Choices

Chapter Eight - From The Shards

Lost in the darkness of a land

Where all the hope that's offered is

Memories of being taken by the hand

~Sarah McLachlan, Lost

"Draco? Come on, wake up." Harry yawned into his sleeve, shaking at Malfoy's shoulder. The other boy seemed to come awake with a shudder, staring blindly upwards as the familiar shivers ripped through him. Harry, hating the way that Draco clutched claw-handed at the sheets, pulled him tightly against him, wrapping his arms around Draco and holding on until the tremors had eased. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Draco drew back, sitting up straight and running a hand through his hair. "Thanks. I mean..." He trailed off uncertainly.

"I know." Harry did; this was a lot harder for Malfoy than it was for him. Not that it was precisely a picnic from his end, either. "Are you going to be all right?"

"I'm fine." Malfoy flipped his fingers arrogantly, and Harry had to suppress his automatic bristling reaction to the gesture. "Get back to your Tower, Potter."

"Well, OK." Harry frowned at the other boy for a moment, wondering if it was just bravado talking, but he did seem calmer. Perhaps the last three relatively nightmare-free nights had helped him get back on a more even keel. Harry reminded himself, as he closed the door soundlessly and wrapped his Cloak firmly around his body, that he had to speak to Hermione tomorrow. He had been putting it off, knowing that he would have to confess his own nightmares to her. He was somewhat loath to expose his inner demons like that, even to Hermione.

Harry frowned. Although I didn't seem to have a problem with Malfoy knowing. But that was different, he reassured himself. Draco might have a little window into Harry's soul, but it was shared - like the nightmares. Harry knew just as much about Draco as Draco did about him. Which probably should have felt uncomfortable.

This whole thing probably should have felt uncomfortable. The fact that it didn't was somewhat baffling, but usually when Harry thought about the issue, it was late at night and he was tired, so he dismissed it. Besides, he was much more concerned about not getting caught. He smiled invisibly to himself, ghosting along the corridor leading up to the Gryffindor Tower entrance. Mrs Norris had nearly cornered him yesterday, but he had given her the slip, and so long as Harry didn't get caught, no one had a clue about his little midnight excursions to Slytherin. It was definitely the way he wanted to keep it.

Harry imagined what would happen if someone - Professor Snape, Crabbe or Goyle, one of the other Slytherins - caught him coming out of Malfoy's room in the middle of the night. Disaster wouldn't be the half of it; he would be in detention for the rest of the year. And they would all assume the worst. Harry winced, remembering Professor McGonagall's words to the seventh year Gryffindors in September.

"You are all legally of age now," she had said, glaring sternly around the room, "and it behoves the school to take note of this. You will notice that your living arrangements are slightly different this year; those of you who are Prefects," and her gaze swept Harry and Hermione, who were sitting on either side of Ron, "have private rooms, and the others are in pairs. As I'm sure you can imagine, you thus have more scope for romantic entanglements - and related activities." Harry felt his ears burn, noticing that Ron and Hermione had locked eyes for a moment, then glanced away hastily, both blushing furiously.

"What you need to understand at the outset," Professor McGonagall continued, "is where the school comes into this. Because you are all legal adults, official policy is that your private activities are no business of anybody else but yourselves. However," she glared round as though they had been about to leap out of their chairs and start an impromptu orgy, "we do insist that any such affairs are kept completely discreet. In other words, the younger students are to have no knowledge whatsoever. If a member of staff catches any of you in... inappropriate circumstances, there will be severe consequences."

Harry doubted that by 'inappropriate circumstances' McGonagall had meant 'sneaking down to the Slytherin dorms to wake Draco Malfoy up every night,' although she would certainly have deemed such behaviour inappropriate. The idea that someone might get the wrong impression about his little good deed crossed Harry's mind occasionally, but he shrugged it off. After all, what could ever be more unlikely than him and Malfoy? If there were a list of things that would never happen, that would be near the top. He suspected, though, that the 'don't get caught' rule applied in this situation, even though it wasn't about... well, intimacy.

Shutting his bedroom door behind himself, Harry pulled off his Cloak and crawled back into his bed. The sheets were cold from his absence, and he shivered a little, curling into a tight ball and waiting for sleep.

***

"Hermione? Are you busy?"

Hermione looked up from her textbook. "Yes, but if it's important I don't mind. What is it?"

"Um." Harry fidgeted slightly. "Can I talk to you about something? I kind of need your help." He indicated a pair of squashy armchairs in the corner, glad that Ron had a lesson this period.

"Of course." Hermione piled up her books and set her quill on top of them, then ensconced herself in the depths of one of the armchairs. "Now, what's this about?"

Harry sat down, and wondered where to begin. Somehow, he had to keep her from knowing that Draco was involved in this at all. "Well - I wanted to know if there was anything, any kind of spell or potion or something, that would stop someone having nightmares."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Oh, Harry, I knew you weren't sleeping properly! Is it about - You-Know-Who?" she dropped her voice, sounding both concerned and conspiratorial.

"Um, yeah - but it's more than that. I've been having them for ages now - Dumbledore says it's like a side effect of being in so much contact with Voldemort. They're just - well, they're getting really bad," Harry muttered, hating himself for lying to her.

"Oh." Hermione tapped one finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Dumbledore knows? Well, I can look it up in the library - there might be something in the Dark Arts section about dreams like that. We'll need to understand the cause before we can try and sort out some kind of cure."

"Thanks, Hermione." Harry smiled at her, and she smiled back, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"Don't be silly, Harry, it's no effort - I just wish you could have told us before." Her voice turned faintly chiding, and he shrugged uncomfortably.

"I think Ron knows - most of it, anyway. And I don't really like talking about it. How are things going with him, anyway?"

"Oh." Hermione blushed slightly. "Just fine - doesn't he talk to you about, you know, us? I thought boys talked about that kind of thing all the time."

"Well, not really," Harry hedged. "We mostly talk about Quidditch and stuff. Besides, I hardly see him any more. We're all so busy, and then you two spend a lot of time together. You know," he shrugged uncomfortably.

"I suppose." Hermione tilted her head, examining him in a way Harry had never been quite comfortable with. He always got the impression that she knew things he didn't, even things about him. "Harry, you don't mind that, do you? That Ron and I spend a lot of time together, I mean. I know it might feel like we're ignoring you a bit..."

"No! I mean, it's fine." Harry tried to smile. "I understand completely, Hermione, and it's not like I'm not busy with the team and everything."

"Well. Still, it feels like we're leaving you on the outside, sometimes. Wouldn't you be happier if you had someone, too?"

"Oh no. Hermione, please don't try and set me up with anyone," Harry begged, thinking that he should have anticipated this. Whyever had he brought up the topic of relationships anyway?

"Oh, Harry, you know I wouldn't do anything you don't want me to! But - isn't there anyone you're interested in? I mean, for one thing there's the Leaver's Ball this summer, and everyone will probably be paired up by then. If you had a girlfriend..."

"God, Hermione, you sound like Dudley," Harry muttered without thinking about it. Then he cursed inwardly; he hadn't told either of his friends about that incident.

"What? What does Dudley have to do with your love life?" Hermione winced as she seemed to realise what she had said; it gave Harry some rather nasty mental images, too. Not that he had either a love life or the prospect of one at the moment, not while he was spending his nights sneaking down to Slytherin to see Malfoy. The bright side of the coin, of course, was that he was ruining Malfoy's chances of getting any at the same time. It was comforting; at least they were in the same boat.

"Oh, Dudley was taking the piss over the summer, is all. Apparently he does have a girlfriend."

Hermione blinked, then made a moue of distaste. "Yuck. Poor her, whoever she is."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. So - you'll help? You'll try and find something for - you know?"

"Nightmares? Yes, of course." Hermione smiled at him, tucking her robes about her. "I should probably get back to my homework, anyway - and I know you haven't done that History essay yet, Harry."

Harry suppressed a sigh. "You do nothing but homework, Hermione. I'm surprised you haven't started revising for the N.E.W.T.s yet."

"How do you know I haven't?" was all she said as she turned back to her books, and Harry grinned at her back.

***

For the fourth time that week, Draco woke abruptly out of nightmare to find Harry Potter shaking his shoulder. It wasn't a situation he had ever thought to find himself in, and sometimes even the idea that he could be getting used to this disturbed him a little. The shaking fits that followed his return to consciousness had also grown familiar, ebbing or increasing depending on the strength of the dreams.

Harry's arms around him had become a familiar refuge from the shivers that wracked him, holding him tight against the storm until he could wrench his control back from its teeth. Sometimes, in the cold autumn light of day when Harry crossed his field of vision, Draco was faintly astonished that either of them could contemplate this kind of physical contact without turning a hair. But at night, with the remnants of nightmare seething through him, it felt perfectly natural. Comforting.

Draco sighed, squelching the urge to hang on to Harry, to bury his face in the other boy's shoulder and just cling on for dear life. Last night, after Harry had left - and he was Harry now, too, even in Draco's head; he had to consciously remind himself to call the boy Potter - he had turned over to go back to sleep, and around about dawn another nightmare had risen to smother him. Gathering his self-control, Draco pulled back out of Harry's arms, composing his face.

"Thanks, Potter." It was what he always said, the only acknowledgement of an arrangement that had grown to feel strangely natural. Perhaps, Draco thought, it was only the satisfaction of dragging Potter out of his bed and down to the dungeons every night. Accepting help from the Gryffindor still nagged at his mind from time to time, adding to the dilemma that showed no signs of resolving itself any time soon. Uncomfortable, Draco saw Harry give a tiny, wordless half-smile in the dim wand light and get up to leave.

"No! Stay?" The words were out of his mouth before Draco had even realised that he had thought them. Astonished at himself, he amended quickly, "Just for a while? Please? So - so I don't have another one, like last night."

Potter blinked at him for a moment. "Well, all right, I suppose. But you have to let me lie down; I'm knackered." He looked a little dubious, and Draco couldn't blame him; he wasn't entirely sure what had got into him, to make such a request.

"Sure." Draco scooted quickly across the bed until he lay almost against the wall; Potter sat on the edge of the bed and stretched out on top of the blankets, carefully leaving a margin of empty space between himself and Draco. They lay in silence for a moment.

"Don't let me fall asleep here," Harry said, his voice close to Draco's ear, and his words seemed tired and somehow slurred. Lulled by the comforting presence of another person, Draco was already drifting on the edges of slumber. He could feel Harry's warmth next to him, and for some reason that brought a sleepy smile to his face. He was so tired; surely it wouldn't matter if he closed his eyes for a moment - just a moment...

***

Harry woke to the unfamiliar buzzing of an alarm clock and a heavy weight on his right arm and shoulder. He slapped out blindly with his free hand and hit something solid; the irritating insect-like noise in his ear desisted immediately, and he relaxed, shifting lazily and wondering vaguely why he was so cold.

A sleepy grumbling noise in his ear shocked Harry all the way awake, his eyes flying open. Draco Malfoy lay pressed against his side, his rumpled blond head pillowed on Harry's shoulder. As Harry stared at him in sleepy confusion, Draco mumbled something unintelligible and burrowed his face into Harry's pyjama top.

"Oh, shit," Harry muttered under his breath, wondering whether the rest of the Slytherins would be up yet. At least it was a Saturday - perhaps if he sneaked out of here very carefully, Draco would never know that he hadn't left last night...

Too late. Draco's eyes popped open and he blinked warily at Harry. "Oh. Um. Oops?" He offered finally, and Harry remembered that he'd asked Malfoy not to let him fall asleep. He groaned as he sat up; his glasses felt embedded in his face and his eyes full of sand, and yet he felt strangely rested and comfortable.

"Yeah, well, at least you didn't dream any more," Harry offered, checking that he had his wand and picking up his Cloak from the floor. "I have to get out of here quickly, before there are too many people around."

"Yeah." Malfoy scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick up all over the place, then tried to comb the unruly licks into some semblance of order with his fingers. The scowl of displeasure on his face at his hair's antics was rather amusing, and Harry found himself grinning. "It's a Saturday - everyone will be sleeping in anyway, but you'd better get out of here, Potter." Malfoy looked up at him for a moment, suddenly looking much younger than his seventeen years. "Thanks, Harry."

"Oh. Um, it was nothing." Unaccountably, Harry felt a blush start across his cheekbones, and hastily swung the Invisibility Cloak about himself. "I'll see you at lunch," was all he said as he crept carefully out of the door.

***

Draco lay back as Harry closed the door behind him, feeling better than he had for a long time. Even on a normal night, fear of falling back into nightmare quite often kept him awake for far longer than the dreams themselves. But last night, with Harry there, all the little fears and terrors of the dungeon darkness had been held in abeyance, and Draco had slept like the dead.

Absently, he wondered why. Why Potter? Was it just because the Gryffindor idiot was your standard noble evil-vanquisher? Perhaps that was why Voldemort had never been able to kill him, perhaps the sickening idiot simply exuded so much goodness that even the Dark Lord couldn't do anything to harm him. The idea was rather amusing - everyone always seemed to see Harry as a candidate for sainthood, no matter how many rules he broke. It had been one of the biting ironies of Draco's life, until the previous summer had abruptly reordered his priorities.

Sighing, Draco realised that he didn't really want to laugh after all. He still had far too many decisions to make, decisions he could barely even get a grip on. Could he do what his father wanted of him? If so, how would he manage? How long could he manage for? Would it help all that much if there were some kind of spell to block the nightmares? What would he do if he made the other choice? How could he protect himself? It was all too much, and even fully rested and alert Draco cringed under the weight of it.

Realistically, as much as he wanted and wished that he could stand on his own feet, sort his life out on his own, Draco knew that without Harry's help he wouldn't be in any state to even think about this. Still, sharing anything with Harry Potter seemed profoundly unnatural; Draco felt it like an itch beneath his skin whenever Harry was around. He hoped that Granger, or whoever else was working on it, found some permanent way to get rid of his nightly demons, before either or both of them pushed the other too far. Draco had no desire to end up hexed seven ways from Tuesday by his old rival, even if that rivalry didn't really seem to be functioning any more.

Yawning, Draco stretched his arms above his head, debating whether to get up now or stay in bed for another half-hour or so. I really do feel better, he realised with a slight shock of surprise. If I have another nightmare tonight, perhaps I should make Harry stay again. Well, ask him anyway. Draco wasn't really in a position to demand anything, given what Harry now knew about him. Suddenly the idea of getting a proper night's sleep seemed something he yearned after, even as he clambered out of bed and started sorting out his clothes.

***

Sitting at breakfast in the Great Hall on Monday morning, Draco's heart dropped with a funny little lurch as his father's horned eagle own came in to land in front of him, a sealed envelope in its beak. Draco took the letter in shaking hands, suddenly feeling the half-familiar tingle of Harry's eyes on him from across the room. He was gripped with a sudden irrational fear that his father had found out about his little arrangement with Harry, that he would demand that Draco either cease all such contact or use the opportunity to slip Potter a fatal curse and hide the body under the flagstones.

Calm down, he told himself as he prised up the black wax seal - the Malfoy family seal rather than his father's private insignia, indicating official business of some sort. Don't make a scene, not here and now. Draco didn't have to glance up at the high table to know that Dumbledore as well as Potter was watching him, and he wished suddenly that Professor Snape would come back soon. It was difficult to bring himself to trust the Headmaster at all, given a childhood full of horror stories about the man.

Carefully, Draco unfolded the thick parchment and scanned the lines of his father's elegant handwriting.

Draco:

I am sure that you will be delighted to learn that due to unforeseen circumstances, that event which we have been anticipating has been rescheduled. Our mutual benefactor has asked me to inform you that your induction into his staff will occur over the coming school holiday rather than in the summer as he had originally intended. Like myself, you will greet this news with gratitude, along with the possibility of a specific task for you in the New Year. I will discuss the matter with you in more detail over the holiday, when we are at leisure.

I have made travel arrangements for you; in the last week of term you will receive owl post from me containing a Portkey which will transport you and your belongings back to the Manor at ten a.m. exactly on the Saturday commencing the Christmas break. I shall speak with you at greater length upon your arrival.

I await, as always, the results of your Quidditch game against Hufflepuff House.

Your Esteemed Father,

Lucius Malfoy

Draco lowered the letter blindly, refolding it automatically and stuffing it into the envelope. The eagle owl gave a hoot of satisfaction and left off savaging his bacon, flapping heavily off out of the Hall. Draco noticed with detached curiosity that his fingers were clenched around the letter, crumpling it messily, and tried to relax his hands. It was difficult, a lot more difficult that he had anticipated. His fingers didn't seem to want to let go of the parchment, but eventually he folded it neatly and shoved it into his shirt pocket. Its weight above his heart felt menacing, foreboding.

At Christmas. He will come for me at Christmas. The decisions that had been plaguing him suddenly had a time limit on them, a limit that was far closer than Draco had anticipated. I have to decide. I have to think what to do. Yet the mere thought that he had only a few weeks until there was no more time left threw Draco into a spinning whirl of panic, so that rationality slipped from his grasp. Oh, God, what am I going to do? What can I do?

His head was still whirling when he stumbled into the Potions laboratory and slid into his seat beside Harry. Staring at his handwriting as Partis droned on about the uses of potions in illumination and concealment, Draco realised that his hands were shaking; his normally neat script was messy and blotted. He could feel without looking that every so often Harry would glance over at him as if checking that he was still there, that he hadn't collapsed under the weight of everyone's expectations of him. As they began getting ingredients out for today's Invisibility Potion, Harry leaned closer under the pretext of setting up the cauldron.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Draco winced a little at the obviousness of the lie, but despite the tentative, skewed sort of intimacy that had perforce grown up between them, this was still Harry Potter. Still the inevitable warrior for the forces of good, Dumbledore's golden-boy hero. No one he wanted to spill his soul to. Not that he was sure he could, or even if he had one. Sometimes it felt like it was all inevitable, that Voldemort was his destiny, an inescapable fate, the only possible end of the path Draco had walked for the last six years.

Draco glanced sideways at Harry as he began chopping caterpillars. What would he think, if he could see inside my head? It had become a constant refrain over the last week, a nagging thought for the mornings after he woke pressed against and draped across Potter. Harry had joked that Draco was just using him because the school pillows were lumpy; Draco supposed that he wasn't all that uncomfortable about it, since both of them were able to sleep much better together than apart. Sometimes he felt the same, unconcerned and even vaguely grateful (not that he would ever admit it) to Harry for being there to hold back the dreams.

But then, during the days while he stultified in History of Magic, or the evenings while he studied and waited for the inevitable nightmares to begin, Draco found himself feeling dreadfully uncomfortable about the whole situation. It was bad enough that Harry knew the secrets of his dreams and Snape's private password to Slytherin House; this sleeping together thing was incredibly intimate considering that they weren't even friends. And they weren't. They managed to get by with a vague kind of tolerance, but neither of them actively sought the other's company, and Draco had no real desire to. He had asked Harry once why he was doing this, and received the reply "I'd do this for anyone." Draco supposed that was about the extent of it, really: Potter was exercising his noble-Gryffindor qualities, and Draco had no one else to turn to.

***

Ron looked up from A History of Magic as Harry entered the Prefects' study room and grinned at him. "Hey, Harry."

"Hey yourself. What are you doing in here?" The study room was a small, circular room on the second floor of the North Tower, panelled with old, buttery wood and furnished with groupings of small tables. Along the walls hung wizarding photographs of old Head Boys and Girls; above the fireplace Hermione and Justin Finch-Fletchley held the current spot, badges prominent. Even in her photograph, Hermione had acquired a book from somewhere and was reading. Technically, the room was reserved for the use of the sixth and seventh-year Prefects who were studying for their N.E.W.T. exams, but no one fussed if the other older students used it when the library was too full.

"Waiting for herself, of course." Ron pushed the chair next to him out with his foot. "Sit down - are you doing that potions essay thing?"

"Yeah." Harry dropped his armload of books on the desk and sat down, rummaging in his bag for the notes he had made in class. "I wanted to get the blasted thing over with before Snape gets back and decides to give us another assignment."

Ron groaned. "Do you think he will?"

"It'd be like him." Harry unrolled his parchment and squinted at his own handwriting. "I hate to admit it, but I kind of hope he does get back soon. He's never been away this long before."

"Something big's up," was Ron's considered opinion as he flipped through to the index of his textbook. "All the signs point that way. Has Dumbledore, you know, said anything to you?"

"Nothing." Apart from implying that Malfoy is important, and I am so not even mentioning that to Ron, he'll have a fit. "Nothing important."

"Well, let's hope it doesn't catch us by surprise."

"We've got plans, haven't we?"

"Well, yeah, but there's an element of risk in any plan, and then there's always the possibility that You-Know-Who does something completely unexpected. We can only make plans based on the most likely contingencies, and You-Know-Who isn't the most stable chap around." Ron grinned at him, a smear of ink on his nose suddenly reminding Harry poignantly of their first meeting on the train.

"Yeah, well, I wish he'd wait until after the bloody exams," Harry muttered. "How are we supposed to battle evil and revise for the N.E.W.T.s at the same time? Let alone write our dissertations."

"You'll manage somehow, Harry." Ron's grin was infectious. "You always do."

"What does Harry always do?" Hermione plunked a stack of mouldy-looking books on the table and sat down heavily in the chair opposite them. She and Ron shared a private glance for a moment, and Harry looked down at his Potions notes, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Defeat evil, of course. We were just talking about whether You-Know-Who would be considerate enough to wait until the N.E.W.T.s are over before he does whatever it is he's planning."

Hermione laughed lightly. "Probably not, more's the pity. Harry, I found something about..." she glanced at Ron. "About what we were talking about last week. I think it might be a solution." Harry too glanced at his best friend, biting his lip. It wasn't that he wanted to keep things from Ron, but it had been difficult enough talking about this to Hermione.

Ron looked from one of them to the other, and then grinned wryly. "It's OK, I'll go back to the common room so you two can talk privately." He began gathering his things. "It just better be about my birthday, is all." He slung his bookbag over his shoulder and leaned down to kiss Hermione on the cheek. "See you later, sweetheart. You too, Harry."

"Bye," Harry muttered, flushed with embarrassment. Hermione watched Ron go for a moment, then turned back to him, opening the top book from her stack.

"I found this in the Defence Against the Dark Arts section. It's a specific charm to block nightmare-curses, which seems like the closest match to your situation. An ordinary peaceful-sleep charm probably wouldn't do much good if your nightmares do come from You-Know-Who."

"Dumbledore thinks so," Harry answered, taking the book and starting to read the section Hermione indicated. "...will prevent the receipt of nightmares resulting from a Dark Curse or Potion. Should be performed during daylight hours, by one who feels love for the victim of the curse." A heavy weight of disappointment settled in Harry's chest as he read the passage again silently. "Love? Hermione, how will this work?"

"No, look, there's note at the bottom of the page. See? Take note that the love of the caster need not be amorous: familial bonds or those of friendship will have an equal effect." She grinned at his discomfiture. "So you don't have to have Ginny cast this on you after all - Ron or I could do it for you, or Sirius, if you wanted."

Harry groaned at the mention of Ginny, whose crush on him had not abated significantly since second year, and laid his head on the desk. "Please, Hermione, don't start!"

She laughed at him. "She's counting on being your date for the Leaving Ball, you know. So, do you want me to do the charm for you?"

Harry pulled the book towards him, reading over the spell again as a pretext for some quick thinking. "Um, Hermione, do you mind if we save this for emergencies? Like if it gets really bad? I mean, I don't want to stop the real dreams - the ones where I see him and my scar hurts. I don't really want to pass up an opportunity to maybe find out part of what he's up to..."

Hermione gave him a hard look, but nodded. "I suppose. You'd better make a copy of the spell, then; Madam Pince wants the book back."

"Okay." Harry pulled out his quill and reached for a new piece of parchment. "Thanks, Hermione. You've no idea how much I appreciate this."

She softened visibly, gathering up her books. "It's no bother, Harry. If you're done with that, I'm going to go and find Ron and apologise for excluding him."

"Sure. Tell him I'm sorry too." Harry balanced the mouldy old book atop the others in her arms with a grin, and watched her retreating back for a long moment as she left the room.

Great. Harry sighed, slumping across his Potions work. Love, or even friendship, wasn't something he felt for Malfoy. He didn't know what the other boy was to him any more, but it wasn't a friend. He wasn't sure he wanted to be friends with Draco, either; there was too much between them, too much history and remembered enmity, too many fights looming heavily in their past.

And yet. Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose, where his glasses had pressed into the skin during Quidditch practise earlier. It was strange. He and Draco had a strange sort of semi-relationship, barely beyond open enmity in public and not quite friendship in private, despite the time they spent together now. Sleeping, mostly, which was a whole new level of weird whenever Harry actually stopped to think about it, but still more time in each others' company that he had ever thought that they would spend. He lifted the scrap of parchment with the instructions for the spell, staring at the loops of his own handwriting. Perhaps Malfoy could find someone else who could cast the spell on him?

The problem with that, of course, was that very few people actually liked Malfoy. The people Harry tended to think of as Draco's friends, like Crabbe and Goyle - well, Malfoy had categorised them rather succinctly as 'minions' when Harry had escorted him back to Slytherin that first night. And the only people he spent any amount of time with at all were Slytherins - it was unlikely in the extreme, Harry thought, that any of them actually loved him. Even Pansy Parkinson, who had gone out with him during fourth and fifth years and regularly draped herself all over him, was now going out with Nott, and Blaise Zabini had a notorious preference for her own gender.

His mother? She could do this for him... But then Harry remembered his one and only encounter with Narcissa Malfoy: a cold, sneering woman who really didn't seem the type to truly love anyone, even her own son. He bit his lip, realising that Draco would hardly want his father to know anything about this situation. And judging by his reaction to the morning's letter, well...

Folding the parchment carefully in half, Harry wondered whether he should mention the charm to Draco at all. He seemed so much better recently - perhaps given enough time, he would sort himself out without Harry's assistance. Besides, the idea of relying on others to help him wasn't in Malfoy's nature; Harry knew it had been difficult for the Slytherin boy to even discuss the nightmares with him. Other people - well, Malfoy wouldn't like it much. Feeling rather divided, Harry tucked the parchment into his shirt pocket and turned back to his Potions notes.

***

Harry winced slightly as Draco's bedroom door settled into its frame with a tiny thud. Hopefully, anyone who heard it would just think that Draco had visited the bathroom, but Harry didn't want to start counting on that. As soon as he had entered the room he had heard Draco thrashing and whimpering in his sleep, and he crossed hastily to the bedside, struggling out of his Cloak.

"Draco? Come on, it's me, wake up." Harry stifled a yawn against his upper arm as he took firm hold of the other boy and shook him awake.

"Harry?" Draco blinked wildly in the dim wand-light, grasping Harry's arms fearfully.

"Yeah, it's me. Come on, budge up." Harry scooted onto the bed beside Draco, who obligingly moved over to make room, torso beginning to shake with the spasms that had become much less severe over the weeks since he had given in and approached Harry for help. Harry kept a firm grip on one of Draco's shoulders just in case, but after a few deep breaths the blond boy seemed to calm himself. With a wry grin, Harry settled down beside him, knowing that despite the six inches of space and layer of blankets between them, Draco would inevitably end up using Harry as an extra pillow. He supposed it had something to do with being brought up an aristocrat; Draco seemed to view everything as some variety of possession.

"Was it bad tonight?" he asked as Draco settled down beside him, tucking the covers up around his ears. "You get more of them than I do."

Draco was silent for a moment. "It wasn't one of the worst ones," he answered after a while, voice already slurred with drowsiness. "But they're never pleasant."

"I know," Harry murmured, stifling another yawn. Draco didn't reply, his breath settling into an even pattern near Harry's ear. It still felt a bit weird to even be here, but Harry rationalised it to himself as something that just needed to be done. They both slept a lot better when he stayed until morning, and after all, it wasn't as if he was doing this because it was Malfoy. He would have done this for anyone, for Ron, if Ron had asked him.

Draco murmured something soft and sleepy, rolling over against Harry and burrowing his face into his shoulder. Harry suppressed a sigh, wondering if he should apply for a job as Malfoy's personal pillow. It was a lot harder to actually get to sleep with the other boy's heavy weight all along his side. Not to mention a lot hotter; Harry was very glad that this was winter rather than summer. He could feel Draco's breath warm against his neck, the slow, drowsy shifting of his body as he relaxed into sleep.

Closing his eyes, Harry settled down to try and get some rest himself, resigned to being Draco's mattress for the night. He could feel his eyes drifting shut of their own accord, but his mind was too active for sleep to get a proper grip on his body. He sighed, breath hissing in the cold air of the room. Reacting to the sound, Draco muttered and tightened his grip on Harry, and a shudder of something indefinable passed through the Gryffindor boy, driving sleep from his thoughts. Suddenly uncomfortable, he was about to gently disengage himself - no sense in waking Draco up, he thought, not when he's only just got back to sleep - when Draco pressed himself closer still, his breath warm and goosepimply on Harry's face.

Harry froze in startlement, but Draco showed no intention of pulling away. He actually had one arm across Harry's chest now, one leg wound around Harry's calf. It felt - weird. Divided and confused, Harry was about to grab Draco's shoulder to push him away when Draco mumbled something sleepy, snuggling against him, and his lips met Harry's in a soft, sweet kiss.