If they hurt you / They hurt me too / So we'll rise up / won't stop / And it's all about / All about

All About Us

Harry slowly opened his eyes. He stretched his arms out and arched his back, trying to shake away the sleepiness. He realized how painless his movements were. He didn't remember much, but he was certain that the last thing he did was fall from his broom to the earth and landed hard. It was an impossible thought that he hadn't broken anything. He sat up in the bed and rubbed his eyes open. He was not in the infirmary anymore.

His eyes zoomed across the room. It was incredibly well decorated. The wooden furniture: the bedstead, nightstand, dresser and bureau were all carved in mahogany with silver fixtures. The walls were green and a painting of a grand scene of war amongst wizards adorned the wall over the bed. He got off the bed and his feet landed onto a plush, grey carpeting. As if guided by outside forces he found himself assuring the bed was neat and made before moving to the bureau, which he opened to reveal a myriad of dress robes. He undressed himself of his sleeping garments and put one of the robes on. A popping noise sounded at Harry's side and there stood Dobby, holding a tray with breakfast on it.

"Young master, why are you up so early? Did Dobby not bring breakfast on time? " Dobby set the tray down and banged his head against the wall. "Stupid, Dobby. Stupid." Harry took the breakfast, he tried to speak to Dobby, but nothing came out.

"Go, you wretch." A voice spoke into his ear. Dobby vigorously nodded his head and with a pop he was gone. Harry ate the meal, it looked delicious, eggs and bacon and a glass of orange juice, but he couldn't taste it, and he didn't understand why. When it was gone, he moved the tray off his lap and walked toward the bathroom. In the hallway, there were paintings of wizards and witches from years come and gone lining the walls. They talked amongst themselves, ignoring Harry for the most part. Some acknowledged him with nods.

At the end of the hallway, there was a staircase and a door, which he opened and entered into the bathroom. Harry walked to the toilet and relieved himself. He felt like something was wrong, he was on auto-pilot to such an extent that he didn't feel like he was doing anything for himself, as if he was being controlled by someone else. He walked over to the sink, and looked into the porcelain basin. He turned it on hot, the steam rose. Harry put his hands into the water and he wanted to scream in pain, but nothing came out. He continued to calmly wash his hands as if his hands couldn't feel how scalding the water was. He turned the knob to turn the faucet off and took a towel to dry his hands off. He patted the now damp towel on his face and looked into the mirror.

Harry recoiled at the face in the mirror that was not his. Pale skin and light pink lips. Grey eyes and a thin, slightly upturned nose. Blond hair uncharacteristically tousled. Harry was looking in the mirror, but he only saw Draco Malfoy's face. He wanted to touch his face, but he had no control over his body. Draco's hands opened a drawer holding and withdrew a vial of cream and a jar of pomade. Harry mentally rolled his eyes as he watched Draco's beauty regimen. He started with the pomade, opening the jar and took a glob from the jar and rubbed it between his palms. He ran the product through his hair and it became his signature slicked back.

Next was the vial of cream, which Harry had just assumed was a face wash, but he soon learned he was mistaken. Draco opened his robe and Harry looked on in awe. Draco's chest and abdomen were covered in a large number of long cuts, each covered in a sickly green pus. Harry's looked in the mirror at Draco's face, and the look on his face stunned Harry, as it was without emotion. Draco opened the vial and emptied the entire contents into his palm. He rubbed his hands again and started coating his body with the cream. For a moment, Draco winced, but he was accustomed to the feeling. Harry, however, was not. His mind went wild as the feeling of pain surging through Draco's body became so real for him. If he could, he'd have thrown up, but without a corporeal form, he was forced to just relish in the pain he was experiencing. After the cream was applied, the wounds cleared of the pus and closed, leaving thin scars, only noticeable to those who knew they were there, all across his body.

Draco replaced his robe and washed his hand of the greasiness, again with nearly boiling water, and dried his hands. He left the bathroom and headed downstairs. A familiar pop sounded from behind as Draco descended the stairs. "Young master." Dobby said. "Your father is in his study. He waits." Another pop alerted Dobby's departure. Harry could hear the faintest sigh, as Draco led them into his father's study. Harry heard him inquire about his request for his presence.

Lucius looked up. He had been poring over some dark leather books and writing on parchment in red ink, which Harry assumed must have been somebody or something's blood. "Son, I have told you time and time again, you are not to address your elders unless they have addressed you." Draco hung his head, and Harry could feel Draco's tears pushing against his eyes, but Draco held them back. He opened his robe and exposed his chest. "No, son. Not for this." Draco began to replace his robe, but was stopped by his father. "I feel that you don't care about the cause. I didn't raise my son to be soft, but you seem to be impossible to harden." Draco wanted to protest, but knew better than to interrupt. "I know your thoughts, Draco. You can't hide them from me, even at school this last year, you couldn't hide your thoughts from me. You've had some disturbing thoughts, son." Harry could feel the lump in Draco's throat and his heartbeat race. Even the sweat on his palms, Harry was aware of everything that Draco was feeling to a magnified degree. "Tell me, Draco, what is your relationship with the scar bearer?" Lucius stared intently into Draco's eyes, to ensure that his son would not lie.

Harry was confused that Lucius Malfoy did not say his name. "He is my enemy, sir. He hates me." Harry was even more confused by the tidal wave of disappointment that came crashing into him.

Lucius' eyes squinted into Draco's, a mesmerizing stare, which gave Harry a sickly feeling. "Why do you want him to like you?" His eyes were penetrating, and Harry was struck dumb by the question.

"He's powerful, father. He's young and he's a bit slow, but he stopped Him. He must have strength, and I don't want to be enemies to strength." Draco fidgeted with his robes. "I'm drawn to him. Maybe he could be someone to me." Harry couldn't believe his ears. Why would Draco Malfoy constantly treat him like shit if he wanted to be his friend?

"You insolent little cretin." Lucius rose and struck Draco in the mouth. Harry felt Draco's blood in his mouth, or his own blood, he really was confused by the whole situation of this memory. "You want to betray your father, your blood, and our Dark Lord, for 'feelings'" A condescending emphasis was placed on the last word. "I did not raise my son to be a fairy. You are to be strong. You will make me proud, but not until I get rid of your so called feelings." Lucius called for his wand, which was on the desk, and placed the tip against Draco's chest. "This summer is not going to be easy for you, son. I'm going to have to work you like the mongrel you're becoming until your delusions of friendship with that boy are gone. You will be made to see that he is weak, whereas the Dark Lord is strong, and when he rises again, he will destroy all who have ever stood in his way." Lucius' scowl grew darker and both Harry and Draco sensed nothing but malevolent rage brewing underneath the facade. "Do you wish to be in the Dark Lord's way when he is resurrected, or will you cast aside these broken ideas that the scar bearer has any power?"

"I will relinquish my feelings for him, and renounce the idea of a friendship we could have had." Draco said solemnly, holding back strongly the tears welling in his eyes. A single drop fell. "I only want you to be proud of me." Lucius did not react well to Draco's emotional display, however minute. With an arching backswing, Lucius backhanded Draco upside the head, sending him to the ground. Draco caught himself on now bruised wrists and he sniveled in pain, expelling the tears that he had dammed. "Please." Was all Draco could muster when Lucius picked him up by his collar and pulled him upward.

"You want to make me proud?" Lucius tore Draco's robe open and laid the tip of his wand onto Draco's chest, just below his left collarbone. "Then your training will begin today." He pressed the wand into Draco until it had penetrated his skin, spoke vremyarana and slowly removed the wand. As it exited the wound a thick green pus followed and began to exude from the place the wand had cursed him.

This pain, a cutting fire in his chest, was of an intensity Harry had never felt before, or at least of pain he could remember. Draco, having been exposed to this curse multiple times, was in pain, but not to the severity Harry had felt. Draco wiped away the pus with a cringe and wiped it on his robe. He used his robe to apply pressure to his wound, to dull the pain to some extent. He exhaled and wiped his brow. "Thank you, father. What is the next step in my training?" Draco held himself erect, waiting for whatever would happen next.

"You forget too quickly why I must punish you in this way. Every day you slather on the elixir to seal your wounds, but do you ever contemplate why you had to be given them?" Draco hung his head and shook a no. "No, you wouldn't have thought to do that." Lucius paced the room for a bit. "I do this, not only to punish you, which in the grand scheme of things is very little of what each scar represents, but to teach you. Each wound is a lesson that you must learn. One of the most important parts of learning is to study. If you don't study what you've learned you're doomed to forget it, but never you mind, because I'm going to give you a refresher course." Lucius raised his arm and drew a circle in the air and said Otkrana. A blue mist in the form of a circle appeared and passed over Draco, in an instant, all the wounds he had closed that morning opened, expelling the viscous, green fluid and each seared in blinding pain. Draco fell to his knees, his skin drenched in sweat and he started convulsing violently.

Harry could not bear the terrific pain that had been placed onto him by proxy. His mind went wild as he tried to hold on to his consciousness through it, but failed and both Harry and Draco, synchronously, blacked out.

A thunderous boom echoed in the room as Draco jerked awake. Draco worried that the ceiling was going to cave in. Another boom, and dust and particles of the ceiling fell onto Draco's face. They were brushed off and he opened his eyes, but couldn't make out where he was. There was a small door next to him, which he opened, but was violently forced back into the small room as, what Draco made out as a baby elephant in his blurred vision, slammed the door in his face. He reached for glasses, which he didn't wear, but putting them on focused his eyes and he could see the hallway as he sheepishly opened the door again. Draco had never, in all his years, seen such tacky decorating. The carpet was dark pink, and the wallpaper was some floral pattern that should not have ever been manufactured. Dozens of pictures lined the wall, most showing the image of the same blond child. On closer inspection, it appeared that it was the same creature that shut the door on him moments earlier. Draco also noticed that the photographs remained static, much to his confusion.

As he took focus off the picture, he noticed that in the glass the reflection was of a small, black haired, bespectacled boy. He walked toward the kitchen, not by his command, and went into a frenzy as he realized he was in the body of a young Harry Potter. Draco vaguely remembered crashing into Harry over the quidditch pitch, and then a sharp pain in his chest, but nothing else. What would be the cause of this strange sharing of memory between him and Harry? Draco couldn't ponder long before Harry led them into the kitchen, where the baby elephant sat at the table, shoveling waffles into his over eager mouth, while the father read over a newspaper. If the child was an elephant, this man certainly was a whale, Draco noted. His face held disgust, but this was not shown on Harry's. Harry looked at his aunt, who Draco, in contrast, thought that if she gussied herself up a bit, could look rather plain. The woman handed Harry a bowl of porridge and barked at him to hurry up and eat so he could get to work.

Draco was stunned that anybody who had a job as lowly as serving food would dare think themselves able to speak to whomever they were serving. Draco then realized that these people, just looking at the squalor of their home, must have been recently destitute, and this was the best their meager earnings could afford, and as such, could not afford real servants, beyond Harry as it would seem. Draco was happy he couldn't taste the gruel being shoveled quickly into Harry's mouth, as it could not taste any better than it looked, though for Harry's sake he hoped it did.

And that thought struck him odder than his current experience; he felt something for the boy that he had so passionately hated for so long. It had been three years since his father had instilled in Draco the idea that Harry was and would remain nothing. All the torture that he had been put through to conform his thoughts this way was unbearable, and Draco could feel tears, but knew they weren't there.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he stopped paying attention to the memory, until he could feel Harry running as fast as he could. Draco looked but couldn't tell from what they were running. Harry's sweat and rapid heartbeat got to Draco and the intense physicality began wearing down them both. The hot, summer sun bore down and Draco could feel the tingle of Harry's pale skin being burned. Draco found the heightened sensations overwhelming and winced in pain. Harry had barely been outside, but his lack of sunlight exposure made him susceptible to burns and Draco was afflicted for it. Harry tried to keep his speed, but he was exhausted and he slowed down, eventually coming to a stop. He doubled over and began panting, trying to regain his breath and hoping to continue, but he had taken too much time, and Vernon had managed to catch up to Harry, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back to the house at Number Four.

Harry struggled, but his uncle's grip was too tight. He couldn't wriggle his way out of his shirt, so he gave in, and tried his best to keep pace and maintained both feet on the ground. Draco felt another wave of sympathy crash into him, bewildering him. A pain in his chest accompanied the feeling, as memories of his father's curse on him came back. His father had done all he could to ensure that Draco hated Harry, and now any empathy toward the boy who lived would leave Draco in miserable pain.

Harry could sense their proximity back to the place he was forced to call home and his struggling resumed with force. The way he moved, the neighbors may think he was just throwing a tantrum, but he didn't care if it meant escaping his uncle's grip. Harry grabbed for Vernon's hand, which was clutching his collar tightly, when a small spark of blue light escaped his fingertips and shocked Vernon. The pain caused Vernon to loosen his grip, but Harry couldn't move now that that happened. Vernon's face contorted into a pained look of anger and horror. He grabbed Harry again, and brought him inside and shoved him into the cupboard under the stairs. "You little shit. I don't know what you think you're trying to pull, but you just bought yourself the rest of the summer in here."

Draco was furious. How could a filthy muggle dare treat a wizard as powerful as Harry Potter like a mutt, sentenced to months in a cage barely fit for an animal. What upset him the most though was Harry's indifference to how he was being treated. Draco sensed in Harry that this was normal and he had grown to deal with it. Draco had his fair share of problems with his father, but he was never starved or locked in a box or treated like something less than human. Why didn't Harry fight back? He wanted to scream out at Harry, but words didn't come. He only heard a sigh as Harry laid down and curled up onto the cold floor, bringing his knees up into his chest and pulled a small ratty sheet over him to try and keep warm. Draco felt a single solitary tear fall across the bridge of Harry's nose and Harry drifted off into sleep.

Draco felt an odd feeling, as if he were consumed in darkness completely. He was being compressed by invisible forces that may have only existed in his mind. He knew of magic that allowed for people to see the memories of others, but he had never used it, and was unsure of all that it entailed. Nevertheless the feeling, almost reminiscent of a portkey pulling behind his navel had vanished as quickly as it set in as he was thrown into the dream that Harry was having.

The dream world was blurred, as if Harry was trying to relive a memory he never really had. Draco saw the dream through Harry's perspective, but unlike the original memory did not feel the experience, and could only see what the dream held.

Harry was being held, Draco ascertained, and was likely a baby in this dream. A woman was holding him, at least it seemed like a woman, but she was fuzzy, as if Harry had no idea what the woman looked like. Draco thought it could be his mother, but Harry must know what his own mother looked like. Draco couldn't make out much, except a door that suddenly flew open and he was whipped around as the woman faced the door. She frantically placed the baby Harry into the crib and took her wand out in an attempt to defend the two of them. But it was a futile resistance as a cloaked creature came into the room and in a flash of green light killed the woman before Harry's eyes. Draco's heart raced as the dark figure came toward Harry. It peered into the crib and stared at young Harry and without thought pointed his wand at the infant.

Draco realized that this was it, the famous moment when Harry Potter became the boy-who-lived and received his trademark scar. And Draco was mortified, he had never felt this much fear as he knew that the killing curse would be essentially used on him, or at least it would seem that way. And before his eyes, the flash of green blinded him, and he was hurled back into reality.

Draco awoke suddenly, his heart was racing and he was drenched in sweat, but he had control over this body, a refreshing change, but standing above him was Ginny Weasley. His energy was sapped and he was on the brink of collapse, so just before he passed back out, Draco said, "What are you doing here, Weasley?"

A/N: Thanks for reading and following, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. This story, I have been working at it for a while off and on and deleting it from here and reposting and just trying to figure it out, so it's kind of near and dear to me? I guess. Anyway, reviews are appreciated (btw thanks outofthisworldgal for leaving one) as are follows and such, so...yeah.