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PseudonymousEntity

Friend or Foe

"Your worst Enemy could be your best Friend, and your best Friend could be your worst Enemy." -Marley

Summary: Draco being bullied by his father really pisses Harry off. Goblet of Fire.

Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy.

Warnings: Suggestions?

AN: Comments, Thoughts, Questions, Theories and Limericks are always welcomed, in whatever order of importance you choose to give.

ANx2: Update FOF! Plz update FOF! Do it now! Goodness Gracious lads. Here you go then.

Ever Yours, Pseu

"We're nothing like you and you can't see who we are, who we are

We're nothing like you and all the rest, we're nothing you and you don't get who we are, who we are

In a land of hate and horror we set an exclamation mark

So hail your kings and hail your queens, we're different, we're the children of the dark

What goes around, comes around, you better watch out..."

-Children of the Dark

CH.5

Brush and thorns scratching at his arms Harry stumbled after Draco in the dark.

The blonde's grip was on his wrist like a vice. He seemed to know where he was going which was lucky for them both as Harry couldn't see worth crap and the mob of magicals around them screaming and yelling was incredibly disorienting. The urge to climb a tree just to put some distance between it and himself was real.

One moment Viktor is laughing at him while Draco plays pureblood dress up with him. The next Lord Malfoy is dragging him to a corner of the room to tell him some of the 'old crowd' has lost their minds and not to let Draco out of his sight, pressing a portkey into his hands to use 'when the time was right'. Harry found himself wishing he hadn't faked purebloodisms earlier because he didn't have a clue when the right time could possibly be.

"Dray we need to go-"

"Not yet Harry." The screams reached them not long after. Viktor left to find his own family promising to send an owl the next day to assure them of his safety. Then he was gone in the crowd of people. And there were so many people, pushing and squeezing and shouting on all sides. Harry had never had that amount of physical contact before in his life and the amount he had had was usually negative when paired with loud noises.

It all pressed in on him. It was nothing like the noise heading up to the top seats for the match. This was a cacophony of fear and anger and confusion. Pushing in at him, merging together into a mass of sound without distinction. People. So many people. Harry jostled about in the madness, those around them paying no mind to anything but their own emotions, their own survival. He was amongst so many people and still so invisible, and no one even looked at him. So many of them. He wanted to yell at them to give him some space. To stop touching him. To quiet down so he could hear his own thought but the words stuck in his throat and he was frozen in the fearful mob.

And then he was grounded. Someone had him, turning him, speaking to him. Harry couldn't respond just then. He wanted tot ell them he needed to leave. Something though, in his face, must have shown his inner freak out because Draco -it was Draco- took charge of the situation, securing a hold on Harry's wrist and pulling him through and around the crowd surprisingly well. Harry wasn't sure what they were doing or where they were going. The haziness about his mind slow to fade and never quite all the way gone. Draco stopped at tent after tent, running in to say something he needed a pureblood translation dictionary to understand after he'd translated it from freaking Latin.

Who spoke Latin? Who?!

Draco said it clearly and quickly, waiting long enough to see it registered with whomever he was speaking to -right now two witches their age he vaguely recognized from school- handing them some sort of stone from his pocket and then he was turning on his heel dragging Harry back out with him. He assumed he was warning them to leave because the one time he glanced back he saw the group disappearing soon afterward. Emergency portkeys? After the fifth tent, Harry realized they were moving so easily because the crowd was moving out of Draco's way. Scattering almost. Rearing back as far from him as they could. The Hell?

Harry wasn't given time to make sense of it. A group of people in front of them broke out into a fight. One of them, a wizard with a gray coat, turned and spotted them. No, spotted Draco. The blonde darted into the forest along the edge of the campground. Everyone else was headed there now anyway.

It wasn't quieter here. You would have thought it would be. The flashing darkness made it all even worse. You didn't know who was yelling or how close they were. You didn't know where you were or who was around you. Darkness waved in and around the trees casting shadows over nearly every surface with flashes of light from wands and spellwork and a pale light from the moon when you happened across a clearing.

He could smell something burning.

"Breathe Potter." Draco murmured, squeezing his wrist.

They took refuge tucked in the space between closely growing trees. Bathed in shadow they watched the madness around them. For all he seemed to know what he was doing it didn't escape Harry that Draco had yet to release his wrist, nor the stiffness of his posture. Draco was just as unnerved and frightened as Harry was. Maybe more so.

"Filth!"

With good reason, Harry decided.

He knew now who they were rescuing. He understood why they were hiding. With the world going mad around them, from their hiding place, Harry had a front row seat to prejudices he wasn't aware of before that night. Or maybe he'd chosen to ignore them. Because anyone who was dark or thought to be or rumoured to be to have been involved in the war or anything remotely suspicious. They were blamed. They were attacked. Harry felt his mouth fall open at some point.

Wizards shouting that this or that person had been a death eater or their father was or that they knew they'd seen them in a suspicious shop in the alleys. That was what Lord Malfoy meant by the old crowd. His old crowd. Death Eaters had done something and now everyone was losing their minds in their fear. People were cursing first and asking questions later. He glanced left to see Draco's face, gray and smooth. Too smooth. He knew, if he wanted to, if he was that sort of person, he could step out and reveal them and Draco would be dragged off into the madness. Fourteen or not. He even considered it for a moment. Draco had been horrible to him. He didn't owe him anything, the past few hours of a ceasefire or not. He was the boy who lived. Lord Malfoy had admitted to being a death eater, to returning to his master's service when required in the future. He knew Lucius intended for Draco to join their ranks. Why not say something? Why not stop them before they reached that point?

Harry turned his wrist and grasped Draco's with his fingers, squeezing tightly. Harry wasn't that sort of person.

And neither was Draco. Rather than get himself to safety -which frankly is exactly what Harry had expected- he'd chosen to run through the crowd helping the children of other dark families. They'd seen him, the crowd. That was why everyone moved they'd been frightened of him. If the wrong people had seen them Draco would have gotten hurt. He imagined Lucius would be furious if he found out about it. He paused, then groaned. Merlin, he was gonna get hexed again. Wasn't he supposed to be playing bodyguard to the littler Malfoy? And honestly, when had he signed up for that anyway? Purebloods were psycho. His thoughts disrupted when Draco left their hiding place to lean against one of the trees where he could be plainly seen, folding his arms across his chest. Harry, still attached to the blonde, was dragged out as well.

"You better get the mudblood out of here." He drawled. Harry turned to see over his shoulder who Draco was talking to and froze.

There stood Ron and Hermione.

"Don't call her that." Ron snapped, ears tinting the telltale red warning of impending doom. "And you would know wouldn't you? Your daddy out there with his old friends?"

The blonde beside him clenched his fists.

Harry knew because his wrist unluckily happened to be in the grip of one. "If he were I certainly wouldn't tell you."

Behind them Hermione's eyebrow went up, brown eyes flashing between Harry and Draco's mutually held captive wrists. You knew you were going partially insane when you hoped your best female friend would come to the conclusion you were having some sort of torrid liaison with someone you disliked rather than come to the right conclusion that the two of you were frightened in the dark and holding on to one another out of the fear of being separated. Yeah, Harry thought he'd rather die than have anyone know that.

"Yes, yes well done. That's your good deed for the day." Harry interrupted before Ron could get started and mentally crossing his fingers it would distract Hermione. And Merlin were they really arguing right now? "Ron get Hermione out of here. Find the twins. I'll see you tomorrow." Harry turned back to Draco intent on chewing him out when he was whirled around by Ron.

"You're staying with Malfoy?" The redhead demanded.

Several heads turned at that. Draco looked like he wanted to curse. Harry did curse. "Are you out of your bloody mind?" Harry pulled away from Ron and shoved Draco unceremoniously back into the space between trees. "I'll see you tomorrow. Go."

With Hermione pulling on him to leave as well Ron finally relented. Harry stood where he was for a little while after they'd gone. The wizards who had turned seemed to have lost interest. He reckoned when they didn't catch sight of the signature blonde hair they decided it was a false alarm. He swallowed, heaving a heavy sigh. Ron was gonna make the rest of the summer at the Weasleys Hell he could already tell. He'd be sulking and angry with him for days at this rate.

Malfoys were a really lot of trouble.

Time passed. Harry and Draco hid in their spot until it grew quiet. Just as they were stumbling out of their hiding place green light flashed in the sky and the forest erupted in screams once more. An odd skull-like picture formed just above them in the air.

"What's that?"

Draco opened his mouth, paused, then closed it. "Nothing good."

Both of them turned at the sound of laughter. A wizard with hair somewhere between brown and blonde, and a wide smile full of teeth stood there, staring up at the sky. Without thinking, Harry positioned himself in front of Draco. It was sort of automatic at this point. A snort alerted him Draco had noticed.

"I'm a bit more useful for dealing with dark wizards don't you think?" Draco asked.

The unknown wizard's gaze snapped to them at the sound of Draco's voice. Harry shot the blonde a glare over his shoulder. "Where have your Slytherin survival instincts gone and how can I get them back? Honestly."

More laughter. Harry glanced forward. The wizard was a bit closer to them now, honey coloured eyes looking between them. Amused. "You know you sort of," he started with a soft, rough voice, "remind me of-"

Flash of red. The wizard went down. Footsteps. Someone running that way. Harry and Draco scrambled backward into their hiding place, pushing themselves as far in as they could get. Harry tried to peer around a tree to see what was happening. Draco smacked the back of his head, muttering under his breath about Gryffindors. Without a by-your-leave, the blonde yanked Harry's glasses from his face.

"What are-"

Draco put his other hand over his mouth. He leaned close to whisper, "I'm using your glasses so I can see in the reflection without getting caught." It was kind of amazing he managed to say that clearly while hardly moving his lips. Where was that dedication to remaining incognito about five minutes ago? Slytherins. Merlin save him from Slytherins.

Blind and unable to talk Harry huffed and leant back against the trees.

The unknown attacker of the fallen wizard whispered a spell Harry hadn't heard. Draco had. The blonde's entire body went still as stone. Both of the strange wizards went quiet. Had they gone?

Eventually, Draco pulled the glasses back in toward them, placing them back on Harry's face. Not a moment later and more flashes of red light lit up their part of the wood. Wizards he recognized as aurors ran by. Well shit. Harry pushed Draco back enough he could pull out the chain Lord Malfoy had given him, because as far as Harry was concerned the time was definitely right -and why the hell hadn't he remembered he had this half an hour ago?- because the last place Draco needed to be found was wherever the aurors were. He held one end out to Draco.

The moment they were both touching it he felt the now familiar tugging feeling at his center and the world spun around them only to come to a sudden stop. They fell in an ungainly pile and smacked against a hard marble floor. "Ow."

"Father is going to kill me." Draco moaned somewhere by Harry's left elbow.

"Don't worry," Said Harry, struggling to get untangled. "He'll probably kill me first."

Pseudonymous Entity

2017

"No, no one run, he's got a gun, they're shooting kids, they're having fun. Their product placed with a double face, they've changed the way we've played the game...are we destined for destruction or for reconciliation?"

- Watch Me Burn

Notes:

Comments, Questions, Theories, Suggestions, Guesses and Limericks always welcomed.

AN:

Draco's secret code: "Silvae amabiles et profundas tenebras eum." It comes from this part of a rather famous poem I encourage you to look up.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

It's a code warning them it isn't safe for those who are 'dark' to be in the light, or to be seen, and it tells them not to worry about their friends because Draco 'I have promises to keep' is getting them to safety as well, if he can, before he leaves.

-Pseu