Wings of Gold

Wings Of Gold

The first time Harry Potter met Draco Malfoy they were four years old and took an immediate hating towards each other.

Of course Harry had no idea that he was a wizard and though Draco did, he had no idea what Harry Potter looked like so there was no way for their quarrel to be about Dark Wizards who almost died because of a baby or the differences between Purebloods and Mudbloods.

In fact, at four years old they had no idea of the legend of enmity and something more that stood between their two families. By then James Potter had been betrayed and Lucius Malfoy had long since buried himself in a world of denial about the suffocating moment of pain that he had felt for the one person he had sworn meant absolutely nothing to him even after they had both taken their opposing paths of destiny.

So why, when they were still too young to remember and still too young to understand, did they hate each other immediately?

Well, obviously it was because Draco Malfoy thought he was a Know-It-All!

***

Harry was lost!

He knew he was lost because he didn't see his Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon or even Dudley anywhere. Besides it wasn't as if one could miss a set of persons so obviously noticeable. Harry had always known that he could have spotted his uncle and cousin a mile away! Well it seemed that they were indeed farther than a mile away because he really didn't see them anywhere.

To make matters worst, there were strange people in strange clothes everywhere. Actually, people always looked strange to Harry because he hardly ever got to see them since he was hardly ever taken out by his relatives. These people looked even stranger. They were all walking around in dress things!

Harry took a deep breath as he fought tears. Oh his Aunt Petunia was going to yell at him so loudly that the rest of the world was bound to hear! That, he knew from experience, was not a very nice thing to have to endure.

This time he involuntarily sniffled at the unpleasant realization.

He didn't have the time to dwell too long on this thought before something important caught his interest. A few yards away, on a bench, sat a little person who looked to be about the same age

as himself, who could only be described as having silver hair. More to the point though, the other boy was holding an ice-cream cone that was tilted dangerously towards the direction of the dirt ground of the park they were apparently in. It was obvious that the blonde haired boy's attention was focused entirely on something in the distance since he still hadn't noticed the precarious position his ice-cream was dangling in.

Harry just had to do something, and quickly too!

Running up to the little boy on the bench, he tried to catch his breath and speak at the same time.

"Excuse-Zi," he panted and the boy's attention became focused immediately on him. "Your Ice. Cream. Is going to fall!"

Well that brought about the prompt up-righting of the frozen treat but instead of looking grateful the boy on the bench scowled as best as his cute little face could manage.

"Tha's not the name! It's I-Cream!" he declared.

Harry blinked in confusion. He certainly was not expecting that, but still indignation rose in him rapidly.

"No, is not! Is Ice. Cream!" he almost yelled.

"I-Cream!" the other had no qualms to yell himself.

"My Aunt Pet'n'a says it's Ice. Cream!" Harry shouted back.

"No!" the blonde shouted too while he scrunched up his face, "I-CREAM!"

"Ice. Cream!"

"I. Cream!"

"ICE. CREAM!"

"I. CREAM!"

Well, in the midst of all the shouting, back and forth the said ice-cream was becoming tilted again and it was melting steadily down the pale arm of the boy on the bench. Harry was getting pretty angry after a few more minutes and both boys were quite convinced that the other must be the most infuriating person that each had ever met.

Luckily by the time they were about ready to come to blows, another voice broke through their argument, thereby cutting the ensuing debate short.

"Draco! Draco honey where are you? Daddy wants to go now!"

Well as soon as the blonde boy heard the call of his mother he sprang up from the bench, righted his "I-cream" again and shot Harry a look of disgust, right before he stuck out his tongue. Harry, not to be out-done stuck his tongue right back out too just in time before Draco ran off in the direction of the voice.

Harry took a deep breath then and decided that the farther he was from such a crazy place was the better for him. So turning in the direction he had been coming from, Harry began to run also.

***

The next time they met was three years later and Harry was somewhat lost again.

This time his situation had nothing to do with his sense of direction or need to explore. In fact he had been taking the bus to and from school for a while by then and it was only because it was his first day at his new school why he had become lost in the first place.

His Aunt Petunia had previously been sending him to the same school as her Dudley but recently it had occurred to her that Harry did not deserve to be treated in the same way as her beloved son. Instead of letting him continue in his studies at that school she decided that another school in the next city with a less agreeable reputation was far better for her ungrateful nephew so this year that was exactly where he would be traveling to and from school.

Well, the first thing Dudley had done that morning was to take away some of his bus fare at breakfast. That meant that while Harry could get to school by bus alright, on his way home, even after saving his lunch money, he still had to walk halfway home.

That was exactly what he had done, why he had ended up in a neighborhood he didn't know and sitting on a bench awaiting a bus he wasn't even sure would drive in that direction. All in all though Harry figured that it could have been worse. He had liked the walk and though he was going to get a sound lashing for arriving at home late, he couldn't help wishing that the bus would take a while longer to get there. He absolutely adored being in open space with fresh air and sunlight.

"What are you doing here?"

The voice had originated behind him and on turning he was greeted by the sight of silver blonde hair and silvery-diamond coloured eyes of a boy about his age. He was pressed against the bars of a huge gate and was dressed in a uniform so impressive that it was obvious that he was a student of a Preparatory school. A very weird Prep school, judging from the black dress material that was folded across one of his arms.

Harry walked briskly over to where he stood. He didn't quite meet his eyes though because he had learned to become very shy when faced with strange persons who were obviously wealthier.

"I'm waiting for the bus," he said softly.

The other boy scoffed, "Why? Don't your parents own their own carriage?"

Harry would have noticed the weird ending to the question if his parents had not been mentioned also. He began to look sad now.

"My parents are dead," he whispered. "They died when I was a baby in an accident."

If he was expecting sympathy from the other boy he was certainly in for a disappointment because a scowl was the only thing apparent on the other boy's face.

"Well, you're a Street Person then!" he pointed out.

Harry took offence to that.

"I am not!" he said indignantly. "I live with my Aunt and my Uncle Dursley."

That silenced the other boy but the silence was soon broken when he realized an important point.

"They mustn´t love you very much if they make you wait for the Knight Bus alone," he said nastily.

Well since Harry had no idea of the exact time at the moment or how people looked at the time of day in this district, he really didn't think he had enough evidence to over-ride the point of his waiting on the night bus.

Since he knew for a fact that his Aunt and Uncle did indeed not love him, there could be no argument on that one either. That left him to agree to the accusation in silence. A few seconds later it was broken.

"You're mean."

It was a statement. A simple fact that really could not be refuted since he indeed had been mean ever since he and the emerald eyed boy had begun conversing. That didn't stop Draco from feeling wronged by the stating of this point though.

"I am not!" he said, barely below a shout.

Calmly Harry replied, "Yes. You are. You know you are."

Yes, Draco indeed knew that he was being mean but again he chose to deny it.

"Well I'm only being mean to you," Draco decided to make known. "My parents love me."

"So did mine!"

Harry had no idea if this had been true but he wasn't going to let the "rich boy" see his uncertainty. Besides, from what he figured, if his parents had died in an accident and he had lived it meant that they must have loved him to have had him with them when they died. It made perfect sense to him actually.

"Does that mean that you're also mean to strange, untidy people too?" Draco wondered.

Harry lost him on that one and decided to tell him just that.

"You're confusing."

Draco shrugged. "And you're stupid."

"Am not!"

"You are too!"

"I am not!"

"You are too!"

Harry took a deep breath. "Alright why am I stupid?"

Draco smiled smugly. "Because if you weren't stupid then you'd be watching to see if the Knight Bus has arrived yet. In fact I'm almost sure it did."

Unfortunately, he was indeed right because just as Harry spun around his bus was pulling up to the stop where he had been sitting just minutes before. Quickly he turned back around to face Draco, who was annoyingly still smiling smugly. It was a pity that he didn't know just how confused Draco was at that moment though, since he couldn't quite figure out why the Knight Bus looked so funny.

Harry was pre-occupied with sticking his tongue out and Draco quickly imitated him.

"I hate you," Harry said without venom.

"I hate you too," Draco returned in the same nonchalant tone.

Then quickly Harry threw Draco one final glare and began to run towards the bus. Even as he did, Draco turned away and began to hurry towards the front of his wizarding prep school. He already had forgotten that his father had forbidden him to venture to that end of the school and even the teachers, if they had known, would have certainly punished him for being there.

***

The next time Harry Potter met Draco Malfoy it was official.

By then Harry knew that he was the most famous individual of the wizarding world, and though he didn't remember any of the other times that they had conversed, he knew also that Draco Malfoy was indeed very rich and very much a Pureblood wizard.

After that it also became official that they were sworn enemies.

For six years after their official meeting, Harry and Draco fought on opposing sides of everything that concerned Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Their houses, Slytherin and Griffindor, were opposing houses that competed against each other at every opportunity. Their girlfriends, Pansy Parkinson and Ginny Weasley, hated each other to distraction. Even their friends fought each other.

It was official. In everything they did, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were never supposed to agree on anything.

They were never supposed to work together because then they would question the enmity between them. Then there would be "something else".

Lucius Malfoy knew this. James Potter had known this.

It was a pity that their fathers had found it too painful to warn them.

***

When Harry was eleven he met Ginny Weasley. When Harry was twelve he found out that she had developed a huge crush on him. When Harry was fifteen he finally decided that he would work on returning her affection.

When Harry was fifteen he thought that he had fallen in love forever.

To Harry, love was being in a comfortable relationship with an individual that he had felt comfortable with. That was exactly what his relationship with Ginny was like. They never argued, they never disagreed on anything, they were always pleasant and understanding with each other.

They were the perfect couple and many others compared themselves to the perfect balance that Harry and Ginny had achieved.

Yet there was no balance. Everything was in Ginny's favour and after an entire year it began to feel as if she was suffocating him.

Perhaps the fame of Harry Potter had just been too much for Ginny to handle.

Perhaps it just wasn't in their destiny.

***

"Harry, please...I don't understand why."

They were sitting, opposite each other, under a tree near the Lake. Ginny was crying and Harry felt like a sodding git but the break-up had long been in the coming.

Even Ron had understood Harry's position after it was explained.

"Ginny, please don't make this any more painful for us," Harry said softly to her sobbing confusion.

When she didn't answer he continued to speak, "We've known each other for so long. We were great friends before we became involved. I just want us to be happy. I don't...I never wanted us to end up hating each other more than we did loving each other."

Ginny looked at him through her tears. The pain of the breakup was so raw in her eyes that it was all Harry could do not to gather her into his arms and wipe it all away. But he couldn't because they had let their relationship gone on too long, even for the year that it had lasted.

It was time that they moved on as individuals.

"We were so perfect." She tore her eyes away from his as she continued to speak, "But you didn't want perfection did you?"

Harry turned slightly away from her also.

"I don't care about perfection," he said. "I only wanted us to be in love..."

Ginny was about to declare that they had been when she stopped. It would have been a lie because he hadn't loved her and she hadn't loved him. She had loved his fame and the closeness they had shared but it had never been enough.

There had always been something missing even when they were locked in a passionate embrace.

Harry Potter had never really been hers.

***

When Harry and Draco finally agreed on something for the first time they were both seventeen and swore the world stood still.

It didn't of course, but it was such a memorable experience that if it were up to them it would have gone down in history.

It was the beginning of a change.

The fact that the incident that brought about this agreement was not their fault, did nothing to appease Professor Snape's anger when he had returned to his potions classroom only after a few minutes of absence to see it swimming in Invisibility potion from the explosion of the cauldron that he had paired Potter and Malfoy together to work on.

It didn't help, though they had explained that it was Neville who had accidentally caused the said explosion when he had thrown a dragon scale across the room and into their cauldron. It had, afterall, taken an affinity to sticking to his palm as he had been shouting moments before he had shook his hand wildly and it had gone sailing in the wrong direction.

Luckily the potion had to be induced to take effect so no one was hurt in the least. Besides they were seventh year students and were quite capable of brewing the counter-potion blindfolded since mostly everyone in the class had somehow earned A's and B's in their O.W.L.S over a year before. Neville had been the only one to earn a C but he had been adamant to continue it at the N.E.W.T.S level.

Even after the explanation Professor Snape was not going to let them off. He was incredibly disappointed in Malfoy and since he still disliked Potter to no end, it wasn't that hard to pin the blame on him also.

They got detention in the Forbidden Forest that night.

***

"Are we lost? Bloody hell, we're bloody lost aren't we!"

Whilst they continued to tread in their unknown direction Harry wisely kept silent. They were actually quite lost but Harry doubted that Draco wanted to hear that in the least at that moment.

Since Harry was being annoyingly silent, Draco thought it fitting that he vent his anger.

"This is just bloody brilliant you know! Bloody brilliant I tell you!" He shouted. "I can't believe the nerves of those people! Fancy not providing us with guides just because we're seventh years and should be able to take care of ourselves! They're all a bunch of lunatics!"

Harry gingerly stepped over a thick tree root and hoped that Draco would follow in his lead. Five seconds later Draco's rant was cut abruptly short as he gave a shout. The tree, having resented the fact that Draco had stepped on him, had wrapped its root around Draco and was trying to squeeze the living daylight out of him.

It took about another five minutes for Harry to soothe the enraged tree enough for it to release its captive.

Draco's anger was immediately directed at Harry after that event.

"You bloody git! Have you no sense? It could have killed me!" He shouted at Harry.

"Oh, you noticed too?" Harry asked pointedly.

Draco spluttered. "You little...! You absolute idiot! What do you think you're a bloody wizard for? Think the wand looks good on you? Why didn't you blow the bloody root to smithereens?"

"Is that what you wanted?" Harry turned to face Draco and stopped walking. "Because if I had done that you arse, you would have been blown to smithereens also, you big dope! I'm sorry if I thought that it would be more appropriate to take you back in one piece!"

There was no way that Draco could deny the truth of what Harry had said. As usual, though, he took offence at being told that he had been wrong. Harry, however, was not in the mood for an argument because unlike Draco, he knew that there were even darker things in the Forbidden forest than Unicorn Blood and Centaurs.

"Can we just keep moving, please," he said in a calmer voice to a pouting Draco. "It's bad to stay in one place too long when you're in here. Believe me, I know."

Draco decided to take his word at it, so he began to move behind Harry again.

An hour later they finally stumbled out of the Forrest and onto safe Hogwarts ground again. It was now far within the night and chances were that it would have already been 'lights out' in the dormitories by then.

Harry was so caught up in his worries that he missed whatever was obstructing his path at the moment and very ungracefully pitched forward, very near to hitting his head on a large boulder that just 'happened' to be sitting there at the right time.

"Careful!" Draco exclaimed, and before he realized what he was doing his arms shot out around Harry to keep him from falling any lower.

Luckily the six jars, now filled, that they were given at the beginning of the detention was still safely nestled in their hands.

On being released from Draco's tight embrace, for the first time since the ordeal had begun, Harry allowed himself to become angry.

"Oh I am bloody hell going to kill Neville for this!" he shouted into the dark night.

"And I'm going to bloody like helping you to do just that!" Draco joined in with as much venom.

They were both silent for a while as they both came to the realization that they had agreed to commit an act together. That it was to destroy Neville for his clumsiness was really not important actually. It was only that for once they had taken the same side of an issue.

When they had both began to laugh hysterically together after that, it didn't even seem like such a strange occurrence.

***

Almost exactly one month later, Harry and Draco found themselves stranded on the roof of the astronomy tower. To say that it hadn't been their fault would be quite redundant since at least one of the two wouldn't have been stupid enough to put himself in such a precarious position.

Actually, if blame was to be given, it was partly Harry's fault and partly Ginny's fault why they were there. The Giffindors had dared The Boy Who Lived to spend one night on the roof of the astronomy tower to see how brave he really was. Well, in the fun of the challenge and because Harry had yet to refuse a dare, Harry had willingly gone to the roof. Draco, on the other hand had been tricked. With a note of some sort and purely out of revenge against Harry, Ginny had convinced Draco that he was needed on the roof of the tower.

As soon as they had arrived the Griffindors had summoned their brooms and that was when Draco truly realized that he was stranded.

"Hey Malfoy, are you alright? You look a little... pale."

From his position beside Harry, Draco's expression became guarded.

"It's my natural colour," he declared with mock indignation.

Harry knew that he was trying to get the subject changed but he wasn't going to allow that to happen.

"I doubt that sickly shade of green could be anything but unnatural, even on you Malfoy." Harry pointed out.

Draco was noticeably silent but from the way his eyes were darting nervously towards the edge of the roof, it wasn't hard for Harry to decipher the problem.

"Sweet Merlin, don´t tell me you're afraid of heights!" he said incredulously. "You fly a bloody broom!"

"That´s different!" Draco retorted. "I can control that! This is...just...I don´t know! I could slip off here and land on the ground in a huge mess."

Harry blinked at the sheer incredibility of the statement.

You could do that too on a broom you big dope!" Harry pointed out. "In fact it´s very much more likely in Quidditch when you´re speeding through the air after the snitch and Bludgers, Beaters and Chasers are all around you!"

Draco seemed to cringe slightly. "Go ahead. Laugh."

Harry chose not to rise to the bait. Instead he decided that Draco's fears were really none of his concern.

Draco, unfortunately, took the silence as pity.

"Stop that!"

Harry was shook out of his silent reverie.

"Stop what?"

Draco glared at him. "Stop pitying me! I can take care of myself. If you were worried that I may throw up all over you, I won't. Not to say that I don't feel nauseated right now, but I'm a Malfoy and we're very good at keeping our composures."

"Why the hell would I be worried about you?" Harry asked annoyed, "I don't give a flying saucer about you! In fact, if you up and jumped off the roof right now I probably wouldn't care any less than I do now."

It was a mean thing to say and to Harry's shock it wasn't at all true but he couldn't let Malfoy see that. He wouldn't want him to confuse it as pity again.

"Oh shut the bloody hell up!" Draco commanded partly because he was really quite scared that he was going to slip off the roof and partly because he had never quite expected to hear something as senseless as such from the lips of the Boy Wonder.

Already feeling just horrible for what he had said but not knowing how to apologize, Harry shouted back at Draco.

"Well make me you infuriating git!"

"Fine!" Draco shouted as he scrambled closer to where Harry sat.

When they were so close that they were touching and their eyes lost in the depth of the other's Draco spoke again.

"Fine," he whispered again before he brought their lips together.

For Harry, kissing Draco was nothing like kissing Ginny. For one, it didn't feel as if his mental energy was being stolen from him just by the touching of their lips. For another it just felt...right. It was as if a part of himself had been missing for seventeen years and now he was surrounded by a sense of completion.

Draco knew how to kiss amazingly, and kissing Harry suddenly became his favorite hobby.

***

A week after Harry and Draco made love for the first time, their world began to fall apart.

It was barely a month after they had graduated from Hogwarts when Voldemort began his most powerful assault on the Wizarding and Muggle world alike. Everywhere the worlds looked there was blood being shed and humans dying in scary quantities.

Unlike Harry's fourth year of Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic had no choice but to admit that Voldemort was indeed alive and again very powerful. By then it really didn't matter because the Wizarding community could see for themselves that he was alive. By then even the Muggle world knew who Lord Voldemort was and though many refused to admit that he was a wizard, not many could refute the destruction he was causing.

As usual his main target was one Harry Potter.

He was adamant about finding and destroying him. After nearly eighteen years Voldemort lived only for the destruction of the Muggle world and for the very painful death of Harry Potter.

For four years he reeked havoc and induced fear in many person's heart. For four years he sought mercilessly to find Harry so he could get his revenge but even as Harry prepared to face this most powerful and hated enemy, the pain within him was deeper than any need the worlds may have for him to return alive.

Draco Malfoy had chosen to fight on the Dark Side.

It was four years later that the truth had come out and by then Harry wasn't even sure if Draco was alive or dead.

He had judged him wrong and condemned him in haste but worse than anything else, Harry knew that he had ignored what his heart and Draco had told him that first night that they had lain in each other's arms. They had asked him to believe in their love, but he hadn't. He had become blinded to the good in the world because of the violence he had been surrounded by. He had denied the strength of their love in the first true moments that it had been tested.

Draco was no traitor; he was a spy.

***

Harry was lost.

Technically he wasn't but that was the state he felt he was suspended in. At twenty-one, he may have survived the war and destroyed Voldemort; he may have lived to become the hero of the Wizarding world again but Harry's life had become almost monotonous now. He lived because he was expected to live. He ate because he was obligated to eat. He survived because he had nothing better to do, but his world had become a hazy field of floating images and voices suspended between heaven and hell.

Without Draco he had become an empty shell of himself.

Then he saw him.

A few yards away, he was sitting on a bench, holding an ice-cream cone that was tilted dangerously towards the ground as he stared at something in the distance. As soon as Harry saw him he was assailed by another image of a silver-blond haired person in a park that could have very well been this one.

Like before, Harry went up to the other person in an attempt to save the ice-cream.

"Excuse me," he said softly. "Your ice-cream is about to fall."

Draco turned slowly around and righted the ice-cream quickly. Bathed in the rays of the soon setting sun, the raven haired boy in his memory seemed to have drastically grown up. Unlike the other time, Draco knew exactly who this person was.

He gave Harry a confused look then declared with a slight smile, "That is not the name!"

Harry looked stunned.

"That's...That's my memory," he said confused. "When I was four I got lost and came upon the most infuriating person I'd ever met who was holding and ice-cream that was about to hit the floor!"

Draco laughed in mock annoyance.

"That is certainly not how I remembered it!" he tried to glare, "I was sitting, minding my own business when a little Know-It-All showed up!"

Harry had to sit on that one.

"I was not a Know-It-All! As a matter of fact you were the one who was acting like one. I knew that I was right but you just couldn't take being corrected!" He snorted.

That sent Draco in a fit of laughter and Harry couldn't help but to join in. The ice-cream had begun to melt down Draco's arm but as usual he really didn't notice. Harry did.

"What is with you and ice-creams that tilt and melt?" he asked softly into the silence that had developed.

"So it really happened? We really met here when we were four?" Draco countered instead of answering.

They knew that those questions could be left unanswered. In their mind, even if it really hadn't been each other, it didn't matter because it fit perfectly in their memories anyway.

Harry gave Draco a moist towelette and Draco gingerly handed him the soggy ice-cream cone.

"I didn't betray the Order you know," Draco whispered as he busied himself with cleaning his hand.

"I know," Harry whispered back.

Draco took back the ice-cream and holding it with three fingers he dropped both it and the towelette onto the floor. Reaching for his wand he mutter a Disposal spell and watched as they disappeared.

Then there were a few more minutes of silence.

"Sorry I believed that you were a traitor," Harry said softly.

Draco smiled as he shuffled over on the bench beside Harry.

"It's alright," he said just as softly. "It was enough to know that you were wasting away without me."

"I was not!"

Draco laughed a little at the denial. It was obvious that Harry had been wasting away since he had gotten much slimmer than the last time that they had seen each other. Then again, so had Draco.

"I missed you," his voice was soft but the words were clearly heard by Harry. "When I fought it was with you in mind. I knew I had to live so that you would know that I hadn't betrayed you. Your name became my mantra."

Harry's only response was to lean across the small distance between them to join their lips together and in the final golden rays of the setting sun, on a bench in a park where they had met lifetimes before; it was perfect.

They had come full circle through time and space. Unlike their fathers they had found their way back. Like the snitch that they had chased together for six years, their destiny relied on one moment in time when they were forced to reach across the barriers and perform the near impossible to acquire their prize.

Like now, in those moments, the prize was suspended on Wings of Gold.

*

~End~