Chapter Twelve

Look Before You Leap

I've forgiven myself for the mistakes I've made

Now there's just one thing, the only one I want to do

I want to feel the sun shine, shining down on me and you

I don't want to take this life for granted like I used to do

I want to love somebody, love somebody like you.

Harry got up at eight on Saturday to make sure all the preparations were in order, and to collect his hamper from the kitchens. Then he made his way to the Slytherin rooms, murmuring the password and trying not to make any noise until he reached Draco's door.

He knocked, and received absolutely no response from within, so he opened the door and went inside.

He felt a sudden qualm as he crossed the room to the thickly draped bed.

What if Draco... had company?

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He would have told Harry.

With more vigour than strictly necessary, Harry yanked the drapes of the bed apart.

Draco was alone.

Of course.

He was sleeping quietly, cheek pale against the pillow, and he didn't look innocent. Not innocent the way he could look, in that shining calculated way he had when he was awake and it seemed to be to his advantage. He looked faintly troubled, as if sleep was something he had to concentrate on and get right, and he looked - unprotected. His eyelashes were bright and silver and sharp against his skin.

Then his eyes screwed up against the light.

"Harry?" he said without opening his eyes.

Harry started. "How did you know it was me?"

A gleam of grey appeared between his lashes.

"Because I don't know anybody else who is suicidal and stupid enough to wake me at this hour on a Saturday," Draco said in a bad-tempered tone. Then he stretched, lazy as a cat, and his mood seemed to improve with the gesture.

The blanket slipped further down his chest.

"Well, what are you here for?" Draco inquired at last.

Harry shook his head, distracted.

"Come on, get up," he said. "Remember, I have a surprise for you."

Draco propped himself up on one elbow, shaking his head with amused disbelief. "What are you blathering on about, Potter?"

"I said it was a surprise," Harry told him firmly. "Come on, Draco. Move. You can sleep in tomorrow."

He used Draco's name deliberately. For some reason after Draco had called him Potter he felt the urge to prove that he still could.

"I want to sleep in now," moaned Draco. "Bring me my surprise after lunch."

"You have to come see the surprise," Harry said, his voice stern. "Right now."

"Oh, we are bossy now we're the Triwizard Tournament champion, aren't we?"

Draco was smiling. It was amazing what one would take from Draco, simply because he was Draco.

"Fine then," he continued, making a lordly dismissive gesture. "Get lost. I'll be out in a minute."

Harry looked dubious.

"Is this an attempt to get me out and go back to sleep?"

It was also amazing how Draco could look down his nose at people while remaining prone.

"No, Harry, you total git," he explained with extreme condescension. "It's because I'm not wearing anything."

Harry felt his face burn. Draco's pale chest looked an awful lot more exposed than it had a minute ago.

"Oh - I - Sorry."

Draco laughed. "It's all right. No need to look all flustered."

I'm not flustered!

All right, he was slightly flustered.

Harry got out of the room quickly, and then told himself he was being stupid. He had seen his Quidditch team-mates and dormitory mates get dressed all the time, for the love of... It was no big deal. He was being a prat.

Draco appeared to think nothing of it when he emerged, rubbing his eyes. Harry was amused to see that his hair was standing up and he was wearing robes over his clothes. He was clearly tired, and Harry, who could get up early with ease, found it bizarrely endearing.

"Oh, this surprise had better be worth it."

"It's past nine, you lazy object."

Draco shuddered. "I knew it was some ungodly hour of the morning."

"Come on, you're keeping your surprise waiting."

Draco had not yet expressed a single word of pleasure or gratitude, and did not appear to be about to start now.

"This had better be worth it," he muttered again.

Harry pretended to cuff him. "Brat," he responded, not without affection. "Come on."

*

Draco was still stumbling while they were going down the school steps.

"Why do we have to go to Hogsmeade the long way?" he demanded after a bit, shaking his head and trying to look more alert.

"Because Honeydukes opens at ten on Saturday, and breaking and entering is wrong," Harry explained. "I told you this, Draco."

"Wrong! Define wrong."

"The general definition is 'not right.'"

"That could just as easily mean left. Do we have an objection to doing things that are left?"

"Well, try 'not considerate.' The owners sleep above the shop. We could wake them."

"So what?" Draco asked with spirit. "If I'm awake, everyone should be awake. When I'm not happy, I like to spread it around with a big spoon. Did you never wake up wanting to just kick people?"

"Sometimes I have that urge, yeah," Harry said with a sidelong glance.

Draco made a face at him.

"Agh. You suck, Potter."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "'You suck, Potter'? You're off your game, Draco."

"Agh," Draco said, mordantly. "What have you got in the hamper, Harry? Is it part of the present?" He brightened. "Oooh, is it? Can I see? Can I have a tiny peek?"

Harry hit Draco with the hamper.

"It's part of the present, and you can't see it yet."

"That was my knee," Draco informed him darkly. "I could die."

"How could you die because I hit you in the knee with a hamper? Is this the same special kind of logic that means you're going to die because a Hippogriff cut your arm?"

"I could have died! I could have contracted an infection, you know," Draco said. "It looked very dirty to me. And that hamper could have had a splinter, which would give me blood poisoning, which would lead to my speedy and tragic demise, which would mean thousands of admirers weeping onto the casket containing my beautiful, pallid corpse and then stoning you."

Harry gave Draco a long look. Draco folded his arms and looked defensive.

"It could happen."

"I think I'll risk it," Harry said dryly, and tugged Draco's arm to make him come along.

He was a little too nervous to enjoy anything until he knew what Draco's reaction was going to be. So they walked on in the faint morning mist, which the sun was already beginning to warm and clear away, until they reached the tiny harbour where the ferry usually landed, and Draco saw the present.

He stared in horror and said, "You have to be joking."

The small rowboat lay rocking slightly on the lake, ripples marking the placid surface of the water. Harry leaned down and put the hamper into it.

"No," he said. "I'm not joking, Draco."

"I am not going to get into that thing."

"What - do you want to be afraid and avoid it forever?"

"Sounds like a good plan to me, yes! I'm not a Gryffindor. Being afraid of things doesn't bother me."

"Doesn't it?" Harry asked.

Draco scowled at him, then looked at the boat again and went pale. Harry saw him swallow.

"Harry," he said quietly. "I can't."

"Draco, you don't have to. But it's enchanted so no spell can affect it. It's perfectly safe."

Draco looked at the boat again, and then looked back up at Harry. He swallowed, in a tiny painful motion. "That must have taken ages."

"I asked Hermione to point me to some books that could help." Harry smiled faintly, and was pleased to see Draco smile back. "I didn't tell her what it was for."

"Naturally." Draco glanced back at the boat doubtfully. "No spell at all?"

"I swear. But - you don't have to get in, if you don't want to."

Draco looked at the boat again, and then Harry again. He was chewing his lip a little, but his eyes were wide and clear.

"I know," he replied, and climbed gingerly into the boat.

Harry got in, trying not to rock it. By that time Draco's look had turned suspicious.

"If spells don't affect it," he said, "how precisely are we going to make the boat move?"

"How do you think?" Harry picked up the oars. "The Muggle way, idiot."

Draco looked appalled.

"Manual labour? You're sick."

"Take an oar, Draco."

"Me?" Draco said, and looked immediately and carefully blank. "How are you supposed to wave it? What words do you say?"

Harry looked at him in disbelief.

Finally, he said, "You're rowing on the way back," picked up both the oars and began to row steadily away from the edge.

He saw Draco's fingers clench on the sides of the boat, but didn't mention it. Instead, he said, "How's the Creative Magic project going?"

"Dreadful!" Draco answered with prompt despair. "I can't choose. I mean, who could? There's music and art and sculpture and acting and for some reason I really like the idea of poetry."

"I never really thought of you as a poetry person."

"Oh, I'm not. But if I recite one, I get to wear this poet's shirt. I like the sleeves."

"I don't think you should really be considering the sleeves."

Draco shrugged. He had let go of one of the sides, but he still looked up eagerly when Harry reached the centre of the lake.

"Is that it? Can we go back now?"

"No, Draco," Harry said. "We're going to stay here for a while. Past lunchtime - that's why I got the house elves to make the hamper."

Draco looked outraged. "I won't do it and you can't make me!"

Harry smiled at him innocently. "Care to make a small wager on that?" he asked, and dropped the oars over the side.

Draco gave a keening cry of loss.

"I don't believe you did that! You said spells don't affect this boat, how are we going to get back? I'm not swimming back," he added flatly. "And I won't let you leave. So we'll starve, and you'll die first and I'll have to eat you, but that won't save me because, let's face it, your scrawny body wouldn't nourish a chipmunk, and then I will perish all alone."

"Draco. You trust me, right?"

"I suppose," Draco conceded grudgingly.

"We'll get back. Just relax."

Draco looked at the boat, then over at the water, and finally at Harry. He drew in a deep breath.

"All right."

"Good." Harry leaned back in the boat. "And I'm not scrawny," he added with belated indignation.

Draco cautiously began to lean on the other side.

"You are scrawny," he insisted, looking happier. "You have knobby wrists. What you should do is gain a lot of weight, and grow a moustache."

Harry blinked. "Why?"

Draco stretched, managing to look as if he was luxuriously reclining in a small boat which Harry could see he was scared of touching.

"Haven't I told you? It's my cunning plan," he said. "You know how you hate being famous and all that. What you do is, you create an alter ego. A normal wizard Joe, if you will. Who would ever suspect that this moustached fatty was the famous Harry Potter? You could wear sweater vests and call yourself Ignatius Trout."

"Ignatius Trout," Harry repeated flatly.

Draco smiled brightly. "I think it suits you. Besides, it's not like Harry Potter is a good name."

"I like my name!"

"Oh, no," Draco said dismissively. "It's a terrible name. Harry, for instance. To harry means to worry or harass, and to potter means to amble about. Think about the message you're sending out to the world! It sounds like you wander around harassing people."

"Well, now I see. Obviously, it should be your name."

"You merely speak out of sheer envy of my aristocratic name," Draco observed loftily. "Face it, Potter. Your wrists are knobby. And you have a terrible name."

The sun was coming out. Draco shrugged out of his robes, absently doing up the buttons on his shirt cuffs. He looked up as he did so, and his smile was small and gleaming.

"But I like you anyway," he added, and leaned back more comfortably.

*

Once Draco got to the point where he seemed to be happy and lounging easily, he naturally began complaining.

"Harrrrrrrrry."

"Yes, Draco?"

"Harrrrrrrrry."

"What is it, Draco?"

Harry had shut his eyes, enjoying the sunshine. When he opened them and looked over at Draco, Draco was peeping over the edge of the boat.

"I think the giant squid is under us," he announced darkly.

"And why does that upset you?" Harry asked indulgently, rolling his eyes and preparing for a scene.

Draco looked scandalised. "It likes to seize innocents in its tentacles."

"It saved Dennis Creevey from drowning. It's probably not evil."

"Oh, that's what they want you to think," Draco told them. "I think they were in cahoots. I have my suspicions of those Creeveys. Did you know the oldest one - er, Callum-"

"Colin."

"Whatever. He crept into the Slytherin locker room and took photographs and sold them! Does that sound evil to you or does it not?"

Harry frowned. "Actually, it sounds Slytherin."

"Oh, well. It turned out to be Blaise's idea." Draco flapped a hand. "Nevertheless, I think I've made my point. Evil."

"Sort of stupid, too," Harry mused. "I mean, no offence, but I can't imagine anyone paying much for a picture of Goyle."

"No more than a couple of Knuts, anyway."

Draco maintained a straight face for all of two seconds, and then broke up laughing.

"Draco, that was a terrible pun," Harry said, biting the inside of his cheek to stop his own laugh. "You should be ashamed."

"It had to be said," Draco defended himself stoutly. "It's not my fault."

"Oh, well. At least you cleared up the mystery of the pictures of you in a towel that were circulating around Gryffindor Tower last year."

Draco choked on air. Harry smiled innocently.

"You should definitely have been in Slytherin," Draco said with great conviction, and then suddenly looked interested. "Did you, ah, happen to hear what price they fetched?"

"Well, no," Harry said mildly. "I wasn't in the market."

Draco scowled at him. Harry actually recalled several of them had simply ended up on the table in the Gryffindor table until the twins had magically altered the towel to a pink one with hearts on it reading 'Malfoy and McGonagall forever.' He tactfully did not mention this, or the fact that he and Ron had laughed themselves sick.

After all, it would be much funnier if he could locate one of the pictures and then show Draco.

Draco was still scowling and muttering comments about people who thought they were sooo amusing when the boat lurched.

"Oh my God," Draco exclaimed, going pale green. "It's the squid. I told you, it's the squid."

"Draco, I promise you it's not evil."

"I don't care," Draco wailed. "It touches people with its tentacles." He peered anxiously over the side of the boat again. "I don't want it to touch me," he added wretchedly. "It's all slimy. Hit it with an oar."

"I threw them over the side, remember?"

Draco gave him a baleful look, and then folded his arms over his chest with the martyred air of a man who had resigned himself to a slimy fate.

"Brilliant, Ignatius Trout."

Harry couldn't stop himself from laughing this time. "You are even more insane in the mornings," he remarked. "And you're a little quirky at the best of times."

"Eat him first," Draco advised the squid loudly. "He's much crunchier."

"No, eat him," Harry counselled. "He's more evil. I hear evil's full of flavour."

"As a matter of fact, I'm very bland," Draco corrected hastily. "I'm evil milk pudding."

"Oh, shut up," Harry said, reaching over the side and splashing some water into Draco's face.

Draco spluttered briefly.

"That had slime in it!" he cried. "That was slimy squid water! You will pay for this, Potter."

Harry's glasses were suddenly liberally sprinkled with water. He saw Draco smirk through the droplets. Harry smiled. Draco's smirk faltered.

"Now we're even," he announced in a suddenly placating voice. "All right, Harry?"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Draco nodded, still looking apprehensive. "No, don't even think about it. My hair gets fluffy if it gets wet and is not properly dried."

Harry nodded solemnly. "I see."

"So you're not to splash me."

"If you say so." Harry grinned then, and splashed up a little wave directly onto Draco's head. "Fluffy."

Draco glared at him through a dripping fringe. Then he began to take off his clothes.

"Er?" Harry said interrogatively.

Draco emerged from his robes, water already falling onto the shoulders of his shirt.

"I am preparing to sunbathe," he explained with dignity. "I shall need a pillow in order to elevate my head so it will be properly dried, and also for the secondary purpose of comfort."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Draco tilted his chin and continued to look appropriately serious.

"Can I share your pillow?"

"Fine," Draco agreed ungraciously. "So long as you understand that my hair is not a laughing matter."

"Oh, I understand," Harry told him, laughing softly as he stretched out along the bottom of the boat.

Draco shaded his eyes with his hand to look up at him.

"That's twice in as many days that you have committed assault upon my hair," he sniffed, and kicked Harry sharply in the ankle. "Infidel."

"Honestly, I've heard of someone's body being their temple, but this is ridiculous," Harry muttered.

Draco sat up abruptly.

"That's it," he declared, and plunged his arm in the water up to the elbow. He removed it and then vigorously ruffled Harry's hair.

Harry put up no resistance, just raised himself up on his elbow and grinned at him, convinced there was very little Draco could do to adversely affect his hair.

Draco wiped his hand fastidiously on his jeans.

"I touched the squid," he informed him cheerfully. "You have slime in your hair. So there, Potter. Now we're even."

"Slime! That's disgusting. What are you, four years old?" Harry punched Draco's shoulder as Draco began to lie back down.

Draco looked most affronted, and punched back. "You deserved it," he retorted, pushing his wet hair behind his ear.

Harry pushed him and Draco fell on his back. He squinted up at Harry, eyes almost shut against the sun.

"After all this trouble," Harry mock-reproached him. "Ingrate."

"Never mess with the hair," Draco told him calmly. "And no more rough-housing in the boat; it will tip over and I will scream like a girl and then be forced to drown you to hide my shame."

There was a grain of real fear behind Draco's smile. Harry lay back down.

The sun was shining down and he could have slept, but then Draco jostled his shoulder.

"Harry. Hey, Harry."

"Yeah?"

Draco strained to see the sky. "What do you think that cloud looks like?" he asked, in what seemed to be the spirit of scientific inquiry. "I think it looks like a tortoise in a wig."

*

They lay there for a few hours in the sun, soaking it up and both dozing off at intervals. Every time Draco roused he seemed to have a new question, such as 'If you had to be an inanimate object, which would you be?' and 'Do you think house elves choose mates based on the size of their eyeballs?'

Draco thought they did, and he also decided that Harry should become Ginny Weasley's broomstick, for which Harry was forced to threaten to hit him.

Then Draco said, "And what's your greatest fear?"

Harry lifted his head from his arms, catching the curve of Draco's cheek in the corner of his eye, but most of his mind fixed on a stark and private nightmare.

"Not having the strength to kill Voldemort," he answered quietly.

Draco flinched from the sound of that name, glancing around at the calm water. "I was hoping you were going to say something amusing, like Hannah Abbott in her unmentionables," he complained, trying to keep his voice light.

"Come on, Draco."
Draco sighed and sat up, pulling his legs in against his chest, arms looped around his knees.

"I... fine," he said. "Losing them. Losing the Slytherins. The ones on our side."

Harry levered himself up on his elbows, looking worriedly up into Draco's face.

"Do you mean - them dying, or disappearing?"

"No." Draco bit his lip. "Well, that too. It's that - I'm not saying I made them all join the Young Order, but a lot of us have parents who are - have parents who have expectations of us, or are in places where we're scared, or... It was hard for everyone in Slytherin to make up their minds. And after my father - died, I came back, and I had a - mission, I suppose, and I knew that some of them looked up to me and I took advantage of that and I don't regret it and I don't give up. So I got what I wanted, and I usually do, but all I wanted was revenge and I had to take responsibility too. And now... I'm scared for them, and I have to keep them, and..."

Harry looked at Draco, really and utterly serious for once, with his face pale and intent, profile strained against the calm water.

Draco glanced over and then down, took a deep breath, smiled faintly because they understood each other and tried again.

"It's just... it took so much work," he said. "Not that many of us were hopping up and down panting for branded forearms, but there seemed so little choice and there seemed so little to fight for - we aren't his targets and we don't care much about Muggle-lovers or the Muggleborn. I couldn't count on any blind loyalty to Dumbledore or bright shining ideals. We're not like that." He paused, glanced down at his own hands linked around his knee. "I've worked too hard for them to let them go now."

"Are you saying there's really a chance they could-?"

"I'm saying I don't know!" Draco snapped. "We're not like the rest of you. Some of us are throwing away our families for this. Most of us like Lupin, but it's hard for us to rely on someone who's not our own. I don't like Dumbledore and I won't let him tell me what to do. And now Snape's gone and everyone resents these accusations and it's hard, and I don't know what to do!"

Harry didn't even know what to say. He was sitting there gaping at Draco.

He remembered now, Lupin saying that Professor Snape was away, attempting to gather information that would help explain the recent attack.

Snape had left at the end of March. And this was May. And Harry'd been so used to his absences, so preoccupied with - the Tournament, the war, the worries, Draco - that he hadn't noticed.

And he'd wondered why Draco looked tired so often!

He looked over at Draco's bowed head, almost in appeal.

"Draco. You've been trying to carry all this on your own."

Draco didn't look up. "Slytherins don't need any help."

"You stupid prat." Harry stopped then, and said, less vehemently: "Are you - are you worried about him?"

Draco did look up then, his eyes wide as if he'd received an unexpected blow. "Yes," he said harshly. "We know exactly the risks he's taking. And he's the only adult here we can trust - and who has any kind of belief in us."

Being Draco, he didn't add, And I care about him.

"You can trust Lupin," Harry said. "You can trust Dumbledore."

"Yeah?" Draco snarled. "You want me to ask people who have been brought up to distrust anyone outside of a certain social circle to put their faith in a werewolf? It's hard enough for me to tell myself that. And you want me to trust Dumbledore, who arbitrarily decides to take the House Cup from Slytherin every few years? I don't. He was never my mentor figure. He isn't my leader, and I don't trust him."

"Look, Gryffindor won the House Cup fairly-"

"I'm not accusing you," Draco answered. "I'm telling you how we see it. He never explained anything to us. We don't trust easily, and he never even tried. Do you know what happened when Crouch Transfigured me and then hurled me against stone? Snape told him that if he touched one of his students again, he'd kill him. And Dumbledore hired the maniac. I know which one I trust."

Harry looked at the angry, stubborn look on Draco's face, and thought about the way he told the little story. He recalled a boy in Potions class once telling Snape he was the best teacher in the school.

"Snape will come back," he said softly. Draco looked down at his knees again. "With all this focused loyalty," Harry added carelessly, "maybe you should have been a Hufflepuff."

Draco looked up with his eyes flashing, and a trace of relief behind the flash.

"Take that back, or I brain you with the hamper."

He went rummaging around the bottom of the boat for it, but looked up again when Harry touched his arm.

"You can trust them," he said. "Lupin and Dumbledore. Really."

"Why should I believe you, Potter?" Draco inquired disdainfully. "You trust everyone. You even trust me. Is there anyone in the school I can have a nice healthy lack of faith in?"

The set of his shoulders was a little too strained, and Harry offered him a reassuring smile.

"Filch," he suggested. "Filch and his really evil cat. You can distrust them all you like."

"I like cats," Draco objected, relaxing. "They're so magnificently selfish. I empathise with cats."

"Nah," Harry said. "I like dogs. I always wanted a puppy, when I was little." He brightened, thinking of something. "And I'm going to get one, when we leave school."

Draco threw his head back and it hit the side of the boat. He didn't seem unduly disturbed by this, just kept his eyes on the sky.

"Oh, yes. Next year," he said. "We've never talked about that, have we? What are you going to do?"

What are you going to do?

He spoke as if Harry's future was going to be utterly unconnected with his, and they never had talked about it before, but what if he, Draco Malfoy, had his all planned out and it just wasn't going to have room?

The sun was out, but Harry felt a little cold. He looked over at Draco and could only see his throat, and he tried to form a casual sentence.

"Am I still going to have you?" he blurted out instead, and he would at that moment have given up all the Quidditch skills if he could have learned to be less disastrously awkward with words. "Um, I mean..."

Draco looked over at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Not as a pet, Potter," he informed him. "I'm going to be staying home. Staying at home with mother does sound like it will cramp my style, but we have thirty bedrooms, so then again possibly not. Besides - some Slytherins are going to need a place to stay. My house will work for that."

His mouth lifted up at the corner.

"You could come stay too," he offered easily. "Now and then. Father had several Quidditch pitches built on the grounds. Are you jealous?"

Harry beamed freely back.

"Yeah, very." He paused. "I'm taking a job with the Aurors," he told him. "I've already bought a flat in a magical part of London."

Remembering that, flat viewing with Sirius last summer, still gave him a jolt of pleasure in his chest. Sirius had offered him a home once, and he had dreamed of nothing but that, a real home and freedom from the Dursleys, but now he was grown up and his earliest childhood dreams had come true. He was able to just buy himself a place and walk out of Privet Drive forever.

A home. Harry had bought it and then asked Sirius to go away for a bit and he had just sat there. No rules, no relatives, permanence and security, a glimpse at some future after this war. He was going to choose furniture and buy a dog, and...

"You should come and stay there sometimes, too," he said.

"Great," Draco said in a pleased tone. "A bachelor pad in town. Fun." He frowned. "Unless Weasley's going to live there too, in which case I shall refuse your kind invitation on the grounds that he would inhospitably smother me in my sleep."

"Ron's staying home," Harry told him. "I think - and don't tell anybody - he wants to save some money and get up the nerve to ask Hermione to live with him in a couple more years."

He was expecting a nasty remark about the golden couple, but he unexpectedly got a golden smile instead.

"Wonderful," Draco said, sunnily. "May I help decorate the spare bedroom?"

"You're going to decorate it in something that will clash with red hair, aren't you?"

"Would I?"

"Ron won't care, you know."

Draco looked vexed.

"You can help me pick out the dog," Harry offered generously.

"I don't want to. I want to help you pick out a cat."

"Draco, if you want a cat you can get one yourself. I'm having a puppy, because I wanted one so badly and the Dursleys always said it'd be-"

"I can't have a cat," Draco sulked. "There's antique furniture in my house. Father always told me a cat would be-"

"Too messy," Harry finished for both of them, and flashed him another smile.

Draco looked thoughtful, curling up at the bottom of the boat like a pensive child. The wind was rising just a little and his hair was lifted slightly off his neck.

"How was it, with the Dursleys?" he asked. "I mean, I've heard the rumours, and I know you never went home for Christmas. But - how bad was it?"

Harry looked at him. Draco looked back, half curiosity, half concern.

God, life was strange. To think that one day he would tell the story of his wretched childhood to Draco Malfoy, of all people.

He took a deep breath, and told him some things. The cupboard. The room with bars on his window and the days with pathetic amounts of food.

When he told Draco that, Draco reached over and took his wrist, fingers pressing painfully against it. He only told him a few things about life with the Dursleys, hesitating as he did so. It was all over now. It didn't matter anymore.

Once he was done, he glanced up at Draco. Draco had that alarmingly determined look he wore before Quidditch games.

"That's nice, Harry," he commented in eerily airy tones. "Now, this is what we are going to do. We're going to leave school with our pretty new licenses and we are going to turn those people into beetles. To give them a new life experience, you see, and then tragically we are going to accidentally crush them with a rolling pin, over and over again."

"Draco, I do not want to crush my relatives with a rolling pin." Harry reflected. The idea did have a certain appeal. "Well, anyway, I'm not going to."

Draco's eyes still had that disturbingly fanatical look.

"No jury in the world would convict us," he argued. "You're famous and I'm rich. We're young and reckless. We have to commit crimes and get away with it. It is our public duty."

The idea of Draco even being in the same room as the Dursleys was very odd. They were so dingy and petty, and he would seem so completely out of place in Privet Drive, all fancy cloak and flashing-pale hair and oozing magical aristocracy from every pore.

It was an incongruous image, superimposing Draco onto his old life. He was too animated, too bright for that, and Harry had left all that stifling drabness behind. He had taken everything from his room, and he had known as he had left that he was leaving forever, and so had they, and there had been nothing but relief and that continuous grinding hatred on both sides.

It really did not matter anymore.

Though he would have liked to see Draco's face, just once, if Aunt Petunia ever told him to cook the bacon for Dudley.

He would have wanted to leave before the explosion.

"All right, so you don't want to kill them," Draco said eagerly. "What we do is this. We give them false memories and convince them that they are all go-go dancers-"

"Draco." Harry laughed. "Stop. Really."

Draco did, eyes searching Harry's face again.

"No good can come of go-go dancers," Harry informed him solemnly.

Draco nodded, and dropped Harry's wrist.

"I'm sorry, Harry." He looked up to catch Harry's glance of surprise, and continued. "Your wrists aren't that bad. You don't really have to worry."

"Thank you, Draco. That was tearing me apart."

Draco lifted his chin. "I'm sure it was. Not all of us have the assurance of beautiful bones bred in their blood."

"Sorry," Harry said, "did you say bred in, or inbred? Because I've heard some stories about the old pureblood families-"

"Shut up."

"Were your parents related, Draco?" Harry asked in a hushed voice. "Because you can tell me if they were. It's not your fault - and it would actually explain a lot."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Draco's face was flushed with indignation, the wind from the lake tousling his hair despite all his best efforts to keep it in order, locks whipping around his fingers as he pushed it back. Harry remembered the first time they had walked around the lake, and thought how different, how strange, and how could I ever have guessed, and smiled up into his face.

His voice was soft, and solicitous. "Were they cousins, Draco?" he inquired.

Draco smacked his head. "They were linked only by the sacred bond of matrimony, I'll have you know," he said sternly. "And they looked nothing alike, aside from both being blond and devastating. I don't even look much like my mother."

"Aside from being blond and devastating, you mean," put in Harry, who knew this Malfoy.

Draco flashed him a dazzling smile. "But of course." He tossed back his hair superbly, and then looked almost pensive. "People say," he began almost tentatively, which was an odd tone for Draco to use.

"Yes?" asked Harry.

Draco paused for a few moments longer.

"That I look just like my father," he finished abruptly at last, and then looked up and spoke with an eagerness he was clearly trying to hide. "You saw my father, didn't you? Once in a bookstore, and once at the World Cup. Did you - think I looked like him?"

He is looking just like his father.

And the first time Harry had ever seen Lucius Malfoy, he had known he could only be Draco's father.

So like him, the Malfoy eyes and the Malfoy hair and the Malfoy face, the Malfoy heir created in Lucius Malfoy's image and designed to follow Lucius Malfoy's path.

Except that Lucius Malfoy was gone, and the hair and the eyes and the face and the destiny belonged only to Draco, and Harry had never been so vindictively thankful for someone's death.

Harry wanted to say No. He wanted to say again, nothing like him, and have Draco believe it, and believe that it was good.

But there was that look on Draco's face, that ill-suppressed hunger, that fixed burning need for love you never had and could never have. Harry knew it because he had seen it in the mirror, and though Draco told himself and everybody else lies about being a spoiled child, Harry couldn't fail to notice desperation he knew from the inside out any more than he could believe his own lies about it not mattering now.

He reached out, tilting Draco's chin up. Draco submitted entirely to this, clearly presuming that it was for better examination of his features in order to compare them with paternal ones.

It wasn't about that. It was about...

That hair and those eyes and that face.

"I think you look better," said Harry.

Draco raised an eyebrow and leaned back, leaving Harry's hand hanging in space for an instant. "That would come in useful for the campaign posters, wouldn't it?" he remarked.

"Sorry?"

Draco leaned forward again, elbows on his knees. "My father always wanted me to go into politics," he said, "but I don't know. I'm not sure I'm interested, but then I'm not sure what I am interested in. Maybe something in Creative Magic, or maybe - I've always wondered about the Unspeakables."

"You'll work it out," Harry told him.

"I'll have plenty of time," Draco agreed coolly. "It's not like I can do anything until the war is over. I've got things to do, people to organise, and who knows what could happen."

Meaning that Voldemort could win, or Draco could die, but with Draco being too much of a defiant brat to admit either possibility.

Harry wouldn't allow either of them to happen.

"You'll work it out," he said again, more firmly.

Draco smirked. "Your faith touches me," was all he said. "Maybe I will be a gentleman of leisure, reclining on silk pillows with dozens of dancing girls and chocolates to hand."

"Sounds good to me," Harry answered. "You did say I was invited over. I like white chocolate."

Draco passed a hand over his brow, looking suddenly and very dramatically faint.

"Typical of your heartlessness to harp on about food when I am perishing of malnourishment," he said reproachfully. "Not that I blame you, Harry, for bringing me out here to starve to death. Don't let my early death prey on your mind for a moment, I'd hate to think that my tragic passing upset you."

"It's half past one. I don't think you're going to die just yet."

"Even though you will be directly responsible for my death, don't let the burning guilt consume you. I forgive you, Harry, I really do, in spite of the torturous hunger gnawing at my very vitals."

Draco looked martyred. Harry sighed in resignation.

"You can look in the hamper if you like, Draco."

"Yay," said Draco, seizing it and beginning to rummage through its contents. "Hmm, hmmm, hmm, sandwiches, cheese and ham and you have no imagination, do you, hmm, hmm, hmm, what's in this flask?"

"Pumpkin juice," Harry said.

"And the other one?"

"Well, coffee."

Draco beamed.

"Coffee," he noted with great pleasure. "Oooh, and - weeds. Weeds, Potter. I'm not eating weeds, I don't care how good they are for the complexion."

"It's Gillyweed," Harry explained. "In case the boat tips over."

"In case the boat tips over?" Draco looked scandalised. "How unsafe is this vessel? Why didn't you share your doubts on its seaworthiness earlier? Are we going to spring a leak?"

"Maybe in your brain," Harry theorised, and looked down. "Like I was going to take chances with you. Idiot."

Draco sounded slightly mollified. "Oh."

Then he recommenced rummaging through the hamper.

"Hmm, biscuits, hmm, oh!" He glanced up, startled. "Blood-flavoured lollipops. You remembered."

Harry shrugged and nodded uncomfortably, and then looked back to see if Draco was pleased.

"Assortment of sweets, hmm, hmm, mmm, and a spoon, all right, and - a jar of marmalade, and - a packet of icing sugar." Draco looked up again, letting his hair fly any which way for once, and his glance was almost helpless. "Oh, Harry."

"Well, I wanted it to be the weirdest picnic ever," Harry excused himself.

"Best. Day. Ever," Draco said with conviction. "Harry, we have to do one for you next. Maybe I will hire dancing girls. What do you want?"

Harry started taking out the boring things that Draco had ignored, like plates, and laying them out.

"I like being with you," he answered matter-of-factly. "Pour me some pumpkin juice."

"Consider dancing girls," Draco suggested, getting the flask. "I think you'll find the idea preying on your mind. Or at least twisting around a pole in a rather predatory fashion."

"We'll see," Harry agreed placidly.

He looked over at Draco, who was concentrating on Harry's cup, face intent as the boat rocked slightly, bottom lip sucked in just a tiny bit.

"We should order dancing girls when you move into your flat," Draco decided brightly, straightening up. "I've never actually ordered dancing girls before. It would be the best housewarming ever."

Harry winced. "My godfather and Professor Lupin are coming to my housewarming. Don't make me think these things."

"You know, they're really pretty old," Draco remarked. "I'm sure they know about-"

"No, Draco. Don't even suggest it; don't even say the word in connection with my role models. Stop it, how would you like it if I did it?"

"Weeeell, I think I can argue for reasonable doubt with Professor Snape," Draco pointed out, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean, he's so moody, and he has that terrible hair. Then again, he is a Slytherin..."

"What, are - like, flings a Slytherin ritual?"

Draco paused and tilted his head, the sun reflecting off his hair and making him look impossibly innocent.

"Yes, Harry, that's it. It's a ritual. When all Slytherins are twelve, they are forcibly deflowered on an altar stained with the blood of lambs, while dressed in rubber, by an elderly relative. Don't say a word. Do I disrespect your house traditions?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks for that image, Draco. I didn't mean it that way."

Draco sniffed. "I'll have you know that we hold purity in great esteem. Not one of us ever says a word to Crabbe on the subject of his personal virtue."

Harry had to look away and have a moment of reflection before that terrible mental image could be assimilated. The lake was darker blue under a slightly darker sky, melding with the hazy dark-greens and greys of the land beyond.

"Are you saying that-" He stopped, and swallowed. "So, like, Goyle has?"

"Oh, yes." Draco nodded calmly. "With Millicent Bulstrode."

"Urgh, stop. Are you sure?"

"I'm very sure. He woke me from the sound sleep of the just and mildly intoxicated in order to check on a certain vital spell."

"Oh, ugh, my God. What did you say?"

Draco's smile was impish. "As I recall, 'Go get her, tiger.'" He smirked at Harry's look of speechless horror. "I'm a good friend," he defended himself stoutly. "Part of the bargain is to be supportive of your friend's learning experiences."

"Blech," Harry said succinctly. "I never even knew they were seeing each other."

Draco squinted at Harry as if trying to decipher hieroglyphics.

"I don't think they were," he answered slowly. "They were just experimenting. It didn't have much to do with emotions."

"Oh, repulsive," Harry said.

"Thank you very much," Draco returned absently, opening the icing sugar.

"Draco, I didn't mean - You never actually told me how, er, many-"

Draco raised an eyebrow inquiringly. Harry gave up and punched his shoulder.

"Come on."

He relented. "All right, then. Five. Two relationships, two flings and one friend who things happened with a few times."

"Only five?"

Draco looked insulted. "I happen to think that's pretty good for eighteen, Potter," he informed him. "What kind of thing do you people think goes on in the Slytherin dungeons, anyway? There's no whips and leather. In fact, some evenings we do crosswords."

"Right, sorry," Harry said. "Don't look at me. I'm not an expert on this subject."

"Yeah, I know." Draco looked deep in thought. "Harry, would you - would you mind if I-?"

"What?"

"Would it be completely disgusting if I put the icing sugar and marmalade into a sandwich?"

"Yes," Harry said, very definitely. "Yes it would. Don't you dare do it while I'm eating."

"Oh, fine," said Draco sulkily, licking the marmalade off one finger. It was probably the effect of how pale he was that made the inside of his mouth look such a dark red.

Harry realised that Draco had just asked him a question.

"Sorry, what?"

"I guess it upsets you because you're waiting for some great big feeling?"

Harry was uncomfortable enough about this conversation not to want to meet Draco's eyes. He looked at the inseam on Draco's T-shirt instead.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't really thought about it that much."

That was true. There was always so much else happening, and nothing had been terribly immediate. The issue was a vague promise of comfort and enjoyment in the future, but had always seemed basically disquieting.

"Budge over, I want to stretch out," Draco said imperiously.

Harry obligingly shifted to one side. Draco stood up carefully, still clutching his bag of icing sugar, and stepped over the plates. Then he settled comfortably by Harry's side and continued.

"Bet you are, though," he said. "I know you, with all your ludicrous ideals. You know things aren't black and white, but you want them to be."

"And why is that so ludicrous?" Harry asked, nettled.

Draco leaned back on his elbows.

"Nothing's absolute," he said lazily, stretching out. "It can't be. There's no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute perfection, or absolute feeling. I can't feel absolute faith in someone, and Weasley can't feel absolute affection for Granger, and - my father couldn't feel absolute love for me."

That Draco should gauge the emotions of the world by the experience he had of a cold-blooded murderer.

"You're contradicting yourself," he told him in a soft voice. "You told me once about how you live, remember? About living with fury. If that's how you exist - if you have to live with passion - then what is that but absolute?"

Draco lifted himself up on one hand, hair soft from the breeze still ruffling the lake.

"Murderous paradox, isn't it?" he asked.

He looked almost pleased by it, by inventing an impossible world around himself. Harry didn't see why he should seem so complacent about what seemed like painful uncertainty about everything.

He could have done with, and believed in, a few more promises of absolute. He wanted an answer for everything so much.

He reached out, and touched Draco's shoulder.

"I completely want to be your friend," he said.

Making a promise of absolute himself was the best he could do.

"Now can we please talk about something else?" he asked ruefully. "I could see that wanting-to-set-me-up glint in your eye from a mile off."

"I was just considering the merits of Lavender Brown," Draco said hopefully. "We've been overlooking her, you know. She's a charming girl."

"Draco, I have warned you."

Draco's lip quirked.

"Oooh, Harry, I fear your wrath. Whatever shall become of me?"

Harry hit him over the head with a napkin. "Shut up."
"Don't hurt me," Draco squeaked. "The might of the great and merciless Harry Potter is known to all. I quail before your titanic power. I should fear I was doomed, did I not possess a secret weapon-"

Draco moved in a fraction, and reached out a hand to Harry's face.

His fingers opened, and he tried very hard to force a Nose-Biting Teacup onto Harry's nose. Harry only just caught his wrist in time, and then yelled and pushed him off. Draco landed on his back, the hand with the Teacup in it curled on his chest and a fiendish smile still playing around his lips.

"You carry around tricks in your pockets," Harry said. "You really do behave like a four-year old."

"Nearly got you," Draco said smugly.

"That's not the point."

"A-ha! You admit it!"

Harry shook his head and mumbled, "Four," again. A drop of rain fell on his hand and he saw Draco's eyes focus on it in utter dismay.

"Oh no," he declared. "It's going to rain."

Harry shrugged. "So we'll get a little wet."

Draco's face crumpled. "My hair," he said in a small, piteous voice. "It's going to be ruined. Ruined, I tell you!"

Harry looked up at the sky. The clouds did look dark grey, and somewhat ominous. Raindrops were hitting him with ever-increasing regularity.

"We could go back," he offered reluctantly.

Draco dived for something at the other end of the boat. "Nah," he said. "I have a plan. Under the robe!"

At that point, he flung his own discarded robe over his and Harry's head.

"Wonderful plan, Draco," Harry remarked in a muffled voice, trying to move further under the cloak. "I can't see a thing. Oooh, Slytherins are truly cunning folk."

"Quiet, you," commanded Draco, scrambling in order to make sure his hair was covered.

Harry felt Draco's wrist brush his knee.

"Draco."

"Yes?" Draco said in a voice of perfect innocence.

"You're thinking of dropping the Nose-Biting Teacup in my lap. Aren't you."

There was a pause.

"... maybe," Draco admitted, sounding vexed.

Harry laughed and grabbed Draco's wrists. "Stop thinking it."

Clearly the wrath of Harry Potter was upsetting Draco less than the rain. They could both feel it falling thicker onto the cloak.

"Eeep," said Draco, moving in even more, and then laughed. His hair was tickling Harry's ear, and as he spoke Harry could feel the brush of his nose against Harry's cheek and the warmer and slightly different tickle of breath. "It would have been funny," Draco assured him. "It was hilarious when I dropped one into Longbottom's lap. He screamed."

It took Harry a moment to process this.

"When you what?"

"It was ages ago," Draco said hastily. "And now I come to think of it, it wasn't me. It was Crabbe or Goyle or someone, I probably didn't even give the order, and maybe it wasn't even Longbottom, it could have been anyone, and I might not even have been there, and anyway it was very funny."

Harry blinked in the darkness under the robe, a tiny lock of Draco's hair brushing Harry's neck.

"You're not only four, you're a nasty four-year-old," he said, moving slightly to escape the stray lock.

He felt the warm explosion of breath on his skin when Draco laughed.

"All right, it was last week."

"I'm rolling my eyes at you, Draco. Just so you know. Don't do anything like that again."

"Where did this rain come from?" Draco asked irritably.

"Um, probably the sky. Promise me."

"Fine, I promise never to sic teacups on Longbottom again. You're no fun, Potter."

"You're a vicious little ferret sometimes, Malfoy."

Draco squawked, which was a terrible noise when someone's mouth was so close that when he started in outrage, his lips brushed a spot under your ear.

"You said the 'F' word! All my friends have to promise never to say the 'F' word!"

Harry breathed deeply, because it was stifling under that robe, and then whispered, "Ferret ferret ferret," in Draco's ear.

It took him a minute to realise the tiny thrumming sound by his cheek was Draco trying to suppress a laugh.

"I don't need this," Draco informed him dolefully, and managing only to snicker once. "It's pouring, and it's going to last forever, and the rain is already seeping into my hair."

"Well, I'm all right here," Harry said. "Anyway, after the downpour there might be a rainbow."

Draco considered. "Well. Do you have the coffee flask?"

*

There was a faint rainbow, dim as if Dean had painted a picture and now the colours were running and fading into the deep wet blue. The dream-pale colours dissipated in the bright sunlight almost immediately.

Draco and Harry lay on the bottom of the boat, soaking up the last of that sunlight.

"I have never seen anyone eat that much chocolate," Harry remarked lazily, as Draco levered himself up once more for another Chocolate Frog.

Draco turned to face him, looking offended. "I need it for energy," he explained severely.

Harry smiled and shut his eyes. "Sure you do."

"Harry, you may be one of my best friends and all that, but if you insinuate that I am fat I will hit you with the picnic hamper. And there'll be no commentary on the choice of weapon from you, either."

"Who's insinuating anything?" Harry asked lazily, poking Draco in the stomach.

Draco kicked him and squirmed away, raising himself on his elbows in order to glare at Harry and give a speculative look to the Nose-Biting Teacup, which he had balanced precariously, and with a certain admirable amount of nerve, on his belt buckle.

Harry gave the Teacup an apprehensive glance. Then he sat up, reached for the Chocolate Frogs and, snatching it on his way past, flung it into the lake.

"Hey!" Draco sat up fast and glared. "You polluted. I'm telling Professor McGonagall on you."

Harry lay back and shut his eyes. "Okay."

"Oooh, Harry Potter, you're such a rebel." Draco said in a sing-song voice, eerily reminiscent of Colin Creevey. "You're bad to the bone. Luring away innocents from their honest day's work..."

"What exactly were you planning to do?"

Harry opened his eyes to see Draco lift his chin. "I had something very important to do. I was going to get my hair cut."

"I'm so sorry to have ruined your vital plans," Harry said solemnly. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"I expect so. Because, well, kind of worth it." Draco took another contented bite and beamed, waving the Frog in illustration. "Chocolate," he pointed out.

Harry nodded, feeling drowsy and content. The sun was slightly lower on the horizon, all yellow warmth and so close, and Draco was here on the water and not frightened. Everything was painted in bright simple colours and everything, for a few minutes, could be all right.

Draco looked like he was trying to fall asleep and eat chocolate at the same time, eyes hooded, clothes just slightly out of place so that his T-shirt rose to show a fraction of an inch of skin. He smiled lazily around the chocolate when he caught Harry's eye.

"Kind of worth it," he repeated, and then, "What?"

There was a smudge of chocolate at the edge of Draco's mouth.

"Um, nothing," said Harry, reaching over and brushing it off with the side of his hand. "You just had a little - something-"

"Right, thanks." Draco lay back, looking boneless in his relaxation, one hand curled behind his head. "Hmm. The sun will be going down soon."

"Yeah, we should... get back."

"Hmmm. In a few minutes."

A few more minutes, and in them the sun was growing dimmer, and it was getting just a little colder. Draco's breathing was soft and regular, and when he spoke again his voice was like liquid, happy and completely without strain.

"Harry, how are we going to get back without the oars?"

Harry sat up, felt around in the pocket of his jacket and took out his wand.

"Accio oars," he said, and grinned as they came flying. "Honestly, Draco. Try to remember you're a wizard."

Draco looked at the wet oars for a speechless moment, and then made a horrible face at Harry. Harry laughed and tossed him one of the oars and Draco concentrated on making an even more horrible face.

"I'm such a slave," he muttered in martyred fashion. "I could get calluses."

"They're manly," Harry told him, and smiled as Draco made a third horrible and indignant face just before pulling his robe back on.

"I happen to be exceedingly manly already, I'll have you know," he said in muffled tones.

The sound of the oars in the water was slow and steady, Draco glancing over at Harry to see how to do it, their oars falling almost in sync. Harry only felt mild regret once the boat hit the shore, bumping against it slightly, and Draco picked up the hamper and flung it on the shore.

"I think you probably smashed the plates."

"Live dangerously," Draco suggested brightly, standing up and leaping out of the boat.

Which, since Harry had just started to get up, resulted in the boat almost capsizing.

Harry gave him a Look and Draco laughed helplessly, once, and then reached out his hand.

"I'm sorry, come on," he said, and Harry took his hand even though the boat was still shaking and Draco pulled him out too fast, so he gasped and almost stumbled, and Draco laughed again with the breathless glee of this whole day, and dropped Harry's hand while Harry was still unsteady. The light of the sinking sun was gold in his windblown hair and Harry was - was happy, and laughing too, and still caught in that moment where he was about to fall.

He leaned forward and grabbed the front of Draco's robes, almost to keep his balance, and just as they both stopped laughing he kissed him on the mouth.

Harry shut his eyes, the outline of the sun around Draco's hair vivid on the darkness behind his eyelids. There was an instant where his mind was empty of all thought and Draco's lips were so soft.

Then his eyes blinked open, and he started back and looked at Draco.

Draco's face was cold and hard, and the sun was gone.

"So that's what all this was about," he said, his voice absolutely furious, and then he turned and stalked away.

Harry was left standing by the lake, staring after him in horror.

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