Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Harry Potter
Genres:
Romance Angst
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 07/04/2002
Updated: 08/24/2002
Words: 138,117
Chapters: 18
Hits: 119,499

Unthinkable Thoughts

Aidan Lynch

Story Summary:
When Harry and Draco first met in Madam Malkin's robe shop, neither ``of them could have anticipated how much loathing and mistrust would follow. But ``one day in their fifth year something happens which forces Harry and Draco to ``reconsider exactly what such abhorrence is founded on. Little by little, each ``of them is overwhelmed by Unthinkable Thoughts, and they begin the voyage that ``takes them from their safe harbours of deep suspicion well out into uncharted ``waters. And the more they discover, the more the realise that things can never ``be the same again!

Chapter 04

Chapter Summary:
When Harry and Draco first met in Madam Malkin's robe shop, neither of them could have anticipated how much loathing and mistrust would follow. But one day in their fifth year something happens which forces Harry and Draco to reconsider exactly what such abhorrence is founded on. Little by little, each of them is overwhelmed by Unthinkable Thoughts, and they begin the voyage that takes them from their safe harbours of deep suspicion well out into uncharted waters. And the more they discover, the more the realise that things can never be the same again!
Posted:
07/09/2002
Hits:
5,461

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER FOUR

THE BOYS' BOOK OF SPELLS (SPECIAL EDITION)

The Fifth Year Boys' Dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, a room so peaceful and secure and comfortable that it always felt warm whatever the time of year, was the centre of Harry's life. The rattly old lead windows somehow, as September was just turning into October, magically repelled the increasingly chill winds that whipped around the tower. And although he shared this room with his best friend Ron and their fellow warriors Neville, Seamus and Dean, it had remained a private space, and was rarely, if ever, visited by other members of Gryffindor House.

Which was just as well, because at the moment the room was a bloody disgraceful mess; the kind of mess that would have had Mrs Weasley clucking her disapproval and would most likely have sent Aunt Petunia into an apoplexy. It did not seem to matter how often the house elves worked their magic in the room, within a day or so it was always a total tip. As Harry looked at it shortly after breakfast on the Saturday after the now-infamous Care of Magical Creatures lesson, it really did seem worse than usual. But then, his mood was pretty fierce. Bordering on aggressive, to be honest.

There were books and scrolls everywhere, on the large table, on the trunks and on the beds, and - where it had been necessary from time to time to actually go to bed - shovelled off the beds and onto the floor in heaps. Quidditch equipment hung from the four-posters, brooms stood or lay around in awkward places. Shoes, each one separated from its brother, ran in a chaotic jumble right across the room. Robes were strewn on every available area of floor space. And, wherever the position of the furniture allowed, heaps of other clothes - clean and worn alike - would accumulate, which were sorted through most mornings as the Gryffindors searched for something to wear that day. The contents of Ron's trunk lay in a disorderly pile next to his bed, as he had upended it the previous day looking for some clean socks. There hadn't been any.

But the Age of Chaos was about to come to an end, and as Harry stood and surveyed the mess he briefly wondered whether he would actually miss it. There was something wonderful about the mess in the room; it made it totally, territorially, theirs. And in most cases nothing was ever actually mislaid, as each boy always knew roughly where to look for whatever he needed. But an interfering prefect had been hassling them about it for weeks, and finally after one particularly stern warning (which, like the others, had gone unheeded), the unimaginable had happened: Professor M McGonagall, Order of Merlin (second class), Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School and Head of Gryffindor House, Nationally Renowned Witch, Transfiguration Expert and Animagus, to say nothing of Stern Disciplinarian, had been summoned by the despairing prefect. Harry well remembered trying to ignore her lip curling in something considerably beyond disappointment as she duly threatened the boys with the loss of twenty points each if the room did not get straight and stay straight, straight away. There was to be an inspection at 6 o'clock that evening and the five were supposed to be meeting to start the clean up, but so far Harry was the only one to have arrived. Where the bloody hell were they?

He sat on his bed. Sure, the room was a disgrace, but hardly the most important thing in the world. He idly ran his hand round the edge of his bed and his fingers alighted on a book, the one thing that was safely stored away in its own place. Just the one thing in the whole room: the Boys' Book of Spells (Special Edition) was tucked down between the mattress and the headboard of Harry's bed. Harry didn't know quite why this object was so special to him, considering the other wonderful things he owned, like a Firebolt and an Invisibility Cloak; but there was just something about the amount of trouble the others had gone to that made Harry stash it away like a little prize.

And sure, it was a great thing to have.

Well at least that's what he'd thought when they had first given it to him. He'd tried out a couple of the spells in recent days (with the silencing spell in place for decency's sake) and then all the boys had wanted to borrow the book to try out Charlie Weasley's special spell from Romania. All things considered, Harry had had to admit that the Wizarding Way was far superior to the Muggle Method, and he had laughed with the rest of them at how he had ever managed without a wand. But since that very morning though, Harry wondered whether the book had become too dangerous to use. As he sat down heavily on his bed, he tried to stop his mind from recalling the details of just a few hours previously when...when, oh shit, it was too awful to think about.

But as always with things we try not to think about, the very act of not thinking about them keeps them at the front of our minds. It had been another early morning - earlier than usual, not long after 4am - when his eyes had blinked open in complete wakeful alertness, not one glimmer of fatigue in his mind or body. Thoughts and feelings and emotions had begun their usual clamouring, hemming him in, pinning him physically to the bed, stabbing into his chest. So much disappointment, so much shame, so much guilt. How could he ever tell them?

Ron would hate him. Even worse, Hermione would offer sympathy. Neville would be disappointed. Seamus would be unbearably smug. Ginny would be heartbroken. Gryffindor House as a whole would be uncomfortably embarrassed, maybe worse. The other Houses, especially Slytherin, fuck...can't think about that. The same thoughts, the same desperation every morning. Why couldn't he just tell them the truth, why couldn't it just be a non-issue? After all, he had never had to own up to having black hair or green eyes, and this unspeakable secret was as much part of him as those outwardly obvious things. He couldn't tell them. He couldn't. Hogwarts was his home, Gryffindor his family; the risk of rejection was too great and the consequences of rejection unthinkable. He would be alone.

But, he was alone.

To have such a secret from Ron was destroying their friendship. To lie to Hermione about girls he fancied was an insult and a betrayal. To live in such familiarity with his room mates was a deception. Everything he took for granted was his because of what he kept hidden. The same thoughts, the same destructive circle of conclusions and fears. Every bloody morning. And, as every morning, there was really only one way out of the endless cycle of worry: a few fleeting moments of physical pleasure. And the boys themselves had now given him the means to make these private moments more exciting, more thrilling and more breathtaking than they had ever been.

But that morning, he had got more than he had bargained for.

Instead of the welcome luxury of forgetting his current situation for a short while and allowing himself to inhabit a world where he could caress his imaginary lover in a way that felt natural and loving and innocent, there had been a horrible, unimaginable catastrophe. Caused by the book, he was sure. Well, not the book itself, but the information it held. There was something about magically assisted pleasure that heightened perceptions, intensified experiences, enhanced imagination; and that morning, as Harry and Whoever-He-Was had tussled in their childish but intimate play, an image as sharp and clear as a colour photograph had erupted from Harry's subconscious and smashed him between the eyes.

His lover, his companion, his fantasy: he had (gulp) blond hair. White blond. And creamy skin. And clear, cool blue-grey eyes. And a handsome oval face that he recognised. And, bizarrely, a smile.

Oh Christ. Now there was nothing left. Nowhere to retreat to, nothing that wasn't tainted. Life with the Gryffindors was bearable because he could escape once a day and let his mind roam free of expectation and honour and respectability, and now, in that special place, in Harry's own private world, the face of his arch rival and sworn enemy grinned back at him. Mocking, sneering, jeering.

He hadn't cried though.

Sure, he had wanted to, but crying had never been something that he had done. Crying was like admitting defeat, and the Boy Who Lived never admitted defeat, not even when duelling with Voldemort, not even when he thought of his parents. But something within him had taken responsibility for his actions and he had found himself suddenly acting with purpose, but without his knowing where the motivation had come from or what the purpose was. He had sat up, all arousal obliterated. The wand and book had suddenly seemed redundant and incriminating, and he had stuffed them under his pillow. He had jumped out of bed and showered quickly. He had dressed in the first things that he had found, wrapped a scarf around his neck and pulled on his robe. Then he had quickly left the castle and stepped out into the grounds a little before dawn, and negotiated a complete circuit of the lake.

Fast, deliberate walking, head empty but for the mental effort demanded by the act of walking itself.

Then, on his second lap of the lake, his mind began to consider some of what had happened, initially just tiny, inoffensive thoughts that gradually coalesced into a plan.

He would stop being close to Ron, in preparation for the inevitable day that they would no longer be friends. That way, Ron would not be hurt as much by the secret that Harry would one day have to tell him; he should never have allowed himself to get that close to Ron anyway.

He would stop relying on Hermione to get him out of trouble with work. When the shit hit the fan, he would have to get used to working on his own, and so now seemed a good time to start.

He would ignore Ginny; that way she would lose interest in him and go and find someone more worthy, someone who could return her affection.

He would not join in any more boyish pranks organised by Seamus or Dean. When they found out what he really was, he would hardly be welcome in their gang, so he might as well extricate himself from it now on his own terms.

He would stop visiting Hagrid as much, as he had to learn to stand on his own two feet if he was ever going to survive when he left school.

He would not take any further advantage of the favours and privileges that were so often afforded him by McGonagall and Dumbledore, so that when their disappointment in him was revealed, he did not feel he owed them anything.

He would withdraw from the Quidditch team, as he wanted no part in anything where people relied on him.

He would stop pleasuring himself completely. Of course. Immediately. That one went almost without saying.

And above all, he would pay not the slightest attention whatsoever to...to, God, he could not even think his name, to the blond boy. Who is he anyway? I've never even heard of him. He does not exist.

It was after 7am when Harry completed his second circuit of the lake. Smoke from the squat chimney told him a fire was burning in Hagrid's hut but Harry did not stop off for an early cup of tea. He reentered the dormitory as the other boys were rising for breakfast, but ignored their questions as to where he had been. He spoke to nobody at breakfast, choosing not to hear Hermione and Ron's nervous enquiries as to how he was feeling. They had been wary round him since he had fainted at supper earlier that week - and what the fuck had that been about anyway? Another example of his weakness.

He would not faint any more.

Up in the dormitory again, staring at the mess as he awaited the clean up operation, he reflected that it was fitting that all this was going to change. Again, something in him snapped him out of his dreaminess and dictated an astonishing burst of activity. Getting sentimental about mess? Honestly.

He would not be messy any more; it was a shocking example of weakness and immaturity.

Fuck it, he didn't need the others, wherever they were. Still laughing at breakfast probably. Hermione would be lecturing as usual on the importance of the bloody psychological advantage over the bloody Slytherins. Hell, he didn't need them. He went over the entire floor space of the room picking up things that belonged to him, tossing the others' belongings aside. When he had his bed full of his stuff, he packed it away into his trunk and locked it, the Boys' Book of Spells at the very bottom. Dirty clothes went in the laundry. Books, scrolls and quills were organised on top of his trunk. He made his bed. All the remaining untidiness was not his responsibility. He left the dorm again, and headed down to the common room, where the great mass of happy souls were just arriving from the Great Hall.

Oh shit. He didn't want to see them. Ever.

'Hey, there you are!' beamed Ron, his face full of warmth and friendship. 'Why'd you leave breakfast so early? We were worried. Are you feeling ok? Ready for the war against mess?'

Harry took a deep breath.

'Just so you know, in future you can save your energy by not worrying about me again. And please stop asking me how I am, it is becoming tedious.'

Harry looked Ron straight in the eye as he spoke. The crowd of Gryffindors went instantly quiet, unable to miss Harry's completely uncharacteristic iciness towards Ron.

'Er, I was just, I didn't mean to be...' said Ron, totally taken aback, but Harry ignored him and began to walk straight through the group towards the portrait hole. He pretended not to see Ron try to say something else while Hermione tugged on Ron's sleeve to warn him not to continue. Harry's heart tried to remain dispassionate as he saw the look of almost unbearable hurt on Ron's face as his best friend had just spoken to him so coldly in front of all the others.

'This came for you in the post,' said Ron brusquely, and stuffed a letter into Harry's chest. Harry cut through the crowd, muttered an inaudible word of thanks and left the room.

'What the hell is the matter with him now?' fumed Ron, to the group in general and Hermione in particular.

'Let it go, Ron,' said Hermione softly. 'Whatever it is, he will tell us when he can. You know what he's like.'

'Yes, I do,' said Ron. 'A rude, ungrateful bastard.'

* * *

He read it again, sitting on a rock on the far side of the lake. Here indeed was another bloody complication.

Dear Harry

I have just received a worrying note from Ginny via Hedwig about you fainting at supper. I hate the thought of you being ill or in distress while I am so far away, and as I have received no news about you for a while I am going to come to Hogsmeade this weekend. Meet me at the Shrieking Shack at lunchtime on Saturday, and bring some food if you can.

Sirius

Bloody Ginny.

Still, it was probably Ron who told her to write the note.

Bloody Ron.

Now Sirius was going to endanger himself while he was trying to run an important mission for Dumbledore at the same time as staying one step ahead of Fudge's men. It was such a risk coming to Hogsmeade! And now because of Harry, Sirius was going to put himself in danger by coming to check up on his stupid fainting godson.

Lunchtime on Saturday. That was still a couple of hours away. And it wasn't, strictly speaking, a Hogsmeade weekend. But deep, deep down, deeper down than wherever the strength he had found to make the decisions by the lake had come from, Harry didn't care. He wanted to see Sirius. It suddenly seemed so important. He just had to be able to count on him. If he didn't have Sirius, he had nobody.

Well, the Shrieking Shack was as good a place to mope as any. He might as well go there now. He went back to the castle, 'raided' the kitchens (Dobby and the other house elves happily made up a picnic hamper for him) and walked out of the school gates in broad daylight. Why bother with the cloak or the secret passage? He didn't care if he got into trouble.

Up at the castle, two people watched thoughtfully as by chance they saw Harry leave the school grounds. Hermione, worried, upset, concerned. Dumbledore, smiling slightly, guessing correctly whom Harry was going to see.

* * *

Bad moods abounded at the castle that Saturday.

Ron was upset, in fact furious, at having been so publicly dropped by Harry. When his fury began to ebb it was replaced by a profound sense of confusion coloured with a big serving of hurt. They had argued loads of times before, but this was different. It had always been about trivial things and they had made up almost instantly, never bearing a grudge, each too dependent on the other for their disputes to last more than a couple of hours.

There had been that time of course that Ron had not spoken to Harry in the run-up to the first Triwizard Test, but if he had ever thought about it afterwards, Ron guiltily suspected that it was his own jealousy that had been the root cause of that difficulty. Or rather, his jealousy further aggravated by the nasty combination of both his and Harry's astonishing stubbornness. But even that was not like this. They hadn't even argued this time. Harry had just said, well he couldn't remember the exact words, but it wasn't what he had said, it was the manner in which he said it: the look in his eyes had glared fuck off out of my life. But why? What on earth had he done?

Hermione and Ginny had mooned around in the boys' dormitory that morning, ostensibly to help with the Great Clear Up, but Ron knew that they were as upset as he was and felt the need to be close to him. The clear up itself had become a tedious and soul-destroying occasion, Hermione acting as unnecessary supervisor, Ginny idly flipping through Ron's stuff, trying not to think about what had happened. Neville ignored the whole affair, thinking that Harry had always been highly-strung and unpredictable, and Seamus and Dean were treading on eggshells, wading their way through the disgraceful disorder in the room whilst attempting to inject a little light humour into the proceedings.

Up to a point they all silently ignored the moments when something of Harry's was discovered, merely placing his things in a slowly growing pile on his bed; but when Ron found Harry's Snitch-clock, which had rolled under his bed amid a tumble of Seamus's socks, his frustration suddenly burst out and he let out an involuntary shout of anger and hurled the clock at the wall. With lightning reactions, Hermione deftly flicked her wand, and muttering the words Accio Snitch-clock under her breath, the clock changed direction in midair and neatly landed in her hand with a light thwok that seemed just as loud as Ron's furious outburst. She slowly walked over to Harry's bed and placed it carefully on the covers with his other things.

Ginny sighed deeply and said, 'I'm going out,' and she left.

Hermione was feeling scarcely any less distressed than Ron, but she tried hard to maintain a degree of rationality. Even so, she was furious with Harry for behaving like this. She could think of no justification whatever for his actions and words, but the situation had been made worse by Hermione's immediate assumption that Ron must have done something awful to get Harry in such a mood. Following Harry's surprising words, there had been half an hour of bitter accusatory glowering between her and Ron, before she realised that Ron was both genuinely hurt and totally mystified.

Her heart had melted a little then and, Harry temporarily forgotten, she had looked at Ron and wanted to hug and comfort him and tell him that he was not to blame; and later, over the incident with the Snitch-clock, she had so sympathised with his anger and distress that she was almost sorry that she had prevented it being damaged. She had looked at Ron, and he at her: he, grateful for her actions; she, thinking that the combination of hurt little boy and angry young man was suddenly dangerously attractive. Her heart had thumped a little faster at this moment of nonverbal intimacy between them, until Ginny had unwittingly (or deliberately?) broken the tension by announcing her departure.

Bloody Harry, she mused. When she got hold of him she was going to give him a Bloody Stern Talking To. He better have a watertight excuse for upsetting Ron like this, OR ELSE.

The cleaning up continued eventually and Hermione had wandered over to the window, half-listening to the most pathetic of arguments between Seamus and Dean about who had thought it would be a good idea to mix up the playing cards in four separate decks, and as she was wondering exactly which spell would offer a solution, she had caught sight of Harry leaving the Hogwarts grounds, the weak sunlight glinting on his glasses.

Now where on earth was he going?

Ordinarily she would have been highly agitated by this crazy disregard for his own security, but she kept quiet about it and added it the list of things that needed to be considered later, when she was alone, and when Ron had been calmed.

* * *

On the other side of the castle another fierce mood was in evidence.

Draco lay on his bed, refusing to talk to any of his fellow Slytherins, his sense of despair growing with each hour. He had not slept at all the previous night, and hardly at all since the day of the Care of Magical Creatures lesson with the fauns. And he had more or less totally withdrawn from interaction of any kind with his housemates in that time, as wrestling with whatever was going on left little time and no inclination for the dreary reality of Slytherin life.

This thing with Potter would simply not go away. He had examined it from all angles, clearly and objectively, furiously and in deep uncertainty, until he thought his head might explode. And then, at sometime after four o'clock that morning, he had been hit with a blisteringly vivid image of a semi-naked Potter, laughing warmly, slightly out of breath and flushed in the face. It had been a deeply intense, erotic vision, and its clarity and reality had shocked him hard, leaving him both aroused and disgusted at his own arousal. He had abandoned the idea of sleep for another night, dressed silently and slipped out of the castle for some air to clear his thoughts. And maybe, just perhaps, think about something else.

But, incredibly, with a realisation that was beyond infuriating, he had seen someone else wandering the grounds early that morning, a cloaked figure moodily walking the edge of the lake in the murky gloom of pre-dawn, looking for all the world like a Romantic hero embarking on some epic odyssey, and with a howl of indignation he had recognised the figure as Potter.

Fucking HELL!!! There was nowhere that he could escape this blasted boy! Not in his head, not in his bed, not even at 4:30am in the (otherwise) deserted grounds of the castle!

Draco slumped to the ground in despair, exactly where he was standing, just right there on the ground next to the castle wall, and for a long while found himself watching Harry, whose outline gained in definition and clarity as the dawn progressed. With the stillness of the time of day, and the strangely comforting sight of Harry prowling the shoreline, Draco began to feel more relaxed than he had felt for some days. It was, he realised with some resignation, like if he could actually look at Potter, he felt much calmer, much less distressed, much less confused.

Breakfast had been a sorry affair too. Back in the castle, Draco felt all his bitter anxiety return, and he took the odd step of resolving to sit where he could see Harry: after his feeling noticeably less uneasy while he had been watching Harry earlier by the lake, some tiny piece of logic told him that if Potter was the cause of his distress then he might also be its remedy. He was gruesomely uncomfortable with this scenario, but as he couldn't possibly feel any worse, he began to plan a number of 'experiments' - for want of a better term - to try to work out exactly why it was that Potter got under his skin so, and if his logic was founded properly, then also what it was about Potter that helped the distress fade away. But his plan had been shot to pieces by Harry's early exit from breakfast, in fact only a couple of minutes after the Slytherins had sat down.

Draco fumed in silence. Experiment #1 failed.

Or had it? He had learned from it that the sight of Potter retreating from the hall had left him feeling absolutely awful, which kind of confirmed that his state of emotional strength was somehow tied up with Potter's physical presence. Oh God. The omens were too unthinkable to consider.

But consider them he did.

Back in Slytherin house after breakfast, while Harry was off to the Shrieking Shack and the remaining Gryffindors were wading through a river of mess, he had returned to bed, and the full appalling nastiness of the situation began to make itself clear, as if Draco were daring to look at it full in the face for the first time. He felt totally wretched, and had now reached a state of such heightened anguish that it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus his mind on being constructive. With a near-monumental effort, he shrugged some of the torment away, sat up and reached for a quill and some parchment with a view to making his feelings clearer by outlining them on paper. But there was nothing concrete he could write down.

Sure, there were vague things. He felt bad beyond description, but was it actually a physical illness? Maybe a mental one? He knew that Potter was at the heart of it, but he didn't know why. He had dared to acknowledge that he might have a subconscious attraction to Potter, but that didn't make sense, because he hated him. And everything he stood for. And everything that went with him, and everyone that surrounded him, and more.

And, hang on Draco old boy, you're missing the obvious here: Potter is a boy. Is that a shock? Is it even news?

Draco scanned his whole adolescent memory looking for a girl he had ever felt sexually attracted to. There were none. But: there were no boys either. So, what was he attracted to then? What did he think of in his most intimate moments? He racked his brains. Nothing. Nobody. And out of this mysteriously blank came the painful realisation that he must only ever be concerned with his own pleasure; other people didn't even appear in his fantasies as faceless sex objects. Was that possible? What astonishing narcissism. Draco felt sick. He had probably never given a single thought to anybody but himself for his whole life. There was not one person he was even fond of, apart from himself. And at the moment he wasn't even sure he liked himself.

Shit, this line of thinking was getting nowhere.

But one thing was sure, he had never fantasised about a boy until a few days before in the shower on the day that that bloody faun had created a furor in the paddock. And the memories of that particular shower still cut into his psyche like a knife. Maybe it wasn't about girls or boys, maybe it was just about Potter. That might explain why Potter himself, even just the sight of him, seemed to act as a soothing, calming influence. There was still a lot of finding out to do where that was concerned.

Oh God oh God oh God. Was he actually considering entertaining this whole Potter thing? He had two options, as far as he could see: a) he could ignore it and hope it all went away, or b) he could try to find out more about what he was actually feeling and why. Taking option b) didn't mean of course that he had to act on anything he might find out (yeuch...) and put in those terms, it seemed silly just to hope everything went away.

Draco! Are you being positive about this? You're going to do something constructive? Does that mean that you are interested in Potter? NO NO NO! screamed Draco inside his head. I don't even like him! I hate him! But I've got to do something!

It was too much.

He scrambled out of bed and went through his trunk until he found the half-packet of cigarettes he had taken from his mother's dressing table at the end of the holiday. She seemed to like one of these when his father was being particularly foul. Draco had tried them a couple of times before and found them to be neither enjoyable nor disgusting, but as he drew hard on the cigarette a minute or so later, he saw instantly why his mother kept a pack of these odd Muggle things hidden away. Calm gradually crept over him until he could think straight again. Draco knew a lot about magic, and he knew a lot about emotions, (well, how to manipulate them in other people anyway) and he also knew in the core of his being what all these signs and happenings and feelings added up to. There were some things he didn't understand, but probably only because, he pondered, that he had never imagined that they would be directly relevant to him.

The library may be able to yield some answers. And it was maybe an idea to look a bit more closely at precisely what fauns could sense that humans couldn't. At least it was somewhere to start. He put out the cigarette on a saucer next to his bed and waved the smoke away with an incantation and a casual flick of his wand. Then, with a little more purpose than he had for some days, he left Slytherin House for the library.

* * *

'Right then. What on earth is the matter?'

It came out of the blue.

They had been chatting for about an hour about everything and nothing and Harry found himself glad to be in the company of his godfather - someone from outside the whole Hogwarts mess, someone who he could talk to and forget the crisis that was overtaking him in the rest of his life. Harry had been genuinely delighted when Sirius, looking healthy, clean and alive, had warmly greeted him, having just seconds before been the large black dog he had seen sniffing round the Shrieking Shack. If Harry had been several hours early for their rendezvous, then Sirius had been even earlier, which had pleased Harry in a way he had not felt before. Both of them had not really had breakfast, and they attacked the food parcel with great mutual enjoyment. Now, in response to a definite change in the atmosphere, Harry eyed his godfather, totally unsure of what he could tell him.

'Nothing,' he replied, lamely.

'Do you expect me to believe that?'

'Believe what you want. I didn't ask you to come here. You should be doing Dumbledore's work wherever that takes you. Not coming here worrying about me.'

'What kind of godfather would I be if I didn't worry, Harry?'

'I don't know.' Harry's manner now bordered on surly, and he felt ashamed of his words, and got up to go and look out of the window. Sirius replied anyway.

'I had a note from Ginny, and I just knew I needed to see you. And it looks like you need someone to talk to. So, this meeting is good for both of us, no?'

Harry turned to Sirius and managed about 10% of a smile. Sirius supplied the other 90%, and took a step towards Harry.

Harry wanted to, he needed to feel it, but, he was not a little boy any longer, and he stopped himself stepping towards Sirius. They looked at each other, silent. Sirius watched Harry closely and then spoke very softly. It was like the previous hour's conversation hadn't existed.

'Harry. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you growing up with no support and no love, and I curse every day of those years in Azkaban when I should have been with you giving you a home and a family. And though we can't have those years again, we have many more to come.'

Harry stared at Sirius, all the strength he had found by the lake that morning crumbling into one single desperate need, to know, that he was not alone.

'I don't really know how to be a parent of any kind,' continued Sirius, even softer, 'so I'm more or less going on instinct here. But I can see, Harry, that there is something eating away inside you, and my instinct tells me that you need to talk about it. And I need to hear it too. It's the very least I owe you, after...' his voice trailed off into nothing.

'Sirius! You don't owe me anything. It wasn't your fault!'

Harry's voice seemed loud after the whisper Sirius had ended in. He looked up at Sirius and repeated, 'it wasn't your fault!' as he took the step forward he had been fighting against. Sirius moved quickly over the remaining distance between then and tentatively placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. All Harry's remaining strength disappeared with that touch, and he felt a huge welling of emotion inside him, like some fierce animal wanting to burst from within him. His head fell against Sirius's shirt front and Sirius gently pulled the boy towards him, encircling Harry in the most secure, safe hug of Harry's life.

In fact, the only hug of his life that he could remember.

* * *

Hermione had had enough of the boys' dormitory. She wandered out about half an hour after Ginny, her mind still full of recent events. Harry was acting very weird, and had been since the day of the fauns.

The fauns.

It was Saturday and she had no homework left to do, so she cleared her mind of Ron and Harry, gathered up some books and made off for the library. The comforting surge of familiarity washed round Hermione as she entered the library, and as usual she was pleased to see that her own reading table was vacant. Nobody would dare!

But as she glanced along the shelves that housed the section on Magical Zoology, she found to her surprise and irritation that a good many of the books on fauns, which she had consulted earlier that week, were missing. How odd. This had not often happened to Hermione before. Where books were set as school texts or were required for any conventional piece of homework, she had either consulted them long before the rest of the class had thought of them or had her own personal copies. When she was using the library's extensive resources for her own purposes, such requirements had rarely, if ever, overlapped with someone else's needs. But obviously here was someone else going into fauns as thoroughly as she had already done.

Unconsciously pursing her lips, making the look on her face rather intent, Hermione considered the only remaining book on fauns: L'Art de l'Amour: Les faunes et ce qu'ils peuvent voir. Well, it would have to do for now, provided she could find a dictionary.

As L'Art de l'Amour had been the only book left on the shelf, whoever it is besides me who is interested in fauns, thought Hermione, as after about half an hour she finally reached page ten, obviously doesn't speak French. And nor, she concluded, do I. Hermione's parents had taken her on holiday to France every summer since she could remember, and she was perfectly capable of ordering an ice cream or even asking directions to the swimming pool. But when it came to wading through an ancient book written in turgid, florid, archaic prose with only rudimentary knowledge of the language and an antique dictionary, Hermione was, for once, lost. She silently determined to have a word with Professor McGonagall about the state of language teaching at Hogwarts as she made her way back to the shelves to replace the book.

As she rounded the corner into the Magical Zoology section she stopped dead still, not quite understanding if what she was seeing was significant or not. Hermione was no fool. She knew more or less, even without understanding whatever it said in L'Art de l'Amour, what had been going on in the Care of Magical Creatures class a few days before. And over the following few days she had begun to realise the full likely consequences of what she had learned and deduced. But to come face to face with a factor in the equation which she had until that moment deliberately blanked out, well, that was still something of a shock.

Standing at exactly the place where the books on fauns were housed was Draco Malfoy.

He was replacing a stack of books at the very place Hermione was herself making for. A sinking feeling overtook her, not one actually of realisation, but more one of horrible confirmation, and she tried to move silently away from the shelves before Malfoy saw her. But in the best style of someone trying to make an unobserved exit, she slightly caught her robe on a shelf and it moved one of the books in the Divination section. The noise was next to nothing, but it was just enough to cause Malfoy to turn round and see her. She felt she had no option but to pretend she had been heading for the books on fauns all along.

'Ah, Granger,' said Draco; rather subdued, Hermione thought. 'You've got it. I wondered where it had gone.'

He indicated the copy of L'Art de l'Amour that she was holding.

Is that it? thought Hermione. No insults? No disgusting Mudblooding?

Hermione didn't quite know what to say. Two things were odd here. One, she and Draco had never once had a conversation that did not end in one or both of them throwing insults at each other. The feel about this one was quite different. Draco looked drawn and tired, ill perhaps; certainly preoccupied with something, and obviously couldn't be bothered with the usual formalities. Two, he had without doubt been doing some research into fauns. They eyed each other, each deeply suspicious, but not exactly hostile. What does he know? she thought. As much as me?

'Yes,' she replied, eventually.

'Didn't know you spoke French, Granger. Another string to your overfull bow.'

Good, thought Hermione, this is more like it. Insults. Home territory.

'I don't,' she said. 'Not very much anyway. That is, I know enough to know that your name means bad faith, which, face it, is all the French the average Hogwarts student needs.'

Draco snorted. 'Oh well done, Granger. Good retort. Been working on that one for a while, have we? Interesting that you only think of yourself as average; I could have told you that years ago.'

Funny, thought Hermione. He was definitely better than her at throwing insults, even right then, when his heart was most definitely not in it. She looked at him closer. He seemed utterly exhausted, and not a little vulnerable. She tried a different approach.

'What do you want this book for anyway? I didn't know you spoke French either.'

'Hmmm. Well I suspect there's rather a lot that you don't know about me, Granger--' he said curtly, neatly swiping L'Art de l'Amour out of her hands. '--thankfully...' he added, under his breath as he turned and left.

But Hermione heard him.