some place where the runes were disrupted by the damage, and my mending the damage didn't fix the enchanting inscription, or worse, fixed them wrong. I can't even be sure where the damage might be at this point."

"Where all have you found rune inscriptions?" Harry asked.

"There's some around the base here - that's what I've been going over the last couple times I came in here. But it's such a pain because I have to translate the bloody runes first and then cross reference that against examples of their use for any signs that something has been messed up or distorted. But there's more runes all along the inside of the thing too. Along the door frame, along the door itself, along the rear-wall on the inside and all over the floor in a spiral. And I've got to be especially careful while I work on the inside. If the door closes while I'm in there, I could end up trapped. I heard tell of someone else getting trapped in the blasted thing and finding himself stuck in a black abyss for days before he finally managed to panic enough to apparate himself out, even though he'd never learned to apparate."

"Blimey," Harry muttered, grimacing. "Right. No going inside and closing the door. Gotcha. Well… I'm pretty good with runes, so I might be able to speed along the translation."

"You? Good with runes?!" Malfoy exclaimed in comical disbelief.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Slytherin-me's better at school, remember? He took Runes and he was bloody brilliant at it."

Draco's eyes widened with sudden understanding, and a flash of hope. "I'd forgotten about that," he muttered. "I'd been fairly convinced that you wouldn't be much help in here, but maybe I was wrong."

"If you were so sure I'd be useless, then why'd you invite me?" Harry asked with a small laugh.

Draco shrugged and tried to look casual and disinterested. "You were the one that suggested hanging out together in here," he muttered defensively.

Harry smiled widely feeling another warm rush flood him. He reached out and placed his hand over Draco's, where it rested on the floor, and gave it a small squeeze. Draco seemed entirely startled by this and looked down at their joined hands with an astonished look on his face. His cheeks quickly pinked and he scowled at his own embarrassment, but made no effort to pull his hand away. It was wonderfully encouraging and Harry rubbed his thumb over the top of Draco's hand for several moments before removing his hand and turning his focus back onto the cupboard.

"So what have you got so far?"

—

The two worked in the Room of Requirement for the next few hours, starting with Harry just going over and double-checking Draco's attempts to translate, and actually managing to find two different spots in the run inscription where the runes had become distorted enough to look like a different rune or like no rune at all. Harry was very confident of what the first one was supposed to be and made the correction himself right then. The second one he had two different candidates and decided he needed to look up their uses a bit more closely before he committed to one or the other.

He made a mental note to look it up in one of the enchanting rune dictionaries in the library the next day. Draco's spirits raised dramatically over the course of their work and Harry could see a fire in his eyes that hadn't been there all term. It was hope where there had once been nothing but hopelessness. Harry knew the feeling well.

Thanks to his gradually improved spirits, Draco had slowly opened up more and more as the evening passed. Harry asked questions and Draco answered and asked more questions back. Draco clearly found it exceedingly weird when he'd come across some story or anecdote from his childhood just to discover that Harry already knew it, but seemed to be adjusting well enough.

Eventually they realized it was past curfew and they had no choice but to call it quits. Harry offered to use his invisibility cloak to assist Draco in getting back down to the dungeons but Draco actually refused this time.

"It's only half past nine, Potter. I'm a Prefect remember? It's not a big deal if I'm out this late. If Filch comes by I can just say I'm doing rounds, and Snape would cover for me."

Harry frowned slightly. "How much does Snape know about what you're doing?"

"You mean like, my assignment, or how I'm attempting to tackle it?"

"Both."

Draco heaved a bit of a sigh and twisted up his mouth in a small pout for a moment. Harry found it adorable and something in his face must have said as much since Draco seemed to notice and gave Harry a mild glare before pressing on. "He seems to know what I've been assigned, though he's not supposed to know. But that's Severus for you. He's pestered me a few times so far this term to let him help me, but I've refused every offer. As far as I'm aware, he has no idea what I'm specifically up to."

Harry hummed and nodded his head. "Keep it that way."

"I intend to," Draco said, rolling his eyes.

"So erm… I guess this is goodnight," Harry said, suddenly feeling awkward. The pair were now standing at the door to the Room of Requirement, Harry with his invisibility cloak over his arm, and Draco holding his rucksack slung over one shoulder.

"Mmm… looks like it. Uhm… when do you think you could slip away and do this again?"

"Hmm… well I've got Quidditch practice tomorrow night, so I won't be able to manage it then. Are there any other times that you slip in here, like free periods?"

"Meals and free periods," Draco said with a sigh and a nod of his head.

"I'd noticed you'd been skipping a lot of meals lately."

"Yeah… but it's not terribly predictable or pre-planned. Basically I come in whenever I can manage some time and a reasonable excuse."

"That makes it difficult to plan ahead…" Harry muttered. "Hey, maybe we could work something like the protean-charmed galleons that Hermione used for the DA last year!"

"The what?"

"For the DA meetings — we couldn't really plan ahead very well, since we couldn't risk Umbridge getting word ahead of time. Hermione took a bunch of gold galleons and charmed them so that anything modified on one of them was repeated across the rest. That way we could change one galleon with the details of the next meeting, and everyone else's galleons would update with the info. They got warm when the change happened too, to notify everyone that they should check them."

"Huh…" Draco made a mildly impressed sort of noise in his throat. "I suppose we could work something like that."

"I'll charm a pair of objects and get one to you when I can," Harry said, feeling pleased with the plan, and also feeling rather pleased realizing he knew exactly how to do the charming himself. Hermione had been entirely responsible for the galleons used by the DA.

"Sounds good Potter. Anyway, we should call this. If it gets too much later even I can't get past Filch without some hassle."

"Alright. Erm… Draco?"

"Yeah?"

"Do…" Harry hesitated and chewed on his lip a moment, debating how he wanted to say what was on his mind. "Do you mind me calling you Draco?"

"What makes you ask that?" Draco asked hesitantly, looking guarded.

"It's just… I mean, you can call me Harry… if you want. You don't have to… I just… you know…" Harry mumbled, feeling stupid and insecure.

"Harry…" Draco said, as if he were testing the word out on his tongue. "Might take some getting used to."

"That's fine. Do whichever you want. Just… you know, if it bothers you that I keep calling you Draco, feel free to tell me off for it. It's just habit right now, and I understand that you never told me I could —"

"It's fine," Draco cut him off sharply, looking away, as if he were afraid he'd be exposing some sort of inappropriate emotion if he were to actually make eye contact.

Harry smiled softly. "Thanks."

The pair finally parted ways and Harry made his way back to Gryffindor Tower under his invisibility cloak. Back in the common room Ron griped that it was entirely unreasonable for Snape to have kept him for so long, and Hermione expressed concerns that Harry might fall behind on classwork if he weren't careful, but Harry managed to brush off their concerns without coming off like the ass he'd been most often lately. He put up a rather convincing front, in fact, and as he went to bed that night he found he was slightly unsettled by how easy it was becoming to lie to his friends.

— —

Harry actually managed to drop in on the Room of Requirement after Quidditch practice the next evening and found Draco there working. He didn't have a lot of time to stick around, as he'd told Ron he was staying behind to clean up and make a few plans for the next practice, and knew that would only buy him so much time. But he did use the time to deliver the objects he had charmed earlier that afternoon.

"I thought you said you wouldn't make it tonight?" Draco said distractedly as he crouched down by the left side of the front door frame, inspecting it intently and then making notes on the parchment on the floor beside him.

"Managed to wrap things up a bit early and sent everyone off, saying I'd stay behind a bit to pick up and then work on some game plans. Ron wanted to hang around, but I reminded him about this essay we've got due in Transfiguration tomorrow and I don't think he's even started it. I reminded him that if he took too long, Hermione would go to bed and refuse to help him, so he bailed."

Draco snorted but remained focused on his efforts transcribing the runes.

"I'm afraid I can't stay long but I thought I'd come by and give you the item I did the protean charm on," Harry said, walking over and crouching down next to Draco. The blond let out a sigh and sat back in a more relaxed pose, turning his attention onto Harry now.

"Is it just a galleon? Because I'm not convinced I wouldn't just misplace a galleon," Draco said warningly.

"No, not a galleon. I kind of had the same worry, honestly. No, I actually wanted something that I could keep on me all the time and also wanted something that actually touched my skin so I'd feel the warmth right away if it was activated. I figure that we'll probably be doing these meetings with pretty short notice, and I'd hate to miss a chance just because I had the object in my pocket and didn't feel it activate."

Draco nodded, seeming to agree. "So what is it?"

"Er… a clock-face pendant. So, a necklace. Will that be okay? I mean, you don't actually have to wear it — you could always just keep it in your pocket, so it'd be more like a tiny pocket watch, I just felt like it would be the most likely thing to work for me."

"I don't have any problem with a pendent, so long as it doesn't look stupid. It's not like anyone is likely to see it beneath my shirt anyway."

Harry grinned, relieved that Draco agreed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the two necklaces he'd charmed. They were identical, each on a fairly long golden chain. The pendant itself was about the size of a sickle in total and looked like a crescent moon with a simple round clock pinched in the center. There was a gap between the clock and the crescent, with only the tips contacting the clock.

Draco accepted one of them and found that the clock face actually could spin on it's axis in the crescent.

"Cool design," he commented as he spun the clock face so that the back was exposed. Engraved there were the words 'Hidden Things'.

"It's pretty straight forward," Harry began to explain as he held his up so that it was next to Draco's. He tapped the watch face with his wand and the hands spun around to say 5 o'clock, where they remained stationary. Then he flipped his to the back, tapped it at the inscription and changed it to 'Astronomy Tower'. The changes instantly appeared on Draco's watch.

"I can feel it getting warm," Draco observed. "So the inscription on the back gives any details like location, or like, what to use to get into the Room of Requirement, while the time on the front is just when to meet."

"Right," Harry said with a sharp nod of his head.

"Where'd you get the necklaces? Its not like you had time to order them or get down to Hogsmeade."

"I conjured them."

Draco gave him a skeptical look. "You conjured them? Are you sure they're gonna stick around?"

"Yes!" Harry said defensively. "I'm perfectly capable of a permanent conjuration. Bloody hell, I know I was a lazy arse before all this, but I was never magically weak."

The corner of Draco's mouth turned up in an amused smirk. "Just riling you up."

Harry snorted mildly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, like I said, I can't stick around long. This good for you? I could always make any adjustments you want."

"No, this is good. Thanks Potter…. er… Harry." Draco's cheeks pinked faintly and he looked away uncomfortably. Harry didn't worry about it though. He knew Draco well enough to read exactly what was going on in that head of his. Draco was pleased. At the same time, he was afraid of showing that. When you let people see you happy and enjoying something, you're exposing a weakness. All they have to do to hurt you is to take that thing away from you.

Draco still didn't trust that all of this wasn't going to blow-up on him, but he was giving it an honest chance, which was a thousand-times more than Harry had ever dared hope for. Harry didn't want to risk or ruin anything by pushing too much, but also knew he wanted to try and encourage Draco to feel more comfortable… more… safe. He just wasn't sure how to do that.

Harry had a tremendous urge to kiss the blond before going, but couldn't actually settle on whether or not that was a good idea, or a bad one. They'd kissed twice that first night in the Room of Requirement, but hadn't done it since.

Letting a little of his Gryffindor rashness win out, Harry leaned forward and kissed Draco no the cheek, hoping that would be the least threatening or intimidating.

It was nothing more than a quick peck, but it filled Harry's stomach with a rush of butterflies and he pulled back with what he knew was a stupid grin. Draco's eyes bugged out and he looked at Harry with a clearly startled expression.

"What was that for?"

Harry ducked his head and shrugged. "Just… because."

Draco still looked a bit dumbstruck for a moment but then seemed to gather himself and push forth a front. "Well… it was entirely insufficient," he drawled in a forced haughty tone. "Honestly, Potter, I've come to expect better from you."

Harry smiled and laughed, leaning forward again but this time reaching out one hand that buried itself in the hair on the back of Draco's head, and then going in for a much more proper kiss on the lips this time.

Draco was a bit more prepared this time and was only frozen and tense for the first few seconds of the kiss before Harry felt the other boy relax and actually press forward some on his own.

Harry knew they weren't kissing for long, but it was wonderful while it lasted. Slowly he pulled back, basking in the feel and the momentary ability to forget about everything else and just think about this one thing that was absolutely going great. No part of him felt conflicted over his pursuit of Draco. Not a one. Even knowing that no one else in his life would be okay with it - it didn't matter. This one thing he was perfectly confident that he wanted.

Harry pulled in a deep calming breath and heard and felt as Draco did the same. He met the other teens eyes and could see that there was conflict there.

"I cannot believe how much everything has changed in just a few days," Draco whispered, slowly shaking his head in a sort of stunned bewilderment.

"Good-changed or…?" Harry said, letting the question hang in the air.

Draco hesitated, appearing to think for several beats before responding. "Good… I think. Probably. I mean… not even talking about this… thing that's happening between the two of us, just thinking about the potential for what's happening with the Dark Lord and my whole life in general… I mean, it looked so hopeless before. He's so angry with father. And I was starting to see that I was just going to end up being his punching bag if a miracle didn't happen. But then this…" he made a helpless sort of gesture in Harry's direction.

"So it's just about the Dark Lord?"

"No… not just. I… I mean, never in a million years did I think that anything could come from the… attraction I felt for you. It was just physical, you know? That's what I told myself, I suppose. And there was no question that we absolutely hated each other. All sorts of things about you drive me mad, but at this point I don't know how many of those things are even still around. In any case, it didn't matter if I… felt attracted to certain… things…" Draco's speech was halted and awkward, and it was obvious that he was fighting against his own instincts in order to actually get any of this out. Harry could see how uncomfortable the blond was making any of these admissions.

"Did…" Draco began hesitantly a moment later, looking conflicted. "Did you ever feel…" he trailed off and scowled, looking away.

"Did I ever feel attracted to you before all this?" Harry offered up for him.

Draco sighed and took on a look of angry defeat as he looked at some random piece of junk some distance to his left.

"I'm not really sure, to be honest," Harry said slowly. "I was really in denial about being gay. Like, super-blind full-on denial. I didn't even admit to myself that I was attracted to Cedric in fourth year, even when it seriously messed me up the summer after I saw him killed. I mean, I was having dreams and nightmares about him dying, and it wasn't just because of the trauma of watching someone die, it was because of who died as well. But I wouldn't admit to myself that any part of my feelings towards him had been sort of romantic in nature."

Harry sighed and leaned back where he sat, getting a bit more comfortable. "The problem I'm having is that I still keep coming up against things that feel incredibly real, and then realizing after the fact that it's one of the other me's memories. It's not mine. That's what most of my thoughts and feelings around you are now. It's like, the way he felt about his Draco was so strong that it's virtually overwritten anything I felt about you before all this. I honestly have trouble imagining hating you at all, but logically, I definitely know that I did. I can remember specific incidences, and almost dredge up some faint recollection of the loathing, but it just… doesn't have the impact that I know it must of before I got all these memories crammed in my head."

"How did our counterparts in this other world become romantically involved in the first place?" Draco asked, getting a bit more comfortable where he sat as well, and turning to better face Harry.

"It was kind of gradual, really. I mean, we were really close since pretty early on in first year. Um… is it going to weird you out if I keep talking about them by saying 'we'? Because I just can't seem to wrap my head around talking about it any other way."

Draco shrugged. "Whatever is fine."

"Right. Well, Lucius had advised you to try and get close to me before even going to Hogwarts, just in case I turned out to be the next big thing, you know?"

Draco snorted and looked skywards. "I remember that. There were a lot of people who believed there was a chance that you'd turn out to be the next Dark Lord, and that's why you had the power to defeat the last one. Of course, it became obvious rather quickly that was not the case."

"Yeah, well, I guess the people in the other world didn't find that conclusion quite as obvious. The second I was sorted into Slytherin everyone was suspicious of me. Even a lot of the Slytherins were cautious around me that first year. They were all sizing me up, you know? But you got close right away, and I was grateful for someone who was so eager to be my friend. I mean, it didn't take me super-long to comprehend the fact that you'd buddied up to me because of what your father had said, but we kind of grew past that pretty quickly. I think even you were surprised by the fact that you came to genuinely like me."

"It is actually kind of weird to hear you talk about me like it was something that I did," Draco admitted and Harry grimaced.

"Yeah… I'm just not sure how else to say it. Sorry."

Draco waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine."

"Anyway, we were practically connected at the hip. You made it your duty to educate me on the wizarding world and bring me up to speed on all of the things I missed out on or didn't understand thanks to growing up with the fucking muggles. I think that by third year I started to understand that I wasn't attracted to girls the way the other guys were, and that realization mostly came from the fact that I was really starting to see you in a new light. It freaked me out at first, because I was convinced that it would totally screw up our relationship dynamic if I developed some stupid crush on my best mate. I tried to ignore it for a long time and focused instead on my private studies with Marvolo.

"Fourth year though, you started flirting with me," Harry continued and cracked a smile, looking off with unfocused eyes as if he were remembering something specific. Then, totally unexpectedly, you asked me to be your date to the Yule Ball. I was utterly stunned. I couldn't believe you'd be willing to make such a public admission — you know, coming right out and just saying 'Yeah, I'm gay. So what? Fuck off.'" Harry chuckled. "I'm sure the only reason Lucius didn't blow a gasket was because the bloke you fancied was me, and the Dark Lord had already sort of claimed me as his protege."

"Merlin, it's insane to even imagine things being so different," Draco marveled. "I… I sort of wish things had gone that way here."

Harry let out a humorless snort. "Me too," he muttered in a quiet bitter tone before heaving a very heavy sigh and pushing the weight away. "But it didn't. I need to figure out how to make the best of what I've got to work with here. Plus… I don't know… there are things about the other me that I'm not totally keen on. It's not like I wish I could wipe away the Gryffindor-me all together and just be the other guy completely. He had some legit personality problems that the Gryffindor-me would have hated. I think my real struggle is going to be finding a middle-ground. Some place where I can be enough of both versions to be happy, but not overly-disgust myself in any area. Like… I'm kind of sure that Gryffindor-me would have gotten pretty pissy at my current attitude towards muggles. But I just can't quite find it in me to… be tolerant, I suppose. I really, really loath them. But I know that part of me is really bothered by that. But I can't make it go away either."

"But don't get me wrong here," Harry pressed on, more confident. "I have no problems with muggleborn. Even the Slytherin-me was just indifferent on the matter. Even Marvolo didn't really care about it — not when he was sane anyway. When he finally cracked, he started believing his own rhetoric and then pursued it in a crazed zeal, but once his mind was back, he said he looked at his own behavior and was horrified by how pointless and counterproductive it was towards his real overarching goals."

"You're saying that the Dark Lord doesn't think that the mudbloods are inferior?!" Draco exclaimed with a disbelieving bark of a laugh.

"I'm saying exactly that — or at least, he didn't used to, and in the other world he didn't anymore. Draco, you might not realize this, but for the first two years he attended Hogwarts, the majority of the school was convinced that he was a mudblood. He was an orphan and had no idea who his parents were. For all he knew, he was a mudblood. It wasn't until he first learned about what a parselmouth was, and what it meant that he was one, that he first started to suspect his ancestry. And even then, he didn't fully disclose that information to the school as a whole. He only told a select group of trusted friends the truth. I mean, for their first few years at Hogwarts, your grandfather used to call him Mudblood every day to his face, just to try and rile him up, and he was hardly the only one."

Draco's eyes widened with comical horror.

"Thinking about it now, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the zeal in his present punishments of you and Lucius isn't at least partially tied back to his shit-relationship with your grandfather, Abraxas."

Draco rolled his eyes and threw his hands up dramatically. "Great. Now I'm suffering for my grandfather's sins as well as my father's."

"In any case, he always told me that as far as he was concerned, magic was might. Magic was superior, and muggle was inferior. Muggleborn may have a crappier pedigree, but they still have magic. If anything, it's a sign that they were chosen to be something better than what they came from. It's an opportunity to make themselves something more, but that also means that if they throw that opportunity away, then Marvolo had utterly no respect for them. The real issue isn't trying to rid ourselves of inferior muggleborn, but to institute a rigid, unyielding wall between the muggles and us. Muggleborn are fine, but they need to be willing to sever ties to their old world if they want to be part of ours. That's the only real way to protect ourselves from them for as long as possible while we build up strength and numbers."

Draco looked at Harry with wide, mildly surprised eyes. "Is this something you're saying that you agree with now?" he asked, sounding honestly curious.

Harry opened his mouth, but it floundered and he paused to frown thoughtfully. "I… Merlin… well, honestly, my first instinct was to just say yes. I… I really sort of do. But there's also an undeniable second instinct that's kind of revolted by the idea and I'm having a hard time figuring out why I should be revolted by it. But I know the old me would be. It's really kind of freaking me out that I can't remember why that would have bothered me before, but also know that it definitely would have…"

"You are really messed up in the head."

Harry snorted. "Really? You think?" Harry asked, sarcastically."

Draco snickered lightly before looking serious again. "I suppose I can imagine the logic in some of what you've said, but I still have trouble imagining the Dark Lord not actually considering muggleborn inferior to us purebloods."

"Ahem. Halfblood — remember?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, fine, fine. But your half pureblood, and with a very good pedigree at that, so you're still close-ish, I guess. I mean, there are some that have multiple generations of breeding with muggleborn, or Merlin-forbid, muggles." Draco made a gagging motion that made Harry roll his eyes, but still grin slightly in amusement at the blond's antics.

"Yeah, well as far as some sense of biological superiority or inferiority, he honestly thought that was mostly rubbish and it was our magical core that really showed how powerful or weak we were, not necessarily our biological genetics. He actually tried to do some research to pin-down exactly what elements played a real role in determining how powerful or weak a witch or wizard would be. Whatever the cause, he was convinced it was only partially determined by blood purity, since he had numerous examples of a pureblood line weakening over generations, but then being suddenly revitalized by the introduction of a fresh bloodline. Specifically, a muggleborn or muggle parent. He's a prime example - the pureblood line he came from had been isolating themselves for generations in an attempt to remain pure, but it had resulted in severely weakened magical cores, and decidely questionable sanity. Then his mum ran off with a muggle, and he's what we got."

Draco's jaw floundered as he gaped at Harry as if his head were on fire. Despite this, he never actually managed to get any words out and remained silently stunned instead.

"Anyway, despite his own personal beliefs on blood purity, he realized that there was such a strong movement in the twenties, thirties and forties around the idea of strengthening the purity of our bloodlines, and also such a strong xenophobic isolationist attitude, that it was the easiest talking point to use to get people riled up and enthusiastic about serving him. It wasn't until after his mind finally cracked in the early 70's that he started to believe his own rhetoric and started honestly making plans towards following through on wiping them out like he'd been promising for years.

"He told me once that, in retrospect, it would have been a huge mistake if he'd succeeded at all, since the truth of the matter is that there's a rather large portion of our population that is either muggleborn, or the first or second generation child of a muggleborn, and that we can't risk decreasing our numbers any further than they already are. The muggles already outnumber us to such a vast degree, that our priority should be to try and unify wizarding kind, not drive a bigger wedge between us, or cut down our numbers."

"Huh… and the Dark Lord seriously said all that?" Draco said, still looking rather incredulous.

"My version of him did. Or - sorry, rather, the Slytherin-me's version of him did," Harry said, correcting himself quickly. "I rather doubt you'd get the Voldemort of this world to admit or openly agree with any of that. Marvolo spoke to me a few times about how weird it was for him to look back on his thought processes from before he healed his soul and his mind, and examine just how irrational, paranoid, and obsessive he was on the strangest of things. I can definitely see that reflected in our world's Voldemort."

"Do you have to say his name?" Draco whined after wincing at Harry's choice of words.

Harry shrugged. "It's easier for me to differentiate them in my head that way. Slytherin-world Dark Lord is Marvolo, or Mars… which was sort of a nickname I used to refer to him when I was worried someone who was familiar with the name Marvolo might overhear. That's easy for me. Gryffindor-me's Dark Lord is Voldemort. Gryffindor-me would never call him the Dark Lord. I definitely remember hating that, and really thinking poorly of people who were too afraid to just use his name."

"Referring to him by his name like that is incredibly disrespectful though," Draco said in a low voice, almost as if even here, in this secret room locked within the school, some part of him was afraid that Dark Lord would jump out from behind some shadow and punish him for his insolence.

"I don't have a lot respect for this Voldemort," Harry said thoughtfully. "My Marvolo managed to realize he was broken and start work on fixing himself, all on his own. Mind you, he had the effects of the Elixir of Life to make his deficiencies blatantly obvious, but still. Our world's Dark Lord was still perfectly capable of having realized he was broken, but he didn't. So now I've got to see if I can try and force the issue. But I know doing that will only make him more paranoid and skeptical. Especially coming from me. And of course, this is all assuming I can even find a way to fix him at all. It might not even be possible. I have no idea what I'm going to do if that's the case."

Draco hummed in understanding and gave a small acknowledging nod of his head. "Not sure what I'll do either," he said with a sigh.

Harry huffed out a breath and seemed to refocus himself. He still had his clock face pendant necklace in his hand so he took that moment to slip it over his head and stuff it beneath his shirt. "Well, I came here saying I'd just drop in, deliver the pendant, and head out again right away, and yet here I am going on and on… I really do need to head back. It'll only get harder to come up with believable excuses the more I do this."

Draco nodded his head and took the moment to slip his necklace over his head as well.

"Whenever you find a bit of time to come in here and work on this thing, and feel like you wouldn't mind some company, just put it on the back of the pendant and if I can manage to come too, I'll drop by," Harry added as he stood up and slung his rucksack over his shoulder.

Distracted goodbyes were given as Draco turned back to refocus on his work and Harry left the Room of Requirement and returned to Gryffindor Tower.

— —