When the Darkness Broke In

Chapter ~ VIII

Nobody Said It Was Easy

" I hate the world today; you're so good to me I know, but I can't change..." Meredith Brooks

Draco stopped outside the classroom and braced himself for the imminent encounter. Harry had offered - begged - to accompany him, but Draco had refused. Of course, having Harry there would have provided a verifiable witness should things turn nasty, but on the other hand Draco had been suffering enough in classes that didn't require an ounce of concentration, so he didn't relish the idea of flambéing the Defence teacher because he was concentrating more on his godson.

Taking a final calming breath he opened the door. Black was pacing inside, muttering to himself rapidly. He was tapping the index and middle fingers of the right hand into the palm of his left hand and he was obviously rather flustered. It was not a reassuring sight.

"Good afternoon," Draco said clearly, his voice calculatedly cool and detached.

The teacher immediately stopped pacing and whirled around to face him. "You're..." he looked at the clock, "...exactly on time..." he finished slowly, as though trying to validate the information against his preconceptions.

"You expected otherwise?" Draco asked, allowing the merest hint of arrogance to slip into his voice, just to test the water.

"Well, yes actually; I expected your lack of manners and disregard for the rules to extend to punctuality, now you come to mention it."

"Would that lack of submission to the rules be of the same kind that you flouted with relish when learning to become an animagus?" the blond boy returned with a smirk.

Black scowled at him, "Who told you that?" he demanded.

"Professor Dumbledore."

Black rolled his eyes and gave a loud huff, "Well you'd better keep that to yourself, otherwise you might not have much free time this year, alright?"

"If you give me regular detention it will mean you will lose an awful lot of your own spare time, though, won't it, sir?" Draco pouted innocently.

"No," the man snorted with a grin, "I'm sure Mr Filch has got plenty of uses for you. I'd suggest Hagrid, too, but I wouldn't like to put a mate through that."

"I'm touched," Draco replied, forcing himself to remain civil, "but isn't friendship a slightly strong term for the teacher-pupil relationship? Some may say improper, even."

"Very clever. That's tomorrow night you've just booked up," Black told him, folding his arms across his chest. "Any more smart-arse comments you'd like to get out of the way? A little thirty second amnesty. I hear there's a girls' toilet on the second floor with an unfortunate flooding problem, apparently."

Draco clenched his teeth. Sirius smirked and ticked himself a point on the scoreboard in his head. "Right then, Malfoy, I think the best place to start is you telling me what you can do."

There was a whoosh of gold and Sirius suddenly found that the boy in front of him was in a ball of very real flames. He took a long step back and cleared his throat.

"Right, I see."

"There's more," the boy grinned smugly. The flames disappeared and suddenly he cried "Catch!"

Automatically, Sirius cupped his hands to do so, but snatched them back as he realised he was being tossed a sphere of fire. The ball vanished in mid-air, long before he would have touched it. Nonetheless...

"YOU BLOODY FUCKING IDIOT! WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE CLEVER? DO YOU REALISE WHAT YOU COULD'VE JUST DONE?" He cradled his hands under his arms.

"I can control my pyroclasty, it would not have touched you."

"Really? Well either you're lying now or you lied when you said what happened in town was an accident!" Sirius half-shouted, his blue eyes blazing. "So which is it, Malfoy? Which would you rather have a year of detention for?"

Remain calm. Do not take the bait. Remain calm. Remain calm. Remain calm. "What happened then was an accident. When I consciously control it that is precisely what I do - I control it. I don't need these lessons. I am only taking them because I have been forced to," he said coldly.

"'I am only taking them because I've been forced to' - you're full of it, kid," the man mimicked, smirking and folding his arms across his chest.

At that point, something unprecedented happened. Some small part of Draco's restraint broke, and before he could stop himself, he burst out, "I'm full of it? Look at yourself, Black! Harry may think the sun shines out of your behind, but I don't! What on Earth possessed Dumbledore to let you teach anyway? You're more immature than half of the first years! It's pathetic!"

Sirius stared at him for a moment. Draco felt sure that that was it - he was going to be fed alive to the giant squid - but he stared back at the man defiantly, a picture of unreadable calm. In his mind, however, it was quite a different story. Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Stupid, stupid moron fool pratting pillock! He's going to kill you now. You're going to die a virgin! In fact, Draco was so caught up in his internal panic that he didn't initially realise that Sirius was actually starting to grin. Until the grin became a very loud guffaw. Draco stared at him like he was mad, which, quite frankly, he was now more or less certain Black was.

"What are you so amused about?" he asked cautiously.

Black tried to calm his mirth. "You!" he choked out.

"Me?"

"God, yes - you are the ballsiest little git I've met in his place!"

Draco blinked at him. "What?"

Black took a deep breath, but he was still grinning. "Half the sprogs here are either scared stiff of me so act all nice or just really like me, for some reason. You just blatantly hate my guts and couldn't give a toss if I know! It's bloody fantastic for a change!"

You are completely out of your tree, aren't you? "Right."

There was a few moments silence before Black spoke again, still half grinning. "You know what I reckon?"

"No."

"That's alright, it was a rhetorical question. No, I don't reckon I need to teach you how to control that-" he gestured vaguely with his hands "-I just think you need a hand with anger management."

Draco stared at him as though he were stupid. "Do you know nothing about my family? Malfoy males are known for their explosive tempers and their astounding ability to control them."

"Yeah, well, I don't suppose most of your family cause fire-squalls when they get a bit irked, do they?" Black sat down on a table just behind him. "It's about anger management, trust me. And fuck me, if there's anyone in this school who knows about anger management it's me!"

I have no intention of doing either. "You've had lessons in 'anger management' yourself?" Weren't particularly successful, were they?

"Yeah... after I nearly killed Snape."

"You nearly killed Snape?"

Black gave a sigh and his eyes seemed to cloud over. He planted both hands firmly on the table either side of his legs and explained, "You know that Professor Lupin and I are old, old friends, I presume? Well, when we were here Remus was the smallest, shiest, most studious kid in the year and almost everyone used to pick on him. Even Ravenclaws... But he never, ever retaliated - he's like that, reckons he gets what he deserves because of what he is and that sort of crap - and Snape was one of the worst. He's the sort of spineless bastard who picks on the vulnerable, and once you've seen a fifteen year old boy practically reduced to tears by a bunch of third years that were as big as he was, you can pretty safely assume that 'Vulnerable' is his middle name. Actually, his middle name's Jetrel, but that's neither here nor there.

"Anyway, at the start of our sixth year Snape and your uncle Malphas took it just that bit too far and Remy still did fuck all. The amount of fights I had with the scum who used to pick on him... Bastards! But after that I decided that I'd had enough of seeing the evil little fuckers starting on him and in a rather idiotic attempt to help Remus get his own back I told Snape where he was and how to get there. The fucking nosy tosser trundled off to go and find out why Remus disappeared so often and came face to face with a werewolf. If it hadn't been for Jamesy - that's Harry's dad -"

"I know."

"- Snape would have probably been mauled. And I would have been locked up, Remus stuck in some fucking One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest institution and Snape would either be dead or a werewolf himself." Black almost seemed to spit out the words contemptuously, and Draco tilted his head to the side slightly, listening.

"What's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'?" he asked.

"Muggle book - and film. Got Jack Nicholson in it - he's a Muggle actor and he's fucking brilliant. It's about this mental institution and this guy who gets himself sectioned so he doesn't have to go to prison. Basically, all the patients are treated like animals. It's bloody frightening." Black shuddered slightly and shook his head, "When I think that I could've got Remus shut up in one of those places..." He stared blankly at the floor and Draco continued to stand uneasily in front of him; three and a half minutes later Black still hadn't moved, but he was frowning. Draco felt distinctly awkward.

"Ahem."

Nothing.

"Black?" he ventured, a little more loudly.

This time there was a slight stirring in the man before him and then he suddenly seemed to snap his head up and looked at the boy with colourless eyes that slowly returned to their natural blue. "I didn't mean to..." he mumbled barely audibly, "...I only wanted to protect him...he deserves the same respect as everyone else...couldn't keep letting them get away with it..."

Draco had the unnerving feeling that whomever Black thought he was talking to, it wasn't one of his students. "Mr Black? Should I get Madam Pomfrey?"

"Pomfrey..." Black gave himself a small shake and echoed, "Pomfrey? No - no, sorry... I was just... er... having a bit of a moment... Fucking Dementors..." He took a deep breath and ruffled a hand through his shaggy crop of hair. "What were we talking about?"

Draco hesitated for a moment, unsure what to say. Did he mean before he had started rambling about Lupin or before he had had his little trance? "Your childhood," he offered finally.

"Ah... yeah, that was it... Why was I talking about my childhood, anyway?" He frowned. "Anger management - yeah..."

"Were you particularly close to Lupin?" Draco found himself asking, suddenly.

Black looked at him for a moment, then said, "At school? Yeah, I suppose we were; but the Marauders were all close. James was my best mate, but I was Remy's, if you see what I mean. Remy was Peter's... We got closer as we got older, really. After the Snape incident, bizarrely... things couldn't get much worse after that, so they went to the other extreme... Hang on - why am I telling you this?"

"I asked."

"I know you asked, doesn't mean I have to tell you though, does it? And why would you even want to know?" Black asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"I was just curious," Draco replied, irritation building again. "I just wondered what would possess two fully-grown men to live together in that pokey cottage with a teenage boy, that's all. Why Lupin never got married or anything... I supposed there must've been some sort of story, that's all."

Black seemed to tense and looked at him strangely; "No story. Remus isn't exactly the marrying sort, I've spent the most important chunk of my life locked away and we grew up living in the same room, so it's not really any different. All Remus and I have these days is each other and Harry, and it was Dumbledore's decision, anyway. Why? What're you trying to suggest?"

"Nothing," Draco said, truthfully. "I was just asking, that's all."

"Yeah, well - good. Because some things are nothing to do with anyone else."

Draco gave a tiny, inward smirk and muttered, "Quite."

~*~

Harry clutched at his Firebolt nervously as he waited for the Ravenclaws in the Entrance Hall. He had agreed to go along to their Wednesday night practise and was running early. He repeatedly straightened his robes and checked the buckles on his pads; most of the Ravenclaw team were older than he was, including Gavin and Cho and he was sure he would feel like a bumbling child in their presence. Simon was a beaming, friendly lad like Gavin, but Corrin Redburg, one of the beaters, was sulky and sarcastic and had given Harry filthy looks when he'd stopped to say 'hello' to Gavin in the corridor.

"Hey!"

Harry looked up to see Gavin and Simon Wood heading down the corridor. "Hi."

"So, y'all set, then?" Wood asked, grinning. "Gav's told us yeh're pretty good. Thanks fer helping us out."

Harry blushed and grinned back at the Scot, "Oh, it's nothing - it's more my team than my teaching. Just lucky, I suppose."

"Aye, modest too," Wood chuckled, "GC's warned us about that, an' all."

"No' tha' I been talkin' about you behind you're back or anythin'!" Gavin pointed out, grinning, but blushing slightly.

Harry was just about to answer when a loud Midlands accent not dissimilar from Neville's declared: "Ah, I see our dear captain's already consorting with the enemy."

All three boys turned to look and saw the shapeless form of Corrin Redburg looming down upon them from half way up the marble staircase.

Gavin turned back to face Harry and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, wha'ever, Nugget."

"Potter," Redburg nodded coolly as he reached them. "You going to try and teach us anything or are you just here as a glorified spy?"

"I-"

"Nugget, if you don' shut your trap right soon I'll stick tha' beater o' yours down your throat sideways, d'you follow?"

Redburg scowled at him, "Yeah, I'd like to see you try."

"Now, now, ladies!" Wood said, laying a hand on Gavin's arm and giving him a reprimanding look, "Now's not the time fer arguin' - we got guests, remember?"

"Oh - they aren't arguing again!" The tiny oriental girl appeared and moved around the little group until she was standing between Wood and the taller ginger girl who had arrived with her "Hi, Harry..." she mumbled, staring at the floor.

"Hi." Oh this is all going so bloody well, isn't it?

"Jus' Nugget being a dick'ead - as usual."

"Takes one to know one, Hilly."

"How many times d'I 'ave t' tell you - don' call me that!"

"Look, if this is going to cause problems I can just not come - I mean, I don't mind or anything."

"Good - see ya, then."

"Corrin - don't be so rude! Harry's helping us, so learn to be nice for a change," the ginger girl ordered sternly. "Lets go out to the pitch - Mills and Coen can meet us down there."

Together, the group made their way down to the Quidditch pitch in silence. The practise itself went as well as could be expected when the captain and one of the Beaters seemed to hate each other and one of the new Chasers kept whining that it was cold. How that girl was going to last the season Harry had no idea - most of the winter games would be played in snow!

But now, thankfully, it was over, and Harry was sitting at the top of the Hufflepuff stand with Gavin, who had apologised repeatedly about Redburg's behaviour. Harry had tried just as often to dismiss it as nothing, but the Welsh boy was having none of it.

"You don' 'ave t'take it from 'im! 'E's a prat. And I am really, really sorry."

"Okay, if you say so," Harry agreed finally. "But you're not looking that bad at all, honestly."

"Me or the team?" Gavin winked, sliding an arm around his shoulders mock-seductively.

"Both." I do not believe I just said that.

"Ooh, tha's good," he smiled, squeezing Harry closer to him.

Gavin had been growing progressively touchy-feely with Harry over the past four days and people - the ones who, it had to be admitted, were actually looking for such evidence - had started to point it out. It was only little things like leaning on his shoulder when talking to him and grabbing him in the corridor to attract his attention, but it gave Harry a sort of fuzzy glow in his stomach and he was very sure it was a feeling he liked.

The two boys sat in silence for a while, comfortably close and, Harry thought, with no sense of needing to talk. But then...

"Wha're you thinkin'?"

Before Harry has even realised it he'd absently murmured, "Hmm... just whether Draco and Sirius have managed to kill each other, yet."

"What?"

Harry's senses suddenly woke up. Oh bollocks. "Um... it's a long story."

"Meanin' you don' wan' me t'know..." Gavin said quietly, carefully sliding his arm away from Harry's shoulders.

"No! I mean yes! Well... well, no, I can't, really..." Way to go, Potter.

"I see." The look of poorly-hidden dejection on the older boy's face absolutely betrayed the fact that actually, he didn't see and was more than a little put-out that Harry didn't want to tell him.

"I'm sorry..."

"I thought you 'ated Malfoy."

"I did..."

"B'you don' now?"

"Well... no."

"How comes?"

Harry thought about falling asleep on the other boy's shoulder on the tower roof, of his hint of protectiveness towards Remus, of being handed a mirror to inspect the other boy's efforts in healing his cheek... "We just... buried the hatchet, that's all. But no one's supposed to know."

"Why?"

"Because he's a Malfoy and I'm Harry Potter."

"An' 'e's bein' a'right t'you all of a sudden? Don' tha' seem a bit odd? I mean, th'whole school thinks you bloody 'ate each other..."

"I know, and that's why no one knows about us."

"'Us'?" Gavin asked, sounding rather hurt, "'Arry, is there somethin' you bes' tell me?"

"No! No, you don't understand - I don't like him back!"

"Back?" he echoed in surprise, "You tellin' me Draco Malfoy likes you?"

Harry put his face in his hands. As if you haven't cocked it all up enough already! You bloody idiot!

"'Arry, does Malfoy like you?"

"Yes..." Harry winced, nodding. There was no point in denying it after that spectacular slip anyway...

"B'you don' like 'im? Not like that...?" Gavin asked uncertainly.

"No - he's not my type."

"'S 'e know you're taken, does he?" the Welsh boy asked sullenly.

"Taken?"

"Well... I mean... y-you an' me... we... we like each other, don' we?" Gavin's face grew intensely pink as he spoke and he picked at a tiny rip on his knee pads. Harry was too stunned to answer. "Oh..." Gavin mumbled eventually, "p'rhaps tha' were jus' wishful thinkin', then..."

"Gavin..." Harry really had no idea how to say what he wanted to say.

"S'ok, s'my own fault, innet?" the other boy told him, shrugging and giving a miserable sniff. "Shouldn' go makin' assumptions, should I?"

"No, Gavin - that's not what I meant - I mean, I want you to take me!"

Gavin looked at him in shock, his jaw slack and his long-lashed brown eyes as wide and round as Professor Trelawney's saucers. "'Arry!" he choked, "I... I really like you an' everythin', but... y'know - tha's a bit forward, really!"

Harry blinked at him in confusion, "Forward? How do you mean, 'forward'?"

The other boy was beyond pink or even red, now, he was a shade of aubergine that Harry had never seen on a person before. When he spoke his voice was dropped to a whisper, "I mean - don' get me wrong, I'd really like to, but... sort of... eventually. 'S a pretty big step, innet?"

And then Harry twigged. "Erm, Gavin... This is really embarrassing but... I didn't mean that the way it came out." If there had been a brick wall nearby Harry would have been banging his head against it. Hard.

"Eh? You... you weren't sayin' you wan' me to... y'know?" the Ravenclaw asked slowly.

"No. No, I'm just a bit stupid and apparently completely incapable of saying what I actually mean. Sorry - I'm such a prat!" Harry groaned shaking his head against the palm of his hand. Prat, prat, prat!

"No, I'm th' prat, 'ere!" Gavin insisted, slumping down on the bench with apparent relief. "God... tha' went so wrong, didn' it?"

"A bit, yeah..." Harry conceded, fully aware that he was less embarrassed now than he would be once he'd had some time to think over the gigantic Freudian slip he'd made.

"Okay," Gavin began decisively, sitting up straight on the bench, "Le's do this prop'ly, eh?"

"Properly?"

"Yeah. Prop'ly." He flashed Harry a grin, albeit a nervous one, and said, in a very formal voice, "'Arry, you know I really like you an' everythin' an' we been spendin' a lot o' time together an' stuff, an' I'd really like to know if you'd go out wi' me." He rubbed his hands on his thighs and nodded to himself, as if he was giving himself a mental debrief.

Blushing, and not quite believing this was actually happening to him - after all, the only really good things that ever happened to Harry Potter were anonymous Good Broom Deliveries - Harry grinned and said, "'Course I will."

Gavin nodded calmly, muttered, "'Scuse me a moment," turned around on the bench, so he had his back to Harry, and punched the air, shouting "YESSSSS!" as he did so. He then very calmly turned back to the position he had been sitting in before. "Sorry abou' that," he grinned bashfully, "jus' wan'ed t'get that outta th'way."

Harry giggled like a girl, and felt like an idiot. If he wanted a girlfriend, Potter, he'd have asked out a girl. "I mean, um... that's okay... I sort of feel like doing the same thing."

Gavin chuckled, "Well, tha's pretty reassurin'! An' I can' ach'ully believe I just asked you. I though' if did it were gonna take months to work up th'nerve..."

"I know the feeling," Harry admitted, "I'd only sort of realised I like you the night before you brought me my books on the stairs. It's only been a week and a half or something, hasn't it? It's... weird."

Gavin shifted closer. "I know," he agreed, "but I jus' seemed t'know, some'ow tha' you were... well, that you weren' gonna turn me down on th'grounds o'bein' a bloke. An' then I 'eard you asked Cho t'the ball las' year an' I did kind of panic, 'cos I thought you migh' jus' be frien'ly an' all that... I'm really glad you're not." There was a slight pause before he added, "I mean, no' jus' bein' frien'ly, cos you are frien'ly - very frien'ly - but I mean I'm glad tha' weren' th' reason. If you see what I mean."

"Um... I think I do."

They sat in silence for a moment, the sort of silence that would have had them both swinging their legs if the benches weren't so low.

"Feels a bit odd, dunnet?"

"Odd?" Harry asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Well, you know - like, we're differen' now, 'cause we're together an' all that... But it don' feel different, do it?"

Harry sat for a moment and tried to consciously 'feel'. "No," he shrugged eventually, "I don't feel different, really, either. Quite a bit happier, now, but not that different, no..."

"'Appier?" the Ravenclaw echoed, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, "Really?"

"Yeah, of course 'really'! I wouldn't have said it otherwise." Harry blushed and looked at the knuckles of his gloves, "I really like spending time with you and to think that I've sort of... got a special right to want to, now... it's kind of cool."

Gavin tentatively reached out and took his hand, "Whenever you want..." he mumbled.

Harry looked up and gazed into the other boy's eyes. So pretty...

"Aren' we s'posed t' do somethin' now?" he asked, tucking his hair behind his ear again.

"Like what?"

"Like kiss or somethin'? Put a seal on it?" he suggested, lowering his chin and looking at him through bashfully lowered lashes.

"Oh. Um... yeah..." Oh God... here we go... this is the decider...get a grip, Harry, come on...

Both boys very nervously leaned forward, their motions jerky with apprehension. Gavin started to raise a hand to Harry's cheek, but seemed to have second thoughts and opted for his shoulder instead. For a second they hesitated, trying to find a comfortable angle at which to proceed, and then their lips were pressed together, not too hard and slightly off-centre, but it was still enough to make Harry feel slightly dizzy. They didn't move at all at first, and when they did it was only a matter of a few sweet little fundamentally closed-mouthed presses, but Harry didn't care. He was going out with Gavin Cross and they were kissing! He couldn't wait to tell Ron!

Carefully, Gavin pulled away and seemed to be looking off into the distance with his eyes slightly narrowed.

"What?" Harry asked, turning to look around in the direction in which Gavin had been staring.

"I dunno," he began slowly, "D'you ever ge' the feelin' that someone is watchin' you?"

"Er... yeah, sometimes..." Harry admitted, turning back to look at him. "No one can see us from here, though, can they? We're too far away, too high up..."

"Tha's what I were thinkin'," Gavin nodded. "C'mon, I think we bes' be goin' - 's getting' dark an' this place is startin' t'gimme the creeps." He stood up, still looking around himself carefully. Harry followed, starting to become unnerved, too. "C'mon," the other boy urged, taking his hand, "le's getback t' th' castle..."

In the two weeks before the Quidditch match Harry spent his time carefully rationing himself between Gavin, Draco and Hermione-imposed study sessions. His prefect and Quidditch duties generally incorporated all three, to some extent, and he had begun to loan Gavin his invisibility cloak so the other boy could attend Gryffindor practises without the rest of the team knowing. The other boy was too shy to simply come along all the time and Harry had a feeling Sirius might throttle him if he knew how much he was helping his new boyfriend.

Sirius, in fact, had no idea that Gavin was Harry's boyfriend. No one did, apart from Ron and Hermione (whose reactions to the news had been whole-hearted astonishment) and, according to Gavin, Simon Wood. Simon, Gavin had explained, was his best friend. He had been since they'd sat next to each other when they were sorted. Harry liked Simon. He didn't see him in quite the same light as he had done a few weeks before, but he was a friendly and had a subtle sarcastic streak that kept Harry amused.

Gavin had advised Harry against telling Draco about them. He was worried the other boy would throw a tantrum and tell everyone. He'd fervently assured Harry that it had nothing to do with wanting to hide budding romance, but had remembered how, in his first year, one of the sixth years had been tormented so badly after he was found out that he hung himself in his parents' barn rather than return to school after Christmas. He insisted he was only afraid of people making Harry unhappy. It gave Harry a warm, tingly feeling in his stomach that was growing more and more familiar since he'd been officially going out with Gavin Cross. Even if it was a secret. The moments he liked most were the ones when they were on their own and the Ravenclaw would make a tiny gesture, something tiny such as brushing a stand of hair out of Harry's eyes or wiped an eyelash off his cheek. The hugs were nice enough, but it was the simple things Harry liked. Kisses had remained chaste and awkward, much to Ron's disappointment. He had been trying to bully Harry into kissing Gavin 'properly' just so he could get some feedback on whether he was better or not. Harry had taken to thumping him.

Draco, still none the wiser, was apparently doing a sterling job of hiding his animosity towards Cross. When he and Harry spent time together they would talk or study (much to Hermione's disgruntlement), and some times they would even play games if Draco didn't deem them too juvenile. One of the main things they spent time doing was studying pyroclasty. They poured over any books they could find that featured the phenomenon, and Harry was starting to take a very active interest. It seemed pyroclasty was not alone in its field. Records showed that women in the past had been allegedly able to conjure water from nothing (Draco had actually slapped Harry around the head when he had made a rather vulgar suggestion as to where the water came from and why it wasn't so odd after all). The women, one in the Far East, three in south-eastern USA and six in Europe as a whole had been labelled nymphs and eight had been burned at the stake by locals who claimed they possessed by water demons. There were only examples of female 'Nymphs' though. Not one single male. The more they had looked the more intrigued they had become, and their 'project' as they had started to refer to it, had begun to consume rather a large amount of their time together.

Draco had asked Harry, in a would-be-casual tone, who he would be supporting at the match that weekend. Awkwardly, Harry had had to reply that he had already agreed to fly the blue Ravenclaw flag as a sign of friendship, seeing as the two teams had assisted each other in practise. The other boy had set his jaw and stalked off to his next class.

On the afternoon of the game, the weather having finally started to turn grim as the summer came to a close, the Slytherin strode into the changing room, already in his full kit, and called his team to arms. "Listen up. We're taking the Ravenbores in the Chompley Arrow formation unless they take on the Girder's Grouse. You know they probably will, so don't all sit there like melons. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Draco," chorused the team in the deep, grumbling tones of six boys who all thought they should be captain.

"If they try to surprise us by trying the Gryffindorks' little Three-Two and One pass system we know what we're going to do to keep them back, I presume? Zabini, tell me."

François Zabini rolled his eyes and muttered, "We take out the Five-catcher and bring in our Two-One from below."

"I see I drummed it in to you at last. Try and remember while you're in the air, will you?" Draco snapped at th black-haired boy. He had a shifty squint that meant you never could tell whether he was looking at you or not and there were few people in the Slytherin team who wanted Draco's position more. "I want us to start with you at the One, Higgs at the Two and Montague at the Three. Do as you're told and we'll kick this bunch of idiots out of the sky." He checked his watch, ten minutes until the starting whistle. "Wait here," he ordered, and disappeared through the curtained entrance of the changing room.

Outside the Ravenclaw changing rooms, Harry was waiting for Gavin to come out so he could wish him good luck. The older boy had been intensely nervous about his first game in the captain's place and more so about playing Slytherin. He'd longed to have taken on the 'Hufflepush-overs' first, just to get a feel for how the team melded under pressure. After ten minutes, the Welsh boy appeared through the curtains, the top layer of his hair bound back to keep it out of his eyes during the game. "Are you okay?" Harry asked, as the other boy took his hand and began to lead him around the back of the stand.

"I'm no' too bad - bit twitchy!" he admitted with a nervous laugh.

"You'll be fine. But they play dirty, don't let the new players forget that."

"I know, I won'. Thank you."

"Oh, it-"

"'Arry, it's no' 'nothin'' so don' keep sayin' it is! It means a lot t' me, and it would even if you weren'... you know..." he nodded his head towards the changing rooms, as if to say 'can't let that lot hear'. He reached out and brushed Harry's hair out of his eyes. "I wanna say thank you," he mumbled, looking anywhere but at Harry. And then he suddenly fixed his dark eyes on the green ones before him, leaned down and kissed him. A 'proper' kiss. Harry wrapped his arms around the taller boy and kissed him back.

After a few moments, Draco's limbs, frozen in horror, allowed him to move again. He turned his back on the pair of dark-haired boys and stormed back into the changing rooms. "Slytherins!" he shouted, snatching up his broom, face like thunder, "New tactics. Take out their Keeper. And that's an order."

Take out their Keeper the Slytherins did. Time and time again. From the moment they were in the air, five Slytherins took it in turn to aim Bludgers, the Quaffle and themselves at the Ravenclaw. Draco watched from his vantage point above the pitch and smirked. That'll teach you, you bastard. The only members of the team not attacking Cross were himself and the Slytherin Keeper, who was having a fairly easy time of it against the full Ravenclaw Chaser trio. They, like the team's Beaters, were valiantly trying to defend their own captain.

He looked down at the crowd. Harry seemed to be transfixed in shock as a Bludger crashed into Cross's shoulder and the Ravenclaw flopped forward over his handle. He struggled to sit up again while Wood waved madly at Hooch to make her halt the game. Five minutes later they were back in the air and Wood was circling the goal posts defensively. The little oriental girl was a short distance away from him, scowling. "You're a cheat and a bully, Malfoy!" she yelled, "Don't think you'll get away with it."

Draco laughed at her. "What's the matter, little girl? Is the big boys' game a little bit tough for you?"

Cho gave a very uncharacteristic hiss and spiralled away.

Draco returned his attention to the Gryffindor. Harry is sitting there fawning all over him! It's all so obvious, now! No wonder Potter kept changing the subject when I started talking about him and Cross. He couldn't even tell me! We're 'such good friends' now, but he couldn't even tell me. Bastard!

To say Draco was upset would have been like saying the ocean was 'a bit damp'. He was stuck in a rut between too-upset-to-be-angry and too-angry-to-be-upset. Consequently, he was in a painful limbo, and his mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: kicking Gavin Cross's Casanova arse into the middle of next week. Being too small and sophisticated to do it himself, Draco was satisfied with allowing his team to do his nasty work for him. And it was working. Unfortunately, there were side effects. Harry was upset, obviously so, and that left Draco feeling like something one might find in a neglected Dragon's lair. He couldn't decide between calling them off for Harry's sake or getting them to shove Cross' broom somewhere he'd never retrieve it from for his own benefit.

He didn't have time to reach a conclusion. Somewhere below a whistle sounded. He whirled around on his broom and there, forty feet below, Cho Chang was holding a clasped hand high in the air. The Snitch! The girl had the Golden Snitch! Draco sank to the floor as though he were deflating. They'd lost. Lost to Ravenclaw! And it was all Cross's fault. Draco was now very certain which side of the line his feelings fell on: he was furious.

Harry raced out onto the pitch at soon as the whistle sounded. He didn't care that the whole school was watching and that a few eyebrows may have been raised as he sprinted over to Gavin to check he was alright. The older boy looked as though he'd been in a fight. A bruise was swelling around his split lip, caused by a Beater's club to the chin and the carefully tied back hair was now hanging loosely in his eyes. "Are you okay?" Harry asked, grasping at his arm, "I saw what happened and -"

"I'll be fine," Gavin lisped, giving him a smile that made his facial injuries contort in a rather grotesque fashion. "Won, didn' we?"

"Mr Cross!" Madam Pomfrey was hurrying towards them, "What on earth do you think you are doing just standing there? You should be in the hospital wing! Come, now!" Gavin tried to protest but found himself dragged away. He turned back as Harry asked if he should come with him and shook his head.

"Come an' see me later - when I look less like a monster!" he replied with another distorted smile.

"Looks rather bad, doesn't he?"

Harry whirled around with his wand in his hand and had it half a centimetre from Draco's nose before the blond boy could draw breath. "You did that," Harry hissed, "You set your whole cowardly team on him because you're too feeble to take him on yourself! You're pathetic Malfoy."

"What, Potter? You surely don't think you're actually worth fighting over, do you?" Draco snorted, putting one hand on his hip. He began to scowl. "You didn't tell me. All that time in the library and the safe room, and you couldn't even bring yourself to tell me. I thought we were meant to be friends, Harry."

"Gavin didn't want you to know."

"No, of course not. Is he ashamed of you, Harry? Is that it, or does he have some pathetic excuse about protecting you?"

Harry hesitated for a second. Gavin had wanted to protect him, he'd said so. And Harry trusted him. Draco was just jealous. "Gavin is not ashamed of me," he muttered fiercely, "but he didn't want scum like you to know because he could fairly easily guess your reaction. To think I thought you'd actually changed!" Harry lowered his wand and gave Draco his filthiest look.

"You're so gullible! You don't even realise that he's using you, do you? This is all about Quidditch - he doesn't like you, Potter, just your tactical skills!"

Harry's fist connected with Draco's cheek with a force that actually knocked him off his feet. "How dare you?"

Within a second the blond boy had sprung back up and regardless of the crowd growing around them he launched himself at Harry and attempted to strangle him with his tie. Fists and feet flew and goading cheers from the other students rang out until Harry found himself bodily raised into the air with a pair of hands on his collar and belt.

"F'fuck's sake, Harry! What the hell are you doing?" Sirius was struggling to hold him up and Remus was carefully tugging Draco to his feet as he tried to shrug him off.

"What in Merlin's name is going on here?" Professor Flitwick had waddled over, and was soon followed by Madam Hooch.

"Nothing, it's all under control," Sirius told them, dropping Harry onto his knees and yanking him back onto his feet but his robes. "We'll deal with this. Come on."

The two boys were half carried, half dragged to the castle and taken to an empty classroom.

"What's going on?" Sirius demanded, shoving each of them into chairs. The two boys glared at the floor but said nothing. "Harry, you might be my godson, but I'm not above sticking you in detention for brawling. I mean, what the fuck has gotten into the pair of you, eh? One minute you're bloody best friends and the next you're trying to kill each other!"

"Harry," Remus asked quietly, moving closer to him and leaning a hand on the back of his chair, "has this got something to do with the reason Gavin Cross was just taken to the hospital wing looking as though he'd been trampled by a herd of wildebeest?"

Harry turned crimson. Why did Remus have to be so bloody observant? "It's nothing," he forced himself to say, "we just had an argument."

Draco cast him a side-long glance. "It was my fault," he said emotionlessly.

Too bloody right it was! "We're sorry, it won't happen again." Not if Ferret Boy wants to keep his looks.

Sirius stared at them incredulously while Remus tilted his head a fraction and regarded them with vague interest. "Alright," Sirius sighed loudly, "Get out, and the next time I catch you two fighting it won't be brushed under the carpet so easily, got it?"

"Yeah..." the boys chorused sullenly and stood up, leaving the room before either man could ask any more awkward questions. Outside the room they gave each other final aggravated scowls and set off in different directions.

Draco went straight to the top of South Tower, both to remove himself from people he might be tempted to hex into small pieces and to have some time alone to think. He was hurt, mainly. Angry with himself, but hurt by the fact that Harry hadn't told him. He'd thought they were growing close... now he felt like a fool. He wasn't stupid enough to think that the time they had been spending together was significant romantically, but they were certainly becoming friendlier. It wasn't all that Draco had wished for, but it was something. They were working together on learning about Draco's gift; Harry was showing an interest in him through that. It had been keeping him motivated towards gaining more. More of everything.

They had really been learning about each other. The things that Draco liked so much about Harry were slowly unravelling and he was starting to identify individual attributes: the modesty that was so genuine it bordered on constant self-deprecation and simply made you want to show him that he was worth everything and more, even though he'd never believe you; the slightly black sense of humour that could actually be rather droll sometimes, and quicker than expected when he wasn't even thinking about it; his typical Gryffindor devotion to being friends with anyone who took a shine to him, no matter how far beneath him they were and how irritating their presence was. Sometimes Draco wondered if he was really one of those people, and not the secret confidante he liked to believe he was, but then Harry would do things, make small gestures or comments that brushed all his concerns away, and for a little while he felt alright again.

It was fun to see Harry doing ordinary things such as studying, complaining over his Potions homework, playing exploding snap or losing pathetically to Draco at chess. It felt more normal. It made Harry seem more normal; even Draco couldn't help but see him as The Boy Who is Trying to Save My Life, sometimes, but by just spending redundant time with him Draco was beginning to understand; or so he'd thought.

He slammed the door of the uppermost room shut behind him and kicked a tattered old sofa in frustration. He kicked it again when he realised it was upholstered in Ravenclaw blues. It was insane that he had been in the abandoned storage room innumerable times and yet he had never noticed the colour of the sofa. But then, it had never really mattered before. Draco searched himself for his cigarettes, then remembered he was still in his pocketless Quidditch robes. The sofa received another kick. In fact, it received several before Draco stomped over to the other side of the room and sat on a hard wooden chair beneath the window. There was no way he was sitting on that damn Ravenclaw rubbish any more.

Why couldn't Harry have just told him? Because that thuggish lump didn't want him to. It was then that realisation dawned. Cross didn't want him to know about them. Harry had said so; "Gavin didn't want you to know." If Cross had specified that he didn't want Draco to know then he must have been aware of the possibility that he would find out. Therefore, Harry must have told him they were friends. Or worse. Draco's heart skipped a beat and his blood ran cold. If you told him, Potter... He bit his lip. What if Harry had told him? Suddenly his thought processes speeded up. By the changing rooms, when he had seen them kiss, he had been sure that Cross had purposely looked over at him. He had thought that was ridiculous, though. What would the idiot have thought he could obtain from making a show of possessing Harry the way he quite obviously did? Unless he had known. Unless he had known and had realised that if Draco's mind was elsewhere it would throw his game! What if Harry was helping him? What if the whole point of Harry being so friendly with him was in hope of learning his strategies and using the way he felt against him? He felt a lump building in his throat. He wanted to kick the sofa again, but it was too much of an effort to get up and walk over to it.

Draco tilted his head against the wall and tried to take some calming gulps of air. They failed to do what they were intended for and instead, and to his annoyance, they merely succeeded in pushing tears out of the corners of his eyes. Don't - sodding -cry! he told himself, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve, Potter isn't worth it. Only, Draco was pretty sure that he was. He was certain that Harry Potter was well worth the upset, because he was the one person who could make him so upset. Sirius Black, it was growing apparent, was the one person who could personally push Draco far enough to outwardly lose his temper altogether, but Harry was the one person who could hurt him that much. He tried to hold back the sobs until he finally choked and then he gave in completely and buried his face in his knees, rocking gently in his seat and mumbling "stupid, stupid, stupid..." over and over into the material. He wasn't sure if he even meant himself or Harry.

Over twenty minutes later Draco had managed to return his breathing to normal and was drying his face on his sleeve. He was feeling much calmer, but also distinctly niggled that he didn't have his mirror with him. He could look like a puffer fish with a hangover for all he knew. And his jaw still hurt from being thumped, so God knew what that looked like! As for Harry... Harry had a lot of explaining to do. How dare he abuse his trust like that? What gave him the right to use his feelings for a sporting advantage, anyway? And yet, at the back of his mind a voice was arguing that Harry wasn't like that. He never asked about the Slytherin Quidditch strategies or pressed him to attend their practises. He just talked about Quidditch generally. If anything, he gave Draco more information about the Gryffindor strategies than anything else!

Draco stood up and began to pace the room; he didn't understand and he wanted to. He wanted to understand very much. Maybe it had been Cross's idea, but that didn't excuse Harry from being a part of it. If Harry even knows. Which, being as he's an oblivious little nit he probably doesn't...Which means Cross is using him! I'll kill him. If that hairy great ape is using Harry like that I'll... kill him! Draco stopped pacing rather abruptly and pressed his hand to his mouth. He may have said that to Harry first in the heat of the moment on the pitch, but he could hardly tell Harry that now, could he? 'Harry, I know we just tried to kill each other, but I thought it would be best to let you know that I think I was right and Cross is only sleeping with you to get his hands on the Quidditch Cup'. He gave a shudder, He'd better not be sleeping with him...Draco didn't trust Cross one iota. He may have seemed exceedingly pleasant to everyone else, but Draco remembered seeing his own distorted and apparently verdant reflection in the older boy's eyes and he wanted to know why. There was something not quite right about Cross, something he couldn't place, and regardless of his own feelings for Harry, even as a friend he wouldn't have wanted him to socialise with the other boy. He unnerved him. Chewing on his lip, Draco resolved to stop the brawny moron doing anything else that might jeopardise his relationship with Harry. It wasn't something he should be involved with anyway.

~*~

Thursday seemed to take longer than was strictly necessary to arrive. Part of Draco was dreading it, but the other half was desperate to see Harry alone. They hadn't spoken since the incident when Black and Lupin had dragged them away for a ticking off. In classes they had ignored each other, or, more accurately, Harry had ignored Draco and Draco had pretended to ignore Harry back, while feeling for all the world as though he we struggling against a veritable ocean of angst that he was not at all inclined to acknowledge. His pyroclasty lesson went rather interestingly on the Wednesday. He was firing off balls of heat that at one point nearly reduced the stone mantle over the fireplace into lava. Black had made some smart-arsed comment about that, and Draco had immediately ignited the curtains. It was lucky the other man seemed to be well versed in restoring charms, but Draco ensured that they were frazzled no less that four times afterward, just to make sure he had a job to do.

Finally, however, it was Thursday afternoon and Draco was sitting in the classroom that had been designated as theirs, completely alone. There was no sign of Harry and Draco was about to think that the Gryffindor had decided to terminate their sessions. In fact, the other boy was fifteen minutes late and Draco really was growing rather worried. Yet, when Harry finally walked in and slammed his book bag onto the table, sitting down on the chair opposite with his arms folded, Draco was more than a little disappointed. This was not what had had hoped for. He had hoped for Harry to walk in and declare that his little fling with Gavin had come to an abrupt end, owing to the fact that the Ravenclaw was a moronic twat; failing that, simply that he was as sorry about their fight as Draco was.

For precisely seventeen minutes they sat and stared at each other without saying a word. There was no way Draco intended to speak first. It was Harry who had started the fight anyway. Finally, the Gryffindor snapped. "What is your problem, Malfoy?" he demanded, scowling at him and giving a snort that reminded Draco of a bull about to stampede.

"Let-me-think," Draco mused, placing one finger to his chin in mock pensiveness, "I wonder if it could perhaps be that you didn't have the guts to tell me you were seeing Homo Erectus's fat little brother and then attacked me on the Quidditch pitch in front of half of the school?"

"You deserved it," Harry spat.

"Oh yes, of course I deserved it. I was telling it as I saw it, Potty - just trying to warn you that your precious boyfriend is not what you think he is."

"You're jealous, Malfoy, that's your problem. You're a jealous little ferret and you can't bear to see someone else with what you want, can you?"

Draco narrowed his eyes and curled his lip into a sneer, "What's the matter, Harry? Is the truth hurting that little bit too much for you?"

"The truth?" Harry echoed angrily, "What would you know about the truth? Seems to me you couldn't tell the truth from what you want to believe if it jumped up and bit your stupid Slytherin arse!"

"Pot-and-kettle," the blond boy smirked back. "Perhaps Potty and Kettle, but I don't feel like assimilating myself with a household appliance, personally. I am not averse to likening lover-boy to a tool, though."

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy!" Harry growled, standing up slowly.

"What are you going to do? Hit me again? That would upset Daddy Black and Daddy Lupin, wouldn't it? And all because I was concerned about you getting hurt when that imbecilic yeti has got his own way and can finally dump you by the wayside! Remind me never to try and look out for you again!"

Harry faultered for a second before snapping back, "Don't give me that rubbish again, Malfoy."

"It's not rubbish! Did you know I was standing behind you when he kissed you? Did you even see the look he gave me? No, I don't suppose you did, did you? Too eager to get back to the nookie, obviously!"

"We weren't getting back to anything! That was the first time we'd kissed properly!" Harry burst out.

Draco merely sat and raised his eyebrows, "Is that so? How convenient." The bastard won't event come near you unless it's to get to me and you just won't see it, will you?

"He did it then because he wanted to thank me for helping them out! Why can't you just be happy for me?"

The words permeated Draco's ice-tinted exterior and settled somewhere in his chest. "Because you won't be happy when he's finished with you! Of course I was bloody jealous - how can you expect me not to be? That great lump's got everything I want! But I am not telling you this to be petty, Harry - I am telling you this because it's true. I do not trust Gavin Cross as far as I can throw him, which, let's face it, wouldn't even be very far if Hagrid tried, and I just..." his voice lowered to a murmur, "I don't want him to hurt you. In any sense."

Harry's scowl quivered, fighting to remain in place. "He won't hurt me..." he insisted with rather less conviction than he'd previously had.

Draco wanted to tell Harry what had happened in Hogsmeade, he desperately wanted to, but the look in the other boy's eyes stopped him. He's such a fragile little idiot, sometimes...How can I make him even more miserable than the dopey git will be when he's had time to think about this? It's Cross who should be feeling like rubbish, not Harry. Harry's just stuck in the middle of this..."Look Harry," he started, carefully rising to his feet to bring himself to the other boy's eye level, "You can say what you like, but I do not trust him and I sincerely doubt I ever will. If he hurts you I shall hex him into oblivion, so don't say I didn't warn you. And he'd deserve it, anyway. You're better than him."

"No one's better than anyone else..." Harry protested lamely, reluctantly slipping back into his seat.

"You are!" Draco argued, looking as though he were about to slam his fist into the table in exasperation.

"Draco, stop. Just for one minute listen to me. I am just me; you know that. I'm not special, I'm Harry. You aren't doing yourself any favours by telling yourself I am, you know..."

"Bloody modest Gryffindor..." the Slytherin muttered and sat back down in his own chair, arms folded and pouting insolently.

"D'you know what? Gavin says the exact same things to me, about being too modest and more 'special' that I think I am. What makes that any different to you saying it?" Harry asked, leaning on the table.

"I mean it - that's what makes it different. I'm not doing it so you'll help rescue me from a captaincy I can't handle and allow me to cop quick feel behind the changing rooms."

"He didn't 'cop a feel' of anything!"

"Oh well, I hope you're a good Quidditch instructor, then, Harry, or you might be back on the market quicker than you think."

"Why are you being so horrible again, Draco?" Harry demanded, growing increasingly hurt through both the things the Slytherin was saying and the doubts he was stirring inside him. "I was really starting to like you..."

Draco closed his eyes and replied, through gritted teeth, "I am not being horrible, I am trying to tell you that Gavin Cross is not worth a moment of your time!"

"For God's sake! Isn't that for me to decide?"

"YES! Yes, of course it is, but you're a Gryffindor! You like everyone! How can you even believe your judgement is accurate?"

"Well it's certainly less biased than yours."

"Don't talk rubbish, Harry, you're his boyfriend! How can that be a less biased opinion?"

Harry didn't have much of a comeback to that.

"I can't believe that even though we've spent so much time together you refused to tell me about you. You must've known I would find out eventually!"

Harry merely shrugged and pressed his face into the palm of his hands. "Gavin didn't want you to know, I told you that..."

"Yes, you did, but why didn't he want me to know? And why did you take his word over your trust in me? That's what gets to me the most, Harry, that you didn't trust me enough to tell me."

"I do trust you," Harry groaned, "It's nothing to do with not trusting you. But it wasn't just my secret. It's Gavin's, too, and I didn't want to let him down."

"Of course not - can't upset Gavin, after all - friends come second."

"It's not like that! I just... part of me was afraid of upsetting you so you'd get in a temper and ruin things before they'd even started, and the other part was afraid of upsetting you full stop. You know I know how you feel... I was trying to not aggravate that... Clearly, it was a waste of time." They sat in silence briefly before Harry continued, "I know we're friends now, Draco - or that we're supposed to be - but we've spent years and years fighting and I can't just sort of switch off whatever mechanism makes me so defensive around you. I do trust you in a sense that I believe what you've told me about Voldemort and your father and everything, but I don't trust my understanding of your reactions towards me, yet. Things I'd laugh about with Ron and Hermione you get stroppy about. Things I think you'd go ballistic about you're relatively okay about... I don't understand, yet."

"Do you even want to understand?"

"Don't be a knob, of course I do. We said we were friends, didn't we?"

"And, as a friend, I've been trying to warn you against something I think is bad for you. You don't have to listen to me, but don't try and make out I've only saying it to be petty, because I'm not. I just..." care "...don't want to see anyone get the better of you, that's all."

"Well... thanks. I appreciate your concern. If I end up crying into my pillow because Gavin has dumped me, then you're more than welcome to mock me horribly."

"I wouldn't do that," the blond boy insisted immediately. Then added with a small frown, "I have to draw the line somewhere."

"You're right, you do," Harry returned more harshly than he'd meant to, "but next time he annoys you what are you going to do? Use Cruciatus on him or something?" He paused, almost as if waiting for an answer, an oath that he never would.

Draco stared at him for moment, looking as though he was frozen in time. Then a small pulse point in his jaw began to twitch. "I am not my father," he said through gritted teeth, his eyebrows slowly twisting into a frown. Suddenly he was on his feet and heading for the door.

"Draco!" Harry reached out to grab at his sleeve and just managed to catch the material quickly enough, "I'm sorry! That's not what I meant -"

"It's what you said."

"I know - I know and I'm sorry. I didn't mean you would use Cruciatus on anyone - or any of the Unforgivables - but it was just an example. That's all - just an example, okay? An example..." Harry babbled desperately, knowing how deeply the implications would have cut the other boy.

"But that's just it - I have used them, haven't I? He made me use them-"

"I know, Draco, but it's not your fault-"

"I'm not like my father..." he repeated half-heartedly, closing his eyes tight and wrapping both arms around himself tightly.

"I know you're not..." Harry said softly, his instincts urging him to reach out and hug the other boy, but memories of the conversation on the top of South Tower pulled in the other direction.

"I should have fought it."

"Fought what?"

"The curse! Imperius. I should have fought it. I shouldn't have done those things he wanted me to."

"Draco, you were a little kid - you couldn't have fought it then!"

"You lived through Avada Kedavra, didn't you?" Draco demanded.

"Yeah, but as far as we know, that was a complete fluke! I was only a baby - I couldn't have done it any more consciously than you would have done!" Harry argued, "It-wasn't-your-fault."

The blond boy tightened his grip around himself and clenched his eyes shut tighter, reciting the Greek alphabet backwards in his mind. Boys do not cry. Boys do not cry. Harry gave in; there was no way he was just going to stand there and do nothing. He stepped nearer and wrapped both arms around him, waiting to be shoved away. To his surprise, when Draco loosened the grip he had around his own torso it was to wrap his arms instead around Harry and bury his face in the dark material over his shoulder. Gently, Harry rubbed his back the way parents seemed to when their children were hurt; he was actually amazed at how naturally it seemed to come. How easy it was to comfort another simply through physical contact. Of course, he'd hugged Hermione or patted Ron's shoulder when things were looking a bit bleak for each of them, but he'd never really comforted anyone properly - he'd never needed to. Even making those mandatory soothing sounds seemed to be easy and they made Draco nuzzle closer towards his neck and squeeze him tighter, so he supposed they must be working.

After a few minutes, the blonde boy pulled away, looking slightly pink but certainly not as though he had been crying. He brushed his robes down and stared at the floor awkwardly.

"Are you feeling okay, now?" Harry asked tentatively, tilting his head slightly so he could see past the worst of the other boy's silvery hair.

"Fine," the other boy replied quickly. "Lesson time is over."

"Is it? Oh... yeah, I suppose it is," Harry admitted, looking at his watch. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"I'll be fine, don't coddle me."

"I wasn't-" I was cuddling you...

"No. Look, I'm sorry... I just think I'd best go and find some time to myself. I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?"

"Same as usual," Harry nodded.

"Good, then I'll go."

"Okay."

"Bye then..."

"Bye."

Harry watched as the other boy slipped out the door, pausing to half-glance back at him, and suddenly he realised he was extremely sorry to see him go.

~*~

Explaining to Gavin that he and Draco had patched up their differences was not easy for Harry. Quite understandably the Ravenclaw was rather put out that Harry was so friendly with what he now deemed The Enemy. He'd sulked all morning after Harry had told him. By the weekend he had been feeling much better. His bruises and bumps were gone and he was almost heroically fending off the concerns of the rest of his House. In fact, he'd confided that he was getting rather irritated by everyone's 'flapping' as he called it, so Harry had suggested they spend Saturday afternoon at the cottage. After all, they could hang out in Harry's bedroom with no one to hassle him at all. He felt the need to mollify the older boy and stop him sulking, and at that moment in time, couldn't think of a much better way. At least he hadn't mentioned the hugging...

Harry led the Ravenclaw into the cottage and stuck his head around the living room door. Sirius was sitting on the floor, apparently trying to assemble something from small pieces scattered around him on the rug, and Remus was curled in the armchair by the window, reading a hefty book and vaguely attempting to convince the other man he should give up because parts were missing.

"Hi!" Harry called, "We're just going upstairs..."

"Right - see ya..." Sirius mumbled vaguely, scrabbling through the pieces. Remus lowered his book and smiled at him.

"Okay, Harry. Who's your guest and are you going to be staying for dinner?"

Gavin leaned slightly around the door and waved briefly before ducking back out again.

"Dunno," Harry shrugged, and backed out of the room, "I'll tell you later."

Remus nodded silently at the closed door, fair eyebrows raised above the rims of his spectacles, yearning to tell them to leave the door open. He was glad Sirius hadn't noticed the other boy. He suspected the last thing they felt like doing was sitting through one of his Quidditch rants.

The teenagers tramped up the cottage's narrow staircase and into Harry's carefully ordered bedroom. Gavin looked around at the Gryffindor banners and the few bookshelves Remus had filled with a combination of wizard and Muggle books for him, the abundant photographs of Harry's family and friends and the single wardrobe shoved into a corner as though neglected and useless. Harry didn't have many clothes, even though his godparents had offered to take him shopping and bought him some rather more sensibly-sized garments.

"Ooh," Gavin grinned, shutting the door behind them, "Nice private room you got 'ere..."

Ever since Harry's faux pas with the 'take me' incident allusions to sexual activity had become a private joke between the two. Despite this, it had taken until just before the Quidditch game for the two boys to even kiss properly and apart from a couple of secret goodnight kisses and a jokey squeeze of Harry's bum things hadn't gone any further.

"I suppose it is," Harry replied, bouncing onto the bed. Gavin moved nearer and joined him less confidently.

"You're lucky," he told him, kicking off his shoes and placing his feet on the bed, leaning against the footboard. "Family right 'ere an' a room you can come to t' get fi'e minutes t' y'self..."

"I'm not supposed to come here to stay during the week," Harry pointed out with a shrug, "but no one seems to mind if I come at weekends." He looked at Gavin's socked feet. The temptation was too great; he reached out a hand and gently tickled the sole of one. The older boy gave a very ungainly shriek of laughter and tickled Harry's in retaliation.

"Gavin! No, don't! Stop! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Harry laughed, scrambling backwards up the bed as the Ravenclaw advanced upon him in a very obvious tickling stance, "Gavin! I'm really ticklish! Don't!"

"I shall 'ave my revenge! Mwah-hahaha-haaaaaaaa!" he replied in his best Evil Tickling Overlord voice, and pounced on the Gryffindor who gave a breathless yelp and tried to fend him off with equally ferocious tickling. It took just a couple of minutes before they were both so exhausted from laughing that they collapsed in a breathless truce, both dark heads resting on the same fluffy pillow. They both panted for breath, sporadic chuckles breaking out from time to time.

"You know," Gavin breathed, pushing Harry's fringe out of his eyes, then interlocking their fingers, "You're really, really gorgeous... but when y're 'appy I's jus' somethin' else..."

Harry blushed and muttered, "Ah, shurrup..." coyly.

"Y'are."

"Oh stop, you're making me go all pink!"

"So?" Gavin grinned mischievously, and leaned across to give Harry a kiss.

In the living room, Remus turned the next page of his book without knowing a single thing that had been on the previous page. His eyes were following the text, of course, it was just that his brain wasn't listening. His thoughts were all too focused on something else. Werewolves' senses are somewhat heightened compared to the average human being, particularly at certain times of the month, and while the full was still some time off, Remus was 'sensing' things that didn't leave him terribly comfortable. In fact, he'd been getting hints for quite a while - a couple of weeks, perhaps, from various sources - and he was now beginning to add things together. At present there was a distinct sense of excitement in the cottage, faint (probably due to the fact that it was emanating from another part of the house), but undeniably there. The excitement, he mused, of two teenagers finding novel ways of entertaining themselves. He groaned inwardly and hoped he was wrong.

It's funny, Harry thought as he rolled back a bit to allow Gavin to shift his weight further on top of him, how kissing gets so much more passionate when you do it horizontally...

"FUCK!"

Remus dropped his book with a start. "What? What's the matter?"

"Look what I found in here!" Sirius cried, springing to his feet and showing him a tatty square of paper. "It's me! Me and Harry - look how tiny he is..."

Remus looked at the old Muggle Polaroid shot. He remembered it being taken, about three hours after Harry was born. He lay in Sirius' cradled arms, grasping at his hair with one hand, and the other fisted around an anonymous finger. His own, as it happened. "Yes," Remus forced himself to smile, leaning down to retrieve his book, "it's very old, isn't it? Hasn't he grown up?"

"Fuck, yeah! I'm gonna show him!"

The wrought-iron bed gave a small creak as Harry made Gavin raise his weight so he could shift his leg underneath him. Grinning, the Ravenclaw obliged and settled back down; Harry wrapped both arms around him.

"Show him? What, now?" Remus asked, trying not too alarmed.

"Yeah, of course 'now'!" Sirius turned to head towards the hall.

"NO!"

"What?"

"I mean, no, don't - he'll be embarrassed. No one wants their baby photos shown to people, do they?"

"Don't be a pillock, Moo, half the world has seen his baby photos!"

"Well... well, yes, I know, but not while he was there. Trust me, Sirius, it can wait. Really."

Harry listened to the strange slurpy noises they made as they snogged. That's really quite grim, he thought, and would have scrunched up his nose in mild distaste if he hadn't been otherwise occupied in accommodating the other boy's tongue. He ran his hands up the inside of the older boy's t-shirt, hoping to provide a distraction and hopefully not put him off...

"Sirius-"

"Oh shut up, you old woman!" Sirius laughed and started up the stairs, taking them three at a time.

"Sirius!" Remus hissed in mild panic, "Don't you dare go in there!"

Sirius turned to glance at him and shake his head as though he thought the other man was mad, and his hand was already on the door handle.

"SIRIUS!"

At the sound of the door opening Gavin, who had been shifting his weight to allow his hands access to areas that had been awkwardly trapped between them, gave such a start he fell off the bed. In the same instance Harry sat bolt upright and tugged his t-shirt straight, folding his knees against his chest after a split-second's thought.

Sirius merely gaped at the pair of them for a moment before emitting a strangled yell of: "REMUUUUUS!"

For a moment there was nothing, then the shorter man's voice sighed: "I told you. I told you not to go in there. I told you it could wait. But you never, ever flaming listen, do you?"

"Sirius-" Harry began, starting to climb off the bed, but having second thoughts about doing so in his present condition. Gavin scrambled to his feet just as Remus's voice called:

"Um, Gavin, I don't mean to sound rude, but I seriously think you would benefit from escaping as soon as possible."

A nanosecond later the Ravenclaw dashed out of the bedroom clutching his trainers and muttering "Sorry..." as he darted past.

"I-" Sirius shook his head in a gesture either of disbelief or speechlessness.

"Sirius I... I meant to tell you..." Harry started feebly.

"WHEN?" Sirius suddenly exploded, "When you were running off to Las-sodding-Vagas for a bloody wedding ceremony read by Elvis?"

"N-no... but... I did mean to, honestly! There just never seemed a good enough time... I mean... I really did want to! Really. I'm really, really sorry..."

"I don't want you to be sorry, Harry! I just can't believe you didn't fucking tell me!"

"I'm sorry..." Harry said again shakily, not knowing what else to say and feeling a lump of humiliation, shame and regret for not telling Sirius ages beforehand begin to clog up his throat.

"Annngh..." Sirius seemed to growl helplessly, running a hand through his hair and haltingly moving to go and sit on the bed beside him. "Don't you get all weepy on me, kiddo!" He wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "I just can't believe you... It just doesn't seem right! I came up here to show you a picture-" he pressed it into Harry's hand "-of yourself when you were a couple of hours old! It just feels fucking mad to realise you're not a sprog anymore..."

Harry looked down at the Polaroid. The man whose arms he lay in was grinning down at him with such rapture. It made him feel even more ashamed.

"Harry..." It was Remus, this time, leaning against the door frame uncomfortably, "I think the three of us need to have a bit of a talk; don't you, Siri?"

Sirius cast him a glance, did a double take and then nodded slowly; "Yeah. Yeah, I think we do... Over to you, Moony." He unwrapped his arms from around Harry's shoulders and waited for the other man to speak.

Remus blanched, then blushed deep pink, "Wait - no, Sirius, I didn't mean I -"

"You're the sensible, practical one, Moony, off you go."

"Sirius!" The fair-haired man stood in the doorway like a rabbit in headlights, not sure whether to run or not, green eyes wide and nervously jittery.

"Go on, then, it was your idea after all, Remus, and I'm absolutely positive that you know exactly what you're doing in this respect."

Harry turned redder and redder, too embarrassed to speak.

Remus shot the other man an look that threatened of retribution to follow at a more appropriate time, and edged nearer the bed. Carefully he sat down and cleared his throat. "Harry," he began, clasping his hands together so tightly the knuckles whitened, "you're a growing lad and... um... well, I'm sure you know that as you get older - I'm sure you've already noticed this for yourself - things start to change a bit and, well..."

"Get a move on, Moony, or he'll be married before you shut up!" Sirius teased with a grin that promptly fell as he realised what he'd said. "Well, not 'married' married, but...er..." Remus cast him a cool look and he quickly shut up. "Erm, carry on."

"And, well... as these changes start to happen - well, they probably started to happen when you were about twelve, but-"

"I know this..." Harry said quietly.

"Yes, I'm sure you do, Harry, but-"

"Oh for FUCK'S SAKE!" Sirius cried in exasperation, "Alright, here's the thing, Harry - it's perfectly okay to fancy people. It's a bit strange if they also happen to be bloke, but, fundamentally, you're no more weird than anyone else. The fact it's a Ravenclaw is another matter..."

"Sirius!"

"Well it's true, isn't it?"

"Y-you don't like him?" Harry asked, dark eyebrows pinched up in the middle from anxiety.

Sirius grimaced. "Now, if I thought you were 'my precious little angel' or something, I probably would despise him at the moment, being as I've just walked in on you two limbering up for the horizontal hula; but I know you're probably just as rampant as any other fifteen year-old in that castle, and I don't think the kid had to do much persuading, so no, I don't hate him. I just wouldn't have gone for him myself."

Remus shot him a look that Harry couldn't identify. He was probably irked that Sirius was being so blasé about it. "Harry," he started again, reaching out and putting a hand on his knee, "we need to ask you something that's quite personal..." he chewed on his lip for a moment before continuing, "Be honest, are you-" he hesitated over the words for a second "-having sex with Gavin?"

Harry's eyes nearly fell out in surprise, "No!" he assured him, shaking his head fervently.

"Well, if I hadn't found that picture we might be having a very different answer to that, so..."

"Gavin and I are not... sleeping together."

"I've heard that one before. From your father, actually. I think you're literally living proof of the Potter Word when it comes to that matter, personally..." Sirius teased, ruffling his hair.

"Harry wasn't even conceived 'til years after that, Sirius!" Remus tutted, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not sleeping with Gavin," Harry insisted, resting his forehead on his knees.

"Your mum and dad were maybe... a year older than you when they first got together," Remus said, eyes fixed on the picture beside Harry's bed, "and they were always adamant that they wouldn't - they used to fight non-stop when they were kids and then, suddenly it was all hearts and roses. Quite literally, in fact - we set them up as a joke and it didn't go quite to plan. We used to tease them horribly about it, particularly James, of course, and they denied for absolutely ages that they were... well, that they doing things they shouldn't have been-"

"Shagging like bunnies."

"-and by the time you turned up it was pretty obvious that they had to have been-"

"Of course they were! No normal person waits until their twenties to do the Nasty, do they?"

Remus looked at his hands for a moment before murmuring, "Some people don't feel the need to become involved like that until they've met the person they intend to spend the rest of their lives with. And you shouldn't feel obliged to do things you aren't comfortable with, Harry. You have every right, at any point, to change your mind, do you understand?"

Harry nodded. Sirius was right, though, at the time he'd been more than willing. In fact, he'd instigated half of it! And for Gavin's sake, Harry thought he should say so. "It's not like that, though, is it? I mean, in theory saying no is a piece of cake, but when you're actually there... it's different." He lowered his voice to a mumble, "I didn't want to stop..."

He missed the looks of understanding on his two guardian's faces. Remus's thoughts stretched back to the events on James's stag night, of doing things he'd spent the past twenty years of his life backing away from and waking up the next morning to the worst feeling of humiliation he'd ever faced. Wishing he had only drunk as much as he thought he had, and not the excess. Of running away to hide in the kitchen and steel himself for moment when his hormones' rebellion came back to haunt him.

Sirius, on the other hand, had dwelt on that for long enough over the past few days, and found his thoughts turning to after the wedding. To the very first morning he'd woken up with a mop of sandy-brown hair buried in the crook of his arm; to thinking that rushing into some things was the biggest mistake a guy could make.

Remus reached out and gave their young charge a hug. "It's alright, we understand and neither of us are remotely angry," he assured him, "we're just going through the big parental fuss because James and Lily aren't here to."

"Would mum and dad have been angry?" Harry asked, looking between the two.

"Nah. James would have been having cold sweats about how to have this talk and Lils would have given you a big soppy cuddle and told you how much she loved you," Sirius grinned slightly wistfully. "I'm sorry you have to make do with us hopeless gits, that's all."

"Oh don't say that!" Harry protested, throwing his arms around his godfather and squeezing so hard Sirius had to make him let go before he ran out of air, "I love living here."

"It's a good job you do, because you're stuck with us until you're eighteen, I'm afraid," Remus reminded him, shifting nearer and giving both of them a hug at the same time. Sirius unhooked his arm from the fray and hugged him back. Awkwardly, Remus looked up and caught the other man's eye for a moment, their gazes lingered, and then they both snapped them away.

"Only eighteen?" Harry asked reproachfully. "Does that mean you're going to chuck me out as soon as I'm old enough."

"I shouldn't think so," Remus grinned, pulling away to sit up, "who else can we get to wash up so often?"

"Ha!" Harry choked in indignation, "If that's the only reason you're keeping me here I'm leaving right now!"

"Don't be daft, Harry," Sirius tutted, deliberately ruffling his hair to roughly it all stood up with static, "It's not that at all... It's because only you understand why this one winds me up so much!" He gave Remus's hair an equally rough rub. Remus scowled.

"Likewise, Padfoot, likewise. Just don't expect me to go any where near your laundry ever again."

"Moony! You wouldn't! You know I'm rubbish at that sort of thing..." Sirius pouted over-dramatically.

"Watch me," the other man beamed, "And guess what's happening to that stick you really liked."

"Stick? Moony, you couldn't possibly-"

Remus gave him a brief grin and was out of the bedroom door in a small, beige blur. With a loud yell Sirius was after him at an equal speed. Laughing, Harry climbed off his bed and watched out the window as they had a tug of war in the garden - which Remus was actually winning. Harry grinned to himself, relieved to see them being so playful. He'd been worried things weren't going too well of late, but, with the exception of having a very embarrassed boyfriend to deal with, things were turning out okay. He gave another loud chuckle as Remus let go of the stick and sent Sirius reeling onto the grass. And to think, he smiled, they say you're only young once.

1