Black Sheep

Noon. Sunday. Harry and Draco were lying in the tall grasses of the fields around the Great Lake. It was one of those perfect late September days, when the sun makes one last brilliant appearance before autumn fully sets in with its overcast skies and lengthening shadows.

The two men were half-dozing in the weak sunlight, just warm enough to not want to move. Draco had no books with him for once; they'd never asked, of course, but he suspected that Madam Pince would not approve of them taking their research outside of the nice, dry walls of the castle. No, after several hours in the cavernous library vault, they had left the books for a short break, unable to bear sitting inside the stone chambers of Hogwarts on such a day.

Draco opened his eyes to mere slits and watched the Ravenclaw Quidditch team practising over the pitch, a good fifty metres away. He thought about Quidditch practice and he rolled up on an elbow and looked at Harry next to him, apparently asleep. He watched the wind flutter through that thick black hair, revealing teasing glimpses of the famous scar and then hiding it again. His gaze fell down to Harry's full lips, now loosely parted and begging for a kiss, but so often pressed together in wary distrust.

Draco suddenly spoke in the thick, sunlit silence. "So you're afraid of me getting my magic back?"

Harry stiffened and Draco knew then that he hadn't been asleep at all. He watched as Harry's pink tongue darted along his lips nervously. He saw Harry's lower lip trembling almost imperceptibly and was watching that delicate motion with such fascination that he didn't immediately notice when Harry opened his eyes and looked up at him with that shocking green stare of his.

"You know how you used to hate me?" he asked in an odd voice. "I think I'm rather afraid of that happening again."

Draco considered that for some time, mulling over all that it implied. "So you're afraid that if I get my magic back, that I'll hate you." He frowned and asked seriously, "Do you think that I hate you now?"

Harry felt his cheeks burn; after all, he could feel the nearly magnetic pull between them even now - especially now. "No," he whispered.

"Do you think this is all some sort of act?" Draco continued insistently. "Do you think I'm just using you to get my magic back again?"

Harry felt like a child being scolded, and he admitted in a small tone, "No."

Draco looked at him intently across the short distance that separated them. "Then why do you think that would change if I were able to use magic again?"

"I don't know," Harry sighed unsurely. "I don't know. I guess I just assumed that you would go back to your old friends - back to your old ways."

The blond's eyes fell away and his lips twisted into a strange smile that made Harry suspect that Draco was angry. Draco said, "So you're afraid that if I were free to be with anyone that I wouldn't choose you."

Draco was looking down at him seriously now and Harry felt like he couldn't look away. He hated doing it, but he asked, "Would you?"

Draco's pale lips twitched, showing a hint of a smile. "Let me make some things clear," he said, as he rolled on top of Harry, holding himself up on his hands.

"Malfoy!" Harry exclaimed, looking about nervously. "We're in the middle of the bloody grounds!"

"And I don't care," Draco said flatly. "As I was saying, then." He stared straight down into Harry's scandalised face. "First of all, 'go back to my old friends'? How many people do you think I know who haven't either a) declared undying hatred for me, b) been sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban, or c) died horribly?" Harry swallowed hard, cowed into silence, and Draco continued to say, "There's none of 'my sort' left any longer.

"As for going back to my old ways..." Now even the hint of a smile was gone. "Potter, I haven't changed." He could see that Harry wanted to protest but he silenced him, almost angrily. "No, I haven't. The way you see me may have changed, and even the way that I see you. But I'm still the same person that I always was. If I hated you now, I would still do everything in my power to make you miserable. And I would enjoy every moment of it." He stared hard at Harry. "If I see an opportunity that will benefit me, I'll still seize it, and if I have to trample over some people that I don't know or care about to do it, then that's fine with me. Anyone who is too weak or stupid to get out of my way gets what they deserve. I enjoy manipulating people. I like to watch bad things happen to stupid people. I'm still the same bastard that you met in Madame Malkin's twelve years ago."

Harry had gone white, despite the bright sunshine that still fell over them. He was staring up at Draco, his face strained, and he looked as if he didn't - or didn't want to - understand what he saw in that well-studied face.

"Now, let me tell you some things you may not know."

Draco watched Harry's pale face as he told him, "The days that I spend with you end with the only nights when I don't have nightmares about the things that have happened to me. The only reason that I hated you at school was because you refused my friendship, when I offered it to you. If you had accepted it then, you would already know that I will do absolutely anything for those that I care about. Yes, I'm ruthless and cruel when I'm helping myself. But I'm even more ruthless and cruel to help those that I love, and I will destroy anyone for them - even myself - if I have to. If you had accepted my hand on that bloody train, we probably would have been best friends and you never would have known a more loyal friend."

Harry's eyes were as wide as saucers by this point and Draco almost smiled. "I was fascinated by you, Harry Potter, by who you were. You were the first person I ever met that I wanted to have around - not that I had to have around, because our fathers were Death Eaters together or any other bollocks. I wanted you to be impressed by me; I wanted you to like me."

Staring up at Draco in complete dumbfounded silence, Harry's face was still white with shock, though of a different flavour. He knew he wasn't the world expert on relationships but - Draco had wanted to be his friend?

"And the fact that I haven't changed who I am means that I'm not going to 'change back' to anything. It means that what I feel about you - about you and me - is not going to simply change, based on whether I can use magic or not. And if you sent me away right now, I would exhaust every last shred of my Slytherin cunning to get back to you because - at this moment, Potter - I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather be here with."

Harry's face had managed to change from deathly pale to flaming with embarrassment in just moments. He wanted to dig a hole and climb into it and hide - and at the same time, he didn't want to move even a millimetre away from Draco and his heart-stopping words.

"So, yes, Potter," Draco finished softly, leaning in so close that his long blond fringe brushed Harry's face. "I would choose you." Then he grinned and he was Malfoy again as Harry had come to expect him. "At least, until you start boring me," he quipped and winked down at Harry.

Harry's chest felt so tight that he thought for a moment that his heart might have actually failed. Why should it? Why should he care so much? Malfoy had just reminded him that he was a bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling. And, after all, this was just some strange fit of lust. So why did he suddenly feel tears pricking at his eyes when he thought of the years they'd spent hating each other?

Draco pulled back, half laughing, "What now?" Then he looked closely at Harry, who was trying to look away, his eyelids falling to hide his eyes. "Are you crying, you utter sop?"

"No," Harry denied, childishly and foolishly. He blinked several times, trying to hide the incriminating gleam in his eyes.

Draco watched all of this with his usual interest and asked, "Why would you cry?" He leaned closer and Harry flinched, scrunching his eyes shut tightly, only to feel Draco gently kiss each one.

"I wasn't crying," he insisted uselessly. "I was just thinking... what a waste it was. That we hated each other all those years."

Draco grinned and blew on his face, causing him to pop his eyes open in surprise. "Hating you, Harry Potter, has been more satisfying than loving anyone else could ever be."

Midnight. Sunday. Harry half woke, feeling a weight on his back and a strange tickling sensation on his skin. Again. "Malfoy," he moaned tiredly. "I thought I took away your damned pen."

A throaty chuckle answered him. "Then you should have known better."

Harry tried half-heartedly to displace the man sitting atop him and Draco scolded him sternly. "Sit still! You're only making it worse."

Groaning, Harry submitted. After all, now he knew where to get the ink remover if he needed to. For the moment, he relaxed and enjoyed the feel of Draco leaning over him, his breath warm on Harry's bare skin. Harry noticed that the man was whispering words, no louder than a breath. It sounded almost like a spell, but that couldn't be.

"...da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda..."

"What?"

"Shhh," Draco hushed him softly, and continued whispering the Latin words as he carefully wrote them in his neat script. Harry listened to the half-familiar sounds, recognising syllables here and there but unable to guess what Draco's message was.

The pen's light touch lifted and Harry felt the ink drying on his skin; it was an odd sensation, almost itchy. He was surprised when Draco next picked up his limp hand, turning it toward him and causing Harry to make a curious noise.

As Draco wrote three words in the exposed centre of Harry's palm, he said softly, "Vivamus, atque amemus. Vivamus, atque amemus."

Harry half turned, rolling over as far as he could and staring up at Draco in the flickering candlelight. Draco had obviously set up the candles that Harry had conjured for him after the night he'd been left in the dark.

"Draco," he said softly.

The blond laughed again and said, "Call me Malfoy."

Harry continued to stare up at him, painted in bronze by the moving light and shadows, and he repeated, "Draco."

Draco's laughing smile slowly faded and after several moments had passed, he leaned down to kiss Harry gently. Harry returned his kiss just as carefully, whispering once more, "Draco."

"Yes," he sighed into those giving lips. How long had it been since anyone had uttered his name in such an adoring way? He groaned, "Yes, Harry."

Harry dug his hands into Draco's silky blond hair, holding him down and close as he sprinkled kisses all over his face. The marker fell from Draco's fingers, forgotten, and he wrapped his arms around the man below him tightly. There were no more words that night.

Ten o'clock. Monday morning. The students had trooped dutifully into the history classroom and taken their seats. Then an odd silence had fallen - odd because they were usually not silent without threats or magic.

Draco smiled, imagining what Harry's expression must be like behind him. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," he said in a rather jolly tone. "If you are so inclined, I think we'll start in on our discussion of the split between Wizardingkind and Muggles. Who can get us started?"

The silence continued as the young Gryffindors looked at one another nervously. Who would dare admit that they'd done the reading?

The longer no one answered, the more no one wanted to be the first to break the silence. But, as they'd begun to expect, Draco didn't seem bothered at all by this reaction. He looked across them, catching eyes here and there and smirking knowingly.

"Well, it was because of the Muggles, innit," a young male voice piped up from the crowd of fidgeting students.

Draco pulled a curious face. "Do you mean to say that it was the Muggles fault that we split up?"

"Well, they started persecuting magic folk, innit. No wonder we buggered off," the same rowdy voice continued, greeted with a few scattered laughs.

Before Draco might have added another comment of his own, another student spoke out: "But they only started attacking wizards because some wizards had been messing with them in the first place. Muggle-baiting and all that." The girl who'd said this glared at the previous speaker, obviously not one of his fans.

Draco nodded, his eyebrows arched in consideration. "So it was provoked - then it was our fault that we split."

"No," a different voice burst out loudly, then its speaker clapped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment. Everyone was looking at her now and she mumbled through her fingers, "I mean, it's not fair that everyone should have been blamed just because of a few Dark wizards' stupid actions."

"Is it fair if everyone is instead blamed for failing to control those Dark wizards?" Draco asked them. "Isn't it the society's responsibility to keep its members in order?"

There was an awkward silence following his question, and finally someone said, "Well, that's what we have jails and things for, right?"

Draco's lips pressed together tightly for a moment, but then he reminded the students, "But there were no prisons in those days, no organised leadership or government among wizards. No Wizengamot, even. So who was to blame for those Dark Wizards' actions? Is the society to blame?" He looked at them slyly. "Surely someone must be to blame... right?"

Two students spoke over one another, one saying, "Well, yes-" and the other claiming, "No, that's not-"

They both broke off awkwardly.

Draco gestured magnanimously to his audience, saying, "We can all have our turns. First, who thinks that someone is to blame?"

Everyone was afraid to speak up now and Draco looked pointedly at the student who had originally started to say yes. The boy scrunched his face up, unable to get away from Draco's gaze, and said, "Well, aren't those Wizards themselves to blame?"

"So it's their fault that they are bad?" Draco grinned at his audience's obvious discomfort. "Some people are just born bad and that's it?"

"No, that's-" the student protested in frustration, "that's not what I mean. Just - they're the ones who made the bad decisions, right? So why should others be blamed for their decisions?"

"So decisions - and individuals - exist in a vacuum," Draco said, deliberately twisting the boy's words. "A person's situation and those around him have no affect on or responsibility for his decisions."

"Yes," the boy said firmly. Then, "No. I mean - yes." He frowned and leaned forward. "In the end, only that person alone makes the decision to do what's right or wrong, right?" Before Draco could make any infuriating interpretations, he continued, "Even if someone is pointing a wand at you, or threatening you, or whatever. You're still the one who makes the decision."

Draco smiled wryly and there was no joy in that mask-like expression. "Well, you'll be happy to know that the current government seems to agree." He looked over at the other student who had spoken up earlier, "Now, for our counterpoint-"

The door to the history classroom banged open and he broke off in surprise. McGonagall came striding into the room, followed by two men whose appearance made his blood run cold.

"Dean Thomas?" Harry exclaimed from behind him, jumping to his feet. "And - Neville Longbottom?!" His former house-mates had of course grown older over the past five years, but they were still immediately recognisable to him - even in their Auror robes.

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your class, Mister Malfoy." McGonagall spoke in that clipped tone that meant that she was being forced to do something she didn't wish to. "But these two insisted that you come with them immediately."

Draco appeared to have frozen on the spot, and Harry stared at his rigid unmoving figure from behind. He quickly stepped forward and spoke softly, close to his ear, "Malfoy..." But he didn't know what to say.

Draco turned the few inches to meet Harry's concerned gaze and Harry was shocked to see his face. Draco's eyes were showing white all around his grey irises and his pupils were constricted to near pinpricks. In all their years, Harry had never seen him look this absolutely horrified. He looked like he was going to either vomit or pass out on the spot.

"Harry," Draco breathed his name, no louder than a puff of air from his bloodless lips. "Don't let them take me back there."

Harry's decision was made for him in that instant. He stepped in front of Draco, blocking the former Death Eater from all of the curious and suspicious stares. He looked searchingly at the two men that he'd shared a room with for six years.

"Neville, Dean, please - I'm sure this can wait," he said, looking meaningfully towards their avid audience of students.

Neville at least had the grace to look uncomfortable, but Dean Thomas' hard expression didn't ease in the slightest. "No, Potter," he said, distancing himself from Harry, "I don't think that it can."

Harry bit the inside of his lip. What should he do? What could he do? He turned to look at Malfoy behind him, but this time Draco had no cleverly stinging remarks, no devil-may-care and damn-the-consequences plan. He still seemed to be nearly catatonic and Harry was baffled by it. "Malfoy," he hissed, feeling cornered, "I don't know what choice we have!"

If Malfoy had told him at that moment to pull his wand and curse their way out of Hogwarts, Harry would have done. But the blond remained silent and Harry noticed from the corner of his eye that the Aurors were drawing their wands.

"Malfoy," he whispered desperately. With his back turned and his eyes fixed on his terrified lover, he only heard the curse before it struck. "Stupefy!" called Dean's cool voice. And then everything was black.