Tempus Fugit

Chapter 12: The Loveliest Passion

~*~

'What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'

Two Loves - Lord Alfred Douglas

~*~

A grogginess so thick and complete that it seemed to strangle him was weighing heavily over his eyes, clouding his mind. Harry fought it blearily as something dragged his body from an unnatural sleep and out of the warm suffocation that held him fast. His mind spun as he opened his eyes and promptly closed them again, harsh lights piercing them. Blinking owlishly, he stretched his aching muscles and allowed some measure of clarity of mind to descend. Looking around at what appeared to be walls built from dark stone, Harry sat up at once as a million questions shot into his mind and the beginnings of a mild panic set in. He had no idea where he was but immediately took stock of the situation and realized with a jolt that he must be in the dungeons. The room was large but dark, with the dazzling lights being nothing more than torches burning merrily in their brackets. It was lined with wooden cabinets and shelves containing all sorts of glass jars and bottles, with coloured liquids and gelatinous substances brightening in hue as they caught the flickering light. He himself was lying in a nondescript bed with a chair beside it and a dark woollen blanket covering him. Basic though it was, it reminded Harry a little of an old fashioned sick-room and just as he was gazing around confusedly, he noticed the other bed and its prone occupant.

Harry gave a start as he recognized a halo of bright blond hair fanned out across the pillow and the familiar contours of a body stirring beneath an identical woollen blanket before the person in question rolled over and blinked silently in what seemed to be mild surprise.

"Draco?" Harry found himself saying, although his voice was hoarse with disuse and his vocal chords tight in his throat. The other boy looked up at once and a light of recognition illuminated his face before it began to look rather confused.

"Harry?" he said and Harry felt his heart skip a beat. "Where are we?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know," he said. It struck him as strange that he should be talking to Draco Malfoy in so familiar and friendly a manner and that when he looked at Draco he was bombarded with feelings that had nothing to do with animosity. Draco sat up and the blankets fell away revealing a white t-shirt that rode up when he yawned and stretched. Harry swallowed and felt a bit flushed. Draco regarded him intently for a moment.

"I have this feeling that I should hate you," he said, narrowing his grey eyes, "and I'm not entirely sure why I don't."

Harry felt a warm tug of relief in his chest that he was not the only one of the two rivals to be feeling positively sociable. "Me neither," he said and managed a small smile. They lapsed into a contented silence as they both gazed around the room and tried to take in their surroundings. There was something companionable about the situation and something that felt incredibly right in that they were alone together and perfectly comfortable.

"Where are we?" Draco asked after a few moments, rubbing his eyes.

"Not sure," said Harry, and he clambered awkwardly out of bed and grimaced as his bare feet hit the cold stone floor. He could almost feel the weight of Draco's eyes on him and as he turned around he caught the Slytherin looking at him with an expression that was new and hungry and flirtatious all at once. Harry's mouth went very dry. "I think," he said, tearing his eyes away from Draco with difficulty, "that we're in one of the old Advanced Teaching rooms. I visited them once or twice last year."

"Didn't know you were going in for Higher Education," Draco said.

"Nah." Harry yawned again. "It's just the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant--"

"By the incompetent," Draco finished and the pair looked at each other curiously as if trying to place something. There was a very strange feeling passing over the both of them simultaneously, as though they were having a long déjà vu, except it was hard to place and as though time was shifting forwards slightly. It was bizarre.

"How did you--?" Harry began.

Draco shrugged. "Something I heard once and thought was cool."

"Yeah," Harry replied. "Me too, I think." He turned back to his examination of their quarters but snatches of memory seemed to be slowly filtering back into his mind and then they hit him with such force that his head exploded with pain and he sank to his knees on the floor, clutching at his temples, his fingernails making small crescents in his skin.

He saw a city washed in golden haze as the early sun kissed the silver domes and spires. It rose in a timeless arc over a growing skyline and Harry watched it all from the edge of the roof, a glass of orange juice in his hand, toasting the world and his good fortune.

He saw a crimson velvet curtain rising over a stage and Draco's hand covering his as they sat in the balcony. He watched as actors lost themselves in Wildean paradoxes and Draco waxed lyrical for a good ten minutes about the art of theatre.

He saw Hermione grinning at her husband. He was a man Harry had never seen before and yet recognized immediately. Hermione looked so different, so much happier.

He saw Ron, older and stockier, his pale face wincing in the sun. Unchanged in all but appearance, Harry watched as his best friend punched him on the arm before putting a glass of wine in his hand.

He saw Death Eaters pointing their wands at him, and a snake erupting from his fingertips. That image drowned itself in a pool of someone else's blood and Harry felt an echo of an injury crack along his skull as he was thrown backwards into a wall.

He saw Draco framed with moonlight as he leaned over and kissed him. He wanted to touch every inch of that skin and feel him arch with pleasure.

He felt an overwhelming need to hold him and to tell him...to tell him...

"I love you." The words had left his lips before Harry had even registered what he was saying and when he did so he looked shocked at himself and felt wave upon wave of confusion breaking over the solidity of that single fact. Draco, who had been similarly burying his head in his hands as a barrage of parallel memories assaulted him, looked up with a start. Something inside Harry's head was yelling reminders that this was Draco Malfoy, long time enemy, Slytherin and a Death Eater-in-training, but all that didn't seem to matter. What he could remember above all else, were feelings, strong ones that veered as far away from hatred as possible.

Draco's eyes clouded over for a moment as a kernel of understanding that he couldn't place seemed to lodge itself in the perpetuity of his consciousness. "I--" he said. "I don't-- you shouldn't--" He sighed and a gentle wash of acceptance and discernment diffused over his face. He made a little head-cocking motion, which Harry interpreted as an invitation to approach him. Mouth still smarting from what he had just said, he kneeled on the end of Draco's bed and looked away, blushing furiously. Draco was still for a second before he brought one finger up to trace Harry's cheekbone, sending tingles the length of Harry's spine and making his heart pound in his chest.

"No scars," Draco said, ruffling his hairline above his ear where the skin was smooth and unmarked.

"Never had a scar there," Harry said, momentarily puzzled.

"Someday you might," Draco replied mysteriously and tilted Harry's face towards him so they were nose to nose. Harry could feel Draco's breath softly brushing over his skin and could see every plane and angle of his face next to his, so close to him, so perfectly fashioned. It was strange, though, not to see a lingering sense of haunting grey tragedy settled in his astonishing eyes, which Harry somehow expected, or the pale lines of care in his face that a new impression of youth had wiped away. Draco looked so young and carefree and so peaceful next to him, his eyes fixed on Harry's before moving to rest on his mouth, Draco's own tongue moistening his lips with a quiet delicacy. From this distance Harry could see every single mark on Draco's face, from the pale freckles on the bridge of his nose to his eyelashes, which were too dark for someone so fair. Harry shifted further towards him until he could feel the heat from Draco's body warming him and they were scant inches apart, beholding each other as if they had never done so before.

And then their lips were brushing and Harry teetered on the brink of absolutely everything.

Suddenly the door creaked and he and Draco jerked apart as though scalded.

"You're awake." The voice was one laced with surprise, a certain oblique sarcasm and a definite note of disdain. Harry didn't need to turn around to know that it was Snape, but he did so anyway. The door was open and framed in the torchlight was their Potions Master, just as they remembered him, imposing, sallow and forbidding.

Draco coughed. "Yes, Professor," he said, climbing out of bed and perching himself next to Harry. Snape came over to them at once and began a methodical examination that involved spelling various instruments to poke, prod and take readings whilst unnervingly airborne around their bodies. With a clinical detachment he took their temperatures, measured their heartbeats and after a lengthy interview pronounced them to be in full possession of their minds, something he declared to be 'very lucky indeed'.

"What happened?" Harry asked, shivering a little in the dankness of the underground room.

"How much do you remember?" Snape asked in clipped tones.

"Very little," Draco mumbled from around the thermometer in his mouth. "Seems a bit like a dream. Did we really travel through time or did I make that up?"

Harry dropped his beaker of Pepper-Up potion as he realized exactly how he had ended up where he was and all the fragments of memory seemed to fall into place. "We did!" he exclaimed. "We were in our futures, only they were the present and this is the past, only it's not because now it's the present."

"Very articulate, Potter," Draco said amusedly and Harry nudged him with his shoulder. If Snape found the exchange at all unusual then he did not betray it.

"You have both been unconscious for nearly two months," he said with an edge of sternness. "In case one or both of you don't remember, you added an incorrect key ingredient to your Pertho draught and then proceeded to test it without my knowledge and without me checking it first."

"Oh yeah," Draco said sheepishly, biting his lip.

"You do realize," Snape's voice grew colder, "the monumental stupidity of doing so? In adding the wrong rose petals, you completely changed the potential of the potion and constructed something very different." Harry's heart sank as he recognized that two months was a hell of a long time for Snape to have to build up a suitable rant for when they had recovered. He sighed resignedly.

"It wasn't our fault, Professor," Draco said with a touch of annoyance. "The recipe we were working from was damaged--"

"And you didn't think of borrowing someone else's to make sure you were correct?" Snape fixed his favourite pupil with one of the patented glares that he usually reserved for Harry, who privately thought that his teacher was being unnecessarily harsh over an accident. "Let me tell you, Mr. Malfoy, about all the trouble you've caused. Time didn't stop passing just because you weren't here to occupy it, and you have spent the better part of two months completely comatose. Not only have the entire staff been worried sick for your welfare, but both your families were informed and Dumbledore has had to work for days to keep this from leaking to the press. Potter," Snape spat the word like it was poison, "I'm sure you can imagine the uproar from your fans that would result from their learning that you had been rendered completely insensible."

"You wrote to my father?" Draco gulped and looked pale.

"You wrote to the Dursleys?" Harry felt like laughing at the futility of that. "What, did you think they'd actually care?"

Snape shot him enough of a glare to shut him up quickly. Steam was still delicately issuing out of his ears from the potion and making Harry feel rather light-headed.

"If we've been comatose for so long," Draco said with a sense of defiance about him, "why are we here? Why haven't the St. Mungo's healers been looking after us?"

"Because," Snape replied, clearly affronted, "I am a more accomplished master of potions than any of those healers and I, unlike them, knew and understood exactly what had happened to you. The only complications arose when you didn't wake up when you should have done, that was when the staff began to worry and we were forced to begin experimenting with treatments. The healers at the hospital were consulted for advice but nothing more and I was bequeathed two excellent test subjects for the subject of my latest medical paper. You are both feeling alright, I trust?" Snape asked, finishing his examination and taking the seat by the bed.

"A little tired," Draco replied, "but essentially fine."

"Don't remember much," Harry muttered, trying to sort through the fog in his brain for any other detail before it was lost in the depths of his subconscious.

"What do you remember?" Snape pressed.

"Um--" Draco blushed a little.

"Feelings, mostly," Harry ventured, trying hard not to look at the Slytherin. "Emotions, that kind of thing."

"That's to be expected." Snape's voice was harsh and tight whenever he was forced to converse directly with Harry, a pastime he loathed. "To have you recall the exact details of your future would put it at risk. Your father has been here, Draco," he said, turning abruptly back to him.

"So I gather."

"He wanted your removal to St. Mungo's at once and it was only Dumbledore's acknowledgement that you should not leave the Hogwarts grounds that has kept you here," Snape said, evidently relieved at being able to finally admonish them for their oversight. Draco looked downcast and Harry was compelled to comfort him, wanting hazily to fold him in his arms and kiss him on the lips whilst recognizing that at one time such an idea would have seemed nauseating.

Mind wandering from Snape and Draco's conversation, Harry stretched his screaming muscles once more and tried to get them to loosen up after being so still for so long. He was filled with restlessness and as the last of the aching tiredness fell from his bones, he wanted nothing more than to stand up and walk around. Unfortunately, when he tried this, he felt so incredibly dizzy that he had to sit down again.

"For Merlin's sake, Potter." There was no note of indulgence in Snape's tone. "Just sit down. You have been through an arduous ordeal and your body will need some time to recover." Harry sat down on Draco's bed again and held his head, waiting for the dizziness to stop. "I'll go and retrieve your robes," Snape went on. "Madam Pomfrey insisted that you wear pyjamas when in bed. The woman was quite adamant." With those words Snape walked out and through the blackness of his closed eyes Harry heard his footsteps retreat. Then there was silence.

"Are you alright?" Draco's voice was soft and concerned. Harry nodded as the shakiness seemed to wear off slightly. He jumped as he felt cool, narrow hands brushing over his temples and lifting his chin, and just as Harry opened his eyes, Draco placed a gentle kiss in the middle of his forehead, utterly startling him.

"What was that for?" he asked.

Draco just shrugged appealingly and glanced down at Harry's lips, which Harry licked awkwardly and he became painfully aware of the thundering silence that enveloped them. The fact that Snape had unwittingly left them alone dawned on Harry and suddenly Draco was leaning into him and catching their lips together and every experience he had ever had of the Slytherin broke and remade itself in his mind. The kiss was short but intense as Harry explored Draco's mouth and threaded his hands through the dishevelled blond silk of his hair. Time, so freely moving and significant, stopped for a few moments and became irrelevant.

Draco pulled back first, breathing hard, his face flushed and his lips reddened. Harry thought he looked beautifully debauched and couldn't resist reaching out his hands and pulling Draco to him until they were skin to skin and their hearts were beating against each other. The hug was awkward at first but then Draco loosened in his arms and Harry began to kiss all his uncertainties away. Every time their lips met, they overcame a little of their reservations until Harry pushed Draco down on the bed and was swallowed up by the moment. He paused, propped up on his elbows, Draco stretched out beneath him, a flurry of golden hair, sardonic smirk and acres of pale, perfect skin.

"So beautiful," Harry murmured, almost to himself, before nipping at Draco's lower lip and eliciting a little sigh from him.

Harry would have been happy to stay there all day, but at the same time as he heard footsteps coming down the corridor, he saw Draco's eyes widen and they rolled apart at once.

The sound of steps echoed down the hall outside, accompanied by the long peals of laughter that Harry dimly recognized as Ron. His heart skipped in his chest at the sound as it seemed to recall him back from somewhere far away, planting both of his feet on the ground and bringing him sharply to the present and to reality. He had spent so long focusing solely on Draco and the burgeoning feelings of desire that had sprung from their forced companionship that everyone else had been pushed out of his mind. Now, as the door swung open, three of his very first friends stepped again into his house of excess.

Their reaction to seeing Harry awake was priceless. Hermione dropped the papers she was holding, Ron was cut off mid-laugh and Seamus's mouth fell open comically.

"Hey guys," Harry said weakly, throat scratchy and lips tingling. He gave them a little wave before they exploded with noise and ran towards him, arms and hands gripping him so tightly he didn't think they were ever going to let go.

"You're awake!"

"When? How?!"

"We've been so worried!"

Harry pulled back with difficulty to survey them, pieces of his adolescence that seemed strangely distorted and out of place. He wanted to picture Hermione's hair straighter and styled differently, he wanted to see Seamus with a rounder face and redder cheeks and he felt that Ron should have more of an air of exuberance about him. There was something different about all three, as though they were mirror images of themselves with just one aspect wildly changed.

"Oh Harry!" Hermione's eyes were shining with tears. "We thought-- we thought--!" She broke off and flung her arms around him again, her face against his shoulder and her hair tickling his nose. She smelt sweet and Harry held her tightly, genuinely glad of her presence. Untangling himself a moment later, he felt Ron slap him hard on the back so that the breath was knocked out of him and he was assaulted again by their stream of questions.

"How long've you been awake, mate?" Seamus asked breathlessly, sitting on Harry's bed.

Harry glanced at Draco who had withdrawn immediately into himself and was resting his chin on his knees. "Not long," he said.

"We were so worried!" Hermione exclaimed. "Snape hasn't been letting us come and see you very often, but the whole school knows about it! Everyone thought it was dark magic at first but then Snape told us you'd just cocked up the potion."

"Were you in the future?" Ron asked excitedly. "What did you see?"

"I can't remember all that much," Harry said truthfully, rubbing his tired eyes. "Not many details anyway. I can remember feelings, though, and bits and pieces of memory. Just random stuff."

"What was it like?" Ron asked.

Harry could feel Draco watching him. "Good," he said. "From what I can remember it was amazing."

"What are you looking at, Malfoy?" Ron said suddenly and Harry's heart sank. He looked quickly at Draco who had been watching him and then at Ron who was standing protectively in front of Harry. Draco looked Ron up and down with a deliberate slowness that made Ron's lip curl and Harry's feeling of foreboding increase.

"Nothing of any worth," Draco said with a distinct air of malice. Ron's ears went pink and his jaw tightened.

"Well you can just fuck off, then," he said in a low voice. "All this was your fault anyway."
"My fault?!" Draco stood up so fast the bed shifted across the flagstone floor. "How, Weasley? When I'm so much better at Potions than anyone else in this room?"

"You'd do anything to hurt Harry," Ron said, moving closer to Draco. "Anything to try and screw him over."

Draco raised one eyebrow and his lips formed the smirk that told Harry that a sexual innuendo was on the way and so he dived into the middle of the pair. "Stop it!" he exclaimed. "Both of you!"

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, affronted. "Let me deal with the prat!"

"No." Harry rubbed his eyes. "Just give it a rest, please." He sat back down and felt the bed creak as Draco took a seat next to him. He could see Ron fidget uneasily.

"Sorry," he said. "I know you've only just woken up and everything." He shot Draco a dark look for good measure.

"Your robes." Snape had returned with several swathes of black draped over his arms. He laid them on the bed and with a casual flick of his wand draw dark green silk curtains around the two beds, enclosing the Gryffindors and Draco inside. "I see no reason why you cannot get dressed, but I want neither of you to think of leaving here without a large supply of Strengthening Potions. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Professor," they both said meekly. Snape glared at Ron, Seamus and Hermione suspiciously before whirling out again, no doubt to fetch some foul concoction for them to drink at regular intervals.

"Oh Harry, it's been awful." Hermione said when he had gone and Harry and Draco were sorting through the regulation school uniforms they had been handed. She had a tear track down one cheek and looked quite beside herself. "No-one was sure if you'd ever find your way back and wake up!"

"He was with me all this time, Hermione, of course we were going to find our way back," Draco said with no malice or exasperation. Harry didn't notice anything particularly strange about his comment but the spluttering of his friends reminded him that Draco had never in all his days been pleasant to Hermione.

"Got sick of the insults, have we?" Ron asked aggressively, striding in front of Hermione as if to defend her. "What the hell is up with you, Malfoy?"

"Oh bugger off, Weasley," Draco sighed, as if just realizing that he had said something extraordinary and wanted to mask it.

"What's that?" Seamus asked suddenly and bent to pick something up off the floor.

"No thanks, I'm here visiting my friend," Ron retorted, standing next to Harry. "Not something you'd know much about, is it?"

Draco had just opened his mouth to respond when Seamus said in a tight voice, "when you say you've been with Harry all this time, what did you mean?"

Harry felt himself redden slightly and chanced a look at Draco whose composure had faltered for the briefest of moments before he resurrected his veneer of superciliousness. "Why do you ask?" he said as though bored with the conversation.

Seamus looked for a long time at Harry who found it difficult to maintain his gaze steadily. "Where did this come from?" he asked, holding something towards them that looked suspiciously like a photograph. Harry made to take it but Ron was quicker and snatched it curiously out of Seamus's hand.

"What's this?" he asked and then froze as the photograph registered. "Harry?" His voice was as cold as ice. "What the fuck is going on?"

Draco grabbed the photograph and regarded it with a fractional lightening of his eyes and twitching of his mouth. It was the one Draco had found at the flat, the one where they had both been sprawled on top of each other at the beach, all over each other. "How the hell did this get here?" he asked. Harry didn't answer, too busy trying to think of something to explain the situation to Ron and the others.

"What the fuck is going on?" Ron asked again, this time in a slightly louder voice, one hand balled into a fist at his side. Harry could cope with it if he chose to shout at him or if he was disgusted, but the look of utter betrayal that flitted across his features was more than he was prepared to deal with. Harry looked over at Draco who was turning the picture over in his hands.

"It's from Hermione," he said. "Not you." He looked up at the young Hermione standing next to him. "Your future self. She must have spelled it here as a reminder." Harry glanced at the picture, written on the back in a neat script he recognized as similar to Hermione's present one, he read:

I hope you find this and remember the good times.

Live your lives well.

Love,

Hermione and Remus.

"Reminder of what?" Seamus asked, looking from Harry to Draco and back again. "Harry?"

Harry swallowed. "Draco and I...um...are...well..." Ron looked faintly pale.

"A couple," Draco finished for him, glaring defiantly at Ron.

For a split second there was total silence.

"Is this true?" Ron asked hoarsely. Harry nodded, not knowing what else to say. He wished Draco wasn't fixing Ron with that particular gleam of triumph but it really couldn't be helped and when Draco furtively slipped his hand in his, it gave him a flash of much needed resolve.

"Yes," Harry said quietly.

"You and Malfoy?" Ron spluttered, apparently unable to believe his eyes.

"Yes."

"You have got to be kidding me," he muttered, completely disregarding Draco. "This is Malfoy, Harry, Malfoy."

"I know who he is, thank you," Harry replied coldly.

"Then you know that he has made your life hell for years," Ron jabbed his finger at Draco's chest. "I don't see how you can get over something like that."

Draco snorted. "Practice."

Ron looked disgusted. "How could you, Harry?" he asked and Harry looked away from his eyes at once.

"Ron," he heard Hermione say warningly.

"How can you be so calm about this?" Seamus whirled around and turned on Hermione.

"Because I knew about it," Hermione said quietly, not meeting any of their eyes.

"You did?" Draco asked in surprise.

Hermione let out a sigh and rubbed her tired eyes. "When I took the potion," she said in a soft voice, "it was like watching television right inside my head. I skipped about six years and when everything cleared I was sitting on a park bench beside you, waiting for someone, who turned out to be--" She motioned towards Draco who was watching her with a pensive expression.

"You saw them?" Ron asked. "And you didn't tell me?"

"How could I?" Hermione replied, shrugging. "When I knew you'd react like this." She looked down at her hands. "At least it gave me a couple of weeks to come to terms with it, though."

Harry didn't know what to say, and by the troubled look on Draco's face, neither did he. Ron's face was a similar colour to his hair and he looked as though he was fighting back a torrent of expletives that could only begin to cover his distaste for this situation.

"We should get dressed," Draco said quickly, seeing Ron open his mouth. The redhead's face deepened in colour but he and Seamus were dragged away by Hermione and it was not until the trio had left the room that Harry and Draco heard the muffled but indignant explosion of noise. When it had died down and disappeared down the corridor, they looked at each other.

"Oh well." Draco shrugged. "They'll get over it."

Harry groaned and stood up, unbuttoning his pyjamas and picking up the shirt from the bed. Draco was watching him and as Harry took off his pyjama top, Draco stood fluidly and slid his arms around his waist, pressing their lips together and sending a prickle of excitement running up Harry's arms. The impromptu display of affection set Harry's heart beating quickly and he registered a mounting arousal as Draco nipped and kissed at his lips, twining their arms together before licking a path down his neck. Harry could feel all the muscles in the other boy's back shifting beneath his hands and with little disruption he divested him of his shirt and pushed him back against the wall, his own perfect, blond enigma.

It felt like a thousand years had passed but the same tingles of delight, same excited shivers were coursing through them. The same thousand years could pass in a moment and it wouldn't matter, because as Draco shifted forwards against Harry's growing hardness, the delicious heat that seared through Harry's body wiped every rational thought from his mind. Harry's hand slid over Draco's arm, running over his collarbones and then down his chest, feeling the skin beneath his fingertips run like silk over the framework of bones that made Draco who he was.

Without warning the curtains were flung briskly open and they looked up to see their Potions Master staring at them with the kind of expression that one reserves for surprises of the most horrifying kind.

"Bugger," Draco said succinctly.

"Quite."

*~*~*~*~*~*

The castle twinkled with the distracted flicker of candles as they drifted through the air, lending their insubstantial light to the constant, oracular gleam of the ghosts as they talked in hushed voice through transparent lips. The gothic windows rose towards the vaulted ceiling, the many panes of glass refracting the stars into twisted shapes and patterns that seemed to conform to the idea that every future written in the stars has the power to be changed by the smallest, most mundane things. Above everything else, Hogwarts was imbued with power.

The marble staircase was wide and imposing as it swept across the Entrance Hall and opened itself into the many branches that held the memories of thousands of feet treading the same daily paths. As Harry and Draco walked slowly up it, neither of them spoke. The delicate clink of the vials of Revitalizing potions that Snape had supplied them with issued from their pockets and their soft footsteps were all but obscured by the unthinking chatter of the adjacent Great Hall, where dinner was being served and the occupants were as raucous as ever. A sense of nostalgia, heady and thick, weighed down upon them with bittersweet tendrils invoking simultaneous feelings of both wistfulness and elation. Draco felt as though he was back in a world where everything was certain, where he had nothing to hide and he could relax. It felt like taking that first breath of air after being underwater for a very long time. They were home at last, but something had changed, some fundamental aspect of themselves and of their lives. Their futures would be different to as they had seen because their pasts would be changed, but how that would affect their present, neither of them could begin to guess. It was just one of a hundred paradoxes that was inextricably worked into their lives, and it would take a greater mind and inclination than theirs to decipher them clearly. As it was, they were content to be young again but with the knowledge they now possessed, the intimate knowledge of each other and of the search for true peace of mind. Whatever was in store for them would arrive without their knowing, and to fight it would only prove futile.

"You seem different." Hermione had been alone in the common room but for several timid first and second years when both of them had clambered through the portrait hole and sank in front of the fire. Draco had followed Harry without a word and neither of them had questioned the wisdom of this, having existed so closely together for so long, their companionship was natural and easy.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked, watching the embers glowing in the grate.

"I don't know," she said cautiously. Draco had noticed her warming towards him slightly as he had offered nothing but politeness but she still spoke warily, as if expecting a swift return of the bratty teenager she was so used to. "Older, I guess. Yes, you seem older, and changed."

"We've seen a lot," Draco said darkly as blurry memories of Bellatrix Lestrange came flooding into his mind. He could still feel the warm rush of blood as it flowed over his hands, and he shivered. It was peculiar. It seemed that the more vivid and profound an experience, the more it stuck in their minds until they had almost detailed snapshots of memory concealed deep in the tangled web of emotions.

"I don't doubt that," Hermione replied, watching Draco guardedly. "I'm just saying that you both seem different." She shrugged. "It's like you've lost some of your impulsiveness, Harry, or--" She struggled with the words. "You both seem more--jaded."

Draco let out a short laugh. "We had that before we left," he said and yawned. "Not that six weeks of sleep wasn't mightily refreshing but I could really do with a bit more. Bed would be where, Potter?"

Harry grinned at him and stood up, taking his hand.

Hermione blushed a deep red before she turned to them both. "Look, are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked.

Harry's brow furrowed. "Why do you ask?"

She looked doubtful. "I'm not sure how many people are going to react like Ron did," she sighed, "and everyone will want you to explain what your future was like and what happened to you."

"Can we just explain in the morning?" Harry asked and Hermione rolled her eyes,

"Fine," she said, holding her arms out to hug Harry. "Goodnight." He wrapped her in a brief embrace before Draco leaned over and pecked the top of her head.

"'Night, Granger," he said quietly. Hermione's face was a picture of astonishment as they made their way up the staircase. Draco glanced over his shoulder to see her staring at him open-mouthed, before he wound his arms around Harry and lost himself in the boy's warmth.

When they reached the dormitory Harry wondered fleetingly where Ron had gone but all thoughts were driven from his mind as Draco leaned into him and pressed a delicate kiss to the hollow where his throat met his shoulder. It was the lightest touch of a butterfly's wings but it awoke a primal craving that made Harry lift Draco's mouth to his and plunder it with his tongue. Draco drove them both backwards until they landed on the bed, where he slid up Harry's body until he was straddling him, pinning his arms above his head and sinking onto his lips again until they were kissing fiercely.

"Draco," Harry whispered through the breathless kiss, "there's something you should know."

"What?" Draco murmured back, biting Harry's lip gently and licking a path down his throat.

"This is Ron's bed." The kisses stopped abruptly and Draco jumped off the bed quickly, and shuddered.

"The Weasel's bed?" He looked disbelieving. "That is beyond wrong!" Harry got up too and pulled Draco through the crimson hangings of his own bed, where he muttered a silencing spell and made sure the curtains were tightly closed.

"No privacy here," he grumbled.

"Things are going to be different now, aren't they?" Draco said, looking around at the curtains, all that separated them from the rest of the dorm.

"More interesting," Harry said, shutting Draco up by pulling him down on top of him. The alignment between their bodies was different now. They were more equal in terms of breadth, and found tiny differences in the way in which they fitted together. Harry had fewer pale, white scars and Draco had lost a melancholy weight under which he had seemed to bow. They kissed softly for a few minutes in the darkness, their mouths finding each other and exchanging sensations without the need for words.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry awoke the next day to find one arm slung casually over his chest and a warm body monopolizing most of his bed. Draco was lying half sprawled across Harry, his chin resting lightly on his shoulder, their faces separated by the merest breath. Harry didn't know if he had ever fully appreciated Draco's lips before; they were a muted pink and as full as a girl's. He smiled slightly as he remembered what that warm mouth had been doing last night and pressed a gentle kiss to them to rouse Draco from sleep.

"Whayoudoin?" Draco murmured groggily, not bothering to open his eyes.

"What does it look like, ponce?" Harry said, grinning as he managed to make Draco's eyes fly open. He was rewarded with a savage bite to the lip, which wasn't altogether a bad way to start the morning. Draco stretched and coiled himself deeper into the tunnel of warmth inside the bed, curling against Harry's body so that the different hues of their skin blended seamlessly together. Harry worked his way through the barriers of pointed elbows and long arms that Draco had thrown over face until he found his lips again and gently brought him to wakefulness.

They spent long minutes kissing in the darkness of the bed, a lone island of privacy that was not subject to the rules and expectations of anything that might occur outside. Time moved by heartbeat. Their hands passed over each other's bodies, palms roughened by years of Quidditch exciting the skin they brushed until both were alive with the possibilities of each other.

"We should probably get up," Harry murmured a few minutes later. "I don't think we've got time for...you know."

Draco looked faintly disappointed, but nodded sleepily. "You go first," he said. "Come and get me when everyone's gone." He closed his eyes again and Harry couldn't resist kissing him messily on the forehead and eliciting a little 'mmf' noise from a mouth muffled by a pillow.

He had hoped that he would be the first awake but unfortunately he had forgotten the Silencing Spell. The first thing he heard when he stuck his head through the gap in the hangings was his name being called at a ridiculously high volume for so early in the morning.

"Harry!" It was Dean, standing with his wand in his hand and apparently trying to charm the wrinkles out of a pair of trousers. On seeing Harry he dropped both on the bed and gave his friend a brief hug. "Seamus said you were awake but that you were still down with Snape! Are you ok? How are you feeling?" Dean's excited face looked as out of place as Ron and Hermione had the evening before. Harry still kept trying to place his friends somewhere else, as though they didn't belong here, in his mind anyway.

"Good, thanks Dean," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Thought I'd skip dinner and come straight to bed, I didn't think I could deal with everyone's questions." Dean nodded amicably. "I'm fine, though."
"Everyone's been so worried!" he said, dragging Harry to sit next to him on his bed. "Dumbledore and Snape have been working for weeks on bringing you back! The Daily Prophet would have had a field day if they'd found out. Lucius Malfoy kicked up a stink, of course, but there was nothing anyone could do." Harry grinned as Dean prattled on, watching as his face lit up excitedly. He barely noticed when a door to his left slipped open and a familiar figure came into the dormitory from the bathroom.

"Harry." It was Ron, a stony expression on his face that was not quite quick enough to mask a flash of surprise at seeing Harry there. There was a definite coldness in his voice and he froze in the doorway, wariness etched into his stance, eyes narrowed.

"Ron," Harry said, his voice suddenly very hoarse. He didn't know what to say to make this any easier, a palpable awkwardness filling the space between them and making Dean at once uneasy.

"Er...is everything ok?" he asked, looking between the pair of them after neither of them spoke. Harry looked away from Ron's eyes, not quite wanting to meet them.

"What are you--" Ron began guardedly and then his eyes widened and he looked around at the room. "He's not here...is he?" he asked and Harry's heart sank. He was unable to resist glancing towards his bed where the innocuous crimson hangings concealed the person Ron most dreaded to see.

"Who?" Dean looked confused. "Guys? Who's not here?" he asked.

Harry stood up. "Look, Ron, I know this is hard for you, but--"

"Hard for me?" Ron repeated, the colour rising in his face again. "You have no idea what it's like! And to have to find out from that bloody photograph! You should have told me. Hermione should have told me." He looked more upset than anything but the curl of his lip and his refusal to come anywhere near Harry spoke volumes.

"Told you what?" Dean stood up too.

Harry felt instantly protective of Hermione. "Don't start on her, what was she supposed to say?"

"I've been tearing my hair out over you," Ron said, dragging a hand through his hair and making it stick up in all directions. "worrying if you were ever going to wake up or not, and as soon as you do, I find out this!" He looked angry and upset.

"What?!" Dean seemed more confused than ever.

"Tearing your hair out, Weasley? I'd have done a better job of it, there's still plenty of that hideous colour left." Harry's heart sank still further, settling to somewhere around his navel. Draco had wandered out of Harry's bed and stood before them, shirtless and stretching, the glints of bullion from the sunlight dancing over his skin. His face was devoid of its trademark smirk and he looked somehow every inch the archetypal, calculating Slytherin.

"What on earth is he doing here?" Dean asked. "Harry?"

"Fuck off, Malfoy," Ron spat venomously, "you pathetic Slytherin creep."

Draco looked highly entertained by this. "Temper temper, Weasley!" he exclaimed, leaning back against the poles of the four poster bed and folding his arms to his chest. Ron fixed Draco with a lingering look of loathing and whirled around to face Harry.

"Harry, how could you?" he exclaimed, clenching his fists. "How could you bring him here? You just don't give a damn about any of us, do you?" He looked so dismayed that Harry couldn't help feeling a twinge of regret, layered deeply beneath his own anger.

"Ron, that's not fair!" he cried, but Ron was already storming out of the dormitory, slamming the heavy door behind him emphatically. "Ron!"

Dean's voice was small and cautious and he kept shooting Draco suspicious looks. "Is someone going to explain what's going on?" he asked.

"I'm going back to bed," Draco announced to Harry, Dean and the newly awoken Seamus and Neville. "Joining me, Potter?"