A Wandering Mind
Am-Chau Yarkona
amchau@popullus.net
Rating: adult
Harry/Draco, futurefic.
Disclaimer: Recognisable characters are not mine; no profit made from this excerise.

1:

"… and then, with a quick flick of your wand, you can… I'm sorry, Harry, you don't know about the dragon's eggs, do you?" Hermione asked. 

Harry shook his head. "You'd better tell me," he said, hoping that he had managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He knew more than she gives him credit for, even if someone's forgotten to tell him about the dragon eggs.

He knew, for example, that Draco sleeps on his right side, curled up as tightly as possible, as if he was trying to protect himself from something falling. He knows that Draco won't let his wand out of his sight, for fear of having it tampered with, and that's it's always under the pillow at night with the handle within inches of his fisted right hand.

He also knows that his thoughts come back to Draco too often these days, and that he needs to concentrate on what Hermione is saying.

"… and obviously someone has to deal with that," Hermione finished. "Harry, care to tell me if you heard any of that?"

Damn. "I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry said. "I was trying to listen, and I do care, but—could we take a break from work for ten minutes? You have rather thrown me in at the deep end again."

Hermione smiled. "You weren't that happy with constant studying before, but I swear that five years of professional Quidditch has ruined any concentration you had."

"That, and…" Harry hesitated. He was desperate to tell Hermione, but he wasn't sure how Draco would feel about being outed. Knowing his luck, it would lead to yet another argument.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked, picking up on his change in mood. "Is your shoulder bothering you again? You can go and see Poppy if you need to."

He shook his head, and tried to grin reassuringly. "No, it's not that. Given that it's never going to be as good as it was, she's worked wonders."

"Good," Hermione said, and for a moment they were quiet. "So—what is it? You're out of practise at studying, and…"

"And, oh Merlin, and," Harry said. "And… and there's a lot going on in my life right now. You know that, or you know some of it, and I'm not sure I can tell you the rest just yet."

"Ah," Hermione said. "One of those, eh?"

"One of those," Harry confirmed, wryly.

She looked at him carefully, with an expression so similar to the one she'd been wearing only minutes ago that he almost laughed. Being studied so abstractly was a strange sensation, after the adoration of the Quidditch fans and Draco's sensuous examinations.

"Tell me," she said, with the air of one who knows she is about to receive the juiciest of gossip, "before we turn back to the books: is he good-looking?"

Slightly startled, Harry stared at her. "Err…"

"It's not hard to work out, Harry. You can't concentrate, you're far to happy for a man who's just been deprived of his ambition to be England's longest serving Quidditch captain by a jumped-up lad who thinks it's clever to play with Dark Arts, and you can't tell me what it is. You've fallen in love with another man—remember, I've known about you being gay since sixth year—and you're not sure how he'd react if he knew you'd told someone, because he's not out yet. In fact," she added, "he's probably an ex-Slytherin, because anyone else would trust you to only tell someone trustworthy."

"Well done, Sherlock," he muttered, and was a little glad for once to be sure that Hermione would catch the reference to Muggle literature.

"What I don't know is how good-looking he is, and whether I'll ever be able to come around to liking him," Hermione concluded. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me soon."

Harry sighed. "You know me too well. Yes, he's… " drop dead handsome, Harry nearly said, but it was way too close to the truth.

Draco *was* handsome. Gorgeous. Beautiful even. And he knew it.

He was also a powerful wizard, a proven co-conspirator in various plots to undermine the power of the Ministry of Magic—a corrupt and useless Ministry that Harry had tried to join, only to discover that he couldn't live with the things they were asking him to do—and had killed, Light Wizards as well as Dark when it suited him.

Harry had long suspected that Draco could beat him in a wizard's duel. For starters, Harry would play fair, and Draco would try and win.

"He's good-looking," Harry said to Hermione. Once more, he hoped his thoughts didn't show too clearly on his face.

"And a Slytherin?" Hermione prompted.

Harry nodded. "As it happens."

Satisfied with having been right once again, Hermione turned back to the books. "The sooner we get on with this, the sooner you can go back to your precious Draco. I mean, unnamed Slytherin."

She didn't catch his eye, but Harry made a concerted effort to pay attention to what she was telling him.

2:

"Yeah, it's good to be able to relax again," Harry agreed. "Since the last Quidditch season started, I haven't had much time to myself, and these last few weeks have been *horrible*."

"We all deserve a break," Ron said firmly, and brandished the wine bottle. "Top up, Harry? Hermione?"

"No thanks," Hermione said, "I have to get home tonight," but Harry held out his glass.

"Just a little more. Why not? I haven't got drunk since the night we three went out to celebrate defeating Voldemort. That's, what, six years ago now?"

"It feels like a lifetime," Ron said, topping up his own glass as well. "We barely see each other these days."

Harry felt a pang of guilt—he'd been avoiding his friends slightly, because he wanted to spend time with Draco. It was tough hiding that from them, and almost tougher to hide the times he did spend with them from the ever-jealous Draco, who was—if that were possible—even more possessive than Harry himself.

He understood that Draco didn't want to whole world to know about their relationship, especially when it was only two months old and neither of them was entirely sure how long it would last. That didn't stop him from wanting to tell his friends, if only to get Ron's inevitable bad reaction out of the way.

Ron, after all, had been one of the few who had problems with Harry being gay at all. It had been eight weeks before they'd spoken after Harry had come out publicly at the end of seventh year by kissing John Salter at the spring-term ball. Eventually, Ron had said, "Well, it could be worse. He could have kissed Draco," and they'd laughed and been friends again.

Sleeping with Draco would not endear him to Ron, but lying felt even worse.

"Have you got any plans for what you're doing next, Harry?" Ron asked, and Harry realised that he'd been lost in his own thoughts again.

Sleep with Draco, he wanted to say, but stopped himself. "Not really," he said instead. "I mean, obviously professional Quidditch isn't an option any longer, and that old idea thing about being an Auror didn't work out. I think Hogwarts would have me back to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, or Quidditch for that matter, but frankly I don’t think I'd make a good teacher."

He remembered his few failed attempts to coach his team mates. They usually ended in shouting matches, because he simply couldn't explain to them how he knew what he knew, or why they were wrong. Harry was terrible at explaining, and he could only thank his lucky stars that Draco seemed to be able to read what he liked and what he didn't from simple reactions which didn't need controlling or the use of words.

"Fair enough," Ron said. "After all, you're rich enough you don't have to worry, you can just live off that pile of gold and wait for some pretty girl to waltz up and ask to marry you."

That wasn't in Harry's plan at all. And living on a pile of gold sounded uncomfortable, not to mention dragonish. Although it was always possible that Draco might like sleeping on piles of gold. He had some pretty strange kinks.

"Um," said Harry. "I guess I'll try that for a while, anyway. What are you doing these days? I know you're in the Ministry, but what exactly?"

"Dad's old job," Ron said, flushing a little. "It's not what I might have chosen, but it'll do. Pays well enough."

"Good," Harry nodded. "And the love life? Anyone on the horizon?"

"Well," Ron said, and went even redder. "There is a girl, actually. Melanie—Hermione, you met her at the Ministry Christmas social—she works on the floor above me at the Ministry, and she's, err…" He made a gesture with his two hands which implied that she was large of bust, slim of waist and pleasantly curved of hip.

"You shouldn't objectify women like that," Hermione said, the remains of a teenage feminist crusade surfacing again. "She's an accountant, she was Muggle born, she was in Ravenclaw, and she likes Tim Henman."

"How do you know all that?" Ron asked, frowning. He looked at the empty wine bottle with bemusement. "And when did that happen?"

"I had to talk to her at the party, you dolt, because she came over to talk to you, and then you did a runner. And the bottle's empty because you've been drinking it all evening."

"You helped," Ron said.

"Only a little," Hermione told him, indicating her wine glass, which still had a few millilitres in the bottom. The gesture reminded Harry of many things—of previous arguments of this sort in the years since they had left Hogwarts; of every other time his friends had bickered affectionately—but most of all, today, it reminded him of Draco, and the comfortable way they argued over meals, over shopping, over sex.

He tried to stop thinking about Draco, but it wasn't easy. He seemed to have re-discovered the single-track mind of the crushing teenager.

"Harry?" Ron said. "Who drank more, me or Hermione?"

Harry looked at Ron, and then over at Hermione, who said, "You know I've barely had any."

Suddenly, he laughed and couldn't stop—it was funny, he was happy, and it was good to be at home again. "Does it matter?" he asked, gasping for breath, tears running down his cheeks. "We all know Ron's got another bottle in the fridge."

"You know me too well," Ron grumbled, but he was laughing too, even as he got up to fetch it. "And it does matter—she's unfair to me."

"Oh right," Harry said, and tried to sober himself a little, because it was important. It was important that they knew he was taking part in the ritual, not just sitting and dreaming about Draco all the time. It was important that they joked as friends. "I think… I think I should have another glass before I decide."

3:

Draco looked at his notes, and then back at the empty parchment, and wondered where to start. He had the scoop of the year—of the century—in his hands (in fact, in his bed), but it was too soon to reveal that to the world. The readers of Ave! magazine's gossip column would have to put up with another week of "Horntail's" rambling about the usual crop of upcoming weddings and rumoured kisses, wrapped in his usual snotty style.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he should tell Harry who wrote the 'Repeated Rumours Report', but he kept putting it off until another day. Besides, this thing with Harry was a fling at most, not to be publicly revealed before Harry got fed up and ended it, and blowing his cover for some idiotic notion of honesty or openness was plainly stupid—even if this wasn't quite the high-level spying he had once been engaged in.

He dipped his quill in the ink-pot and was about to greet his readers with some florid phrase or other, when the door behind him creaked open. The Manor was supposed to be empty barring house elves, and they wouldn't… he slipped his wand from his sleeve and turned slowly to face the potential attacker.

Pansy Parkinson stood on the threshold. Six months pregnant (an event he'd been pleased to be able to announce to the world several days before she'd been intended for it to be known; though, of course, the real scandal was that she hadn't married her partner), she was a little ungainly, but still a commanding presence and one of the few school friends who had remained friends with him.

"Draco?" she said. "I'm sorry I startled—the house elves let me in, but you didn't answer when I shouted."

"My fault," he said, shrugging and rising from his seat. "I was trying to concentrate, so I put a silencing ward around the room."

"Ah," she nodded. "What where you working on?"

"Nothing important," he replied. "Come and sit down—how are you these days?"

She took the armchair closest to the fireplace, even though on the warm spring day it wasn't lit. "Stressed," she said simply. "Three months to go until Bump here is out in the world, and Jonathon's working longer hours than ever, so I mostly seem to be at home on my own."

"This would be in the aftermath of the Dark Lord Round Two events, would it?"

"Yeah," Pansy said with a far from elegant snort. "It's a farce. Some nineteen-year-old fresh out of school threatens the wizarding world, Harry bloody Potter waltzes in and saves us all, and then the poor Ministry boys have to do a clean-up and masses and masses of paperwork. Stupid."

He remembered Harry saying something of the sort. "It's all red tape," he'd said, when Draco asked him why he'd given up on the Ministry as a career. "I'm powerful, and I can do things—but they'd want me to do it only when they said, and the way they said, and write a report about it afterwards, which would then be scrutinized and lost and made into paper aeroplanes for all I know. I couldn't do that." Harry had also had some things to say about the Ministry being corrupt, and how they should have acted sooner against Voldemort, and why the current Minister was leading everyone to ruin. In fact, he'd had quite a lot to say on the subject. For a while, Draco had listened patiently, watching him argue harshly against possible defences of the Ministry as his face flushed with anger and his eyes flashed green, but after a while he'd grown bored, stopped him, and taken them both back to bed, where even Harry couldn't talk about politics.

Although he occasionally mentioned religion, if "Oh, God!" counted.

"Draco?" Pansy said. "You're not listening to me."

"I'm afraid not, my dear Pansy. I…"

"Have better things to think about?" Pansy asked, pointedly. "Who is it?"

"I'm sure you'll understand if I refuse to answer that," he said.

"No, I won't," she told him. "I'm bored, I want the gossip, and I'm not in the habit of thinking of you as the kind of person who holds information back."

He shrugged. "Well—if you're that bored, how about a guessing game? I'm thinking of someone: but who is it? And why am I interested in them?"

"I can answer the second one right away," Pansy said. "You're sleeping with them. I've seen that look on your face before; and that said, that narrows the possibilities for the first question down to 'male wizards'—since you've only ever slept with men since that disaster with Millicent when you were twenty, and I can't see you lowering yourself to sleep with a Muggle even now."

He acknowledged those points with a sharp nod. "So far, so good. Please, don't stop."

"Okay…" she thought for a moment, and then said, "I'll need some clues, at least. Ten questions, which you answer yes or no."

"Only ten," he said. "And that includes your specific guesses; after that, I'm not telling you whether you're right or not."

"Those are the rules we always used to play by," she agreed, almost nostalgically. "That works for me."

"Off you go, then."

"Right…" she said, slowly, using it to buy her time. "Question one: has his name ever featured in the Daily Prophet?"

Draco pretended to think about that, trying hard to keep a poker face and not laugh out loud. "I'd have to say: yes."

Pansy nodded thoughtfully. "Question two: does he use the Dark Arts or the Light?"

"I can't answer that," Draco pointed out. "Or, I can, but it wouldn't tell you anything. Rephrase it as question three, if you want to know."

She snarled at him—some versions of the game would allow her to rephrase it and still call it question two—but she asked it again. "Does he use the Dark Arts?"

"No," Draco said. He could imagine Harry using the Dark Arts, and it wasn't a pretty picture, but he didn't think he would ever really do that. He didn't even like casting Imperious in practice.

"A Light wizard, then. Right." She closed her eyes for a moment, and then asked, "Question four: was he at Hogwarts with us?"

"Yes."

"Question five: was he a Gryffindor?"

"Yes."

"Question six: does he have red hair?"

Draco tried, very hard, to think of a justification for saying something that would be misleading, but the image of Harry with red hair just made him want to laugh. "No," he said at last.

"Question seven," Pansy said, with a knowing look, "does he have green eyes?"

He did. He most definitely did. Draco had spent a good ten minutes checking that over breakfast that morning, and they were green—a bright, emerald green with little flecks that could be hazel, or in some lights could be gold.

"Yes."

"Question eight: does he had a scar on the forehead shaped like a blot of lightening?"

Draco looked her in the eye, and nodded once. "You don't tell anyone else, on pain of death, are we clear?"

"We're clear," she said. "But—Draco—Harry Potter? I thought you hated him!"

"I used to," Draco said. "He's changed; so have I."

Pansy looked at him for a long moment, and said, "Draco Malfoy, I will never understand you. Now—did I tell you about Jonathon's youngest sister, Melanie? She's got her eye on Ron Weasley!"

4:

Finally, he actually told Neville.

It was mostly by accident; Harry was in Hogsmeade anyway, Neville was doing something to help with the Herbology lessons at Hogwarts, and it made sense to meet in the Three Broomsticks and catch up a little.

In fact, of course, they did much more reminiscing, since Neville had done remarkably little since leaving Hogwarts, and Harry's adventures as magical hero and Quidditch captain were a matter of public record.

Neville had a few questions—the usual "So he actually pulled you off your broom?", "Didn't you see him coming?" and "Do you have any plans for the future?", the answers to which were 'yes', 'no', and 'sleep with Draco' respectively, though he usually gave the last one as a negative or a simple shrug—and then they were back with "Do you remember when…"

Harry remembered Neville's Boggart turning into Professor Snape, and yes, he had heard that Snape was now on an exchange programme and teaching at Durmstrang for a term; he remembered the day of Trevor's tragic demise; and he remembered how horrible Draco Malfoy used to be.

The one stung a little—Draco had his reasons, it seemed, though Harry knew he didn't know them well enough to convince anyone else that it went further than "being a spoiled brat"—but he tried to hide it, and laughed slightly artificially along with Neville.

"Hey, Harry," Neville said, "do you remember when Dean couldn't stop snoring?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I remember. It was one of the early versions of Weasley's Wake-The-Room Snoring Solution, wasn't it?"

"That's right," Neville said, laughing. "And at first we didn't know who it was, and went around accusing each other randomly?"

"Yeah," and now Harry did laugh, too, because that had been funny, even if the practical joke had not. "You know, that must be the only other time I've ever been accused of snoring."

He wondered why he hadn't remembered that the other week, when Draco had been in a snit and throwing the most nonsensical charges at him in an attempt to make him argue back. Snoring had featured prominently alongside having over-large toenails, sucking his thumb, and being in love with Hermione. He'd been quite proud of himself for refusing to rise to the bait—and even prouder that he'd picked the right course; fifteen minutes of shouting that produced no reaction, and Draco had given up and been persuaded that he really was planning on them staying together, at least for the night.

He then realised that Neville was asking about the other time that he'd been thus accused, and replied, "Draco said it last week," before he'd thought about it.

Neville stared at him. "Um… Draco?"

Oh. Harry blushed crimson, panicking. Damn. "Err," he said, suddenly all too aware that if one was going to make stupid confessions, a pub where one could be overheard rather easily was not the point. "Um. Hey—did you say you had those, err, mandrakes you wanted to show me? Shall we walk up to Hogwarts and see them now?"

"Harry, what—" said Neville, and then years of training to obey without questioning because Harry probably really did know something you didn't kicked in. "Yeah, we can, err, go and see them now."

They hurried out of the Three Broomsticks, and Harry lead the way up the hill towards Hogwarts. Once they were passing the forest and well away from the village, Neville called, "Slow down, Harry!"

Harry turned, to find Neville several paces behind him and panting hard. "You're fitter than I am, shoulder injury or no," Neville complained, when he'd caught up. "There isn't really anything you want to see at Hogwarts, is there?"

"No," Harry said. "I'm sorry, Neville. I—said something I shouldn't have, and I didn't want anyone to overhear us."

"About Draco?" Neville asked. "Look, it's safe enough out here. Can you tell me what’s really going on?"

"Um. Let's sit down," Harry said, stalling for time by waving the tired Neville to a nearby log.

"About Draco?" Neville prompted, when they were both seated.

Harry sighed. "I shouldn't be telling you this, I really shouldn’t," he said. "You promise not to repeat it?"

"Of course."

"I… it's a long story." He hesitated, wondering how to tell it.

"I've got all afternoon off," Neville said patiently. Harry could see that he was determined to get this story, and to listen carefully to what he was told. He could only hope that Neville was also prepared to be non-judgemental.

"Well… for starters, you remember me and John Salter, in seventh year?"

Neville nodded. "I don't suppose anyone's forgotten—the Daily Prophet mentions it often enough."

"Right. Thought I'd check. Well—you know, when I had Quidditch, I was happy enough; there was the occasional fling with someone, and we kept it well out of the papers, and that was fine. But… since the accident… it started when I was in St. Mungo's, actually. Draco… came by. He had information about Crabbe and Goyle's involvement, and he said he wanted to tell me, but since he could have gone straight to the Ministry I think perhaps there was something else." Harry tailed off.

"And?" Neville prompted gently.

"And we sort of… well, I fell in love. I couldn’t tell you what happened to Draco. He was—he's different now. I expect I am, too. He's still sarcastic and nasty; but it's mostly a protection against the way people see him. I can understand it a bit better now. When the papers are all talking about me, telling me what I should do and how I should live with no regard for me or my preferences, I sometimes feel the same way."

"You've been though a lot of the same sorts of things," Neville nodded. "I can see that."

Harry, relieved that Neville did seem to understand, rushed on. "It was strange at first—I was quite hesitant, and not entirely sure what he was offering, and I think he was probably a bit worried that I might still see him as a long-standing enemy, despite the way we eventually worked together to defeat Voldemort. I was, at first, actually. Once I realised what he was doing—sitting close to me, taking me out to dinner, helping me with the studying—which, I have to say, he's much better at than I am—once I realised he was almost courting me, I had a couple of days when all I could think was that Draco *Malfoy* was trying to *sleep with me*, and shouldn't I be more worried by the idea?"

"You probably should," Neville said, with a grin. "But presumably you got over that?"

"Yeah—I thought about it, about what he was trying to do, and I thought: yes, I do want that. I mean, for one thing he's always been annoyingly attractive. I've always wanted to touch him, even when I channelled that into fist-fights. So, when I realised I did want to be—friends isn't the word, but I'm not sure I know what is—I encouraged him as best I could. I wanted to kiss him or touch him or tell him what I wanted, but getting the courage together… it's not like a fight or something, where you can just rush in, because there's no other choice. It wasn't easy."

"So you made the first move?"

"No—he did," Harry said, slightly regretful. He wished that were different. Draco still didn't seem entirely sure that this was what Harry wanted; that it was for real, and not Harry playing some sort of trick. Harry had the distinct impression that if he'd made the first move, Draco wouldn't wonder about that nearly as often. "He asked me round to the Manor for dinner, just the two of us—Merlin, it's a gloomy old place. I hadn't been there since I killed Voldemort and we used it as a supply post. Then he sat next to me, and… seduced me, I suppose. Wine and good food. He's good at that.

"And then, when I was, well, when I guess I was a bit tipsy, he started playing footsie under the table, until I gave in and kissed him. We were so close anyway… but you probably don't want to hear the rest."

"I can live without," Neville confirmed, smiling.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the sunshine. Harry leaned back on against a tree truck, and settled his shoulder comfortably, thinking—as always—about Draco, in a vague sort of happy way.

"Thanks for telling me," Neville said finally. "I can see why you didn't want that overheard… and… do you have any plans for the future? Ones you can now tell me about, I mean."

"I'm afraid not," Harry replied. "I intend to stay with him, but he doesn't really believe in planning. I'm hoping that he'll tell some of his friends, and then I'll be able to let more people know. Hermione's guessed, but Ron… and the press…"

"It won't be easy," Neville agreed. "But—and I know this isn't much—I'll be on your side. Okay?"

"Okay," Harry said, and found that he was comforted by it. There were people who would stand by him.

5:

"Malfoy!" someone called across the street. He had just stepped out of the Ave! offices, a place he was normally hyper-careful not to be seen, and so he didn't turn towards the voice, diving into the crowds heading for Diagon Alley instead.

Unfortunately, it didn't throw them off. "Malfoy!" the same female voice shouted as he reached the corner. "Malfoy, I want a word with you!"

Sighing, he turned, and found himself face to face with Hermione Granger. "Granger?" he said, eyebrows going up. "What on earth do you want with me?"

"A private word," she said, holding up a hand to forestall any comment. "I assure you, you'd much rather this word stayed private."

"Oh." His mind raced a little. Something to do with the column? Or with Harry? Better to have her on home ground, in any case. "Let's get out of here, then—do you know where Malfoy Manor is?"

She nodded. "I've visited a couple of times."

"Well, I feel sure it's fairly private."

"And the wards allow Apparating?"

"If I go first," he told her. No reason for her to know that they were crumbling, and anyone with more than a little power could just punch through them.

They disappeared with slight pops, utterly ignored by the crowd.

Draco Apparated onto the front porch—or what he'd always thought of as the front porch. The word didn't really do justice to the towering pillars, the molded ceiling, and the huge, over-dramatic doors with their antique stained glass.

A few seconds behind him, Hermione popped into existence, and didn't spend any time admiring the architecture. "You're happy this is private?" she said.

"I normally trust the house elves not to spy on me," he replied, "and I don't sense anyone else around the place. This is private."

"Good," Hermione said. "Now listen here, Malfoy. To quote the famous witch Willow Rosenburg—" she caught Draco's confused look, and grinning broadly. "She was Muggle born; I wouldn't expect you to know about her. Anyway, she once said that "A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend," so I'm issuing a nice clear one right now. If you hurt Harry—in any way—I will personally kill you. Slowly. Even if that means turning to the Dark Arts. Okay?"

Draco stared at her, wondering how to play this. He opted for innocent. "How would I hurt Harry?" he enquired.

"You know full well," she said. "No—he didn't tell me, but I know what love looks like, and I know him well enough to guess who it might be. And once I'd guessed, it was easy enough to check: more than one person has spotted you to together. You should pick your restaurants with more care. I'll admit that I was in luck with Macy's, because my research assistant's sister happened to be there, but the waiter in The Dragon was much more helpful than I expected, considering the size of the bribe and how much people tip in those places."

It took Draco a moment to comprehend that, and then he laughed, hollowly. "I knew under-tipping was a bad idea. A surly fool like that's just the sort to try and get revenge that way."

"That would explain it," Hermione said. "But did I make myself clear? I mentioned the personal murder and the Dark Arts, didn't I?"

"You did indeed," Draco assured her. "And I'm trembling in my shoes. But if I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much. As far as I can tell, he's not really interested in this being something long-term." He looked down, fervently hoping that she hadn't noticed his reaction to saying that aloud. It made it seem much truer, somehow, and that hurt.

For a moment, he expected her to deny it strongly, protect her friend, and then hurry off with a final threat.

She didn't. Instead, she put a hand on his arm—he surprised himself a little by not pulling away instantly—and asked gently, "Is that what you really think?"

With a rush of something skin to fear, he realised that the prickling behind his eyes was probably tears. He nodded, blinked, and forced himself to meet her gaze. "What else am I supposed to think?"

Hermione studied him for a moment. "What else are you supposed to think? When someone's obviously fallen head over heels in love with you? You supposed to want it to last forever!"

Something in her scathing tone cut deep. He pulled away, and snapped, "Of course I *want* it to last, you idiot Mudblood woman! I just don't think it *will*!"

"Why not?" she asked, her voice cool and infuriatingly calm.

"Because… because… a hundred reasons!" he yelled. "Because he's a bloody *hero*, and I'm a… a spy! Because he's The Boy Who Lived and I'm The Boy Who Was Supposed To Have Died Along With My Father! Because he can't possibly take this seriously! Because he doesn't even want to tell his best friends about us! Because it can't possibly work!"

Chest heaving, he stopped, and turned away from her, trying to calm himself down before he actually stamped his feet or tried to hit her.

"He wanted to tell me, Draco," Hermione said carefully. "He didn't, because he thought you might be angry with him, and because I guessed anyway. But it was definitely more 'I can't tell you now, but I want to', than 'I'm ashamed and I want to hide this until it's over'."

He listened, feeling a tear escape and roll down his cheek, but didn't turn. He told himself it was because he didn't want her to see his face.

"He may be a hero," Hermione continued, "but you helped him, both times around, when push came to shove. He's an ex-Quidditch player who doesn't know what to do with his life, and you're a rich Lord of the Manor with nothing much to do. You're pretty evenly matched in almost every way."

"That doesn't mean he's interested in it lasting," Draco said, and cursed the way his voice sounded, thick and sad.

"He's interested in it lasting," she said, firmly. "He's as loyal as they come, and I think he really does love you, Merlin alone knows why. More than that, you'll have to ask him."

Draco swallowed hard, scrubbed a hand across his face, and turned back towards her. "Are you done meddling in my affairs now, or do you want ten minutes more before I throw you off my land?"

"I'm done," she said, and then added, "The important point was the disclaimer. The rest is bonus."

"Well, at least we're clear," Draco muttered as she Apparated away.

6:

Arriving at the Manor always made Harry's heart beat faster. The first time he'd arrived, he was fresh from the adrenaline of fighting Voldemort, and keyed up to fight Lucius if he was still alive. The next time, of course, had been that first dinner alone with Draco; and while it was starting to be a slightly more regular occurrence, it was still something to be excited about.

A house elf opened the door as soon as his feet touched the path, and he hurried in out of the rain, asking, "Where's Draco?"

"Master is upstairs," the house elf said. "Dotsie is bringing the food up as soon as Harry Potter gets there."

"Thank you, Dotsie," Harry said absently, and started to climb the stairs. He tried to work out what he'd say to Draco. Obviously, going in and announcing 'I told Neville about us, hope you don't mind' would be a spectacularly bad move, but he hated the thought of hiding it from Draco even more than he disliked hiding Draco from his friends.

At the top of the stairs, he paused, looking around and trying to work out which of the rooms Draco would be in. The bedroom was possible, but one of the sitting rooms, placed upstairs to take maximum advantage of the view, was more likely.

His dilemma was solved when Draco called, "Harry? Is that you?" from somewhere to his right.

The sitting room, indeed. Westward facing, and normally bathed in sunlight at this time of the day, today it would show a vista of rain-swept hills and wind-whipped trees. Harry hoped that Draco's mood wouldn't be overly affected by the weather.

"Who else would it be?" he replied, slightly teasing, and opened the door.

"It could be anyone. A murderous attacker, an accountant, a Veela, a terribly handsome ex-Quidditch star," Draco said lightly, turning away from whatever he had been writing on the desk in the corner and smiling at Harry. "It's good to see you again."

"And you," Harry said, stepping across the room to enfold Draco in a hug. He tried to see what Draco had been writing, but the glance he got of the parchment before Draco turned hugging into kissing and groping only suggested that whatever it was, it had been turned face-down or written in invisible ink.

They were interrupted by Dotsie bringing the food in, although she tried to be very quiet and discreet. Draco tried to continue the embrace, but Harry broke away. "I'm hungry. You'll stay hot; the food won't." Draco pouted at him, arching one elegant eyebrow. "Come on; tell me what you've done today," Harry said, sitting down. "Anything interesting happen?"

"Well…" Draco began, and then hesitated. "Sort of; but it's your turn first, since you were the one who abandoned me. Is Hogsmeade still the same as ever?"

"Pretty much," Harry said. "The new branch of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is doing well. I bought the things I wanted—not in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, you'll be glad to hear—and then met Neville for lunch, as planned. I… did you know that Snape's teaching at Durmstrang for a term?"

"Yes, actually; Pansy told me how happy her niece was to have a different potions teacher. I only wondered if he was teaching potions at Durmstrang, or if they'd recognised his value as a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Harry laughed. "He's teaching potions, as far as I know. Look, Draco, there's something… I want to…"

"Duck!" Draco shouted, before Harry could finish his sentence. He looked at Draco in shock, and a huge leathery egg thumped him on the forehead, before falling into the salad dish.

They both stared at it. "No," Harry said. "Definitely not duck, Draco. I'd say dragon, as a matter of fact."

Draco glared at him. "A dragon egg has mysteriously attacked you, and you're making puns?"

"Sometimes it's the only way," Harry shrugged. "I've seen one of these before… damn!" He leapt up. "Draco, I'm sorry—I need to tell Hermione about this."

"What is it?" Draco asked, but Harry was already reaching for the Floo powder and kneeling in front of the fireplace. He knew Draco didn't know about the dragon eggs, but he did, and he wasn't going to let this chance go past him.

"Hermione!" he shouted, as soon as his head was in her living room. "I've got a dragon egg here!"

Behind him, he could hear Draco asking questions; in front, running water suddenly cut off, and Hermione, hastily wrapped in a towel, appeared in the doorway. "Ron, I've told you—oh, Harry. What is it?"

"Dragon egg," Harry said. "I'm… I'm at Malfoy Manor. One of those dragon eggs you were telling me about—that looks like a dragon egg, but it's quite right, and comes out of nowhere—just fell on my head and into the salad."

"Ah," said Hermione. "Don't touch it—give me two minutes—I'll be right over. I can Apparate into Manor grounds, right?"

"I'll make sure of it," Harry told her.

7:

"What's going on?" Draco asked again, when Harry took his head out of the fireplace. This wasn't good; this couldn't be good. Mysterious dragon eggs were mysterious, but Hermione Granger in the Manor was all too recently a perfectly clear and simple proposition, and Draco didn't like it. Especially when Harry didn't, presumably, yet know that Draco knew that Hermione knew that they were sleeping together, although he'd probably at least guessed that Hermione had guessed.

For all his experience on both sides of the arts of Secret Keeping, Playing People Off Against Each Other, and the related field of Trying to Confuse People, he thought this was taking things a little bit far. He very much wanted to know why there was now a dragon egg in his salad bowl; but even more, he wanted it not to have arrived there.

Harry didn't answer his question at once, which annoyed him more. "Well? What do you know about this?"

"It's complicated," Harry said. "Not to mention a long story."

"The sooner you start telling me, the sooner you finish," Draco pointed out, in tones he knew his mother would have been proud of. "So get on and mention it."

"Well… you know that boy who tried to set himself up as Dark Lord," Harry said, "who claimed his name was Voldemort?"

Draco nodded. There could hardly be a wizard in Britain who had missed *that* story. "This is to do with him, whatever his real name was?"

"It could be," Harry said. "We don't, after all, know a lot about who he was or what powers he really had; and at the time he appeared, so did a lot of these. They look like dragon eggs, but they're not; the shell is too waxy, and besides, when they hatch, they aren't dragons. We're not entirely sure what does happen, because everyone who’s ever seen it happen was driven mad, either by what they saw or soon after."

"Should we be staying in here with it?" Draco asked, suddenly feeling nervous. "If it's going to drive us mad?"

"There's usually about a week between the appearance and the hatching," Harry said calmly. "Hermione thinks they were intended to take out our researchers and thinkers. There's a call out for all dragon eggs found to be given to the Ministry anyway, because the real ones are illegal too, so we're trying not to worry the public."

"But surely they stopped appearing when you killed the boy?"

"Apparently not," Harry said. "Which is a very bad sign, because it could mean that he's pulled a Voldemort-style return."

Harry stared at the egg residing in their dinner, and Draco realised how tired he looked. "Here, sit down," he said. "Your Gryffindor friend will be along in a moment; she always seems to know what to do."

Obediently, Harry sat in one of the armchairs. Draco debated for a moment, and then perched on the arm beside him so that he was as close as possible.

"Um… Harry… Granger knows about us, already," he muttered. It wasn't the best moment, but something told him it was better to have it cleared up before she arrived.

"Err—is that… ?" Harry asked. He twisted around to look at Draco, wincing when he caught his shoulder oddly.

"Sit still," Draco told him, remembering not to push him back because that made it worse "She came to see me earlier today, to, err, clear a few things up."

"Is it… are you…?"

"We're okay, Harry. We'll never be best friends, but we'll cope," Draco said. "And I think that must be her on the stairs now."

"Miss Granger is being here, Master," Dotsie announced. "Are you wanting to see her again?"

"Yes—show her in, Dotsie," Draco said. He dropped a kiss on Harry's forehead as the door swung open, partly to try and relax Harry, and partly to reassure himself. Hermione was here to help. She wasn't going to try and kill either of them.

8:

"You're tired, there's nothing you can do, just sit for a while," Draco told him, grey eyes fixed on his and tone almost insolent.

Harry remembered why he'd always felt like punching Draco, but he realised that actually, this was just one of those strange expressions of Draco's desire to look after him. It came over him sporadically, and Harry still hadn't managed to work out what the trigger was, though he suspected that in this case, Draco was making a point to their guest. He sat back with a sigh. "Any ideas?" he asked Hermione.

"You're right, it's not a real dragon's egg," Hermione said. "I'd struggle to tell you what it was—but you probably expected that."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Roughly, though, we know what it is: it's a bad sign. Do you think it means that the kid's come back, or that these were something else all along?"

Hermione flopped into the armchair opposite them. Harry was aware of how tense Draco went under Hermione's gaze, and leaned his head back to pillow it on Draco's arm while he waited for Hermione to answer.

"I… don't know, Harry," she said. "Honestly—I think it could be either, and I need to do some more research, as well as finding some more evidence."

"Evidence like what?" Harry asked, bitterly. "Last time around, I'd been injured, two people had been tortured, and he'd killed a seven-year-old before the Ministry would accept that he was a real threat."

"I know," Hermione replied. "I'm sorry, but… at the moment, much though I hate to say this, Draco's right. There's nothing you can do. I'll take the egg-thing away with me, get the research started, and tell you as soon as I turn something up."

He knew Hermione was trying to be helpful; he knew she was probably right. He still felt like he was being shoved to the sidelines, both literally and metaphorically. It wasn't really in his nature to stand for that, and he'd worked to be Quidditch captain for a reason.

"There must be something," he said. "There must be."

Hermione looked at him, that familiar, slow, careful gaze she applied to every puzzle. "There may be something, Harry. There might be a spell that would locate him, or tell us what's going on. If you can find out what it is, go ahead and cast it. If not, then you're in the same boat as the rest of us. Everyone will be waiting for something else to turn up—as soon as they know there's a first incident."

"Don't you have any ideas?"

"There are one or two things I can look up in books—old spells—but based on how many of them worked last time, I think it's unlikely that I get anywhere."

"You really did have to wait?"

"We really did. The Ministry held things up even further, but we weren't sure until there were two torture victims." She met his eyes steadily until he looked away, realising how childishly he was behaving.

"Okay. I'm sorry, Hermione. I'm just frustrated."

"I understand, Harry. I'll let you know how it's going tomorrow lunchtime at the latest. You'll be here?"

He hesitated, and they both looked at Draco, who replied firmly, "He'll be here."

"Good," Hermione said. "I'll speak to you then, Harry."

She strode over to the table, lifted the mock-dragon's egg into her arms, and Apparated away, leaving Draco and Harry alone once more.

"So," Harry said, trying to regain some of the light-hearted mood of earlier in the evening, "that's what you call 'being okay', is it? Ganging up to boss me around?"

"Of course," Draco said, with an extremely kissable sneer. "Bossing is what Granger's good at, and I've had more than a little practice in the ganging up area."

Harry raised his eyebrows, in what he knew was a weak imitation of one of Draco's favourite expressions. "Well, I hope you're not ganging up with Hermione the way you," he slid his hand down Draco's chest, "do with me."

"Not at all," Draco said, leaning in to kiss Harry.

9:

By eleven o'clock the next morning, Draco was convinced that Harry was going to drive him crazy.

"For Merlin's sake!" he burst out, eventually, "sit down, Harry!"

Harry, who for the past three hours had been pacing up and down the main sitting room where Draco liked to work, turned at the end of the room. He didn't turn all the way, to look at Draco, but stared out of the window instead. Yesterday evening's rain had set in, sending curtains of droplets flying against the glass.

"Sorry, Draco," he said. "I just need to be doing something. I'm still not entirely used to having no Quidditch practice to go to."

 Draco blotted his parchment carefully, tucked it away in the desk draw, and stood up. "It doesn’t have to be annoying pacing, though, right? You've done more than your fair share of that this morning."

"If there's something else I can do…" Harry said, letting the words trail off to indicate that he didn’t think there was.

"You can come and talk to me," Draco suggested, flopping into an armchair. "Last night, before the whole fake-dragon-egg fiasco, you seemed quite keen to sit and talk rather than doing anything more interesting. We kind of skipped that; now's your chance."

Harry turned away from the dismal view, and sat in the armchair opposite Draco, where Hermione had sat the night before. Draco watched him carefully, letting the silence run on so that he'd know it was up to him to start talking.

He was tense; his shoulders set, despite the fact that it must have made his injured shoulder ache terribly, and his jaw clenched. He moved with the awkwardness of the classic Quidditch player, less comfortable on the ground than in the air. Draco grieved once more that Harry would never be able to fly again.

Harry still looked tired, too. Draco knew that he hadn't slept well, because when Harry didn't sleep well, neither did Draco. Harry was one of those people who can't lie still when they're awake; you could tell if he was really asleep if you watched for five minutes, because he actually stayed in the same position, usually on his back with his limbs spread all over the place. They had managed to fall into a sort of pattern, with Draco curled up on the right hand side of the bed, facing Harry, but when Harry kept moving, he kept waking Draco, who was a light sleeper at the best of times.

Draco suspected that Harry had been having nightmares, too; the trouble was that Harry was very reluctant to talk about that. He'd take what comfort Draco offered apparently gladly, but he never commented on it, and Draco didn't like to push him, especially when the whole relationship still seemed so unsteady.

"Do we have a policy on when we're going to tell people?" Harry asked, bluntly.

"Not as far as I know," Draco replied. "Do we need one?" After all, it seemed that most people—Pansy and Hermione, for example—would be able to guess quickly enough.

"Well," Harry said, "I think it might be useful. I don't know about you, but… if this… if we… if it lasts, I'd like to tell people. Maybe even about now. And I don't want to tread on your toes, or let the newspapers know before you're ready."

The newspapers. Draco definitely had a policy on which newspaper got it first: my boyfriend, my column. And there was another thing Harry didn't know about.

"Harry…" Draco said, and faltered.

"Yes?" Harry said. He raised an eyebrow, and Draco took a moment to reflect on how quickly he'd picked that expression up.

"I… know how I want to introduce us to the press," Draco said. "Look—this might not make a lot of sense at first. And before I tell you, I need you to promise that you won't tell anyone else."

"Okay," Harry said. "I promise."

Draco hoped that he really meant that. "I don't know if you're familiar with Ave! magazine," he began.

Harry nodded. "Celebrity gossip, mostly wrong, and glossy pictures. I don't think I've ever actually read one, at least not further than the articles with about me."

"Yeah," Draco said. He decided not to tell Harry that the first time *he'd* bought the magazine had mysteriously coincided with the first time Harry had featured on the front cover, mostly not wearing his Quidditch gear. "They run several gossip columns, written under pennames, trying to get all the latest on who's joining which Quidditch team and who's sleeping with who."

"You want us to come out in Ave!?" Harry asked. He sounded a little stunned.

"It wouldn't be my first choice," Draco said. The rest came out in a nervous rush. "If it wasn't for the fact that I write one of those columns."

"You write a column for Ave! magazine?" Harry said, and now he was starting to sound amused. Draco met those green eyes, and grinned.

"It's a little like spying, only the language is more interesting," he said.

Harry outright laughed. "That's a way I never thought of it before. I knew they tried to get Quidditch scoops, and our manager used to absolutely skin anyone who sold them anything, but… well, I guess it'll do. You print it there, no-one will take that much notice, and then when we kiss in public and it's all over the Daily Prophet, we'll be able to point to that article and say 'we did try and warn you'."

"So long as we don't blow my cover," Draco said, in a mock-sour tone. "I couldn't carry on writing if everyone knew who I was."

"Why not?" Harry asked. "Surely 'the latest gossip from Malfoy Manor' is as attractive as 'rumours from an unnamed correspondent'.

"That may be," Draco replied, "but nobody would ever tell me anything. I do know a little about spying."

"And the perfect disguise is to reveal something scandalous about yourself?"

"You're getting the hang of it," Draco said, and they laughed together.

10:

It felt good to laugh, but Harry noticed they weren't getting to what he wanted to say. Draco clearly had things that needed to be brought out into the open; he wasn't the only one.

"So—" Harry said when they'd calmed a little. "You're happy with the idea of us coming out?"

Draco considered that. "Yes. If… if this is going to last long enough to be worth it."

For a moment, Harry was confused—was Draco trying to say that it wouldn't last? Then it struck him: Draco tends to do things back to front, especially if he's worried about how someone will react to it.

"If it's going to last," Harry replied steadily, "we have to make it public soon. There's a limit to how long I can go on without anyone else knowing."

"Ah," Draco said. It seemed that hadn't been the response he was expected. "About when is that limit?" he enquired.

"In round terms? The press can wait another week, maybe two. My friends… err… yesterday."

"What? You mean Granger?"

Harry nodded. "And… I told Neville. Yesterday."

"You told Longbottom?" Draco repeated.

"Yeah." Harry acquired a deep and personal interest in the carpet. "Under promise of secrecy, of course."

There was silence for a moment, and Harry trembled a little, awaiting the end of it all.

"It could be worse," Draco said. "Longbottom, after all, has probably forgotten by now.

"Draco," Harry said reprovingly, but he understood. It was Draco's protection against something that could have been cataclysmic.

"So, Longbottom and Granger know—"

"You could call them by their first names," Harry suggested. "You've known them long enough."

"None of the requisite air of insult," Draco said. "Pansy guessed, too."

"Parkinson?" Harry said. "I thought she was something of an idiot."

"You were wrong," Draco told him simply. "And you don't use her first name. Fair's fair."

"Okay, okay, fair point," Harry said, glancing over at the clock again. "Hermione should be trying to get in touch soon."

"Well, the fire's lit, she knows where we are," Draco replied, calmly. "It's most likely that she hasn't found anything, and she's trying to stretch the time as far as possible in the hopes that something will turn up."

Harry sighed heavily. "Probably," he agreed. "I…" He wanted to do something to help her; he wanted to be able to stop worrying; he wanted to get it over with so that he could work out what he wanted to do next. He wanted to have words to explain that.

Feeling rather helpless, he met Draco's eyes and tried to let him read everything there.

Draco apparently understood some of it, because he said, "It'll work out, eventually. I may not like Granger, but I'll give her this much: she's clever."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. Hermione was clever. She'd find something as soon as it was there to be found—and once she'd found it, he could deal with it, regardless on what the Ministry said.

"I suspect…" Draco began, but Harry never found out what he suspected, because the flames in the fireplace rushed the characteristic green of Floo Powder and a head appeared.

To Harry's surprise, it wasn't Hermione, or even Ron—it was Neville.

"Hi, Harry, Draco," Neville said, "Sorry to surprise you, but Hermione's busy and she says you need to know this at once. We've got a lead on the dragon egg thing; some ancient book that was in Hogwarts library and nowhere else. She wants you to Apparate up here right away—if you come to the main gate, someone will meet you."

11:

"Thanks, Neville," Hermione said when he got back to the library. "I take it they're on their way?"

Neville nodded. "Yes," and added, slightly uneasily, "both of them."

"Good." Hermione made one last note, and pushed the heavy book away from her at last. "I've definitely got something here." She looked up at him.

"Um…" Neville said, uncomfortable under her gaze, aware he was being studied, and wondering if she knew about Draco and Harry. He didn't really think this was the moment to break it to her, but if she didn't already know…

"Neville…" she began, and stopped.

"Yes?" he said, still slightly nervous. Damn, why had he ever agreed to try and keep Harry's secret? It wasn't exactly his best suit—when he remembered things, he tended to say them to the wrong people.

"This… it isn't my place to say anything, really, but… when they're here…" Hermione, uncharacteristically, faltered.

"When they're here what?" he prompted, but then it hit him. If Hermione knew, or had guessed, and she thought he didn't know… but he couldn't be sure that's what it was. He bit his tongue, trying not to laugh.

"You… you'll keep an open mind, won't you?" Hermione said. "Not about the stuff I've just found, but about…"

"About Harry?" Neville asked, knowing it was a little risk. "You and I were the first two to accept him and John Salter, remember."

Hermione nodded, smiling. "I… you should know. Harry and Draco are…"

"An item," Neville finished for her. "I know."

"We owe it to Harry to be supportive," Hermione said. "Especially now."

"Yeah," Neville agreed, and was about to say more, but then he remembered what he'd promised Harry through the fireplace. "Speaking of which, I'd better go down to the main gate. Even if they Apparate to Hogsmeade and walk, they'll be there by now, and I did promise to meet them."

"Fine," Hermione nodded. He heard her call, "I'll be here!" as he rushed away, almost running through the corridors whenever he thought there wasn't anyone to see him.

When he got to the main gate, Harry and Draco were waiting for him, both looking rather impatient. "What's happened?" Harry asked, as soon as they were in hearing distance of each other. "What's Hermione found?"

"I think it's probably best if she tells you," Neville said, only in part because he didn't understand it all himself. "She's in the library."

Harry set off, striding along with Draco close behind him, and Neville hurried after them. It was like the old days; Harry and Hermione hot on the trail of something-or-other, and Neville tagging along behind, hoping not to get hurt. The only difference was that now Harry and Hermione were working with Draco instead of Ron, which was deeply strange.

He supposed that Hermione did have her reasons for not contacting Ron yet; most obviously, telling Ron was equal to telling the Ministry. It worried him that they seemed to be leaving Ron out of the loop, though.

They reached the library, to find Hermione bent once again over the obscure volume she'd found. "I only remembered this morning," she said: as far as Neville could tell, she hadn't looked up or greeted them, but had simply started. "I read it once when in fifth year, I think. Anyway, it details some obscure points of dragon-keeping—it's one of those books they let students look at because it's so abstract it's hard to regard it as anything but old-fashioned rubbish. But on page two thousand and twenty-three, it says—in Latin, of course, this is my translation—'if you desire to own a dragon, begin with an egg; but beware of the source, for it may not be what it appears. Persons of less wisdom are driven mad by eggs which hatch to something unexpected.' Doesn't that sound like what we've got?"

"It does," Harry agreed. "What else does it say?"

Hermione lifted her notebook and read on from the translation. "It says 'the shell of the true dragon egg has a certain lustre; be wary that yours be not too waxy, nor too pale.' Then it goes on for a while about the eggs of different breeds of dragon; and then it says, 'when proof comes into your hands, in the form of madmen, of false eggs, take the Seven Steps Against Dark Arts, for surely one does rise who would seek to destroy Light Wizardry; they are produced by some Art we know not, but which is Dark, and perhaps with the spare power a Dark Wizard cannot control in the early stages of his assent'."

"It says that there is a Dark Wizard rising?" Harry asked.

"Yes; and that this is an early warning. The reason we've never seen them before is that the last Dark Wizard we fought got over the 'rising' part and was in full power before we were born."

"We really are back at the beginning?"

Hermione nodded grimly. Neville shivered, feeling the dark draw in around them.

12:

"We need to stop him," Harry said. "And soon."

"Absolutely," Hermione agreed, "but it's not going to be all that simple. For one thing, we don't know where he is; for another thing, we don't know what he's trying to do in anything more than very general terms; and for yet another thing, no-one's going to help us. This isn't evidence enough for the Ministry. It's just one old book, rambling a little."

"So I find him and kill him," Harry said, "and the Ministry doesn't have to believe it."

"And the Ministry has to convict you of murder and throw you in Azkaban," Draco pointed out. He hoped that the fear that welled up at the thought didn't reach his voice.

"If that's what has to happen," Harry replied calmly.

Draco slapped him.

They were both shocked, but Draco managed to recover enough to speak before Harry could get a word in.

"No way," he said. "You might be an over-heroic Gryffindor, but I'm damned if I'm letting you go to Azkaban while there might be other ways."

"Hear, hear," said Hermione. "Besides, I don't know for sure that you'd be able to find him, even allowing for your extra sensitivity to Dark Magic."

"What do you suggest we do, then?" Harry snapped. "Sit here and wait for someone to be tortured or worse?"

"No," Hermione said. "I suggest we do some more research, and work on some spells that might lead us too him. I also suggest that we need to talk to some people who might have seen something—which means working out what sort of things he'll have needed in casting those Dark spells."

"We need to know what his motives are, too," Draco said. "That means finding out who he actually is."

"It would help to be able to put a name to the power, at the very least," Hermione agreed, "and someone does need to talk to the Ministry. It's possible that they turn up something that helps."

"That means talking to Ron, I take it," Harry said. He didn't look as happy about it as Draco might have expected him to.

Hermione nodded. "I can do that," she said, "easily enough. Malfoy, you're the one with contacts in—pardon my bluntness—Slytherin. Could you try and do some digging on who this might be? We've got a vague description, and some patterns of behaviour from the last round."

"I can try," Draco said. He wasn't sure he liked accepting orders from Granger, but at least he'd have something to do; and it would make Harry happy if he was helping.

"Harry, you're the one with the power to do a Locator spell if we can find one," Hermione went on. "Do you mind starting on that research? If you need help, I suspect that speaking to Minerva is a good idea. She was kind enough to give me free run of the library today."

"Okay," Harry said. Draco felt relieved that Harry would be staying at Hogwarts—it was still the safest place in Britain, even for someone as capable of self-defence as Harry, and Professor McGonagall would prevent him doing anything too hasty.

"Good. Neville, if you'd be kind enough to pass me the red folder that's just in front of you, thank you. Malfoy, this is all the information we have on this potential Dark Wizard, assuming that this one is the same guy. Harry, it might be worth your while listening to this too, because it's possible there's something in here you can use to narrow your search somehow."

"How sure are we that this isn't someone new?" Draco asked. If it was… that would make it nearly impossible to find him.

"We can't be certain at this stage, but there's a high chance. The history of Dark magic gives us lots of examples of Dark Wizards who were killed or apparently killed, and rose again within quite a short time. Examples of independent Dark Wizards who rose soon after the demise of the last one are exclusively limited to those who set out to replace their predecessor, whether that was because they were inherently Dark or were Light Wizards whose attempt to fight the Dark drew them into it."

"Okay," he said, and deliberately fixed his mind on the task at hand. "Tell me what we've got."

13:

"A tallish man, with dark hair and slightly stooped shoulders," one eyewitness had said.

"Tall… ugly… the Dark in his eyes… worms… death… graves in his breath," another eyewitness, one of the torture victims, had said, before starting a crazy ramble about tulips.

"I couldn't see under his cowl," Harry had reported to the Ministry official who was given the job of taking his statement. "He flew up behind me as I was diving for the Snitch. It was like he came out of nowhere. He said, 'I'm going to win, Potter—I'm far stronger than you.' Just that—thoroughly over-dramatic. As he said it, I felt him catch my arm and pull me off course—we struggled—it was hard to get a grip on him, as if he wasn't completely there somehow—I hit the ground, shoulder first, and I think he tried to smother me. Anyway, he was close, and I passed out, and the next thing I remember is waking up in St. Mungo's."

"A young man—perhaps nineteen or twenty," one of the Ministry had guessed when they studied images of him.

"Slight London accent, as tall as I am, dark hair, and wearing a Slytherin school tie," Harry confirmed when Draco asked him. "That's about all I saw, other than the curses he cast at me."

"It's not a lot to go on," Pansy commented, when Draco laid the evidence before her. He really had to agree; he'd been a little startled to discover that the Ministry had allowed everything they knew to be printed in the papers. "He must have been at Hogwarts only a few years ago. He must have connection—family and friends—who are either covering for him or think he's missing."

"It's not easy to find them, though," Draco grumbled. "You can't ask step into someone's fireplace and ask if they know where their son is, and if not whether he showed any signs of using Dark Magic before his disappeared."

"So we need something slightly more personal," Pansy said. "Let me see—we're fairly sure he was in Slytherin?"

"If he wasn't, he's obtained a Slytherin tie under false pretences."

"On a slight tangent, Draco, but—are we absolutely sure we trust Potter's description?"

Draco didn't answer, just fixed her with a firm stare. He'd thought of it already, but had quickly dismissed the idea on the grounds that it Harry was lying about this, it  meant that he was involved in a complex double-blind to set himself up as Dark Lord, and that just didn't sit quite right with someone who basically only wanted to play Quidditch for eternity.

Harry wasn't lying. It had no credible motive, and it wasn't in character.

"Okay, okay," she said, holding her hands up. "I thought I ought to air it."

"I'd rather you got on and aired some useful ideas," Draco snapped.

"If I were you, I'd start with the Slytherin class lists for, oh, three years, starting last year," Pansy suggested.

Draco pulled them from the folder. "Like this?"

She nodded, and started working down the lists, marking crosses or question marks as she went. "Well done. Hum—both the Abbs children are working at Gringotts now; Besom, A… who's that? Oh, Marge's daughter, of course. Girls are out of the running… the Daniels boy is a nasty one, but he was at their cocktail evening last week…"

Those she wasn't sure of, Draco set about doing a little research into. Nothing as blatant is trying to contact their parents; instead, he began by using the Floo system and a careful application of Accio to hack into the Ministry's files and obtain the lists of missing persons for the months before the first appearance of the young Dark Wizard.

Cross-referencing, annoyingly, was one of those tasks there was no spell for, and it was difficult and painstaking work.

After six hours, however, they'd boiled it down to a list of four names, Slytherin boys of the right age who had disappeared, and whose cases remained open.

"It's amazing," Pansy said wryly, "all these years, and I'm still willing to help you with you homework. You're lucky Jonathon hasn't arrived yet. And you're leaving now, because I want to tidy up a little and have a rest before he gets here."

"I do appreciate it," Draco said. He did; he thought he might thank her, if Malfoys did that sort of thing. "If there's ever a favour I can do you…"

"I can ask, and you'll be very polite when you say no," Pansy smirked at him. She'd developed a marked tendency towards beating him at his own game. "I'll remember that. Goodnight."

"I doubt it will be that," Draco replied, thinking that Harry seemed like the sort of person who'd want to work all night in this sort of emergency situation, and Apparated away.

14:

Harry swore, and then rapidly apologised. Even now, the habit of now swearing in front of teachers was fairly hard to shift. "I'm just frustrated," he explained.

"Don't worry, Harry," Minerva smiled. "I can assure you, I feel the same way."

"I'm sure finding Voldemort was never this difficult," he said, slamming the book he had checked closed and leaning back in his chair.

"I don't know," Minerva replied, thoughtfully. "I don't think any of us do: Dumbledore insisted on doing most of the work himself, which seemed fine at the time, but in hindsight perhaps it wasn't the best idea."

Harry nodded. "I wish he was here," he said, quietly. Dumbledore's death had been an unexpected blow; Voldemort had been defeated, everything was looking rosy, he'd been accepted as an Auror—and then Dumbledore was dead, and he didn't like the Ministry, and there was suddenly nowhere to go.

He'd thrown himself headlong into professional Quidditch, and the hard work had been a welcome relief. Now he'd come back, but Dumbledore hadn't.

"I think we all do," Minerva replied. "But no amount of wishing will bring him back, and the best thing we can do to honour him is to keep working—that's what he would want."

The string of platitudes grated on Harry; but he accepted them, because he knew that they were true and Minerva meant well.

"I'm not having a lot of luck with this book," Harry said. "Where do you suggest I try next?"

"To be honest," Minerva replied, "I suggest you ask Madame Pince. Locator spells aren't Transfiguration, and I don't have that many ideas about where to look."

"I'll ask her when she comes back up. I need a bit of a break."

"Fair enough. There is a point at which we're really only waiting, anyway. If Draco returns with one name, or even a few, we can use the Locator spells we know rather than searching for one that detects Dark Magic."

Harry scrapped his chair back across the floor and stood, irritable and feeling the need to be moving.

Apparently unaware that her comment had been an unwelcome one—Draco had been almost constantly in Harry's thoughts, despite repeated attempts to concentrate properly, and being reminded that he was waiting for something else to happen wasn't a cheerful thought, either—Minerva when on as Harry started to pace the floor, "I hope you don't mind me asking this, but… earlier, when I saw you and Draco together, you were surprisingly… I mean… have relations between you changed?"

"Changed?" Harry repeated, laughing hollowly. "Changed? You could put it that way, I suppose."

Minerva nodded. "You're friends, then. That's good; I always thought that you had more in common than either of you would admit."

"Because I was very nearly a Slytherin? Or because the only thing we'd ever have admitted to having in common was a seething hatred?" Harry enquired, bitterly.

"Both," Minerva acknowledged, "but also because you were both surprisingly hard working students given the amount trouble you got into, and because you were both good Seekers, and also because you both thought that the one world could be changed and you would be the one to do it."

Harry wasn’t really listening to her; he continued along the line his thoughts had spun, the frustration and the anger he was trying to hide taking any outlet that came along. "And what makes you so sure that 'friends' is what we are? Do you remember John Salter? Draco and I are lovers, Minerva, and you're going to have to live with that!"

"So are you," she replied calmly. "But yes, I'm sure you're also friends. There's trust there, and worry, and love as well."

The last phrase caught Harry's attention, and he hesitated, turned back towards her. "Are you sure about that?" he asked again, but this time it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"That isn't for me to answer," Minerva replied. "I've had a little experience of the world, one way or another, and I know full well that it's hard enough to judge that on the inside of the relationship, and probably harder from the outside. I recommend that you ask Draco, if you really aren't sure; I suspect that if he deigns to answer you at all, it'll be a positive."

He remembered then the way that Draco had looked at him the night before, when he'd turned over in bed yet again. Draco had woken; he hadn't even bothered to lift his head from the pillow, but his grey eyes had opened, reflecting the night-lamp over their heads. "Go to sleep, Harry," he'd said, trying to sound at least slightly annoyed. Harry heard the acceptance there, though, and seen the almost-smile; Draco might not like it, but he cared enough about Harry that he'd live with it.

"I expect you're right, Professor," Harry said, sitting back down. "You usually are. Have you found anything else yet?"

Minerva shook her head. "I'll keep trying, though."

15:

Harry, Hermione, Minerva, and Neville were peering at their respective tomes by candlelight when Draco got back.

He had Apparated to the main gate and walked up to the library, to find the door open and the workers busy reading. Knowing that his message—that there were two young men who fitted the description—would be welcome, he hesitated only long enough to admire the way candlelight flattered Harry's sleepy face before he said, "I'm back, folks."

Four heads snapped up and he was instantly the centre of attention. "Two names," he told them, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. "Just the two, and they're pretty equally like to be the one we're after."

"Well done!" Harry said. Draco noted with amusement that he almost managed to bounce out of his chair as he came to greet his lover.

"Steady," he whispered, as Harry made to kiss him; but Harry went ahead and kissed him anyway, so he assumed that even if Minerva McGonagall hadn't known about their relationship before, she did now.

"Excuse me," Hermione said, and Draco recognised her best prefect voice. "There's business in hand here, you know. These names?"

"Yes," Draco said, breaking away from Harry's embrace a little, although he allowed the arm around his waist to remain. "Firstly, Terence O'Laney; he went missing after a row with his father just days before the first false dragon egg appeared. And secondly, Lenis Dominick, who was reported as 'behaving strangely' before his went missing, three days after the first false egg turned up, and only hours before the first torture victim was taken."

He shoved Harry's chest gently, guiding him towards a seat.

"Are those the only two plausible options?" Hermione asked.

Draco sat down next to Harry, and slid the folder in which he'd made his notes towards her. "You can check my research and reasoning, if you'd like," he said, "but I'm fairly confident. Personally, I think it's probably Lenis Dominick, because the Dominicks have been a Dark family for a long time, one way or another, but apart from the they're about equally placed."

"We'll try Locato on both names, then," Harry said.

"In the morning, yes," Minerva said. Harry glared at her, and she explained, "We're all tired now, and I don't fancy our chances of getting anything useful done. I understand that there is an element of urgency here, but I think it's better to be sure we do it right than to rush and risk… well, I don't know what we'd be risking. There's a chance, for example, that if one of these people really is using the Dark Arts, they'd detect the spell as soon as we cast it, depending on how powerful, and how paranoid, they are."

"I don't think…" Harry began.

"No, you don't," Draco cut in. "I think that I'm exhausted, and so are you, and a night's sleep would do us all good."

He noticed that Hermione had opened her mouth as if to say something, but she shut it again quickly.

"I agree," Neville said, slightly unexpectedly. "I'm tired." As if to prove the point, he yawned widely.

Harry looked round the room, seeking support, but it wasn't there. "Okay, okay," he sighed. "If we meet back here tomorrow morning?"

"About nine o'clock," Minerva said. "I don't have any classes to teach, but we've got a staff briefing at eight thirty."

"That's fine," Draco said, standing. "If you need us, we'll be at the Manor." He swept out of the library, thinking, 'Merlin, he'd better follow me. He'd better.'

In the corridor, he slowed down, trying to work out… was Harry behind him?

"Good work, Draco."

Apparently yes. "I do my best."

"Oh, I'm sure you do. But you were wrong about one thing—I'm not coming back to the Manor with you. You go back, get a good night's sleep, and I'll sleep at my place and meet you in the morning."

A staircase swung conveniently round to bear them down to the main door, and Draco started down it. "No way. I know you—if I let you go off alone, you'll try and cast those location spells on your own."

"Draco, that's not true."

"It is," Draco said, pushing the door open. He turned to let Harry go through ahead of him.

"No—I know I kept you awake last night, and I'm sorry. And it's going to be like that again," Harry said. He stepped through the door and shut it, giving them a little privacy from the students moving through the hall, but didn't go any further.

Draco studied him, trying to work out if that was true or not. And if it was, whether he should allow it.

He noticed the tension in Harry's shoulders; the way he wouldn't quite meet his eyes; and thought about the night before, the way he'd suspected Harry was having nightmares whenever he did drift off. It seemed likely that Harry would try and face this threat tonight if he was alone—even if he wasn't planning that now, it was quite possible that he'd decide to get it over with somewhere in the early reaches of the morning.

"So I'll have to put up with that," Draco said. "We can go back to your flat if you'd prefer, but frankly I'd rather sleep in the Manor."

For one thing, Draco could choose to shut the wards on the Manor if he could be bothered to put the energy into it; and that might be as useful to keep something contained as to bar its entry.

At last, Harry lifted his head and looked at him. "If you insist," he said, and Draco thought that there was relief in his eyes.

16:

Harry woke, shaking, from a muddled dream in which the rising Dark Wizard turned out to be Ron, to find the light of dawn seeping in through the cracks in the curtains.

Draco was curled, as usual, his left hand tucked up in the crook of his shoulder, but he had extended his right arm to rest his hand almost proprietarily on Harry's upper arm. Carefully, Harry reached his glass off the bedside table and rolled over a little to be able to watch him; Draco's mere presence, the reminder of what they meant to each other, helped to drive the last fragments of inconsequential dreams away.

At least, Harry hoped they were inconsequential. The possibility that there were somehow related to the rising Dark Wizard had occurred to him, but it wasn't something he wanted to consider and so he had dismissed it entirely on the basis that his scar seemed unaffected by them.

Deliberately, he pushed that thought and the remains of the dream itself out of his mind, and turned his attention to Draco. Even sleeping, Draco looked anxious, as though the need to defend himself was embedded deep within him. Harry wished he could make Draco feel safer, and wondered if dealing with the Dark Wizard would help at all.

He feared it wouldn't. Draco's habitual fear went further back that recent events, further back even than their affair; back, probably, into their schooldays and before.

Draco must have sensed some change, perhaps that he was being watched, because his sharp grey eyes flickered open. Harry was happy to see that Draco's frown did ease as he focused on Harry's face.

"Good morning, Harry," Draco said, "Are you going to insist on dragging me back to Hogwarts now, or can it wait until after breakfast?"

"It can wait a little while, I suppose," Harry said, leaning forward to kiss Draco. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to wake you."

"I don't mind," Draco replied, pulling Harry down for another kiss, demandingly, enough so that Harry wondered if he wasn't the only one who had been having bad dreams. He hugged Draco to him, and was about to say something else, when he heard the unmistakable click of a house elf materializing behind him.

"Master, Harry Potter," Dotsie said. "Neville Longbottom is needing you, is needing you now."

"Okay," Harry said, releasing his hold on Draco. "Where is he?"

"Neville Longbottom is downstairs, Harry Potter."

"Tell him we'll be down in a minute, maybe less," Harry said. He dropped a light kiss on Draco's lips, and clambered out of bed, wincing as his weight rested briefly on his injured shoulder.

"I wonder what Longbottom wants?" Draco said. Harry heard the bed creak as he rolled out of it, no doubt elegantly.

"We'll find out in a minute," Harry replied, rooting though a drawer in search of a clean shirt.

He hoped it was just "come on, we're ready to try those locator spells earlier than we thought," but he feared it wasn't that simple. Things never were. It would be absolutely classic for Neville to be here because someone else had seen or had an encounter with the Dark Wizard, or for someone to be dead because they'd delayed.

That in itself, of course, make it more unlikely to be something dramatic. Things just didn't happen that way outside fantasy novels.

He dressed quickly, for comfort and easy movement rather than to look good, and didn't bother combing his hair, on the basis that in ten minutes time nobody would be able to tell anyway, and turned around to find Draco waiting for him at the door, fully dressed and much, much neater.

"I'll never know how you do that," he said.

Draco smirked at him. "You wouldn't want to."

They walked downstairs together. It made Harry think of the first time he'd spent a night at Malfoy Manor, how strange and frightening the long hallways and dark corners had seemed. But Draco had been there, more comfortable in his own home, and teasing and sexy as a result. It was worth getting used to a new place to have that.

Neville was in the main hall at the bottom of the stairs, pacing up and down. Harry saw that his face was pale and his hands were shaking.

"Hi," he said, his voice bland.

"Neville—what's happened?" he asked, rushing down the last few steps to get there ahead of Draco. "What is it?"

"It's Susan," Neville replied, and Harry cast his mind back to try and remember who Susan was, what she meant to Neville.

"She… we were meant to meet last night, in Hogsmeade, but when she didn't turn up, I assumed she'd… you know… found something better to do."

Something clicked into place—"We're sort of dating," Neville had said, diffidently, the day they'd met in Hogsmeade. "It's not anything very solid, yet." Harry, predictably, had been thinking about Draco and not paying much attention to what Neville was saying.

"She's missing?" Harry said now, mind racing.

Neville shook his head. "She's been tortured."

17:

They gathered again in the house in Hogsmeade where Susan had been found, shaking and muttering incomprehensible gibberish.

Neville departed to see Madam Pomfrey and find out if there was any improvement, or if Susan had said anything significant, and Harry, Hermione and Draco were peering into the room she had been dumped in. It was dark and gloomy, presumably by the owner's preference; but there was a tang of blood in the air.

"This is our next piece of evidence," Harry said grimly, rubbing his forehead. "I'm too familiar with this feeling."

"Yeah," Hermione agreed, watching him and aware that Draco was doing the same. "And poor Neville—he must be thinking the same."

"Poor Susan, too," Harry said. "Lumos."

The room filled with spell-light, revealing the interior: the carpet patterned just inside the doorway, but then disappearing as it was soaked with blood; the curtains drawn so that casual passers-by hadn't noticed that this supposedly empty house was in use; and the characteristic burn-marks of curses that didn't hit their target had scorched the wallpaper and the furniture all around.

"She did duck some of them," Harry said. "She tried—and he didn't go straight for Crucitus. When they did hit her, she bled."

Draco nodded. "Whose house is this, anyway?"

"It belongs to a couple—one of them's an Italian Muggle, the other's a British wizard, so they have a magical house here and a Muggle house in Italy, and spend six months in each place. They're in Italy at the moment—they've been contacted, but not given that many details, and they're coming back as soon as they can."

"Has the Ministry been told?" Harry asked, searching the room for clues, trying not to touch or move anything.

"I updated Ron on what we'd found last night, and Madam Pomfrey's made a report on Susan's condition this morning. They know what's going on. I guess someone will be with us fairly soon—basically, as soon as they've had two meetings and filled in six sides of paper to say who should go."

"Then we'd better get on and cast this damned Locator spells," Harry said. "I knew we should have tried this last night."

Hermione sighed. "Okay. But I've thought of a better way to cast them—if we use an enchanted mirrors as a magical window, we'll be much safer, and probably be able to get as good an idea of where they are."

"Then let's get on with it," Harry said. His jaw was set and Draco could see that there was no point in arguing with him, so he was very relieved when Hermione didn't even try, but wordlessly led the way out of the room.

"Go up to Hogwarts—there's an enchanted mirror in the Blue Room; you remember, the practise room we used for coursework projects in our seventh year. I'm going to stay here and wait for the Ministry to arrive, both because I want to hear their opinions and because I think they're perfectly capable of going to the wrong house if someone isn't here to a check on them."

"Right," Harry said. "Don't get into any trouble."

"In daylight? In Hogsmeade? I think I'll cope, Harry," she said, smiling. "Go on—get the locator spells cast."

He exchanged a long glance with Hermione which Draco watched and felt almost jealous of, and then turned away to start walking up to Hogwarts. Draco followed close behind him.

"Not Apparating as far as we can?" he asked, when they were out of earshot of Hermione.

Harry shook his head, mussing his hair even further. It made Draco want to run his fingers through it until it lay neatly. "More work than it's worth, if you ask me. I'd rather do the walking and be physically tired than do the magic and stand more chance of not having enough magical energy to do the spells."

"You? Run out of magic?" Draco said, puzzled. "I thought you were the most powerful wizard in Europe, or whatever."

"I am, technically," Harry shrugged. "That doesn't mean I have an unlimited supply. Besides, I like walking."

"You always used to prefer flying," Draco said, thinking of their schooldays and not remembering Harry's injury. "You used to complain when they made us walk down to the village, because it would be so much faster to go by broom."

"Sadly, that's not an option any longer," Harry replied. He sounded as miserable as Draco had ever heard him.

"I'm sorry; I probably shouldn't have said that," Draco said, and then wondered if the out of character apology would make things better or worse.

"That's okay," Harry said, and then laughed. "It's almost reassuring that in the midst of all this, you're as tactless and annoying as ever."

Apparently Harry hadn’t noticed the apology. The Malfoy reputation might manage to remain unscathed. "I can be rude to you some more, if you like," he offered cheerfully. "For example: you stink, Potter. You should have had a shower this morning."

"You're a bastard, Malfoy," Harry returned.

"Idiot."

"Ponce."

"Wanker."

"Not when you're around," Harry said triumphantly, with a smirk Draco was sure was borrowed.

18:

Neville's life seemed to have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the Slightly Depressing Housing Estate and found itself in the middle of the Nightmare District without any idea of how to escape.

He sat by Susan's bedside with nothing to do but wait, while she cried out at invisible tormentors, or stared at him—afraid, angry, or—almost worse—merely unseeing. The physical injuries had mostly been healed, standing out as fresh pink skin on her face and hands, but she was far from well.

His hands were shaking again. Little details like that seemed to be suddenly important; if he focused on keeping his hands steady, or on the way the flowers were gently wilting in the warm room, he could nearly avoid thinking about how similar this was to sitting in St. Mungo's, waiting for his parents to get better, or die, or something.

"No!" Susan shouted. "No! Stop! Please, just stop!"

Startled, he stood up, stepping to her bedside, trying to work out if there was anything he could do to help.

There wasn't; Madam Pomfrey had heard the cry as well, and came running. "Sssh, ssshh," she said to Susan, checking her over quickly.

"I'm sorry," she said to Neville, when Susan was settled again and quieter. "It's going to be like this for quite a while."

He nodded. "I know."

She looked at him, and he wondered how well she'd known his parents. Almost everyone knew the story, but it was likely that Poppy Pomfrey had known them personally, while they were students at Hogwarts or during the first war.

"You might not want to stay here to whole time," she said gently.

"I want to stay for now," he replied, not really answering what she had said. "There may be nothing I can do here, but there's nothing I can do anywhere else, either. It's all waiting for the Ministry and Harry to decide to do something."

"I understand," she said. "Keep talking to her, when you can stand it; there's a chance that a friendly voice might get through."

"I'll do that," he said, sinking back into the hard chair by the side of the bed.

Madam Pomfrey nodded, patted his shoulder, and bustled out to attend to a young girl with a grazed knee.

"It'll be alright," he said to Susan and himself, hoping that it would comfort one of them. "Harry will sort it out. Him and Hermione, they're good at this. They know what to do."

It was a good lie—exactly what he wanted to hear, plausible, and said in a firm, convincing tone. The doubts nagged at him, though: it was a lie. Harry'd been playing Quidditch for five years. He was dating Draco Malfoy. Even Hermione had grown up, changed, perhaps had different priorities.

Neville didn't seem to be high on that list at the moment.

"It'll be okay, Susan," he said. "It'll be okay. We'll stick together."

She turned away from him, burying her face in the pillow.

He closed his eyes and tried to keep talking, reassuring them both, but the words dried in his mouth. He wasn’t a good liar.

"Longbottom?" a soft voice said. "I mean, Neville?"

He looked up, to find Draco standing just inside the door. "Yes, Malfoy?" he said, his voice harsh. It wasn't a good moment to try and change years of habit.

"Harry wants you to come down to the village. He's done the locator spells. Terance O'Laney is in the clear—he's joined Muggle rock band—but Lenis Dominick is using Dark magic and his fingerprints were in the room where…" Draco's gaze flicked across to Susan, "where he tortured her. I think he feels you should be there when the Ministry and Harry try to take him captive."

Neville got up, wand in his hand. "I agree," he said. "I want to see the bastard brought to justice."

Outside the door, Madam Pomfrey muttered, "No swearing in here," but she nodded at them as they passed. "Neville?" she called, when he reached the door.

He turned.

"It's possible that if you can stop him working Dark magic in the next few hours, Susan will recover," she said, and then added, "Good luck."

"We'll need it," he replied shortly, and followed Draco out of the door.

"Susan's your girlfriend, isn't she?" Draco asked, as they hurried down the hill towards Hogsmeade.

"Not really," Neville said, "but I'd like her to have a chance to turn me down properly."

"You'll never get a girlfriend if you take that sort of attitude," Draco told him. "If you save her life, she's almost guaranteed to swoon gratefully into your arms."

"Is that how you got Harry?" Neville enquired, out of breath enough not to feel like being anything other than blunt.

"No—but it did revolve around my having the courage to try and take it to a next step," Draco said. "Since he, being a typical Gryffindor, is brave but not in the places that count." Red sparks went up from the middle of the village below them. "I think running might be in order," Draco commented.

Neville didn't bother to reply; he was sprinting down the hill.

19:

Draco raced down the hill, seconds behind Longbottom, heart pounding, thinking, 'I'm not going to be beaten by him, of all people,' and stretching his legs just that little bit further.

They arrived at the house to find it surrounded by Aurors and other Ministry workers, but they let Neville though as soon as he arrived. Harry had presumably given them orders to that effect.

Draco found Hermione on the inner edge of the crowd and asked her what was going on.

"He's got the Minister hostage in there—maybe he's even killed him already," Hermione told him. "Harry's gone in—" she grabbed his arm, "—and Neville's followed him, but we’ve got strict instructions not to make it harder for them by complicating the situation with more people."

He glared at her, but she was resolute. "They're going to have a magical duel. We'd only be in the way."

"But he won't play by the rules," Draco said. "I can beat Harry because he always plays by the rules."

"Err, no," Hermione said. "He plays by the rules when he feels like it. Other times, he—for example—goes wandering around the school at night. He can look after himself, Draco."

That simple fact spun Draco off into a spiral of memory: a few weeks ago, when Harry had mentioned that Draco could beat him in a formal wizard's duel. Draco had waved the idea away, saying that it was a forgone conclusion, because Harry was far more powerful; but Harry had insisted they try, and been proved right.

Draco had enjoyed that. Winning was power, if not raw magical power; and he'd taken advantage of that, of Harry lying on the floor, defeated, laughing. He'd known at the time that it was because Harry had played by the strict rules of the formal duel as used to practice in schools, and he'd played dirty, trying to win, because that was in his nature. He'd assumed—thinking of Harry's 'hero' image, the years of perfectly clean Quidditch games, the article in the Daily Prophet about Harry being the only Quidditch player on the England team never to have been accused of a foul—that Harry was always like that.

He'd been wrong, of course, and the idea that Harry might have engineered his own defeat brought a whole new light to the issue. He shook his head, trying not to be distracted by that.

"Of course," he said to Hermione, "but I want to help him."

She looked at him as if he was mad, which he probably was. "I'm not letting you go in there, Draco—you have to understand, I'd go myself if I thought…"

The house exploded.

In the flames, a dark figure rose up ten foot tall, and wild laughter echoed over the crackles of burning beams. A skull carved of smoke rose into the morning's cloudless sky.

"I win, Potter!" the figure crowed, pointing an oddly familiar wand at the small shape lying curled and broken on the floor. "You weren't as powerful as you thought!"

Hermione released Draco's arm, and he raced for Harry.

The Dark Wizard saw him, and aimed a curse his way, but he ducked and ran a zigzag course, avoiding it—and the next one was not aimed at him.

He heard Neville say, "Take that, sucker!" but his attention was fixed on Harry—scar on his forehead cracked open and bleeding again, his body at odd angles, his shoulder strange and his leg bent unnaturally.

"Harry!" he said, desperately, trying to see if he was breathing or not: he was. "Harry, Harry, come back to me."

Harry's eyes flickered open for just a second, and he said, "Ow," before they closed again and he went limp. The Aurors had reached them now, shoving Draco aside. "Stretcher," one of them requested.

Refusing to be too far away, Draco took hold of one of Harry's hands, the uninjured one as far as he could tell, and clung to it. "I'm staying with him," he snarled at the people who tried to pull him away, so they worked around him. There was actually little to be done out here, beyond splinting the broken leg and checking that he kept breathing. The work would really begin when they got a fire going and could Floo him back to St Mungo's.

He made a mental note to ask someone, later, why Susan had been taken to Hogwarts and not St. Mungo's. Neville's personal choice, perhaps, or hers, or that of whoever found her.

For the moment, attention was fixing back on the fight—Neville and Hermione were playing a dangerous game, distracting Lenis and then attacking from the opposite side. The Aurors had scattered, to hide in alleyways the other side of the street or to shelter behind the scant remains of the internal walls of the blasted house, as where they'd moved Harry and Draco back into what had probably once been the kitchen. They flung the occasional curse in, but were not under any sort of order and were clearly unsure about the best course of action.

"Ron!" Hermione screamed, throwing herself behind a pile of rubble. "Grab Harry's wand!"

Draco heard her, and scrabbled around, finding it in the folds of Harry's robe, as if he'd tried to hide it just before he'd been struck. He glanced at Harry briefly, then decided that it was probably better to kill the evil wizard than to stick with his lover. "I've got it," he hissed to Hermione, worming his way across to where she was hiding. "What needs doing?"

"Cast 'Adavra Kedavra' with it—he's getting his power from You-Know-Who's old wand!" Hermione replied. "I know Ron's sometimes used Harry's, and it sort of works, but I know it won't for me!"

"I'll give it a go," he said, and stood up.

20:

Four of her friends—technically, she supposed, three, and Draco—were lying in hospital, and she'd escaped with a few scratches and bruises. Hermione wondered if that made her clever, cowardly, or just lucky.

Neville and Susan were at Hogwarts; Susan was doing well and would be released in a day or two when Poppy was confident about her continuing health, and Neville would be there for slightly longer while she deal with the lingering effects of the curses but was expected to make a full recovery.

Harry and Draco were at St. Mungo's. She'd just finished talking to Harry, who seemed in good spirits and very trusting of his doctors, who were for the most part the same team who had patched him up after the first attack, when he'd been pulled of his broom by the young Dark Wizard they now knew had been Lenis Dominick. He also seemed worried about Draco, concerned that he was bored, lonely and made anxious by being in hospital. She suspected that those concerns reflected what Harry was going through as well, but she knew she wouldn't get an answer if she asked.

The staff were apparently doing their best, but they hadn't run to putting Harry and Draco in the same room, or at least not just yet, so she'd offered to stop by Draco's room and see if there was anything she could do to cheer him up.

"Insult him a bit, it'll remind him of old times," Harry had said, grinning.

From that build up, she was a little surprised to reach Draco's private room and see that he had another visitor already.

"Hello," she said, looking at the woman already by his bedside and trying to work out if she knew her.

"Granger!" Draco said. "I suppose Harry sent you?"

"Yes," she said, hesitating in the doorway.

"Well, come in, then. You do remember Pansy Parkinson, don't you?"

"Pansy, yes, of course I remember," Hermione said. "You've… changed."

Pansy snorted. "You can say that again. Being pregnant is just a little change."

"It quite suits you, actually," Hermione said, trying to be conciliatory for Harry's sake, which had somewhere along the line coincided with Draco's sake.

"Did you have something to say, Granger?" Draco asked, amused, "Or did you come only to have some practice at being nice to people you loathe?"

"I came because Harry asked me to see how you were," Hermione replied stiffly.

"I'm getting better," Draco shrugged. "I was never as badly off as he was, silly bugger. Trying to fight a Dark Wizard without magic, indeed."

"He was onto something, actually," Hermione said, taking a seat. "He was trying to get Lenis to change his mind, to step back from the Dark magic even if it meant giving up magic altogether. In theory, it was a good idea. Lenis was just too far gone."

"Well," Draco said. "How is he, anyway? I haven't seen him yet today, and I don't plan on sending Pansy along to ask."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence, Draco," Pansy said, but she was smiling.

"He's quite cheerful," Hermione reported. "You know, if I was him, I'd be a little more worried about how this Horntail person got hold of the news about you two. As far as I'm aware, the only people who knew were me, Neville, and Minerva. Apart from you and Harry, of course. And I don't like to think of any of us as the sort of people who spread gossip."

"I shouldn't worry about it," Draco said. "I have a few ideas about who it might be, and I'm not going to go around accusing Gryffindors any time soon."

Hermione looked at him closely, a look he returned with the closest he could manage to an expression of innocence. "Oh, right," she said doubtfully, but she turned the conversation to other matters. "Have you had much chance to talk to him?"

"A few words here and there," Draco said. "I understand that with the Minister dead, he's been talking to Ron and they're discussing the possibility that he might go into the Ministry."

There was more there than Draco was saying, Hermione felt sure. She'd try and have a few quiet words with Ron later about how he was dealing with Harry and Draco being an item.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Pansy muttered. "I mean, they'd be bound to make him Minister, and look how well war-hero Ministers have done in the past. Voldemort's first rise was made possible almost entirely because the Minister was a war-hero and everyone thought he'd notice if there was a Dark Wizard around, so they stopped keeping their eyes open."

"Are you insulting my boyfriend?" Draco asked.

"Let's face it, Draco, he's wide open to be the target of the wizarding world's version of David Beckam jokes," Hermione said, and grinned even wider when they looked at her blankly. "Never mind. But if you ever hear one, I think you'll understand."

"I have no plans to ever have such an experience," Draco said. "And I think that's quite enough of your infernal references to Muggle literature about which I know nothing. You can tell Harry I'll see him as soon as possible."

"I'll do that," she said, standing. "And for his sake, I'll hope to see you out of hospital soon."

21:

Cameras flashed as Ron stepped out onto the podium, followed by Harry and Draco, followed by the Ministry Heads of Department. The crowd were chatting, and he held up his hands for silence.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said when a hush had fallen, his voice amplified by a series of charms. "I'm sure you are all aware of the gravity of today's situation. The Heads of Department have met and discussed this, and we have initially requested that Mr Harry Potter be offered the post of Minister of Magic; and he has asked to deliver his answer to you, the public, at the same time as he answers the Ministry. Therefore, I'm handing over to him now. Harry."

Ron stepped back, and Harry approached the lectern Ron had vacated. He also kept hold of Draco's hand, forcing him to follow, which he did with as much dignity as he could muster.

A murmuring swept through the crowd, and the cameras kept flashing. Draco smiled confidently at them, although he could only guess at what Harry was going to say.

"Good afternoon," he began. Before he could say more, the crowd began to clap, and cheer, and stamp their feet, the closest to a standing ovation they could get while out on the street.

Harry grinned, then ducked his head as if overwhelmed. Draco noticed that he was leaning hard on the lectern, and moved a little closer in case he needed the support. Four days of worry, fighting, and bureaucracy had sapped his nerves and strength; and he could hardly have failed to notice that a small but persistent section of the crowd were shouting insults, mostly aimed at Draco, amongst the congratulations they had for Harry. It seemed that their wonderful acceptance of the quirks of The Boy Who Lived didn't yet truly extend to sleeping with what they still saw as 'the enemy'.

"Good afternoon," Harry repeated when there was a brief lull, and this time hurried on before they could start shouting again. "Firstly, let me say that I am extremely flattered to be offered this position. It's an important job—nearly as important as being England's Quidditch captain." The crowd laughed.

"However, I feel I'm very much better suited to the latter—or I was. I'm not entirely sure what I'm suited to now, but judging by how well appointing war heroes has gone in history, I don't think that it's being Minister of Magic."

There was absolute silence.

"I'm sorry; I don't feel it would be right of me to accept this offer."

The crowed didn't cheer at that. They spoke to each other in shocked bursts, and the journalists at the front began to yell questions at Harry, who didn't seem ready to deal with them. Some sections of the crowd started shouting obscenities.

Draco cleared his throat and leaned forward so that the amplifying charms would catch his voice. "If you want your questions answered, you're going to have to ask them one at a time," he said. He squeezed Harry's hand behind the lectern. "Err… gentleman at the front, wearing blue—Mr Creevey, is it?"

"That's right," the reporter nodded eagerly. "Harry—who do you think should be Minister of Magic?"

Harry smiled down at him. "If the Ministry asks for a recommendation, Colin, I'm going to put forward the name Ronald Weasley."

Another babble of voice broke out, so Draco leaned forward again to speak, well aware that it pushed his shoulder up against Harry's chest, and not at all unhappy about it. "Thank you," he said to Colin. "Another question—lady in the red blouse?"

"Lucy Warbeck, Witch Weekly. Are the rumours published by Horntail's column in Ave! magazine true?"

"What do you think?" Draco asked.

"I think Horntail writes a load of crap!" a heckler a the back replied.

"And I think his sources are amazingly accurate," Draco said, and turned to Harry. "Demonstration?" he whispered.

Harry thought about it for a second—kissing Draco Malfoy at all was a big step; doing it in public was not just big but positively gigantic—and then leant forward. They kept it short and dry, but it was an unequivocal answer.

"I'll get a lot more readers now," Draco murmured, and then turned back to the crowd. "Clear?"

The reaction was mixed, heckling, insults and cheers.

"We'll take just one more question," Draco told them. "Um… lady in the blue dress?"

"Amanda Marjoram," she said. Draco recognised the name—from many of the news in Ave! magazine which dealt with the 'human interest' side of celebrity watching. "Harry—what do you plan to do next?"

Harry tipped his head back a couple of inches, so that it rested on Draco's shoulder. "I can't give you details," he said, "but I have some fairly specific plans for the future. All you need to know about them is that I'll be out of the public eyes for a while."

"And in the longer term?" she asked.

"I imagine I may well return to Quidditch, either as a commentator or in developing better brooms," Harry replied.

Other voices were clambering to be hear, but Draco was overtaken by the desire to get himself and Harry to somewhere with more privacy, and fast. "I think the Ministry's representative would like a few more words," he said, glancing at Ron. "Thank you for your time."

He paid only enough attention to what happened next to be mildly impressed at the speed with which Ron recovered and took charge again. Much more of his attention was on pulling Harry away and out of sight.

Inside the Ministry building again, he held Harry tight, and whispered, "Care to give me details of those plans for the immediate future?"

"Well," Harry said, pulling back to regard Draco, a wicked gleam in his eyes, "first of all I was going to do this," he kissed Draco lightly on the lip, "and then I was going to crawl into bed and get some sleep, but after that…"

Epilogue:

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the grass was dry and yet soft, and they were happy and relaxed.

"Can I play football?" Pansy's seven year old son, Michael, asked, and Hermione rolled over to watch them talk. "Please mummy please please please."

She sighed, but agreed, fishing the ball out of one of many picnic bags. "If you don't mind playing on your own," she replied.

Michael did seem a little annoyed at this idea. "Won't you play?"

"Not today, Michael. I'm tired."

"I wish Daddy was here," Michael said, pouting.

Michael was the only one who wished that; Hermione had been plagued by thoughts of what sort of argument might break out if you combined Draco, Harry, and someone who worked in the Ministry, and had been quite glad when Pansy had met them with just Michael that morning, giving Jonathan's excuse as 'lots to do at work'.

"I'm sorry, darling," Pansy said, "but that's the way it is. Daddy had to work."

"I don't like Daddy's work," Michael said petulantly.

"Now that, I can understand," Harry said from behind her. He and Draco were curled up in the shade of one of the trees. "I know if I was your daddy, I'd hate my work."

Pansy laughed. "I think he isn't as fond of it as he makes out," she said, but Michael didn't seem to care about that.

"Will you play football with me?" he asked Harry, not in the slightest bit shy. "Please."

Harry looked at him, and then grinned. "Okay," he said. "I haven't played football for years."

"Why start now?" Draco asked as he clambered up. "It can't be that much fun."

"You don't know," Harry replied. "You've never tried."

"I don't know the rules," Draco said.

"Neither does Michael," Pansy told him. "You'll be pretty much equal."

"Where did he hear about football at all?" Harry asked. Michael kicked the ball at him and he stumbled slightly as he returned it before he quite found his balance.

"Playing with the Muggle kids in the village," Pansy replied. "Now he's old enough not to talk about magic, and it's fairly safe over on the playing field… we thought it was as well if he had some idea how to cope."

"Good plan," Hermione said, watching Harry as he returned a pass neatly. "It can't do any harm to encourage more intermingling."

"On the contrary, it leads to this sort of thing," Draco said. Harry passed the ball to him, and he tried to return it as he'd seen Harry do. It evidently wasn't as easy as Harry made it look.

Harry laughed. "The trick is to use both feet," he said. "Stop it or slow it with one, and then kick it with the other." He demonstrated, and then so did Michael.

"Yeah, well, you've been doing it since you were a kid," Draco replied. His second attempt was rather better. "I've never tried before."

"You'll learn," Harry said, and then did something fancy which involved flicking the ball up behind him and kneeing it on to the next person. "Wow. I can still do that."

They made a nice picture, Hermione thought. It was a far cry from the day in the library when she'd first worked out that Harry and Draco were sleeping together. Since then, they'd fought another Dark Wizard—twice—had arguments and agreements, revealed at last that the mysterious 'Horntail' was indeed Draco Malfoy (which she and Pansy were sworn to secrecy on), and come to the fairly comfortable conclusion that it was unlikely that they'd be leaving each other.

"Did you hear about Neville and Susan?" Pansy said suddenly. "He finally got up the nerve to propose, and they're going to be married in the spring."

"No, I hadn't heard," Hermione replied, puzzled, almost hurt, not to have been trusted.

"I don't think it's intended to be public knowledge yet," she said. "I only know about it because Neville asked Ron for some tips about coping with it—in the wake of him and Melanie last year, I expect—and Ron told Melanie about it, and she told Jonathon."

"It isn't really fair to spread that sort of gossip," Hermione said reprovingly.

"Don't be silly, Granger," Draco said, missing a pass and retiring from the game to sit in the shade again. "It's vitally important that she pass that sort of thing on, so that I can decide whether or not a Longbottom wedding is important enough to make my column or not."

She slapped him. "For old time's sake," she said, and heard Harry laugh.

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