Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies

So I don't know what's real and what's not

Always confusing the thoughts in my head

So I can't trust myself anymore

I'm going under

Drowning in you

I'm falling forever

I've got to break through

-Evanescence

By the time the two boys reached downtown London, it was almost half past eight. The night was heavy with heat, and thick layers of fog had already settled on the ground ready to haunt the cobbled streets. But Harry was thankful for the lateness of day, because at least it meant that he and Draco could slip through the dark streets unnoticed. There wasn't anyone around to bother them now—to throw accusations and hurtle words of anger and distrust.

"This way," Draco whispered from ahead, and Harry turned to follow him down a narrow, shaded alleyway. Harry had never been to the London Wizarding Library, but he had heard one too many of Hermione's endless rants about it. Apparently it had one of the largest collections in the entire wizarding world, and was said to have books dating back before the Dark Ages. Draco had said that if there was a reversal spell to Harry's curse, it would be found in that library. Harry just hoped he was right.

As they traveled through the alley, Harry couldn't help but notice that the buildings seemed to be closing in on them the further they went in. "Malfoy," he hissed once he could no longer walk with his shoulders square, "are you sure you know where the hell you're going?"

"Of course I know where I'm going, Potter," Draco huffed. "Granger isn't the only person in England who enjoys a good book you know."

"I'm pretty sure she enjoys some bad ones as well."

Draco mumbled something under his breath that sounded distinctly like "smartass", but otherwise decided to ignore Harry's comment.

Harry smiled to himself. It was nice to be out; to feel fresh air against his face and stretch out his limbs. And it was nice to be out with Draco with no one else around and his nerves not wired by coffee. Harry only wished it could be as simple as that. He wished that today could just be another Saturday, and that this curse wasn't hanging over them like a chandelier waiting to fall. But the truth of the matter was, there was no escaping what had happened last week at Malfoy Manor. Something fundamental seemed to have changed between them. Harry saw how differently Draco looked at him now—how confused and conflicted he seemed.

Harry was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice when Draco came to a sudden halt. With a muffled thump, Harry walked straight into him.

"Potter!" Draco abashed.

Harry blushed. The contact had been brief, but it had been enough to bring his blood to a soft boil. Harry mumbled indistinct apologies and stepped back, feeling as if the heat of the night was pressing in on him.

Draco, however, was much more concerned with the brick wall than he was with Harry's sudden change in temperature. Harry forced his eyes away from Draco to co-examine the wall. The building loomed up endlessly, its dark brick disappearing into the low haze of the night sky. It looked like a normal wall—maybe a little bit run down—but normal all the less.

Harry blinked, and then squinted. He could've sworn the bricks had just moved. But they sat still as rock; long and vertical. Strange…they had been horizontal just a moment ago, hadn't they? What kind of building had vertical bricks? And they looked thinner now too. Something was definitely happening. "Hey, Malfoy, the bricks—"

"Shush! I'm trying to remember something. It's been a little while since I've been here." Draco ran his hand along the bricks, reminding Harry very much of the way Hagrid had dragged his disguised wand across the back wall of The Leaky Cauldron. A smile pulled at the corners of the Slytherin's mouth, and with a sound like grinding stone, Draco pulled one of the bricks from the wall. Harry gaped.

The brick was narrow in width, but fairly sized in length and height. It reminded Harry of—well—the size of a textbook.

Draco held it in the crook of one arm, and pulled out his wand with his free hand. "The first step towards knowledge," he placed the tip of his wand to the brick, "is to know that we are ignorant."

The brick Draco held in his hands disappeared with a sounding pop, and everything fell into a sudden deathly quiet. Then, like the rising roar of the ocean, the world around them began to shift, and with a sudden gust of wind, the alleyway wall caved in upon them. Darkness washed over the sky as they were hurtled forward, and Harry had to widen his stance to keep himself from being knocked backward as the wall enveloped them. His steadily rising instinct to grab a hold of Draco was only broken by a strange voice.

"Section please," an automated female voice chimed above the roaring wind.

"Love and or lust spells." Draco pronounced with effective preciseness, and Harry held his breath in embarrassment.

"Restricted. Membership authorization and age required."

"Draco Malfoy. Age: eighteen."

There was a calculating pause. "Access granted. Enjoy your stay. The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant."

The wind stilled, and slowly but surely, the world around them brightened. Candles ignited and rose from the floor, and Harry couldn't help but gasp at the sight they illuminated. They were in the largest room he had ever seen…or at least, he thought it was a room. They stood in the center of a marble tiled hallway, so long that the end vanished into darkness before a wall could be seen. Shelves as tall as buildings lined the hall, every inch stuffed to the brim with books. Thin ladders leaned, propped up against the wooden shelves; their bottoms hovering just above the ground, and their tops reaching endlessly towards the domed ceiling. The candlelight dusted the warm wood with gold, and made the dark tile glow like fire itself. A few tables were littered haphazardly through the hall, lined with old, tattered chairs.

"Shut your mouth, Potter," Draco said in his usual drawling tone. "You're gawking."

A table and two chairs silently appeared, accompanied with a trolley, on which sat a roll of parchment and a vivaciously large peacock quill.

"Search!" Draco snapped his fingers, and the quill and parchment immediately sprang to life, zipping over to hover expectantly in front of their caller. "Bring us what you can on reversal spells, and information on how a love spell can be cast." The quill scribbled some indistinguishable writing onto the parchment, "Oh! And bring me one lower level first aid book from the Medical section. Begin search." With a final flourishing scratch the quill and parchment flew back to the trolley, which skated off and disappeared into one of the innumerable rows of books. Harry merely stared after it, awestruck.

Sighing heavily, Draco walked over and plopped down into one of the poorly cushioned chairs. "Potter," he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, "will you stop acting like a damn muggle? You're embarrassing me."

"In front of who?"

Draco lower lip jutted out in a coquettish pout. "The books."

"I didn't know the books cared," Harry said, gazing at the nearest shelf with a bubbling suspicion.

"Some books care."

Harry pulled his attention away and shrugged. He couldn't help but notice how tired Draco sounded. He joined the other boy, sitting in the only other chair, which was coincidentally positioned next to Draco instead of across the table. "You know," Harry said softly, watching the steady rise and fall of Draco's chest, "you didn't have to come here. You don't have to do this for me. I mean—you can go home if you'd like."

Draco's eyes blinked open, and he raised his head with a smirk. "Of course I have to, Potter. You wouldn't even know how to find this place if it weren't for me. Someone's got to help you fix this, because Merlin knows you're helpless on your own. And besides that," Draco leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. "I don't much feel like being home at the moment."

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Your father?"

Draco looked away. "I just don't feel like it."

"You know," Harry said, "you're going to have to talk about it eventually. Maybe not to me…but to someone."

Draco lifted his hand and studied his nails. "Am I?"

"You can't keep protecting him."

"Trust me," Draco's face darkened, "my father needs all the protection he can get. He's not crazy, he's just—" The sound of whirring wheels and flapping pages interrupted him.

The two boys gazed down the hall to see the trolley racing towards them, a mountain of books piled impossibly on its top. The cart came to a screeching halt at the side of the table and was still. Draco made a noise that indicated his dread as he gazed up at the intimidating stack of books and paper.

Harry found himself grimacing as well. "That looks like a lot of reading."

"I don't think that just looks like a lot of reading, Potter." Draco sighed. "I think that is a lot of reading." With an authoritative snap of his fingers that Harry could never even dream to imitate, the books all gave a slight jump of attention. "Summon: Medical category." A thin, blue bound book abruptly jumped from the pile and laid itself down in front of Draco.

"This is a really helpful library," Harry observed.

"Indeed it is." Draco replied, flipping absently through the book. "I really can't believe you've never been here before, especially with Granger as a friend."

"Yeah. She dragged Ron here a couple times over holidays and tried to drag me along as well, but I always managed to get out of it."

"You don't like to read?"

Harry inclined his head thoughtfully. "Not really. I'd rather spend my time doing other things, like Quidditch, or dueling, or watching paint dry. Textbooks are particularly dreadful."

"Potter," Draco paused to look at him, "you're an absolute heathen, do you know that?"

"I am not!"

"Are too." Draco gave a coy smile before returning to his book. "And if the first step towards knowledge is to know that you are ignorant, I would say that you're taking a step backwards, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not ignorant," Harry returned.

"Make that, a giant leap backwards."

"I'm not!"

"And thus you prove my point."

"Malfoy, if I could use my wand, I swear I would hex your snotty arrogant arse with—"

"Ah hah!" Draco exclaimed, pointing excitedly at his book.

Harry curled his lip irately and tried to peer over at the book, but the other boy had already his wand pulled and had the book propped up securely out of Harry's line of sight. "What? What did you find?"

With a flourish and a string of Latin rooted words, with which Harry was quite unfamiliar, Harry watched the tip of Draco's wand light into a brilliant blue. Draco placed the tip to his eye, and Harry saw the dark bruising slowly recede and smooth into fair, alabaster skin. Draco then proceeded to do this for several other parts of his body, each time letting out a sigh as if he were expelling the pain through his breath.

"Much better." Draco whispered. The blue light vanished and Draco turned to Harry with a sunlit smile. "How about it? Am I beautiful again?"

Harry swallowed the hard lump in his throat, and felt electricity skitter beneath his skin. The soft light cast hard shadows across Draco's face, rendering the sharpness of his features all the more pronounced, and making him look as he were a figure from one of the great artists' masterpieces brought to life. Beauty wasn't the word—the word 'beauty' did no justice to the way his cheeks burned a dusted red in the candlelight, or the way his eyes sparked lightning in a grey storm, or the way his lips looked as soft and supple as rose petals. "You're fine." was all Harry could come up with…it was all he could make himself say.

"Fine?" Draco's lips twitched downward. "That's it?"

Harry nodded, not daring to speak. His temples were already pounding as it was.

"You're sitting there under the influence of a love—or at least a lust—spell, and all you can say is 'you're fine'?" Draco made a pouting look of disappointment. "I was expecting sonnets! Lavish recitations of the vast and endless depths of my handsomeness!"

"Er," Harry frowned and shifted uncomfortably in his chair, "well—I mean of course you're…especially in this light…"

"I weep for the fate of your future wife, Potter," Draco stated matter-of-factly.

"What? Why?"

"You can't even get a half-assed compliment out of your mouth without tripping over it." Draco closed his book, and turned to place it back on the trolley. "And girls need that sort of thing—they need you to lie to them about how beautiful they are." With another snap the books gave a sudden start. "Categorize. Stacks. Love versus Lust. Reversal verses Casting." The books began to file off the trolley and stack themselves in an orderly manner on the table.

"Why would it have to be a lie?" Harry asked softly.

"Because no one can be beautiful all the time. Sooner or later you're going to have to lie about it."

Harry frowned, an uncomfortable feeling twisting in his stomach. "Some people can be beautiful all the time. You know…when people fall in love, I'm sure that—"

Draco gave a short burst of laughter. "What a dream you live in. Though I can't say that I'm surprised you've allowed yourself to become tainted by fairy tales." Draco reached forward, grabbing a rather hefty looking book from the nearest pile. "We say that love is blind, but it isn't really. Seventy percent of human sensory is processed by sight, which is why we are so completely enraptured by people and things that are naturally beautiful. People get married when they're young, because young people are more attractive. But beauty fades in time, and some people can trick themselves into thinking they don't care…but they do. Nothing is ever the same, once the beauty of it all is gone."

Harry's body tensed as a wave of unexplainable distress washed over him. He felt suddenly cold. "So…what are you trying to say? That you don't believe in monogamy?"

"More than that: I don't believe in love." Draco wasn't looking at Harry, but Harry could see a vein pulsing in his throat. He was completely engrossed in his book, scanning and flipping through pages with speed to rival Hermione. "I believe in sex. And I believe some people get confused about sex, and feel that they only need to share it with one person. But all that happens in the end is that they are stuck with that person for the rest of their lives and have to deal with that person's crap on top of their own. Before long they start to resent each other for it—they begin to argue, and then those arguments turn into fights, and soon that's all they do until they reach the point where they absolutely hate each other. I've seen it happen more times than I can count." Draco released a deep breath and turned a page. "Love ruins good relationships."

"Not always," Harry stated, a soft sadness in his voice.

Draco shrugged. "Maybe."

"So you're never going to get married then?"

"No, I am. I have to produce a legitimate heir after all. But I don't have any expectations that she stay loyal to me, just as she shouldn't for me. Daphne's younger sister Astoria and I—" Draco's eyes flickered up to Harry and were halfway back down to his book before he did a double-take. "Potter, what's wrong?"

"What?" Harry was hardly aware that his brow was creased.

"You look upset. Are you feeling alright? Am I hurting you again? If you want I can keep my arm here and—"

"It's just sad."

Draco blinked. "What is?"

Harry looked away, his eyes tracing the swirling groves on the table. "That you don't believe in love."

Draco was lost in a moment of befuddled silence. After a deep breath he asked, "I—well what does it matter whether I believe in it or not?"

"I don't know, it just…it just sounds so lonely."

"Potter," Draco scoffed, "I'm a Slytherin, and to be a Slytherin is to be alone. But being alone doesn't mean I need to be lonely. I think you're underestimating my ability to carry on a stimulating conversation with myself." With a smirk, Draco tried to laugh, but it was a halfhearted attempt. He leaned forward against the table, putting himself within the border of Harry's vision. "Look, Potter, I think it's just been a long day for you, and being a Gryffindor you're naturally over-sensitive anyway. Let's just read and try to figure this curse out okay?"

Harry grabbed a book from the top of the nearest stack, and flipped it open in silent agreement.

He didn't see Draco's expression before he returned to his reading, but he didn't really want to see it. Not when all he could think about was how that morning that he and Draco had shared really had meant nothing. For some reason, the thought made Harry's chest feel hollow.

"Potter?"

"Hm?" Harry didn't look up.

"You do realize you're reading the publication page right?"

"Oh." Harry's shoulders sank sheepishly, and he turned the feather thin pages to the first page of text. Love Potion #9 and You was the first chapter title. Harry's lip curled as he turned to Draco. "This is weird."

Draco's attention was already set back on his book. Even in this short period of time, Harry could tell that Draco had been an avid studier at school. "Yeah, a bit. But would you rather not do it?"

"No."

"Well then, don't complain. I was thinking we should come here every day actually."

"Every day? Even Saturday?"

"Yes."

"And Sunday?"

"By every day, I actually just meant all the days that end in 'y'."

"But what about—"

"Look, Potter," Draco gave him an annoyed sidelong glare, "you said you wanted this fixed, and you didn't want to hear my idea about the Elder Wand, so this is how it has to be. What if you start getting worse?"

Harry hadn't thought of that. And now that it had been said, he found himself wishing Draco hadn't thought of it either. If being near Draco was going to get harder than it already was…if being away from him was going to get harder—Harry bit at his lip. "Fine," he said. "We'll come every day."

"Good."

"But for how long?"

Draco sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. "Potter…"

"Well I'm just asking, because—er—when do you think you're going to head home tonight?

Draco stared at him for a long moment, his grey eyes sharp and unmoving. "I wasn't," he replied, his mouth twisting. "I was going to head over to Pansy's house. Or Terry Boot's. I haven't decided which sexually repressed fiend I'd rather fend off yet."

"Doyouwanttomaybestayatmyplace?" The words came out jumbled and bunched too tightly together.

"Come again?"

Harry looked down, wringing his hands in his lap. "Well since you don't seem to want to go home, I was thinking that—um, well—I was thinking that you could stay with me."

Draco went stiff next to him, but Harry pointedly avoided his gaze. Draco's tone was cautious, "I don't think that would be wise."

Harry's head turned. "Why not?"

There was a deafening pause. "You know why not."

"I can control it I promise—I just…" Harry licked his dry lips. "Whatever pain I feel when I'm with you is even worse when you're gone."

"Worse?" Grey eyes narrowed. "How so?"

Harry's hands were clutched together so tightly his knuckles had gone white. "I feel…sick. My head hurts constantly, and my chest feels so heavy that I can barely breathe. I just sit there in my room and time never seems to pass, and there's som—"

"Alright I get it." Draco shifted in his chair, turning another page. "I don't need an essay about it."

A thin silence held the air between them.

"Do you have a bed that Weasley hasn't slept in?"

Harry looked at him, his heart flying. "I—yes."

"Or Granger for that matter. Or Professor Lupin. Actually, I don't want a bed that any Gryffindors have slept in."

"So you'll stay?"

Another pause ensued; moments falling between the two boys who could do nothing but stare at the other. "I'll stay," Draco finally said, and with a certain air of comfortableness, turned back to his book.

After the initial shock, Harry finally felt the smallest of smiles pull at the corners of his mouth. He didn't say anything more to Draco after that, but he didn't really need to. The two boys just sat and read, enjoying the silent presence of the company they shared. And perhaps, when neither boy was paying particular attention, Harry's arm would brush against Draco's. Never the other way around, but it was enough for Harry. It was enough for him to know that Draco didn't pull away.