Eclipse

Chapter 10

Trust, Truth, and Lies of Omission

*********

Royal rebels discover you.
Trust? You turn, there is no truth.
And circle, circle, why are you scared?
Why a smile instead of tears?

(~Indigo Girls)

*********

He's alive. At least he's alive.

Darkness had fallen, and under the forest canopy the night was thick and stifling, with a clammy sort of coldness that oozed through clothing and flesh. In the centre of the small clearing, Harry sat with Draco's head cradled in his lap. He had enlarged Draco's cloak and tucked it carefully around Draco, then pulled the rest of it up and over his own shoulders. Although he knew it was foolish and naïve, it was comforting to imagine that the cloak actually afforded them some sort of protection from anything that might be lurking in the shadows, even though it could barely keep out the chill.

The few stars that had been visible through the treetops had faded away, one by one, as clouds rolled across the sky. If he hadn't known any better, Harry could almost have let himself believe that the cloudy night was yet another of Voldemort's tricks to make them miserable, but not even Voldemort could control the weather. Could he?

Harry glanced down towards Draco compulsively, not that he could see anything through the darkness. The sound of even breathing seemed to indicate that Draco was still sleeping peacefully. At any rate, Draco didn't appear to be in any pain, which was a small consolation.

Harry had thought he'd known just how big a risk Draco had taken by pulling Harry from the dungeons. He'd known the kind of destruction Voldemort could cause; he had seen it firsthand. Now, he silently cursed himself for not expecting this. If Voldemort had invaded Harry's own mind, it would have been different. That had happened before. He had never bothered to consider that Voldemort might be able to use Legilimency on someone else. As usual, he had assumed that he was a special case.

I am so stupid.

Dumbledore had said Voldemort was a powerful Legilimens, but only now was Harry beginning to understand the scope of such power. It appeared that if you could control a person's mind, you could also control his body. Thankfully, Draco had seemingly been released from whatever nightmare Voldemort had been inflicting. He was breathing evenly, his heart was beating a strong rhythm, and he was alive.

But he wasn't moving.

And he wouldn't wake up.

Nothing he did seemed to be able to rouse Draco, so Harry tried to tell himself it was just exhaustion, and that once Draco had slept enough, he'd awaken refreshed and as obnoxious as ever. Logic told him that, considering the level of control Voldemort seemed to have, if he wanted Draco dead, Draco would already be dead. No, Voldemort wanted something else.

He wants me, Harry thought bleakly. As if I didn't already know that. But now he's going to use Draco to get me.

He reached down and pulled the cloak tighter around Draco's unconscious form, comforting himself with the protective gesture. His hand brushed against the chain of the Mislocator, which reminded him of the fact that the only thing between himself and Voldemort was Draco Malfoy. Not a very reassuring thought. Could Draco possibly understand that he'd just stuck himself in the middle of the most deadly rivalry in the wizarding world?

He probably has a hunch now.

Harry sighed deeply and leaned back against the tree behind him. He'd lost track of how long he had sat there, just like he'd lost all feeling in his legs. Still, the weight against his lap and the steady rhythm of Draco's breathing were strangely comforting. And for now, he'd take comfort where he could. Compulsively, Harry adjusted Draco's cloak again, tucking it around his own legs and up to Draco's chin.

The night wore on, and Harry felt himself drift in and out of sleep as his own fatigue pulled at him. Not even the buzz of insects broke the perfect silence, and there was no light to give his eyes some relief. For a moment, he thought his eyes were tricking him when he woke up from a doze to see the faintest outline of trees through the darkness, the first hint of dawn. He picked a point - the crook of a nearby tree limb - and stared at it as though he could hurry the daylight by force of will. It was then that he felt Draco shift against his lap.

Harry looked down hopefully at Draco's pale features, which just barely stood out against the darkness. After a moment's pause, he gave Draco a light shake.

"Hey... you awake?"

"Hmmmphff..."

"Draco?"

Draco's eyes snapped wide open, and his features twisted in alarm. "AAAAGHH!"

He jerked up and rolled away from Harry, getting his legs twisted in the cloak. He tried to jump to his feet, but because he was still tangled up, he tripped. He landed on his side with a heavy thud, and looked up at Harry in a dazed panic through the dim light of morning.

"Draco...?" Harry asked with a bit of fear, wondering if perhaps Draco's ordeal with Voldemort wasn't over. "Are you okay?"

Draco's eyes were wide, darting from Harry's face to the surrounding shadows, back and forth as if searching for something.

"Dark... everything..." His voice was dry and scratchy, as if he'd been yelling a lot. He reached out with one hand and patted the ground in front of him, then dug his fingers into the soft loam. "Real... I can feel it... thank Merlin... couldn't touch anything."

"Draco?" Harry was really starting to worry about him.

"Couldn't move... couldn't see..." Draco grasped the edge of his cloak with his fingers, trying to pull it up to his shoulders to cover himself better, but the cloak was so tangled in his legs that it wouldn't move. Still, he kept pulling at it, shivering slightly the whole time.

Harry felt something in his chest twist as he surveyed Voldemort's latest victim. "Draco... please..."

Draco looked back up at him. For a moment, he continued to stare at Harry in wide-eyed confusion, then suddenly, realization struck him... and he noticed the fact that he was lying in a tangled heap on the ground. His eyes narrowed in annoyance. "If you ever breathe a word of this indignity to anyone, Potter, I swear I will tie you up and leave you for the vultures."

Harry let out an abbreviated laugh, partly in relief, partly to cover his own anxiety. "There you go with the bondage again, Malfoy. I'm starting to wonder about you."

Draco opened his mouth in indignation, but then closed it again and settled for glaring instead.

Harry forced a grin and extended his hand to Draco. Draco tried to hold his scowl for another moment before exhaustion seemed to hit him again. His shoulders slumped, and with a deep sigh, he took the offered hand and allowed Harry to pull him to a seated position.

In the dim light, Draco appeared a bit stressed and groggy, but not really any the worse for wear, considering the circumstances. He blinked a couple of times and looked around, trying to get his bearings. Then he yawned deeply, grabbed the cloak from behind him, and wrapped it tightly around his shoulders. Harry said nothing, waiting for Draco to speak first. He didn't have too long to wait.

"What are you staring at?" Draco asked edgily.

"I was waiting for you to tell me what happened."

Draco looked away and turned his attention to arranging his cloak around him on the ground. "It can wait until the morning; I'm too tired to talk right now... and what the hell did you do to my cloak?"

"Engorgement Charm," Harry said absently, processing what Draco had just said. "And what do you mean, 'wait until morning'?"

"I mean exactly what I said, Potter, and now is not the time to test me. It's going to be too dark to see any minute now, I'm exhausted, and after that... that... whatever it was, I want some rest." He spoke in halting sentences, and Harry could tell he was trying desperately to cover his nerves. He wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Draco -"

"I've still got a headache, and I don't want to talk now." He leaned up on his knees to fold some of the cloak into a makeshift pillow. "You go back to munching on your biscuits -"

"Draco -"

"- and let me sleep. If you're still really worried that I might have a concussion, wake me up every couple of hours if you absolutely must. I think I'd actually appreciate that, for some unknowable reason. By the way, you said you knew how to transfigure a pillow, right?"

"DRACO MALFOY!"

"WHAT?!"

Harry stared at Draco in exasperation. "It's already morning."

Draco released the folds of the cloak he was holding, and sat down hard. "What?" he whispered.

"I tried to wake you up, but I couldn't. You've been out cold all night. What the hell happened to you?"

Draco didn't say anything for a moment, but the blank expression on his face quickly gave way to uncertainty, then to a touch of fear. Finally, he took a deep breath. "I don't know, Potter. You tell me."

"Draco, I'm not in your head. I don't know, either." It was a half-lie. He could certainly hazard a fair guess as to what had happened, but technically he didn't know, and he wanted to see what Draco had to say first.

Draco stared at Harry with an unreadable expression. "In my head..." he said vaguely, then turned away with a shudder.

Harry edged towards him curiously. "Draco?"

"It was dark... and there was nothing... nothing but him... everywhere. I couldn't touch anything... all empty and dark..." As he spoke, his hand snaked down and grasped the edge of the cloak, and he clutched it nervously to his chest, twisting the fabric between his fingers.

"Did you see anything?" Harry prodded.

"Just darkness." Draco shook his head slightly. "It was all dark."

"Did you hear anything?"

At this, Draco's teeth clamped down on his lower lip, and he twisted his cloak so hard Harry was sure he was about to rip it, but he didn't answer. Harry regarded him cautiously. He had to find out what Voldemort had said and done to Draco. Had there been a message? A threat? Or possibly worse: a deal with the devil himself?

"Can't save him... save yourself... consider... carefully...."

That hadn't sounded promising, and Harry certainly had his suspicions, but he couldn't act on them, not yet. Whether he was right or wrong, the last thing he wanted to do was upset Draco any more. He had no clue how Draco was going to react to what had happened, and pushing him too hard would only make matters worse.

"Did he say anything to you, Draco?" Harry asked softly. "Anything at all?"

Draco stared at the ground for another moment before speaking. "It was just a bad dream," he murmured.

"What?"

"It was just a stupid, bloody nightmare. Too much stress, not enough sleep, that's all." He turned towards Harry, and the look on his face almost made Harry fall backwards.

"Malfoy, you can't honestly expect me to believe -"

"No, Potter, I expect you to drop it."

Harry sat back, exasperated. Was Malfoy just trying to make things harder? They were stuck with each other, and whatever had happened was bound to affect both of them. Bottling it up would only make it harder to deal with matters later. If Voldemort had found a new way to come after them, Harry needed to know. But of course, trust Draco Malfoy to be unable to see past the end of his own pointy nose.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Well, it's good to know you're absolutely fine now. Back to your old obnoxious self. No harm done there."

"Hey!"

"Maybe the next time Voldemort is playing with your brain like a puppet, he'll fix a few things in there while he's at it. Attitude adjustment, perhaps."

Suddenly, Draco was nose-to-nose with Harry, glaring at him furiously. "Listen! Maybe you can brush off an encounter with You-Know-Who like nothing happened, but for the rest of us mere mortals, it takes a bit of time! And I'll deal with it in my own way, thank you very much!"

Harry could feel Draco's breath on his cheek, see his eyes flashing through the shadows, just inches from his own. The sudden change was startling; apparently, Draco was far closer to cracking than it had seemed. If Draco was being threatened by Voldemort, the last thing he needed was someone else pushing him, especially if that someone was relying on Draco for his own survival.

Harry swallowed and took a slow breath. "Draco, please, just calm down for a minute. Pretending it's a nightmare isn't going to help."

Draco backed away slowly, but his expression didn't change, and he kept his eyes levelled with Harry's. "What do you call it when you're asleep and you see, hear, and feel all sorts of scary stuff? Most normal people call that a nightmare."

Harry gritted his teeth; he wasn't about to back down either. "Most normal people haven't just infuriated the most dangerous Dark wizard of the century, though."

"Thanks for the reminder, Potter. Thanks a whole heap."

The staring contest continued for several long seconds, until finally Draco crumpled away and sat down hard, resting his forehead against the palm of his hand. He took a shaking breath that sounded more like a sob. "Why me, Potter?"

Harry's shoulders fell. "I ask myself the same thing all the time."

Draco turned his head sideways towards Harry, just slightly, and regarded him out the corner of his eye. "And what's the answer?"

"Born lucky, I guess."

Draco made a noncommittal sound, and they both fell silent again. Harry fidgeted for a moment, and looked away, feeling uncomfortable with the silence. He supposed he couldn't blame Draco for being upset, but at the same time, he had his own personal safety to worry about.

He had to convince Draco that they'd be all right until they arrived at Hogwarts, that Dumbledore and Snape could protect him from Voldemort's tricks. Had to show him that giving in to Voldemort was never the better option; that whatever torment Voldemort could inflict from a distance was nothing compared to the punishment he could administer in person. As long as they were out of his reach, they had a chance.

Too bad Harry had no idea how to convince Draco of anything.

The fact that Harry was extremely nervous about Draco's state of mind didn't help matters. Draco's first encounter with Voldemort had traumatized him to the point where he'd taken the risk of running away. Right now, this latest encounter seemed to have left Draco almost ready to crack. And Harry was at Draco's mercy.

It scared Harry to realize just how much power Draco really had over him. If Voldemort had succeeded in terrifying Draco sufficiently that night, or if he were to keep terrorizing him and Draco couldn't handle the pressure, Draco had the power to hand Harry over to Voldemort at any time. Draco was like a walking time-bomb.

Harry rubbed his forehead. His scar wasn't hurting; it was just a plain old headache. He sighed deeply. When all else fails, eat something. But for the first time in days, he wasn't particularly hungry.

He had begun half-heartedly digging through the food pack when Draco made another sound. Harry looked up to find Draco staring at him intently, as though he'd already been watching for some time.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Harry."

Harry felt his stomach drop sharply. "You've said that before," he said carefully measuring his words, but underneath his neutral façade, he was afraid of what Draco might mean; afraid that he might be apologizing in advance for doing something awful.

To his frustration, Draco offered no explanation. Instead, he looked down at the ground and muttered, "Pass me some fruit, would you?"

Harry sighed heavily. "Yeah."

*******

Dawn turned into morning, which turned into a cloudy, muggy day as Draco trudged along behind Harry. Every so often, they heard the sound of running water. Harry said they were paralleling the river, although Draco didn't see why it mattered. He was more concerned with the hordes of Death Eaters that he was convinced must still be tracking them, a fact which Harry seemed to be completely ignoring. When Draco had voiced his concern... no, something more like worry... actually, near-paralyzing fear would be most accurate, Harry had said simply that Voldemort wasn't sending anyone after them anymore. That wasn't an answer Draco was ready to accept, but when he'd challenged it, Harry had spun around and drilled him with a glare that left no room for question.

Why, Draco? Do you know something different? Do you have some sort of insight into Voldemort's plans? No? Didn't think so. So trust me: we're not being chased anymore.

Draco wasn't sure why he found himself conceding to Harry's demands, or why the hell he should believe a word of it. He also wasn't quite sure when it had been decided that Harry would take the lead, but in any case, something told him not to argue. Harry had been acting edgy around him all morning; he seemed downright uncomfortable, really, as though he expected Draco to go crazy on him at any moment. Or worse.

Why was it that Harry just seemed to know what was going on? There was no denying that Harry had a connection to Voldemort and could tell what he was doing, even from a distance, but how did he do it? Was it some sort of telepathy? The concept almost made Draco jealous until he realized that such a thing would mean an open channel into Voldemort's brain - something that Draco had no desire to experience again. Still, it made him wonder just how many strange and unique things there were about Harry. It was impressive, and more than a bit intimidating.

Draco wondered if perhaps Harry could read his mind, too. Those infernal green eyes always seemed to pierce right though him. I'm not in your head, Harry had told him. Draco wasn't too sure about that, personally. Could Harry possibly know what Voldemort had said? The choice he'd been given? Did he think Draco would betray him, and if he did, was he right? Draco found himself afraid of the answer.

He watched the back of Harry's neck and shoulders as he walked, and he shuddered at the thought that the living, breathing person in front of him was dangling his life on Draco's unilateral decision. Draco couldn't make that sort of choice. There were no right answers. And even if he did decide to defy the Dark Lord - again - would it all be for nothing?

Voldemort had said Hogwarts was a hundred miles away, as the raven flies. Seemed like a very rough number, and Draco didn't suppose it was perfectly accurate. The terrain wasn't exactly smooth either. Again, he asked himself, could they cover that distance in the remaining twelve days and still have time for Dumbledore and Snape to create a counter-curse? And if not... Draco really didn't want to consider that possibility. After all, what were the chances that two partially trained wizards could escape unscathed from Voldemort himself?

About the same as a baby surviving the killing curse, I suppose.

Of course, he wouldn't have to worry any of that if he simply gave up, obeyed the Dark Lord, and turned himself and Harry over to whatever fate had planned.

But he wasn't ready to make that gamble yet.

And he didn't want to hurt Harry.

Not again.

As he mused, Draco's trouser leg caught on a tangle of briars for what seemed like the hundredth time since they'd begun walking. Tugging only produced the telltale sound of fabric ripping. It was just one more thing reminding him how desperately out of his control everything was. Even the plants were trying to rip him to pieces.

Shifting his attention from his inner dilemma to the new hole in his clothing, he irrationally cursed the very existence of plants in a forest.

"Plants aren't supposed to be like this," Draco grumbled aloud.

From up ahead of him, Harry called back, "Like what? Green?"

"Very funny, Potter. Keep it up, and you might develop a sense of humour, but I doubt it."

Harry paused just long enough to half-heartedly stick his tongue out. Draco rolled his eyes.

"No, I mean plants shouldn't be all messy. In the gardens at Malfoy Manor, every plant is perfectly neat and orderly. And if they bite, they're placed where they can't reach people. I want these to be just like that; neat, trimmed, and out of my way." He finally shook his leg free of the last bramble on that particular branch and hurried to catch up with Harry.

Harry chuckled mirthlessly. "Please, tell me you're joking, Malfoy."

"Why should I be joking? Everything out here is so disorderly, so uncivilized -"

"Which is why this is called 'being away from civilization.' You know... where things are a bit wild and unpredictable."

"Well," Draco said as he carefully stepped over a twisted branch, "Mal... I don't like being away from civilization."

Harry snorted.

"It's so ugly," Draco continued. He was talking now, and it felt good to break the silence, even better to complain. He was good at complaining. "I hate ugly things. There's no artistry to it. Our gardens were so beautiful, and this is so disorganized and crude. Urgh, damn thorns!" Draco shook his trousers free of another snag.

Harry finally pulled up short, turned partially, and looked sideways at Draco. "You really can't see how beautiful it is out here?"

"You call this beautiful?" Draco asked incredulously, indicating the somewhat damp lowlands through which they were travelling.

Harry shrugged. "Actually, this is rather enjoyable. Weather isn't too bad, and I like the sound of the river."

"The weather is cloudy, and that's the same river I got thrown into yesterday. And are you forgetting that we're fugitives here? I don't see what any sane person could possibly find appealing about this situation."

Harry looked Draco over, and something resembling pity crossed his face. "I've practically been caged my entire life, and here I am, completely free out here. No walls, no doors, no cell bars. Everything just feels so alive, and it's beautiful... and you really can't see it, can you?"

"What I see is us, miles from safety, a warm bed, shelter, hot food, running water, and - gah!" He pulled away sharply as a hawthorn bush left a thin, reddish scratch across his neck. "And manicured gardens," he finished.

"Do you know any shortcuts to Hogwarts? Have a handy broomstick in your back pocket?"

"If I did, do you think I'd still be traipsing through this damn jungle?"

"Well then, whether or not you like it, you're stuck here now, for the long haul. That is, unless you want to go back."

Draco caught the sudden tightness in Harry's voice, and the unease that crossed his face. Going back... did Harry really suspect?

Even though Draco had made no decision yet, the look on Harry's face caused a wave of guilt to slam into his stomach. He couldn't turn Harry over. Not now, not after he'd promised they'd make it home safely. Even to consider the possibility... but that wasn't such an awful thing, was it? To carefully weigh the options? No, that was just how things were. Any intelligent person considered every angle of a problem before deciding; he was simply being smart about this. And until Draco had made his choice, Harry didn't have to know. Just like the other things he didn't need to know. The thought of everything he was keeping from Harry only made Draco feel even more guilty.

Harry's eyes were starting to press on him, and Draco quickly covered his hesitation. He sniffed the air, doing his best to appear thoughtful. "Well, the air in that dungeon was rather stale. Not particularly good for one's health. So I suppose this will have to do."

Harry blew out slowly between his pursed lips. Draco couldn't tell if he was relieved or just exasperated. "You know, Draco, you could just step around the thorny bushes, like I do."

Draco opened his mouth to retort, something to the effect that Malfoys don't step aside for anything or anyone, but he bit it off and dropped his head resignedly. When he looked up again, Harry was giving him a soft smirk, to his chagrin.

"So you explain to me, genius, how do I tell which ones have thorns? They all look the same, until you step in them and they bite."

At this, Harry actually laughed aloud. "Draco, half the things you've stepped on are also found in jars in Snape's potions supply room. Look there. Nightshade and mugwort, and up ahead are some stinging nettles, which I'm sure you'll walk right into, at the rate you're going. I think that shrub over there is blackthorn. And here I thought you were the Potions expert."

Draco looked at the small plant sticking out from under his boot, surprised to recognize the specimen of mugwort, an ingredient that he must have added to at least a dozen potions in the past year alone. "Where the hell did you learn that?" he asked in surprise. "You never pay attention in Potions!"

It was Harry's turn to look a bit awkward. "Actually, we learned that in Herbology. Remember those units on Potions Plants? Got to see the living plants, instead of just dried, powdered, tinctured, and chopped up ingredients. I never thought those lessons would actually come in useful."

Draco scowled and started walking again, brushing lightly past Harry and taking the lead. "Wonderful. Harry Potter, notorious Potions failure, second only to Longbottom, has bested my supreme knowledge in that noble field of study. I think my ego may never recover."

"Hey!" Harry called from behind him. "I scored well enough on my Potions OWL to qualify for sixth year Potions. Give me some credit."

"Ha, but you had to take remedial Potions lessons to do it."

"I did NOT take remedial Potions!" Harry snarled, causing Draco to stop so suddenly that he almost tripped.

He turned, and his eyebrows furrowed together. "I saw you, in Snape's office. You said you were taking remedial Potions!"

Harry stopped just a few feet from him, mouth opened. It was obvious that he wasn't sure he should have said that. He made a face, as though rolling his next words around in this mouth, tasting them, deciding whether he wanted to spit them out. Finally, with a cold glower at Draco, he made his decision.

"It's not like it matters anymore if I tell you or not. I wasn't taking remedial Potions, or any sort of Potions lessons, you git. Snape was trying to teach me Occlumency. Trying to stop Voldemort from getting into my head." A small, twisted smile played at the corner of Harry's mouth. "Just like he got into your head."

Draco felt his stomach do an uncomfortable flip, but before he could comment, Harry's smile faded and he shook his head. "Didn't work anyway, and even then, those sessions were probably the most miserable experience I'd ever had. Snape, invading my thoughts, that greasy, slimy, no-good -"

"You're talking about my Head of House, Potter," Draco said edgily.

"Whatever." Harry folded his arms tightly across his chest. "I think I'd even prefer to be stuck in detention with Umbridge again, carving punishments into my own hand, than have Snape sifting through my thoughts. At least then I'd know who the enemy was."

Draco's irritation was quickly overshadowed by curiosity. "Carving... what?"

Harry's folded arms loosened fractionally, and he considered Draco for a long moment before speaking. "Draco, you probably ought to know that if it seems like I bounce back from things too easily... well... have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it's because this isn't the first time I've been through hell?"

Harry's face was a neutral mask, and his words were even and measured. Somehow, that only served to increase the shiver that raced up Draco's spine. "Maybe," he said slowly.

Draco licked his dry lips, and felt the grittiness of the sand that was stuck there. It didn't even cross his mind to spit it out. He had to ask, even if he wasn't sure he really wanted to know. "So then, tell me, what did you mean by... 'carving'?"

Without changing his expression, Harry extended his left hand towards Draco, palm-down. "Read it."

Draco hesitated, not taking his eyes from Harry's stoic face, until Harry nodded once towards his outstretched hand. "Go on."

Draco took Harry's hand uncertainly, then looked down. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light; a strange pattern of lines and loops was barely visible under a film of dust and grime. He pulled up the edge of his sleeve and wiped the back of Harry's hand, feeling strangely like an archaeologist removing the dust from an ancient artefact. He pulled his sleeve away, and what he saw there sickened him.

Raised scars, very faint, ran along the back of Harry's hand in a rather shoddy script, spelling out the words, I must not tell lies.

"Ha... Harry... did you do this with a knife?" The very thought was making Draco feel decidedly faint and queasy. The image of a dagger, breaking flesh, drawing blood...

An amused snort broke Draco's train of thought.

"No. Go on. Ask me. I know you want to." Harry looked like he was actually enjoying watching Draco turn green.

No, I don't. Draco stared at the lines, trying to be rational. "A quill," he said with more assurance than he felt. It made sense, and the sudden widening of Harry's eyes confirmed that his guess had been accurate. "Harry, why the hell were you carving such an asinine thing into your hand with a quill?"

Harry's eyes immediately narrowed again. "Think I had a choice? It was detention with Umbridge. She had me write lines... which didn't sound too bad until I actually put the quill on the parchment. Everything I wrote on that parchment was immediately sliced into the back of my hand. Over and over again. Every damn detention. Until it was permanent."

Draco looked back down at the back of Harry's hand, feeling a surge of bitter nervousness at the back of his throat. "Harry, that's Dark magic."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Draco's finger traced along the slightly raised pattern. "Written words... markings... do you realize what this means?"

"Heh. I can read English."

"You're impossible, you know that?" When Harry didn't respond, Draco could only shake his head. "Listen, Potter, this sort of magic... I've never seen it before, but I've heard about it. When you're marked like this... you have to... what I'm trying to say is that whatever condition is written there, once the markings become permanent, will be enforced on you, magically."

A trace of fear swept across Harry's face, but it quickly vanished. "I've lied since this happened. A lot, actually."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "I'll bet they were little white lies, then. Nothing significant, nothing profound. If you can resist the Imperius curse, you can probably also resist this a bit. But mark my words, if you try to lie from the pit of your soul, you won't be able to do it."

Harry suddenly pulled his hand away. "The day I let anything done by that bullfrog of a woman affect me..."

"You did it yourself, Potter. In the strictest sense, this was self-imposed."

For a moment, Harry stared at Draco, then slowly, he lowered his head and glared darkly over the rims of his glasses. His voice dropped dangerously. "You want a piece of truth, Draco? Then try this on for size: I wanted to kill her with my bare hands. I still do."

Draco stood still, caught yet again by Harry's piercing stare for several seconds before he was able to break away with a strained chuckle. "We're more alike than you'd ever want to admit, Potter. And you stopped me from killing Crabbe? At least I had the excuse of on-the-spot fury and too much adrenaline."

He started to walk away again, hoping to leave this conversation behind and begin to cover ground again, but Harry's harsh voice cut the air.

"You handed me over to her."

Draco froze in his tracks, but didn't turn around.

"You handed me over to her," Harry repeated, softer this time. Draco almost thought he heard Harry's voice shake. "You tripped me in the hallway, while we were running from the DA meeting, and you handed me over to her."

"Harry..."

"And in the office, that last night, you took my wand. Did whatever she told you to do... you and that squad of yours. Whatever was easiest."

Draco suddenly found the air around him a bit too thick to breathe. He turned halfway around, unable to face Harry straight-on. Instead, he looked sideways at Harry, carefully avoiding Harry's eyes.

Harry looked up bleakly. "You handed me over," he said again, and it sounded like the final strike of a gavel to Draco's ears.

"Orders... I was just following orders," Draco heard himself say. "I had to."

"You wanted to."

Draco's head fell. "I did," he whispered hoarsely. "That was then."

"That..." Harry shook his head once.

Please don't ask me this, Potter. Please. I can't answer you.

Draco looked up again, flinching when he made eye contact. Harry didn't say a word, but the question came through loud and clear.

And if somebody gives you orders now... are you going to follow them?

Draco wanted to say no; he really did, and he almost blurted it out, but the words died on his tongue.

What if it's all for nothing? The voice in the back of Draco's mind argued. What if you can't make it back in time? What if there's no possible counter-curse? What if Voldemort catches you anyway? What if... what if...?

Harry finally gave a nearly imperceptible nod, looked away, and began walking with a purposeful stride, automatically taking the lead. "I feel filthy."

Draco blinked in confusion at the sudden change of topic, and then realized there had also been a change in direction, as Harry had taken a sharp left. Harry had almost disappeared into the trees before Draco's brain caught up with the situation and he raced off after him, barely managing to avoid yet another thorn bush. "Potter, where are you going?"

"To the river. I need a bath," came the reply from up ahead.

Draco swatted branches out of his way, trying desperately to keep an eye on the red weave of Harry's jumper through the thick foliage. "A bath... ? Potter, you're mad. Just use a cleaning charm. Potter? Harry?"

"You could use a bath, too. You were complaining about the lack of running water. Well, there's plenty of it here." Harry's voice was muffled, and when Draco pushed aside the last branch, he saw why.

Harry was standing on the bank of the river, his jumper already halfway up over his head. His T-shirt was partially tangled in the outer garment, and his abdomen was exposed to the bottom of his ribs. Draco quickly looked aside, inexplicably embarrassed by the sight of Harry stripping in front of him.

"Harry, the day I willingly step into a river again will be the same day I adopt a Hippogriff as a pet."

The sweater finally came loose from Harry's head, causing his hair to stand up in every direction at once. "And here I thought you would be the type to be finicky about cleanliness."

Draco turned back to Harry to respond, but quickly looked away again when he realized Harry was unbuttoning his trousers. "The river is part of the reason I'm so filthy! All that mud... urgh. I'll use my cleaning charms, thank you very much."

Harry snickered. "Well, you didn't do a very good job on the last one. Your face is a mess -"

Draco wiped at his chin with his sleeve.

"- your clothing is caked with mud -"

Draco shook out his shirt and dusted off his trousers.

" - and your hair is all grimy and stringy."

Immediately, Draco rounded on Harry in irritation. "My hair on a bad day is a hundred times better than yours -"

As soon as Draco saw Harry, he wished he hadn't. Harry was just finishing pulling off his socks. The only clothing left on him were his boxer shorts, but it wasn't the level of exposure that stunned Draco. Instead, he found himself staring at the odd bruises here and there, two particularly dark ones on Harry's shoulder and abdomen, the harsh prominence of Harry's ribs, and the sharp lines of the bones in Harry's shoulders. He'd known that Harry was thin even under normal conditions; he'd known that Harry hadn't eaten for three days in the dungeons. And obviously being on the run wasn't the best way to gain weight. But even so, he'd had no idea that Harry was so painfully thin under his clothes. And so bruised. From being thrown around by Crabbe, from stumbling through the woods, from thrashing around on the dungeon floor.

"Yes, aren't I just the cutest little thing?" Harry's question dripped sarcasm.

"Huh?" Draco asked stupidly, his mind still reeling from the sight in front of him. He was feeling strangely choked.

"Draco, you're staring."

Staring was a most grievous offence, Draco had been taught, and that chastisement quickly pulled Draco out of his daze. He looked down at his own feet in embarrassment, mumbling, "Sorry... I didn't mean... go on, Potter."

"Hmm. You know, you probably have a lovely set of bruises too, if you're so offended by mine. Crabbe made pretty good work of you yesterday as well."

Draco made an indistinct noise in his throat, but what he wanted to say was that "offended" wasn't the right word. "Remorseful" would have been far more accurate.

There was a loud splashing sound above the steady trickle of the flowing river. Draco looked up in time to see Harry duck below the surface partway out in the water, and then watched as the trail of bubbles continued along the same direction. Harry's head broke the surface suddenly in the middle of the river. His glasses had been left on the bank, and the green of his eyes were visible even from that distance. The water was deeper and slower here than it had been where they'd followed it the previous day, creating a rather peaceful little pool.

Harry shook out his head with a laugh, spraying water all around him. "It's freezing!"

Draco pursed his lips. "That's what you get for ploughing into rivers, Potter. Hypothermia."

Harry laughed again, sounding breathless from the chill of the water. "No, stupid. It feels good. Refreshing. You really ought to try it. You can't tell me that all the dirt in your clothes isn't making you miserably itchy." He dunked his head back underwater, only to resurface and shake again. He reminded Draco of a shaggy black puppy.

The water did look so cool and pleasant. Draco found himself scratching at the sand inside his shirt before he realized he was doing it. He was almost tempted to join Harry, but he wouldn't. He didn't want to find out what sorts of bruises marred his own skin, knowing perfectly well that he bruised very easily. He didn't want Harry to see those bruises. He didn't want to get too close to Harry.

Sure, he'd showered in the locker rooms with his team-mates after Quidditch games, but that was different. He didn't care what they thought of him; didn't care if they saw him. He wasn't sure why, but Harry was different.

Besides, he'd never been swimming in his life, and he was afraid of the water. Not that he would ever admit it. And certainly not to Harry.

"There are probably strange diseases floating around in that water," Draco said hurriedly. "You'll die of Dragon Pox before we get to Hogwarts."

He immediately regretted the sentiment, but Harry, who was scrubbing furiously at his arms and the back of his neck, didn't seem to care. "At least I'll die clean!" He ducked back underwater again.

How did that boy go from edgy, irritable quarrelling to light-hearted laughter in the span of a few minutes? Draco mused to himself as he watched Harry, splashing in the river, his thin body covered in water and bruises. Such drastic mood swings. At the moment, he wasn't behaving like a person on the run from someone who wanted to kill him; more like someone on a grand adventure.

It had to be a defence mechanism, Draco reasoned. It was fair, he supposed. Draco was using his own sort of psychological defence to deal with the events of last night, so Harry should be entitled to cope with things in his own way, too. Not that Draco liked his method. Seeing Harry so nonchalant only made him more nervous.

He still wondered how the hell Harry could be so sure they weren't being chased, but he had to admit, it was a nice thought. It would be easier to believe that it was just the two of them out there. No terrifying visions. No threats. No search parties of Death Eaters. Just Harry, Draco, and miles of innocent forest where the plants were beautiful, not blood-thirsty. And Harry's light-hearted moods, although bizarre and seemingly misplaced, were easier to deal with than arguments.

The arguments. Why did Draco always seem to come out on the short end of those arguments? It always turned out the same way, both back in the dungeons and here, now that they'd escaped. Harry could twist Draco into mental knots, but as soon as he decided the conversation was going somewhere he didn't like, he'd cut it off. Harry controlled the conversation; Harry set the limits, Draco realized. While that annoyed Draco, he supposed it was just as well. If Harry wanted to avoid certain issues for now, that was fine. It made it easier for Draco to avoid them too. If Harry was distracted, Draco wouldn't have to face up to anything. Yet.

Gingerly, Draco approached the edge of the river and crouched down. The water at the edge was fairly still, and his rippled reflection stared back up at him. Harry was right; he was a mess. In more ways than one. Beyond the smudged face and ratty hair, he imagined he could see himself falling apart, one small piece at a time.

As Harry continued to splash merrily in the background, Draco scooped up a handful of water and brought it up to his own face. Harry was right; it was wonderfully cool and inviting. But that didn't mean he had any intention of going in. Absolutely not.

After a few more handfuls of water to the face, Draco set to work with the cleaning charms, doing his best to ignore Harry, who still sounded far too happy for someone in his situation. After a few minutes, Draco appraised his own reflection. Everything looked fine. He felt clean, but he didn't feel refreshed. It would have to do.

It was then that Harry came bursting out of the water. His boxer shorts clung to his legs, and he left small wet puddles with each step. He stopped next to Draco and shook out his hair again, deliberately spattering Draco.

Draco tried to scowl. "Do you mind?"

"That felt so good!" Harry laughed. His face had real colour to it for the first time since he'd been captured: bright pink cheeks, eyes shining. The bruises almost seemed to have faded under the goose bumps that were raised all over his skin. "You really ought to try it."

"It's too cold."

"Actually, the water may be cool, but the air is warming up. I think I'll even leave my jumper in the sack for now. You must be sweating under that thick shirt."

Draco's scowl faltered. "I'm fine."

Harry shrugged. "Suit yourself." He grabbed his wand from where it lay on top of his clothes, plucked a fern from the ground, and quickly transfigured it into a large, fluffy red towel.

"Show-off."

"Come on, Draco," Harry said as he rubbed vigorously at his hair with the towel. "Here I thought you were the academic pride of Slytherin. I haven't seen you transfigure a damn thing since we started."

"Transfiguration is McGonagall's class. Not exactly my favourite class." Draco kicked absently at a rock.

"Well, you passed your Transfiguration OWL, didn't you?" Harry paused, waiting for Draco's response. "Didn't you?"

Draco kicked the rock again, this time hard enough to dislodge it slightly from the ground. "Acceptable. Barely passed. One of my father's old friends in the Ministry altered the record to an 'O'. Felt bad for me... with my father and everything." His cheeks burned with shame. "Same thing with Charms. But if it hadn't been for you, I would have at least passed Charms on my own!"

"Me?!" Harry whipped the towel down and away from his head. "What do you mean, if it hadn't been for me?"

This time, Draco kicked the rock all the way to the water, where it landed with a heavy plunk in the shallows. "Already told you... my Levitation Charms are terrible... unless I really concentrate... and I was distracted. You made me drop the wine glass," he muttered.

"I made...?" Harry let the question hang in the air for a moment, then suddenly, he burst out laughing. It had been bad enough when Harry had been laughing earlier despite their dangerous situation, but now he was laughing at Draco.

"Shut up!" Draco was on his feet, intending to go nose to nose with Harry, but Harry was doubled over with mirth, hands on his knees. His towel was trailing on the ground. "Stop it!"

"That's too funny!" Harry stood up, sucking in a deep breath between bursts of laughter. "And I remember the look on your face after you dropped it... ha! That was priceless!"

"You can stop anytime now, Potter," Draco growled darkly.

Harry closed his mouth, but the grin that was stuck there threatened to split his cheeks. Still snickering, he turned away and finished drying himself. A quick Finite Incantatum turned the towel back into a very soggy fern, and then Harry set to work using cleaning charms on his clothes.

Draco turned away. He felt mortified with himself. What on earth could have ever inspired him to admit those things to Harry? That he couldn't handle Transfiguration on his own?

The last school year had been different from all the previous years; power had gone to his head. Kissing Umbridge's arse had got him further than good marks, and he'd spent less time than ever working on academic matters. The only class it had really seemed to affect too terribly was Transfiguration. It wasn't his fault that McGonagall hated him. That old bat had her favourites; Potter was one of them, and Draco wasn't. At the time, he couldn't have cared less what she thought of him, but now he wished he'd studied more. Being openly bested by Potter, even when they were working together, was an embarrassment. Not good enough. Never good enough.

"Draco, you ought to know that scowling at the plant isn't going to make it go away."

Draco looked up to see that Harry was already dressed and ready to go, jumper in hand. It startled Draco to realize that he'd been staring blankly at the ground for so long. "It ought to go away," he said flatly. "It's all ugly."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You're just not going to learn, are you?" He leaned down and took a closer look at the small blue flowers, fingering them lightly. "Periwinkle. Hermione would be proud of me... I'm actually remembering something that didn't come from a Quidditch book." He cocked his head, appraising the plant. "It's rather cute, actually. And look, no thorns!"

He glanced back up, still grinning. It was too much for Draco.

"Harry, how can you be so effing flippant at a time like this? Looking at flowers, playing in the river... don't you even understand that you're in danger? Or are you too big to bother yourself with such worries? And I still don't know how the hell you're so sure we're not being chased!"

The grin was gone in a flash, and Draco immediately realized how superficial it had been. Harry stood to face him. "Flippant? You call this flippant? I'm just trying not to go mad! And if I want to do that by having fun, then you tell me what the hell is wrong with that? It's better than sulking around, cursing innocent plants."

Quickly realizing that he wasn't going to win that one, Draco sidestepped the argument. "Innocent? Those plants have been attacking me all day!"

"Well, maybe if you decided to pay attention -"

"Do you think I have nothing better on my mind than watching for rabid, man-eating plants?!" Draco's voice started to shake.

"Well, maybe if -"

"SHUT UP! Just shut up for one damn minute!" He was getting louder and more frantic with each word. "You get to be happy when you want to, and furious when it suits you, and I just have to deal with it! You lecture me like you know everything that I'm going through - and don't you interrupt me, Potter! You might have been dealing with the Dark Lord since before you knew your own name, but YOU'RE NOT ME! You don't know the first thing about me, you don't know what I lost, and you don't know what it feels like when you don't know what to believe! I SAID DON'T INTERRUPT ME! Damn it, Potter!"

Draco was shaking with pent-up frustration and fear, but he had built up too much momentum to stop now, not that he wanted to anyway. The stunned look on Harry's face only urged him onwards.

"You're going for a swim, and I'm trying to get us home faster! You're busy missing your friends, and I'm trying to figure out how to avoid being killed by my housemates when we get there! You may have been through hell in the past, but we're here together now, Potter! I'm here too! And THIS IS HELL.

"I'm sick of this 'Potter knows everything' act. Maybe you DON'T know everything! Ever thought of that? And maybe, if you didn't act like you do know everything, someone might fill you in!"

Draco's tirade came to a grinding halt as he ran out of wind and words. He stood with jaw locked, fists clenched, glaring at Harry as though he could gain some control over the situation by willpower alone.

Harry stared back at him, wide-eyed. His cheeks had an angry flush to them, which contrasted sharply his posture: leaning backwards slightly as though stunned, with his arms dangling awkwardly at his sides. Slowly, his expression changed to one of reluctant resolve. For a moment, Draco thought that he was about to start yelling, but instead, Harry gritted his teeth and took a slow, whistling breath through them.

"You may be right, Draco. But like you said, we're in this together, and maybe I'm not just playing around because I don't want to take things seriously. Think about this carefully for a second, and hopefully some of this will sink through that thick Slytherin skull of yours. You know that Voldemort wants to control you. One of the ways he does that to people is by making them miserable. It weakens you, and the more you allow yourself to be miserable, the more you give him what he wants. The more you give him what he wants, the more he can control you."

Draco's breath suddenly caught in his throat. He was still furious, but now that he had stopped ranting and was listening to Harry, he could feel his fear starting to creep back through his veins. He looked at Harry, trying to read the confusing array of emotions assembled on his face; concern, worry, and anger, creating a strangely discordant collage.

Harry seemed to think he was understanding, and gave a slow nod. "Last year was probably the most miserable year of my life. Everything kept being taken away from me. I was angry, I didn't trust anyone, I pushed people away. By the end of the year, I was Voldemort's puppet. Did exactly what he wanted me to do. Complete manipulation by the one person I was trying to fight against, and by the time I realized it, it was too late.

"I'm not stupid, so give me some credit. I know what's going on. I'm trying to give you another option, Malfoy, before you get in too deep. Maybe you'll give it a chance before you push me away, too."

Harry looked at him hopefully for a long moment, but Draco was too stunned to say anything. He stared back, mouth slightly agape, too busy trying to figure out what he thought of all this to be able to speak. Finally, though, Harry's shoulders slumped a bit, and he turned away.

"We'll follow the river for a while. I like the sound of the water flowing."

He started walking away, following the flow of the river south and showing no sign of looking back. Draco watched his retreating back, and realization struck him. Each time Harry walked away like that, he was trusting Draco to follow him. Harry was perfectly aware that if he went too far without Draco, Voldemort would detect him. He was giving Draco every possible chance to betray him and turn him over.

Stupid, stupid, stupid boy.

Draco glanced down at the small periwinkle plant by his foot, at the elegant flowers against the foliage. Harry was right... it was rather cute. Pretty, even. Dainty. Delicate. Weak.

In a flash of irritation, he stomped on it, grinding it against the pebbly ground with his heel. There was no room for more weakness. Draco seemed to have that quota covered by himself. Weakness was what had got him into trouble in the first place; it had caused him to spend his life cowering behind people who were bigger than him, grabbing for power he hadn't earned, and now it had eventually stuck him in a no-win situation.

Finally, for the first time, he really understood the situation, and that he had already made his choice. If he wanted this to turn out well at all, there was only one way to go. He took a deep breath, adjusted the travel pack on his shoulder, and took off after Harry.

"Wait, Harry... I'm coming."

*******

Draco wasn't sure when it had happened, but somewhere along the way, he had moved up to walk alongside Harry, not behind him. It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant.

Uncertain of what to say, Draco busied himself with watching the scenery, partly to keep an eye out for the Death Eaters that Harry insisted weren't following them, but mostly just for the sake of looking at everything. Under the cloudy sky, the river didn't exactly sparkle, but it was clear and pleasant, and the gentle sound of the water flowing reminded him of his favourite fountain in the Manor gardens. He began to watch where Harry was stepping, and quickly learned to avoid the plants with thorns. Every so often, he'd recognize a useful potions plant, and added it to his growing mental catalogue. He wouldn't be brewing potions in the woods, but it was a way to keep his mind occupied. He couldn't quite agree that the landscape was beautiful, with the grey skies and muggy air, but it wasn't wholly unpleasant either. Far better than Voldemort's dungeons, for certain.

Provided that Voldemort didn't hurt him, of course.

They paused in the shade of a large oak for a water break, refilling the flask twice between them. Draco watched over the edge of the flask as he drank, observing Harry, who had leaned back against the trunk of the oak, eyes closed, with his right hand hooked around the back of his neck.

Harry sighed deeply, then opened one eye to peek at Draco. "Starting to relax, finally?"

Draco finished the last swallow of water from the flask and nodded. "It's not so bad, I suppose. I mean, sure, anything could happen. We could be attacked by werewolves or poisonous reptiles, freeze to death, or die of starvation if the food runs out, but for now, it's not bad."

Harry opened both his eyes. "You are just a lovely little ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"My mother always said I was the light of her life."

Harry gave him a half-hearted smirk. "I'm sure she needed sunglasses."

"Sun-whats?"

"Never mind," Harry said with a soft chuckle.

Draco rolled his eyes as he screwed the cap back on the flask. "Mistletoe."

Harry's head perked up. "What's that?"

Draco grinned. "Mistletoe. On the trunk of the oak tree." He glanced up. "And all over the branches, too. Powerful potions ingredient. Increases the potency of many different brews."

Harry looked hard at Draco for a moment, then his face lit up in a cross between amazement and amusement. "You've been paying attention."

"Hey, I couldn't let you get the best of me again, could I? Damn know-it-all. You're worse than Granger."

"She was the one who actually pressured me into studying this rubbish in the first place." One of Harry's eyes narrowed as he looked up at the branches overhead. "You know, Muggles have a use for mistletoe too."

"Oh?" Draco asked, strangely curious as to what purpose Muggles could have for a poisonous, parasitic plant.

Harry looked back down at Draco, obviously supressing a laugh. "Trust me, right now, you wouldn't want to know."

"Potter, you're a pain in the arse, you know that, right?"

"Absolutely," he said, tipping his head in mock-respect.

Draco sighed dramatically, then spared a quick glance back over his shoulder. "We have to keep moving. Don't want to waste too much time."

Harry leaned forward and levered himself away from the tree trunk. "Are we on a schedule?"

The question was casual, but Draco felt his insides freeze for a second. "No," he said tersely. "No, I just want to get back sooner rather than later."

Harry nodded, straight-faced. "No argument here." He inclined his head, indicating the direction of travel. "Ready?"

"After you."

Harry shook his head, bowed at the waist, and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "I insist. Ladies first."

Draco gritted his teeth. "The joke is getting old, Potter."

"Who said I was joking?" Harry asked lightly as he fell into step next to Draco.

Draco didn't even want to give him the satisfaction of glaring at him, so he kept his eyes fixed to the ground ahead of him as he walked, intent on adding to his plant catalogue. It was rather relaxing, although he couldn't quite stop himself from being irritated that all these plants weren't properly trimmed and arranged.

"What's the first thing you're going to do when we get back?" Harry asked suddenly.

Surprised by the simple question, Draco answered easily, "Take a bath."

"Good plan."

Draco thought longingly of the beautiful tub in the Prefects' bathroom, and let himself relish the thought. "Oh yes. A long, hot bath. Clean every bit of this filth out of my skin. Thank Merlin for that tub in the Prefects' bathroom. I won't move from it for hours. Days, even. And the bubbles. I think I'll use every type of bubbles they have."

"I'm rather fond of the purple ones myself," Harry said offhandedly.

"Yeah, those are... wait a minute." He looked sharply at Harry. "How the hell would you know about the Prefects' bathroom?"

Harry opened his mouth soundlessly, then went red in the face and quickly turned away.

"Who gave you the password, Harry? C'mon, spit it out." Draco smirked madly. "Did you have some sort of secret rendezvous in the most infamous shag-room in Hogwarts?"

Harry turned back at Draco, even redder than when he'd looked away. "What the...?! I was not having some sort of 'secret rendezvous'! I was... it was for -"

This was far too amusing, seeing Harry Potter go red as a cherry. "Who gave you the password, then?"

"Cedric Diggory," Harry mumbled. "But it's not -"

"You were shagging Cedric Diggory? No wonder you said you'd never had a girlfriend!"

Harry looked like he was about to choke on his own tongue. "I... it... absolutely not sh-sha... Malfoy, stop putting words in my mouth!"

"What else have you had in that mouth?"

Harry's face was turning rapidly from red to purple. Eyes flashing furiously, he reached over and gave Draco a shove to the side.

Still laughing, Draco stumbled a couple of steps. "Easy there, Potter! I must have hit pretty close to the mark to get you all riled up like that."

"You are such an arsehole, you know that?" Harry shot sideways at him.

"I try, I really do."

"You're also so incredibly off-the-mark that it's sickening."

Draco snickered again. "Turnabout is fair play. That was for the bondage comment."

Harry growled low in his throat, then shook his head. "Fine. We're even."

"No we're not. I still want to know what the hell you were doing in the Prefects' bathroom."

"I don't want to talk about it," Harry said flatly.

Draco's mouth fell open slightly in exasperation. "Harry, what the hell is wrong with you? You get to interrogate me about whatever you want, but the second I ask a simple question, you act like you're guarding the darkest secrets from the Department of Mysteries."

Harry continued to stare straight ahead as he walked. "You still haven't told me what happened last night... what happened in that vision you had. I'd say that's a fair bit more important than what happened almost two years ago in a bathtub."

Surprised by the unexpected turn of the conversation, Draco stopped paying attention just long enough to walk into another thorn-covered plant. Growling, he ripped his trousers free again. "That's one damn thing, Potter! And I already told you that I just need to work it out myself first. It's not like you hadn't already pulled my entire psyche apart piece by piece. But you! Every time you decide the conversation is going somewhere you don't like, you lock up like a high-security vault at Gringotts!"

Harry grunted.

"Don't you talk to anyone?"

"I talk to lots of people. I've been talking to you for more than a week now."

Draco chewed on the inside of his lip as he considered this. "No, you've been talking at me. I'm quite familiar with the difference."

Harry turned his head to the side to regard Draco for just a moment, eyes lit with a spark of curiosity. "Why is that?"

"Oh no you don't. Not that again. We're not talking about me right now. You. You want to know everything, but you won't answer a single question unless you feel I'm worthy of knowing, or something stupid like that. Why are you so damn secretive about everything you do?"

Harry stopped short. His eyes and voice were cold as he spoke. "Maybe I want to be secretive. Maybe secrecy is all I know. Nobody tells me anything, so why should I tell people my secrets? They're all I seem to have anymore. And when I do try to tell people the truth -" He held up his left hand so Draco could see the writing there. "- nobody wants to hear it."

Draco looked at Harry, and felt a sudden wave of sadness. He sighed. "Maybe you're talking to the wrong people."

For a moment, nothing seemed to change. Then slowly, the tension and anger in Harry's face faded, to be replaced by a pained tightness that made Draco's stomach twist. Harry's head drooped, and he looked down at the ground.

"You may think it's not important, but I do miss Ron and Hermione."

Draco shrugged. "It's important to you, I suppose. Did you talk to them?"

Harry glanced up without moving his head. "They were the only people I could talk to."

Draco could almost feel the emotions radiating from Harry. He'd never genuinely missed anyone. Sure, when his mother and father had gone on a three-week holiday when he was nine, leaving him in the care of his aunt, he'd said he missed his parents. Somehow, looking at Harry's expression now, he knew he'd had no clue what that really meant. Draco was running away from danger, hoping that he wasn't running into more danger. Harry would be returning to Hogwarts to people who cared about him; Draco hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said he was afraid of his own housemates looking for ways to kill him.

He also found himself envious of Weasley and Granger. Just like Harry had already said, a week ago. "Hermione and Ron are two of the best witches and wizards I could ever want to know. They would die for me, and I'd die for them. That's loyalty, Malfoy, and that's a hell of a lot to be jealous of." Once again, Wonder Boy was right. Unlike the other times, when the truth had hurt like a Bludger to the head, this merely left a nagging ache in his chest.

He looked at the almost wistful, faraway expression on Harry's face and sighed. Forcing a tight smile, he said, "I'm sure they miss you too. But if you want to see them soon, we need to keep moving. Come on." He inclined his head in the direction of travel.

Harry nodded, turned, and started walking again. He didn't look back at Draco, but kept his eyes fixed on the ground ahead of him. It wasn't the same sort of angry avoidance he'd exhibited earlier. Now, he just seemed too tired to argue, and perhaps a bit desolate.

If he needs to talk to someone, Draco thought to himself as he fell into step beside Harry again, doesn't he realize I'd listen?

Draco was debating whether or not to say that, when Harry spoke first.

"Cedric gave me the password to the bathroom so that I could figure out the clue to the second Triwizard Task."

Draco looked at Harry, hoping to read something from his face, but Harry was still looking straight forward with the same dejected expression as before.

"Those golden eggs that we got from the dragons in the first task... they contained the clue for the second task. I was trying to figure it out, and Cedric gave me a hint... told me to take a bath with it."

Draco stared sideways at Harry as they walked, almost stumbling over a root. "Is that all? Such a huge deal over something minor like that? Harry, the whole school knew about those stupid eggs! I overheard Diggory's egg screeching in a deserted classroom one afternoon while he was trying to figure it out. Why the hell did you have to make such a fuss over that?"

Harry's voice was very soft as he answered. "I don't like to talk about Cedric. Or the Triwizard Tournament."

Some subtle shift in Harry's tone of voice caught Draco's attention. His eyes widened a bit. "Why?"

If anything, Harry's voice became even quieter. "Because that's when everything went to hell." He glanced up sideways at Draco, looking at him meaningfully, as though trying to communicate the rest of the story without saying a word.

In the back of Draco's mind, the few nebulous facts he had about the events of that year began to weave together. His father had told him that the Triwizard Tournament was to be a particularly grand event, but as usual, he hadn't graced Draco with a detailed explanation. You don't need to know why, Draco, and the less you know, the better off you shall be. That's how it always was with his father: never any good details. Besides, Draco had found enough entertainment that year to leave little time for idle wondering, and as usual, the pieces of the puzzle had passed under his nose, unnoticed. Harry as a fourth Champion. His successes over older, more experienced students. The mysterious disaster at the end of the tournament, coinciding with the Dark Lord's return. It was all too convenient.

"You were set up, weren't you?"

"I was used. I'm always being used. Even the people on my 'side' use me. Why should Voldemort be any different?"

Not quite sure how to respond to that, Draco blinked twice, then said slowly, "Er... yeah. Nice to be needed, I suppose."

Harry laughed at that. It was a harsh, emotionless sound, and it made Draco shiver. "'Kill the spare.' That's what he said. There was a green light, and next thing I knew, Cedric was dead on the ground beside me. Cedric wasn't 'needed'. But if everything had gone as planned, I would have followed Cedric a few minutes later, so there's nothing special about being needed. You just get to be killed more deliberately."

Draco was suddenly quite uncomfortable with this entire line of discussion, and Harry seemed very well aware of the fact. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying it.

"That scar on my arm that you asked about... the one above the basilisk fang mark... Wormtail cut me there... and he used the blood in a spell to resurrect Voldemort's body. The plan was to use me, then kill me slowly in front of all the Death Eaters, just so Voldemort could prove that he was stronger than a boy. He wanted to toy with me like a cat plays with a mouse for entertainment before killing it."

Harry glanced sideways at Draco. "Now do you see why I don't talk about things?" he asked quietly.

"Well..." Draco hesitated. "That was over a year ago. I mean, there's more to your life than just You-Know-Who, right? Other things to talk about that won't make you close up like a steel trap?"

Harry reached up and grasped Draco's arm suddenly, whirling him around to face him. His eyes were flashing angrily behind his glasses, and Draco couldn't tell if Harry was losing control or not. It scared him. "You just don't get it, do you? Voldemort has tainted everything in my life. Every damn thing, Draco. EVERYTHING! Do you understand that?"

"I... I... yes, I... but..." Words failed him under Harry's harsh stare. He mustered up whatever boldness he had left, trying to sympathize somehow. "It's not like he hasn't influenced my life... I mean, I was supposed to serve him, and I got in far too young, and I'm stuck out here now because of -"

"Damn it, Draco! You think what you're going through now is anything to compare with the shit I've had to handle? I had to duel with him when I was fourteen! And if it hadn't been for the lucky coincidence that our wands have twin cores, he would have won!"

Draco found himself being pulled between the contrasting emotions of fear and irritation. Fear that Harry was going berserk on him; irritation that the prat always thought he had it worse than anyone else. Instead of reacting to either one, Draco said the first thing that came clearly to his abused mind. "Twin cores...?"

"I'll explain that one later. But believe me, I'd love to have nice things to talk about. Anything. But I don't. I'd like to have a normal life, but I don't. I'd like to wake up one morning and have parents, for my biggest worry to be passing my exams and finding a date, but that will never happen. And I don't have a choice about it."

Irritation was starting to win out, but then Draco realized Harry's voice was wavering. Instead of seeming to be a self-pitying, egotistical Gryffindor, Harry looked small and scared. The layers that he'd kept wrapped around himself ever since they'd first arrived in the dungeons were unravelling.

Harry visibly swallowed. "I've finally accepted that my life doesn't belong to me, but I haven't accepted that I'm going to lose it to him. And maybe I'm an idiot for this, but I trust that you're not going to send me back there."

"I..."

Before Draco could react, Harry reached over and snatched the dagger from his belt. Draco yelped in surprise and threw his arms up to protect himself, finally certain that Harry had truly cracked and was attacking him, but Harry did no such thing. Draco peeked out from behind his arms, to see Harry holding the dagger out to him, handle-first.

"Take it," he said flatly.

Draco dropped his arms in surprise. "What?"

Harry reached out, grabbed Draco's right hand, and forced the handle of the dagger into it. Draco's fingers automatically gripped the handle, and as he did, Harry pulled his hand so the tip of the dagger was aimed directly at Harry's throat.

"Do it. Go on."

"Harry -" He tried to drop his hand, but Harry pushed it back up. "Harry, what the hell are you doing?"

"Proving a point." Harry glanced down at the tip of the blade. "No pun intended."

"And what sort of asinine point is that?" Draco almost cried, once again trying to lower the blade.

Harry pushed Draco's arm up again. He shook his head. "Just do it. You've stabbed me with it before. Do it again. Do it right this time."

Draco stared along the length of his arm, down the blade, to Harry's exposed throat. Images superimposed themselves, unbidden, over the perverse sight. It was Voldemort's blade aimed at his own throat. It was his wand aimed at Harry. It was Harry, trembling with adrenaline, right in front of him, daring him to do the unspeakable.

A sound caught in Draco's throat, something between a gasp and a sob. He took a decisive step backwards before Harry could stop him, lowered the dagger, and placed it firmly back in its sheath. He almost dropped it, he was shaking so badly. When he looked back up, Harry staring back, searching him with his eyes.

"So...?" Harry asked, letting the question hang in the air.

"So what?" Draco responded shakily.

"I told you that I'd rather take my own life than let Voldemort take it."

Draco's eyes widened as he remembered the rest of Harry's words. I'd even rather let you kill me. "Harry... I'm not... it's just... I can't..."

"I trusted you not to kill me, and I trust that you're not going to send me back."

A small whimpering sound escaped Draco.

Harry took a small step closer to him. "The question is... do you trust yourself?"

Draco tried to open his mouth, but he couldn't even get that far. Lips pressed firmly together, he answered with a nod.

"Are you strong enough to make it back home?"

Draco nodded again.

Finally, Harry's face broke into a relieved smile, and he sighed audibly. Then he did something that surprised the hell out of Draco. Harry stepped in close and threw an arm over Draco's shoulder as though sheltering him, face to face, foreheads tilted together. His expression was friendly, but dead serious.

"Then we're going to make it home."

Draco looked back at Harry, unsure about the sudden closeness, but at the same time feeling that if Harry removed his arm, he'd fall. Instead of breaking down the barrier between them, Harry had simply stepped inside it, and the thoughts Draco had been holding back all day were there for Harry to see, raw and exposed.

"Harry... in that vision... with You-Know-Who... Merlin, it was awful... He told me that if I turned you in... if I gave us both up, he'd let me live... and if I didn't, he'd... he'd -"

"I know, Draco. That's how Voldemort works. He manipulates people. And I'll make a counter-offer. You don't let him have me, and I'll not let him have you. Is that a fair deal?"

Draco froze. Harry must have felt him tense up, because Harry's face immediately creased into a frown.

"Draco...?"

It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Harry the whole truth; rather, he just couldn't bear to do so. How could he tell Harry that he might not be able to stop Voldemort from reaching him? What were the chances of finding a counter-curse in time? But on the other hand, if he turned Harry over to Voldemort, there would be no chance of Harry surviving. Remembering the dagger, Draco knew he couldn't hurt Harry again; that he couldn't just give up. Harry had already made that point. If handing Harry over was worse than killing Harry himself... there was no way in hell he could do it. But that didn't change the fact that Voldemort already had Harry, in essence.

"Draco, he can't touch us out here."

Draco flinched, knowing just how false that was, but Harry pressed on.

"He can scare you, but he can't hurt you. He stopped combing the forest for us because he thinks you're going to give in. You were strong enough to leave in the first place. You're strong enough to resist him now."

"I left," Draco whispered, "because I was scared. I'm scared now."

"So am I."

Draco raised an eyebrow.

Harry smiled. "I'd be stupid if I wasn't a bit scared."

Draco managed a ghost of a smirk. "You didn't look scared while you were in the river, splashing like a damn fool."

Harry chuckled. "I figure that seeing as I'm stuck out here, I might as well make the most of it. I'll get you in the water eventually."

The smirk broadened. "Not likely, Potter."

"We'll see about that." Harry's grin turned devious, and Draco couldn't help but be amused.

Draco also couldn't help but realize that, despite the oddness of it all, he wasn't uncomfortable with being so close to Harry. On the contrary, there was just something comforting about Harry's presence; something about him that made Draco believe he could be just a little bit stronger with Harry to lean on. Something that made Draco not want to let go.

Draco's smirk softened into a quiet smile. "Deal."

Harry leaned back a bit and looked at him questioningly. "What?"

"It's a deal. I won't let him have you." He shrugged. "Besides, what good is a promise if it stops when the situation changes?"

Harry's eyes lit up, but he kept his face calm. "Are you sure you can do this? I have no idea what Voldemort might try next. The situation might change again."

Draco took a deep, slow breath. "Then I'll just have to be ready for it. Besides, if you've been handling You-Know-Who for years, I ought to be able to take a little bit of it, right? Can't let you show me up again, can I?"

Harry broke into a full smile. "That's never going to change." He stepped back, finally removing his hand from Draco's shoulder. "Quidditch season starts in three weeks, and I fully intend to make up for missing last season."

The spot on Draco's shoulder where Harry's hand had rested felt strangely cold now in its absence, and Draco found that he missed the contact. Still, the Quidditch challenge hung in the air, and Draco folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. "We'll see about that, Potter," he drawled, drawing out the name for effect.

"Sounds like a challenge," Harry said deliberately, mimicking Draco's pose.

"Good guess."

"And if we want to battle it out, we'd better get back in time." He jerked his head downstream. "Come on. Let's travel while the daylight holds out. I think the clouds are thickening, too."

Draco unfolded his arms and looked up. Harry was right. The low overcast was turning darker, and it couldn't be later than mid-afternoon. "Great," he mumbled. "We're going to get drenched."

"Maybe," Harry said as he started to walk again. "Maybe not."

Draco fell into step beside him. "And you tell me where we're going to find shelter out here?"

Again, Harry smiled. "Hermione taught me a water-repelling charm to use on my glasses, for when I played Quidditch in the rain. She taught me most of the useful things I know, come to think of it. I think the charm will work on other stuff too. I could try it on the cloak."

Draco started to smile at the thought of a portable, water-resistant shelter, when something else hit him. "WAIT A MINUTE! You know a water-repelling charm, and you didn't think to tell me before we went running through the river? My feet were cold and wet for NOTHING?!?"

Harry grinned back at him, sheepishly. "Oops."

*********

Dusk had fallen, bringing with it a torrential downpour. Harry had found a dry spot of high ground beneath some trees before the rain became too heavy, and after a few failed attempts, had successfully charmed the Invisibility Cloak into a waterproof shelter. From the top, the shelter was completely invisible, hiding the occupants. From the inside, propped up with sticks, the cloak looked like a child's attempt to construct a camping tent. In the middle of the tent, Harry and Draco sat back to back, leaning on each other, listening to the rain beat down on the trees around them.

Harry found it strange, sitting so close to Draco, but the contact was comforting, as isolated as they were from the rest of the world. Draco's back was warm against his own, and he felt that he wasn't quite so alone, that he had someone he could lean on. Even if it was Draco. But even that didn't seem so bad anymore, especially as Harry learned more about his travelling companion.

Harry listened to Draco talk about his mother, paying attention to each word, to the tone of Draco's voice, heavy with regret. Harry had asked for Draco to tell him about Narcissa, and it was odd to hear Draco do so; he spoke about her in an entirely different way than he did his father.

"Mother isn't terribly fond of children. If Father hadn't demanded an heir in their marital contract, she probably would have rendered herself sterile with a contraceptive potion the day before she married. She hardly saw me until I was six or seven years old, when my nurse had trained me well enough for Mother to be able to put up with me." Draco paused for a moment, and Harry felt as well as heard him take a deep breath.

"It was okay, though. It's just how things were supposed to be. I had more playthings than I could count. I spent plenty of time with my friends whenever my parents entertained, which was almost every night, it seemed. Especially during the summer. I wasn't allowed to dine with company until the summer I turned twelve, so I spent all sorts of time with Vincent, Gregory, Blaise, Marcus, Theodore... and even Millicent and Pansy, if I had to."

At this, Harry chuckled.

"What?" Draco asked tersely.

"Nothing. It's just that I'm not used to hearing them all be referred to by their first names. It's almost like they're real people." Harry considered this, and quickly corrected, "If you take my meaning, of course."

Draco laughed in turn, his back shaking against Harry's. "Would that be like 'Ron' and 'Hermione'?"

"Something like that," Harry answered, smiling to himself. "So, your mother...?"

"Oh yeah, that," Draco said sullenly. "She liked to show me off, but she wasn't demanding in the same way as my father. As long as I made her look good in public and didn't bother her too terribly, she didn't much care what I did. I would have liked her to pay more attention to me, but she didn't much care for Quidditch, and I was more interested in impressing my father. I'm sure that somewhere, deep down, she was proud of me, and she loved me. She didn't want me to go to Durmstrang, but I think that had just as much to do with wanting me to continue the family tradition - attend Hogwarts and get sorted into Slytherin - as it did with wanting me close to home. She did often tell me that I'd do the family name proud. She wanted the best for me. Whenever my father would yell at me, she'd always be standing nearby to stop him if he got carried away."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "And just how 'carried away' did he get? Did he ever...?"

"If you're going to suggest that he hit me, don't even think about it. Corporal punishment was beneath both of our dignities - and don't start going on about the house-elves again, please. Whether or not you think a Death Eater is capable of it, yes, my father is a very reserved and controlled man most of the time. Dignified. He demands respect. He wanted me to learn to be like him, so he'd be angry when I stepped out of line. But he gave me everything, he really did. Sure, I always wanted more, which was probably my biggest fault, and he was right to try to break me of it... not that I listened willingly... or often. The worst he ever did, though, was lock me in the dungeon that one time - and yes, I did deserve it, so please don't get into that discussion again, either."

Harry held in a silent chuckle, amused that despite the short span of time they'd spent together, Draco already knew what would provoke a reaction from him. "I didn't plan on it."

Draco's back jerked once in a short laugh. "Sure, Potter."

Harry smiled to himself again. He could also tell when Draco was going to call him "Harry," and when he was going to call him "Potter." It was amusing.

"So, it's your turn," Draco continued. "I get to ask a question."

"Name your poison," Harry said evenly.

"You tell me about your family."

Involuntarily, Harry tensed up. "You already know what happened to my family."

"No, Harry," Draco said, a bit impatiently. "I mean those Muggles you live with. Do you kick them around, keep them in their places at wandpoint?" He snorted a laugh. "Or do they kiss your arse willingly?"

"Oh yeah, they kiss my arse, all right," Harry said bitterly. "Just like Voldemort kisses yours."

At this, Draco's back shuddered and went slightly rigid against Harry's. "Oh?"

"They hate magic. It's a dirty word, as far as they're concerned. They hated my parents. I think my aunt was jealous of my mum. Mum could do magic, Aunt Petunia couldn't. My aunt was convinced that my grandparents favoured Mum, and she was bitter about it."

Draco snorted.

Harry turned slightly and looked over his shoulder. "What?"

"I'll tell you when it's your turn to ask me a question. Don't you go dodging now. We agreed."

"Fine, be that way."

"I will. So, they hated your parents, but you're still a wizard... they could hardly do anything to you, could they? I mean, you and they both knew that someday you'd be able to do things for them, or to them, depending -"

"Ha, that's funny," Harry cut him off. "I had no idea I was a wizard until I got my Hogwarts letter. They didn't tell me; didn't want me to know. They hated me, though at the time I didn't really knew why, and they did everything possible to keep me away from the wizarding world. They figured they could squash the magic out of me if they made me miserable enough, so that's what they tried to do."

"Wait... you... had no idea?"

"No."

"But you were famous!"

"It's nice that the rest of the world forgot to tell me about that little detail. It was an insane shock to the system after the way the Dursleys treated me."

Harry let that hang in the air for a moment, feeling Draco's back pull away from him slightly. Harry looked over his shoulder again to see Draco hunched over; he appeared to be hugging his knees.

"What did they do to you?" Draco's question was barely audible over the rain.

Harry considered how much he wanted to say. "Let's say that I have a sincere sympathy for house-elves."

"Details, Potter. We agreed."

Harry sighed and leaned back a bit, subtly trying to take a bit of comfort and warmth from Draco. "Okay, pushy. They used me like a house servant, and kept telling that I should be grateful to them for their hospitality. I had to serve them their meals before I could sit down and eat, and by the time I did, my enormous glutton of a cousin had already eaten almost everything." He took a deep breath.

"They told me my parents had died in a car crash. That's where they said I got my scar, too. Hagrid told me the truth, actually, when I turned eleven. Brought me my Hogwarts letter himself because my aunt and uncle kept throwing them away. He was the first person to treat me like a human being... which, by the way, is why I wanted to throttle you whenever you insulted him."

He felt Draco nod. "Go on."

"Haven't I said enough?"

"Nope."

Harry stared into the deepening shadows through the transparent cloak, watching the motion of the trees as the rain pummelled the leaves and the wind buffeted the branches. The storm reminded him of the night he'd first met Hagrid; the first night when he'd felt there was some hope of a future for him. It seemed like another lifetime, so far from where he was now. Back there, in a cage, but a safe one. Back when the world had suddenly begun to look like a beautiful place, full of promise. Back before he had realized that he was being taken out of one cage just to be thrown into another... and the new one contained bigger monsters than the spiders from his cupboard.

That was something which seemed almost too personal to admit, especially to Draco, who hadn't even been civil to him for a week yet, and certainly couldn't be considered a friend. But at the same time, he was curious to see Draco's reaction. And this seemed as good a time to tell him about it as any. Squashing his remaining reservations about revealing one of his most private secrets, Harry squared his shoulders and stared out blankly into the storm.

"I could say that being in a cell wasn't such a new experience for me."

Draco sat straight up. "The Muggles had a dungeon?!" he asked incredulously.

Harry almost laughed, but not quite. "No, not a dungeon. But they did have a nice cupboard under the stairs that served as my bedroom for almost a decade. And whenever they didn't want to deal with me, they would lock me in there. For hours, sometimes. It wasn't too bad, because at least while I was in there, I didn't have to deal with them, either."

There. His big secret, out in the open for Draco Malfoy to dissect and insult. For a moment, Draco said nothing.

"Draco...?"

"They kept you in a cupboard?"

"When I wasn't doing housework."

"But that's how we treat house-elves!"

"Now do you see why I have a bit of sympathy for them? Besides, your father locked you in a dungeon."

Draco suddenly pulled away from Harry, grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. "My father punished me once, Harry." Facing each other in the near-darkness, Draco's face was angry and serious, but his voice was sympathetic. He held Harry's gaze for a moment, then looked away. "I hate Muggles," he growled.

"Why do you hate them so much?" Harry asked. "All I ever heard out of you was 'damn Muggles this' and 'filthy Mudbloods that.' Why?"

Draco looked up at him without raising his head. "Those Muggles treated you like dirt, and you're defending them?"

Harry scowled. "Not them. But Muggles in general. They're not all like that."

Draco looked down at his hands. "This is not a good topic."

"Tough luck. I want to know."

"Okay," Draco said slowly, "but what I'm going to say is just the way it is. Don't try to change my mind, don't try to argue with me, and I'll explain."

Harry tipped his head in concession.

"Fine then," Draco said flatly. Although he didn't sound the least bit interested in broaching the topic, he seemed resigned to it, and started in directly.

"Muggles and wizards are two different cultures that have no business mixing. They've tried to wipe us out for centuries, and because of them, we have to hide ourselves. We have to be careful about what we do so the Muggles won't see us. Every Mudblood or half-blood only increases the risk of us exposing ourselves, while at the same time, they dilute our culture. And I don't even see why we should have to worry about exposure. We're clearly superior, so why should we have to tiptoe around them as though we were intruders on their world?

"I hate having to accommodate people who aren't really wizards. The half-bloods themselves aren't so bad, because at least they have some wizarding upbringing, but even then, there's a mixing of cultures. And obviously, one of their parents was a Muggle... and why the hell would a witch or wizard even want to marry a Muggle? I don't understand it. The Mudbloods, though, they don't have an effing clue about who we really are. They arrive at Hogwarts without a clue of what they're getting into, bringing all their Muggle stuff with them. It has no place in a school of magic!

"And then there's the core of the matter. Even if you can teach a Mudblood the basics of wizarding culture, a non-pure-blooded witch or wizard can't be as powerful as a pure-blood; it's just not possible. Granger may be a damn bookworm, but that doesn't mean she has any real power... nothing she could pass on. And the more mixing there is, the weaker the bloodlines will become. If we keep intermarrying, letting them invade our culture, soon we'll have nothing left, and everyone will be born as Squibs.

"So that's why I hate them. Well, the main reasons, anyway." Draco looked up. "Are you going to argue with me now?"

Harry considered this for a moment. He'd promised he wouldn't argue, but he'd said nothing about stating the facts. "Voldemort is a half-blood."

Even in the darkness, he could see Draco's expression become visibly strained. "Tell me you're joking."

"His mother was a witch, his father was a Muggle. His mother died in childbirth, and when his father discovered that she was a witch and that his son was a wizard, he sent his infant son, Tom Riddle, to an orphanage. My guess is that he's been nursing a grudge ever since. That's what this whole fight is about. A personal vendetta."

Draco closed his eyes, and Harry could just barely see his mouth twitch in a pained expression. He couldn't know what Draco was thinking, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"What's your favourite colour?" Draco asked suddenly.

"What?"

"My turn for a question." Draco opened his eyes, but his expression was unreadable. "What's your favourite colour?"

Harry regarded him for a moment. They hadn't covered many easy topics, and if Draco had reached his limit for the moment, Harry could concede. "Red," he answered easily.

Draco snickered. "Gryffindors." He leaned in close, as though trying to appraise Harry through the almost nonexistent daylight. "You'd look better in green."

Harry let loose a short laugh. "Oh, so you're saying I'd make a good Slytherin?"

"Not a chance." Draco's face split into a wide grin. "But really, red isn't your colour."

Harry shrugged it off. "Okay then, what's yours?"

"Blue."

"That simple?"

"That simple."

Harry laughed again, and this time, Draco joined in.

"Favourite food?" Draco asked easily.

Harry had to consider this for a moment. "You know, considering everyone kept forcing it on me during my third year, you'd think I'd be sick of it, but I'll have to say chocolate."

"Milk or dark?"

"Definitely milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is too bitter."

Draco put on his best thoughtful expression. "Hmm, I prefer the dark chocolate, myself."

Harry smiled easily and leaned his cheek on his hand. "Maybe you're just bitter."

"You might have a point there. Raised under high-pressure circumstances with a distinct lack of shagging. I have every right to be bitter."

Harry slid his hand up over his face, glad that the darkness was covering the blush he was sure had blossomed across into his cheeks. "I didn't ask about your sex-life, Malfoy."

"Which is fine, because I don't have one."

"I do have a different question for you, though."

"I don't think so," Draco said, folding his arms across his chest. "It's my turn to ask. I just told you what type of chocolate I like."

"Yeah, but I didn't ask you that question... you just assumed I was going to and answered it on your own, so it's still my turn."

Immediately, Draco shot a scowl at him. "I hate you."

"So you've said." Harry laughed lightly. "Which brings me perfectly to my question. At the beginning of first year, why did you try to make friends with me?"

Draco's face fell. "What made you think of that all of a sudden?"

The low, tense tone of Draco's voice caused Harry to raise an eyebrow. "It's not really 'all of a sudden'. I've been wondering for a while. For the longest time, I figured it was just a case of you needing to prove your superiority, needing to control everything. Either that, or your father put you up to it."

Draco didn't move for a moment, then he sighed and turned away, his back towards Harry.

"Father didn't put me up to anything. He told me that I wasn't supposed to look 'less than fond' of you, but I think he assumed that I'd just avoid you. He should have known better."

Harry found himself scratching at the back of his head in slight confusion. "Well, you certainly did appear 'less than fond' of me. In fact, you were downright malicious most of the time."

"Yeah," Draco said roughly. "That was the problem. See, nobody had ever refused me. I figured, I could make friends with you, and then I'd have you on my side. It all made sense at the time."

"What made sense? And you still haven't told me why you wanted to have me on 'your side' in the first place."

Draco mumbled something that Harry couldn't hear over the rain.

"What was that?"

"I was jealous, okay?"

"Jealous...? Of what?"

Draco's voice was still soft, but it didn't waver. "Of you. You were famous. People said you were powerful. Everyone talked about you. I can't remember a time before I knew who you were. I swear, my father talked about you more than he talked about me. Or to me. You had the one thing I wanted, and you didn't even know it: my father's attention."

Harry stared blankly into the last grey shadows of the storm. "I never wanted all that. Any of it."

Draco snorted. "I know that now, but that didn't matter. You still had it. And I didn't. Basically, I wanted to be your friend because you were famous, and you had everything I wanted. If I managed to get you, then maybe I could have what I wanted too. Don't you just love the logic of an eleven-year old? And I just assumed that you, like everyone else, would find me impressive enough to take me up on the offer. You were famous, I was rich, we're both from old blood... I figured it was a sure thing."

"I'm not from 'old blood'. My mum was Muggle-born."

"Didn't matter. Your surname is as old as mine, and your fame made up for the rest of it." He laughed dryly. "You can't imagine what it felt like. Snubbed by Harry Potter, bested by a Weasley, and scorned by my father because I couldn't even hold myself above that sort of petty bickering."

"Well, you didn't do much to fix the problem along the way."

Draco made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a harsh laugh. "Malfoys are infamous for holding grudges."

"I'm glad you got over it," Harry said softly.

"What can I say? You're very persuasive." Draco paused. "My turn. Why did you keep walking away from me today? When you knew perfectly well that you had to stay within a short distance of me to stay safe?"

Harry felt himself smile before he meant to. "Come on, Draco. Even you're clever enough to figure that one out."

"Humour me."

"I wanted to be sure that you would follow. That I could trust you to stay with me when the choice was as simple as whether or not you'd let me go too far."

"Why take the risk?"

Harry's mouth twisted into a frown. That was the real question, not the first one. Draco knew perfectly well what he had been doing, but it wasn't even quite clear to Harry himself why he'd done it. It wasn't a risk he should have taken, not even a risk he'd really wanted to take, but he'd had to try it. He stared off into the darkness, pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his legs as he thought it through.

"Because eventually, it's not going to be so easy," Harry said slowly, feeling out the explanation even as he said it aloud. He wrapped his right hand over his left and squeezed, pulling his knees closer to himself. "What happens when we've been walking for a week? Two weeks? However the hell long it takes for us to get back to Hogwarts? If you're stressed now, what happens when it's been days or weeks since you've had your hot food, warm bed, and running water? And it'll be even worse if Voldemort keeps harassing you, which, I hate to tell you, seems pretty likely. I've got to rely on you for my life right now, and I'm so aware of it that it almost makes me ill to think about it. I needed to see if you'd stick to your word. I wanted to just believe you, but I had to see it for myself now, rather than wait and risk finding out the hard way in a week."

There was a long pause before Draco's voice cut low and quiet underneath the rain, sounding closer to Harry than it had been before. "What if you had been wrong?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but he found himself shaking slightly, and was afraid that his voice would crack. He took a deep, calming breath. "I trusted you. I just needed to see for sure whether my trust was misplaced."

"And your conclusion?"

"I still trust you."

It wasn't that he'd meant it as anything but a simple statement, but when his own words reached his ears, they felt strange, as though they rang true right to his core. He shuddered and started to squeeze his hands tighter together, trying to pull his knees closer to himself to ward off the peculiar chill working its way through him, then stopped. Eyes wide in the darkness, he pulled his hands apart, then brushed the fingers of his right hand along the raised, loopy scars on the back of his left hand. The same words he'd written day after day in detention the previous year. The words that Draco had called "Dark magic." Harry shuddered again.

No denying that it was true; on some level, he really did trust Draco. Even without the scars on the back of his hand to confirm the fact, he would have known anyway. Trusted his promise to bring them both home safely, trusted the sacrifices he'd made. In truth, he trusted Draco with his life. Not that it was the wisest way to place his trust, based on past experience, but he had placed it, and it felt right.

And he did trust that Draco would bring him home alive.

Harry pulled his hands completely apart and shifted his posture. In the process, he moved just a bit closer to Draco. It was starting to get cold, and the contact as they'd sat back-to-back had been nice. Not that he was going to reinitiate any physical contact himself.

"My turn," Harry said softly. He glanced to the side where Draco was sitting, even though it was now too dark to see anything useful, but he thought Draco nodded his consent. "Are you afraid of death?"

He felt Draco turn to look at him. "What kind of question is that?"

Harry shrugged into the darkness. "Just an honest one. I've been surrounded by death for a long time, but I don't often talk about it. So I wanted to ask. Are you?"

For a long moment, the only sound was the rain and the wind. Harry thought he might have heard a rumble of thunder, but decided it was only his imagination.

Draco made a soft noise before he spoke. "Yeah, I'm scared." There was another pause, shorter this time. "Are you?"

Harry nodded, mostly to himself. "Of course. But... I think there are things I'm more afraid of."

"For example...?"

"Losing to Voldemort. Letting him win. Watching my friends die. I think, though... I think I'm most scared of being alone."

"Really?" Draco's response was thick with disbelief.

Harry forced a rough chuckle. "I've been pretty independent for most of my life. I had to rely on myself when I was younger, because I didn't have any friends. At least, none that Dudley wasn't sure to scare away as quick as possible. I got to Hogwarts, and suddenly, there were people who cared. It was so different, and it took some time for me to get used to it, but I liked it. I don't think I would want to be alone again. Out here... so far from everything and everyone, it is beautiful... but it's so isolated."

The night air suddenly seemed much colder, and Harry pulled his feet in close and wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to ward off a shiver. With nothing but the rain and darkness all around him, he really did feel alone, but he was damned if he was going to say anything more about that to Draco.

Harry closed his eyes and imagined he was returning to the Gryffindor common room, unexpectedly. Ron and Hermione were miles away, but he could see their faces, shocked at his sudden reappearance after having been missing for weeks. Ron would look like a freckled fish, mouth opened in amazement. He'd blink a few times to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Ha... Harry? You're... you're back! Hermione wouldn't even hesitate, and Harry would find himself with a face full of bushy hair as Hermione tackled him in a rib-cracking hug. Harry! You're alive! Oh, but I knew you would be! You're an incredible wizard, you really are. I knew you'd escape, oh, I just knew it! How did you do it?! Ron, close your mouth, you look like a fish. Harry, sit down, you must be exhausted. Now, tell me everything!

Harry blinked, and realized that something warm and wet was leaking from the corners of his eyes. He mentally thanked the fates that it was too dark for Draco to see his face.

"You okay, Harry?"

Harry's eyes went wide, and he turned towards Draco, but it was so dark that he couldn't even see which way Draco was facing. Surely Draco couldn't see the stress on his face? Harry swallowed past the tightness in his throat.

"I'm fine."

Draco made a sceptical sort of noise. Harry waited for him to say something else, suddenly needing to hear a voice, even Draco's, just to reassure him that somebody was there. To know he wasn't alone. But Draco didn't speak.

Harry dropped his head and began to turn away again when he heard a scuffling sound. Then he felt something soft fall lightly across his shoulders.

Draco had slid over to him and had wrapped half of his cloak around Harry. Harry sat frozen in surprise as Draco settled himself, adjusting the cloak, making sure that Harry had enough of the cloth tucked around him to keep him warm. When he stopped, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder, leaning lightly against each other.

Harry was afraid to move, stunned by Draco's boldness. Not that he wasn't appreciative - it was comforting, really - but what was he supposed to do? Sitting back-to-back had been different: more distant, somehow. This felt... close.

"Wrap the cloak the rest of the way around, would you, Harry?" Draco asked softly, his voice startlingly close to Harry's ear. "It's getting cold out here, you know."

Although he wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to move, Harry nodded and soon had the cloak tucked tightly around his legs and torso, overlapping with Draco's half. For several long moments, Harry hardly dared to breathe, focusing all his attention on not moving, for fear that he'd push Draco away. It was certainly an unexpected comfort, but it was a comfort.

"I'm not trying to attack you, Harry, I'm just trying not to freeze."

"Oh... right... sorry," Harry mumbled, as he tried to relax. He hardly moved, however, as warmth began to fill the space underneath the cloak. He hadn't realized how cold it had been until then.

"Besides," Draco continued suddenly, as though he had never paused, "I don't like being alone either."

It was then that Harry stopped completely focusing on his own body, and realized that Draco was sitting just as rigidly as he was. Feeling his own nervousness fade a bit, Harry let himself laugh as he nudged Draco to the side with his shoulder. "Don't worry, Draco. I won't tell anyone. Wouldn't want to ruin your reputation."

Draco sat back upright and gave Harry a light shove back. "Reputation? What are you talking about, Potter?"

"Big, tough bloke who doesn't need anyone, brave and independent in the face of... oh wait, never mind. Almost forgot the Dark Forest incident from first year. You screamed like a girl."

Harry quickly ducked, but still didn't manage to avoid the hard shove Draco dealt him. Laughing openly now, he shoved back, and was rewarded to hear Draco actually laughing too.

"Hey, at least I wasn't foolish enough to stick around. That whole Gryffindor stupid... er... bravery thing."

"Sure... whatever you say," Harry muttered as he settled back down, once again brushing shoulders with Draco. This time, he didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. He sighed, then yawned. "I suppose we ought to get some sleep."

"Probably a good idea," came the easy reply. "Lot of ground to cover tomorrow."

"Yeah," Harry said, but he didn't move.

Neither did Draco.

For several minutes, they sat still, listening to the pounding rain, the moaning of trees as they bent in the wind, and the distant rumbling that Harry now felt certain was thunder. Despite their exposure and the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere, out in the middle of a storm, and hidden by nothing but the darkness and an Invisibility Cloak, Harry couldn't help but feel safe. He was warm, dry, and definitely not alone. And yes, he did trust Draco. It didn't even seem so strange, after all.

Harry mused that if things had been different in the past, he might have found Draco to be... not absolutely awful. Now, Draco's company seemed almost pleasant. He was interesting, at least. Surprisingly sincere. And now that things had relaxed between them, Draco really wasn't such a bad travelling companion. Almost like a friend, whereas a year ago, or even a week ago, Harry might even have preferred to be stuck in a room alone with Voldemort than with Draco Malfoy.

Harry sighed deeply at that stray thought. Voldemort wasn't going to let up on the two of them, and Draco certainly wasn't going to have an easy road ahead. Still, if Draco faltered, Harry silently promised that he'd be there to help Draco through it. After all, they were on the same team now. They had a common enemy and a common goal. Harry still needed to rely on Draco if he wanted to get home, and if Draco needed to rely on Harry for some moral support, then that's what Harry would give. Draco had already given everything he had.

It might have been Harry's imagination, but he felt as though a gust of cold wind had gone clear through the cloak and even through his skin. He shivered deeply and scrunched the cloak higher around his shoulders.

"What's wrong?" Draco's voice broke through the darkness.

"Just thinking. I think too much."

"What are you thinking about?"

Harry opened his mouth, but stopped short. Knowing full well that he couldn't share all those thoughts with Draco, he merely hung his head and said, "Home."

"Mmm."

Suddenly, Harry felt something warm and smooth settle around his neck. He started. "What the...?" Something else, something heavier, thudded lightly against his chest, tugging at the thing around his neck. Then he felt a hand close over the object on his chest, patting it a couple of times.

"You hang onto that for now, Harry."

"What is...?" Harry reached down and grabbed the thing that was hanging against his chest. Even in the pitch blackness, he recognized the shape of an old Muggle compass. The Mislocator. "Draco, why -"

"I figure, this way, even if I want to chicken out, I can't. Like you said... Dark Forest incident." Draco chuckled softly. "This is a forest, and it's plenty dark. I just don't want to risk a repeat performance, okay?"

"Draco... are you sure?"

"Do you have to ask? Besides, it's such an ugly thing. Clashes miserably with my clothes."

Harry felt a wavering smile spread across his face, accompanied by a warm feeling. "Yeah. Okay. I'll hang onto it for you, then."

He felt Draco nod. "Good." Draco paused for a moment. "I don't much feel like sleeping, do you?"

Harry shook his head. "No, not re-" He was interrupted by a wide yawn. "Really," he finished.

"Nice try. Here." Draco shifted underneath the cloak, once again turning his back to Harry. "Lean against me, and get some sleep."

Harry looked briefly in Draco's direction before another yawn overtook him, and he turned around, leaning his back against Draco. "Thanks, but what about you?"

"I'm sure I'll fall asleep eventually. Don't worry about me." A pause. "That is, unless I'm suddenly possessed by a Dark wizard in my sleep."

"And then...?"

"And then don't worry anyway. As long as I know I've got the Great Harry Potter for backup, I'll be confident that no harm can befall me."

Harry had to laugh as he readjusted the cloak around his shoulders. "Sure, I'm a regular old good-luck charm. That's why death and destruction just seem to follow me wherever I go."

"Well," Draco said thoughtfully, "we can't all be perfect."

Harry laughed again softly and closed his eyes, leaning his full weight comfortably against Draco's back. Draco was warm behind him, and the even rise and fall as he breathed was reassuring. Outside, the storm raged on, but it couldn't touch them. It was the best Harry had felt since the night he'd left Gryffindor Tower.

He sighed, letting the memory sink into him, softening as he felt himself drift towards sleep. "Goodnight, Draco."

"Goodnight, Harry," Draco responded, and Harry knew he was smiling.

*******

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.

Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.

It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

(~Green Day)

*******