Immortalitas Aestas

The boys sat in silence until the sun started to set.

Harry shifted, turning to look at his blond companion. Malfoy was still sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, head resting on his knees. His eyes were closed, lashes brushing the tops of his flushed cheeks.

He's beautiful, Harry thought, then blinked. Beautiful? When had that ever become a word Harry used to describe Draco Malfoy?

Harry sat still, mulling over the thought. He'd never really thought about his rival's physicality, but he supposed it was true. Draco Malfoy was beautiful.

Harry had never really given much thought to his sexuality. He'd had a few crushes, Cho Chang in fourth year, Alicia Spinnet in fifth, but nothing had ever come of them. He'd never really had time for a relationship; he had always assumed he would die in the war.

Looking upon Draco now, however, made Harry wish for a brighter future.

"You're staring Potter."

Harry jumped, blushing as Draco's grey eyes opened and he smirked. Luckily his cheeks were still flushed with heat, so he wouldn't be able to see Harry's embarrassment.

"The sun is setting, it's going to be time for dinner soon, and I'm sorry." Harry's words came out all slurred together.

Malfoy raised his head, blinking once. "You're sorry?" he repeated.

Harry stood suddenly, gathering his books. "For staring." The blush on his cheeks grew brighter.

Draco smirked, laughing a little. "It's okay, Harry, I'm used to being stared at. It's my penance for being gorgeous."

Harry started to frown before he realized that Malfoy was joking. His eyes widened a bit as it hit him that Malfoy had called him by his given name.

"You called me Harry," he said, unable to keep the awe from his voice.

Draco blinked, a look of confusion moving fleetingly across his face. "Well, it is your name, isn't it?"

He stood, facing Harry.

Harry breathed in, inhaling the suddenly overwhelming scent of the boy in front of him. Draco smelled like cinnamon and cloves and a hint of sweat. Releasing the breath he'd been holding, he softly replied, "Yes."

Raising his eyes to Draco's, Harry said, "Should we head up to the Great Hall for dinner ... Draco?"

Draco blinked again, a small smile on his face. "That's a great idea - Harry."

The two boys headed towards the school, walking side-by-side, once again in silence.

When they reached the Great Hall, Harry turned to Draco. "You'll be at the Adversarius meeting tonight?"

"Of course," came the smooth reply. Draco moved towards the Slytherin table. "I wouldn't miss it for the world," was tossed over his shoulder.

Harry found himself smiling, watching as he sat among his housemates. Draco looked like a King among his subjects, and, Harry mused, that was probably an accurate observation.

Harry weaved his way through the throngs of students still milling about the Great Hall speaking to their friends from different houses and took a seat between Ron and Hermione.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione said, looking up from her book. She was about halfway through a large book entitled Heat Spells and Their Uses. "Where were you? Ron and I were looking for you."

"I was sitting outside, doing a bit of homework." Harry reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes, putting some on his plate. "And I don't think either of you looked very hard or you would have found me; I was sitting under the same tree I always do."

He looked at his friends, making sure to smile to let them know he was joking. Hermione blushed, glancing quickly across the table at Seamus. Inwardly, Harry smirked. It was about time.

Ron was looking across the Hall at his current girlfriend, Mandy Brocklehurst. "You're right Harry. We weren't really looking all that hard. We figured that you'd come inside eventually when you got hungry enough."

Harry didn't reply. He considered himself truly lucky to have friends like Ron and Hermione. Both cared about him a great deal and wanted to make sure he was safe, but they knew when Harry simply needed time to himself.

"Don't worry about it. I wasn't by myself anyway," Harry said, taking a bite of potatoes.

"Oh?" Hermione asked, turning back to face him. "Who was with you?"

"Draco," Harry said. He watched the surprised looks on the faces of his friends with glee. It wasn't often that he could surprise either of them.

"Malfoy?" Ron repeated weakly.

"Draco," Harry firmly corrected.

"Draco," Hermione said thoughtfully, like she was testing the sound of the name on her tongue. "That's a bit of a surprise."

Harry laughed. He missed the look of happiness that crossed his two friends' faces as he reached for the bowl of chicken. "Yes, I thought you'd think that."

"So, how did you and Malfoy, oh sorry, Draco come to be spending the afternoon together?" Hermione asked, taking the bowl from Harry and grabbing a piece for herself.

"Well, I was just sitting outside, working on a bit of homework." Harry decided to leave out the fact that while homework may have been his original intention he'd got very little done due to the fact that he'd had a massive headache. "Draco came up, saw me sitting there, and said he'd go sit somewhere else. I told him that was stupid and let him sit with me. We didn't really talk much, but it was kind of nice."

His friends took a moment to digest this new information. Harry continued eating, glancing from one to the other, waiting for a response.

Ron seemed to recover first. "So, you and Malfoy sat outside under a tree for," here he glanced at his watch, "three hours and didn't do anything?"

Harry nodded his head. "Basically. He didn't ask me any questions and I didn't ask him any. It was nice to just sit with someone and not say anything. It was ... relaxing."

Hermione set down her fork, reaching for a roll. "Well, that's good then. You deserve some relaxation," at this she arched an eyebrow, "and if Draco is the one to give it to you, that's fine with me. I mean, he is on our side; it's not like he's a threat to you or anything."

Harry sighed. "Of course he's not a threat, Hermione. He took Veritaserum, remember? His actions hold no malice whatsoever." Harry realized he was being a bit over-dramatic but ever since the meeting where Draco had bared all he'd felt very protective of him.

"We know that, Harry," Hermione interjected before he could really get himself riled up. "That's why we don't mind you spending a bit of time with him. Right Ron?" she asked, reaching behind Harry's back to hit him on the arm.

"Right, right, yes. We don't mind at all Harry," piped up Ron, although his statement was said while trying unsuccessfully to mask a frown.

"Please don't placate me, guys," Harry said, picking up his glass of pumpkin juice with a sigh. "I know neither of you like Draco very much, but he's different. You should both be able to see that." He took a drink. "And it's not like we're going to start spending all kinds of time with each other. We're not really even friends."

Neither Ron nor Hermione said anything to that, just continued eating, and eventually began speaking between themselves, over Harry's head.

No, Harry thought, we're not friends. But oh, how I'd like us to be. He looked across the Great Hall, his gaze connecting instantly with Draco's, and Harry, shocked by such instant eye contact, whispered quietly to himself, "I'd like us to be much more than that."

***

When Draco entered the Adversarius meeting that night, the first thing he noticed was the abundance of maps spread around the room. There were maps of Europe, maps of England, maps of Scotland, and maps of the United Kingdom as a whole. Draco had never seen so many maps.

The Adversarius met in the Prefects lounge. It was the only place that was large enough to hold the sixteen members and could only be accessed by password. Lupin didn't want anyone who wasn't supposed to have access able to enter the room. Most of the members were either Prefects or the Head Boy or Girl, so there weren't too many extra passwords given out, and Lupin didn't really worry about the Prefects that weren't a part of the Adversarius because the members always locked up their plans and notes after each meeting. Lupin figured that students with the responsibility of Prefects wouldn't go snooping into other's things.

Walking farther into the room, and without even being conscious of doing so, Draco took up his old habit of looking for Harry. He saw him standing next to Granger, Pansy, and Terry Boot. Granger was holding a quill and ruler and was drawing a series of lines on the map they were standing over. Harry was pointing out various places on the map, which were in turn circled by Pansy.

Upon closer inspection, Draco saw that it was a map of the UK. Drawn on it was a diamond. Hermione was currently drawing a second diamond, which seemed to be centered on the area around Hogwarts.

"What's this?" he asked curiously.

"It's the locations of the Death Eater attacks," Terry replied, pointing to London. "Hermione noticed that when the points were connected, they made a diamond. The towns are all focused around centers of the magical community."

Draco followed Terry's finger, seeing that this was indeed true. Each point of the diamond was on a Muggle town: Bedford, Chelmsford, Newhaven, and Reading.

"Wait, there hasn't been an attack on Reading," Draco pointed out, looking up at Granger.

"No, there hasn't yet. It's just a guess. There were four attacks in Scotland: Edinburgh, Stonehaven, Inverness, and Crianlarich. All four are mostly Muggle towns, and all four, when you connect them, make a diamond. The center of the diamond is Hogwarts. We are just guessing that the next Death Eater attack will be at Reading; it would make the previous attacks a pattern."

Draco nodded, his gaze falling once again to the map. "Do we know when the next attack is going to take place?"

Harry spoke up then, drawing Draco's attention to his face. "No, not yet. Morag hasn't been able to figure it out yet."

Draco crossed his arms across his chest. "Well, hopefully she'll be able to figure it out soon." He looked across the room to the Ravenclaw. "Who knows how much time we've got."

Harry nodded, looking back down at the map. "We've been trying to figure out what other magical centers there are in the UK. That way we could try to figure out where the next attacks will take place."

Draco looked down at the map. "I'm not sure. Have you asked Lupin or Dumbledore?"

Hermione looked up then, setting her quill on the table. "Not yet. Lupin isn't going to be here tonight; the full moon is tomorrow and he's preparing for the transformation. And Dumbledore has been at the Ministry since last Friday. We were going to ask Sirius, but we couldn't find him either."

"Ah. He's with my mother," Draco said, smiling slightly. "They were going to London to see what they could do about getting her a divorce."

"Oh," Hermione replied, blinking. "That's right. Sirius told us about that. Well, we better start this meeting, and see what everyone has come up with."

She moved away, scooping the map up into her arms and set it in the center of the table before seating herself at one end. "Can everybody sit down so we can start, please?"

Everyone immediately did as she asked, settling down in their normal spots. Draco thought it was rather funny that they still all stayed clustered in their houses. He presumed it was a force of habit.

"We've had some recent developments," Harry announced in his characteristically soft voice. "We think we know where the next attack will be."

"However," Hermione interjected, "we're not positive. Neither Pansy nor Mandy have been able to see anything, and Morag hasn't been able to get good readings because of the cloud cover. It's odd that it's so hot but there are still so many clouds. And the clouds only seem to appear when it gets dark, too. It's making it difficult for us to work."

"The first order of business is this heat. Has anyone come up with anything that could account for it?" Harry asked, looking around the table.

At this, Padma spoke up. "No, we still haven't found anything. We've looked in almost every book in the library, even in the Restricted Section. We can't seem to find anything that's even remotely relevant."

Harry "hmmed", crossing off something on the list in front of him. "Okay, we're going to need to check out the rest of the books. Hannah and Ernie, would you take care of that?" He looked up at the Hufflepuffs who each nodded at him. "Good. Now, any other news?"

"We've made a little progress with the Dragons. Charlie said that we were doing spectacularly well, but we still can't control them," Terry said, shifting in his chair. "We worked with them for hours today. They got us good." He held up his hands, which were wrapped in gauze, gesturing for Padma to do the same. "They're feisty things, those Dragons."

"Any guess about when you will be able to control them?" Ron asked, speaking for the first time.

"No, not really. Charlie isn't sure; it could take a while yet," Padma replied, looking down at her hands. "I'm not sure there will be much of me left if that's the case," she finished mournfully.

Terry patted her on the shoulder, wincing slightly as the pressure hurt his hand.

"Any other news?" Hermione asked, looking at Susan and Justin. "Anything in your Arithmancy calculations?"

"Not really," Susan said, pushing a piece of parchment towards Harry. "We did the equations on the list of towns you gave us, but haven't been able to find any connections. We're not sure why they would have picked those specific towns, unless it was because of their proximity to Hogwarts or the fact that they are Muggle."

Hermione stood behind Harry, reading over his shoulder. "Well, keep trying to figure it out, will you? We might get lucky."

Susan nodded, taking the parchment back and rolling it up. "We might. There are a few more possibilities to try."

"How are the Protection Charms coming along?" Harry asked, turning his attention to Ron and Lavender. "Have you been able to find anything to counteract the effects of the Dementors?"

Ron shook his head, looking at Lavender. "We've been trying to make an advanced form of the Cheering Charm, but haven't been able to fine tune it yet. The feelings of a Cheering Charm aren't real, and they won't counteract the terror the Dementors cause. We're still working on it, though. Professor Lupin has been helping us, but he'll be out of commission for a few days now."

"We've also been trying to create a Protection Charm," said Lavender, wiping a hand across her brow. "We've had some nice results, but haven't perfected it so we don't want to try it on anyone yet."

Harry nodded, crossing something else off his list. "That's good. Keep us informed. We want to know when you get something that works."

He then turned his attention to Blaise and Tracey. "And what about you two? Have you finished that Shielding Spell yet?"

Blaise and Tracey were working to perfect a Shielding Spell that would protect the user from the Cruciatus curse. They'd hit a snag in their plans, however, and couldn't seem to get past it. They had created the spell and could cast it; however it sucked all the magical energy out of the user if left on for too long. It took the person nearly forty-eight hours to regain their energy, as well. They were currently trying to find a way to protect the person's magical energy but hadn't had much luck.

Blaise shook his head, gesturing for Tracey to respond. "We haven't been able to find a way to protect the person's magic. We're thinking that maybe if we had an object or something that could be used to focus their energy, it wouldn't disappear when the Contego is cast. But we haven't been able to find anything that could be used."

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "So, we're no further with that then we were last week." Draco could tell that Harry wasn't trying to be smart, but was simply stating the facts. Draco knew how he felt; Blaise was very frustrated as well and was ready to scrap the whole thing and start over. He'd complained to Draco that the only thing stopping him was Tracey and her assurances that they would eventually get it to work.

Blaise shook his head. "No, we're no further. We've hit a wall. We really need to talk to Lupin again and see if he can help us out, although, having said that, he wasn't sure what to do when we asked him the last time. Maybe Dumbledore would have some ideas. We'll talk to him when he gets back from wherever he is."

Harry nodded, again writing on his parchment. "Okay, how are we with Herbology, Ernie?"

Ernie Macmillan was trying to create a hybrid plant that would create a protective barrier around Hogwarts or any other area. He'd gotten the thing to sprout, but wasn't sure if it would continue to grow. His last test plant had died within two days.

Attention was then turned to Hannah, who was talking about the Transfiguration she'd performed that had changed a knight into an image of herself. This could be useful in a battle because it would confuse the enemy temporarily and allow the person performing the transformation to launch a surprise attack.

At last it was Draco's turn. His breath hitched a bit as those brilliant green eyes were focused solely on him.

"And what have you accomplished since we met last week?" Harry asked, never breaking eye contact.

Draco cleared his throat, feeling a blush crawl up his face. He desperately hoped that it wasn't too noticeable since he was still flushed from the heat.

"Well," he began, folding his hands in his lap, "I've been working on the Invincibility Potion you asked for. It's a bit more difficult to brew than I'd originally thought, but I've managed to do a fantastic job, if I do say so myself."

"Yes, I'm sure you have," murmured Harry, his green eyes sparkling. He gave Draco a half smile. "And when will it be ready to try?"

"Any time you want someone to try it, it's ready. It has a shelf life of a week, and I made it yesterday, so anytime before next Monday should be fine."

Harry nodded, making another mark on his parchment. "Is tomorrow okay? I can try it after Potions class."

"You're going to try it?" Draco asked, surprised. He hadn't given much thought to who would be taking it, and if he were honest with himself, he hadn't really cared. "What if something goes wrong?"

"It won't," Harry replied confidently, looking back up at Draco. "You made it, after all, and did a 'fantastic job' right? And you haven't messed up on a potion since first year. It'll be fine. I'll be fine. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried," Draco argued, although he really was very ... he supposed concerned was the correct word. "I know I did a great job, it's just that you're the Boy Who Lived. I can just imagine the trouble I'd be in if something were to happen to you."

"Nothing's going to happen to me," Harry said, his voice softer than normal. "I'm putting myself in your hands, and I trust you. Everything will be fine."

He'd locked his beautiful green eyes with Draco's slate grey counterparts, and at that moment the rest of the Adversarius had ceased to exist. All Draco could see was Harry, and all he could hear were Harry's words - I trust you.

Draco blinked, surprised at his reaction to such simple words. "Thank you," he finally responded, just as softly as Harry.

Harry nodded, never turning his eyes away from Draco. "I think we're done here for today. We'll meet again next week, same time. Any questions?" There were none, and the other members began to gather up their things. "Make sure you come see either Hermione or me if you have any new developments, no matter what the time is." The underlying sense of urgency was apparent in the statement.

Everyone seemed to stand up at once, leaving only Draco and Harry seated. They still hadn't moved and neither wanted to even think about breaking eye contact.

"Is there something I can help you with Pansy?" Harry suddenly asked, although he never turned his head. Draco suddenly realized that Pansy was standing at the door, looking at him. He could feel her eyes boring a hole into the back of his head. He inwardly groaned as he realized that she was going to have a lot of questions for him about his rather odd behavior when he got back to the Common Room.

"No, Potter, you can't help me with anything. Are you coming, Draco?" she asked sharply.

"No," murmured Draco, "not yet. I'll be down in a little while."

"Fine," she snapped. Draco could hear the heels of her shoes clicking on the stone floor as she left the room and moved down the corridor. Across from him, Harry laughed softly.

"You have interesting friends, Draco."

Draco drew in a breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it. "Yes, I do. Listen Harry, are you sure you want to take the potion? I could just have Blaise or Pansy take it. That way...." he trailed off. That way I'd be sure that nothing could happen to you, he finished in his head.

Harry smiled at him, reaching a hand across the table. He just barely touched the back of Draco's hand but Draco still felt the lightning run along his nerve endings. He couldn't remember ever having that reaction to a touch from someone else before. "I'll be fine, Draco. Just let me take it. I'll be here after Potions tomorrow. Have the potion ready."

Harry's impenetrable gaze broke Draco's resolve and he nodded. "All right, Harry. I'll be here with the Potion. But I'm not leaving until the effects have worn off. Okay?"

Harry nodded, pulling his hand back towards himself, and shrugged slightly. "Okay." He stood, gathering his books. "Thanks, Draco. Have a good evening."

"You, too," Draco whispered, watching Harry as he left the room. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table after the door had shut. "Oh, Harry, what you do to me."