Underwater Light

Someone to need you too much
Someone to know you too well
Someone to pull you up short
And put you through hell

"All right, Young Council, to order. There was an amazing spate of new plans last week," Lupin said, with an unreadable look around.

Harry was suddenly certain that Professor Lupin was about to mention conspiratorial meetings in the dungeons, and give out a thousand years of detention.

"We've got the lists up in every common room," Hermione informed him, beaming. "We haven't had a disappearance since we set them up."

He had had them all up all night sorting through Restricted Section books they had procured using the Invisibility Cloak and Silencing spells, and Hermione had had a shouting match with him over the ethics of testing them out on animals. He had then suggested Hufflepuff first-years.

Draco straightened from his slouch and gave him a winningly innocent look. Lupin raised his eyebrows and returned to his papers.

"Ah," said Harry, and grinned. "You'll like this, Professor. We've got the ghosts of each house to agree to be guards. They stand on watch in the common room every night, and if they see someone who shouldn't be there, or a student reports multiple disappearances, then they go through the walls shrieking and alerting everyone. They say they can make themselves heard throughout the castle, and once we hear it we go into our common rooms and take the roll. Then we all assemble in the Great Hall."

He was proud of that one. He remembered Peeves giving the alarm on certain other unfortunate occasions. In which of course Harry had been an unfortunate victim of circumstances, and the alarm had been completely unwarranted and unfair.

"Ingenious," Lupin murmured. "Also explains why I found the Fat Friar shouting into a vase. I was quite worried about that, I have no idea what we'd do with a ghost having nervous breakdowns."

"Miss Granger, I hear that all the first years are living in terror of your organisational skills. Mr Malfoy, there's a distressing rumour that a toad in your possession somehow turned into a roast chicken. Mr Potter, the fact that I thought that my bedroom was haunted by a banshee is probably down to your guards practising in my corridor. The meeting is concluded," Lupin said. "I couldn't be prouder of any of you."

Hannah Abbott was blushing with pleasure. Hermione's eyes were shining. Draco caught Harry's eye and grinned.

"You can all go. Except you, Harry, I need a word," Lupin told him in an undertone.

Harry waited as the others filed out. Lupin leaned forward, suddenly more casual and familiar, and as he did so Harry realised he was looking even more frayed than his robes. Four years ago, his hair had been greying, and now it was silver streaked with brown.

"The Ministry has ruled that the display of Pensieve-recorded thoughts to the Young Order - or the real Order, come to that - would be illegal," he said quietly.

Harry's mouth fell open. "What? But I gave permission!" he protested. "I told them it was all right! They're my thoughts, why can't I-"

"There is nothing I can do about it. Professor Dumbledore has endorsed the decision," Lupin told him. He shrugged and leaned back, fingers pressing against his temples. "As I understand it," he said with a small smile, "it's much like nudity. It is your body, but it is still illegal to display it in public. Your thoughts are just as personal, and as avidly protected by the law."

Harry was still outraged, but he was also distracted by the sudden, terrible thought that in that case he had sort of been voyeuristic towards Dumbledore. Moreover, there was an awful five-year-old part of him giggling that a teacher had just said nudity.

"However, again like nudity, it is entirely permissible to display it in private to an interested individual or group," Lupin said thoughtfully.

"If you were to ask for the Pensieve, while promising not to show it to the Young Order, it would be returned to you. They are your thoughts," Lupin said. "Naturally, we would trust you to keep it entirely secure."

"I hear that a few interhouse sleepovers have been taking place lately," Lupin remarked. "Now that's what I like to see. Co-operation."

"Please understand, Harry, that I am encouraging you to keep strictly within the letter of the law," he said. A corner of his mouth turned up. "I've never approved of students getting caught in mischief."

Lupin nodded. "Well, I have to be off. Professor Snape is holding a teachers' meeting in his office to discuss his - adventures abroad."

Harry followed him out. He'd expected that the others would be gone by now, but most people were still hanging around, looking curiously at the spectacle.

Ron was on the floor, his face green, and Hermione was kneeling beside him with her hand on his back.

"Pansy is a lady," Draco asserted. "I'm sure she was just passing on her way somewhere else."

Pansy and Draco exchanged smirks. "That's right," Pansy said. "While I was passing - in the spirit of all this new interhouse co-operation - I offered Weasley a cigarette."

Most people looked vaguely puzzled, and while Pansy was explaining and waving her packet of Marlboro Lights around the place, Harry and Hermione seized Ron by the arms and made their escape. He sagged in their grip, and almost fell as they turned the corner and Hermione smacked Ron on the back of the head.

"Oh God, don't," Ron moaned. "I don't know what it was she gave me. I knew I shouldn't have tried it. I think I'm going to be sick. Slytherin bitch."

"I am not prejudiced," Ron said with dignity. "It is not my fault that most of them are complete bastards."

Ron considered. "There might be a few decent ones," he conceded. "I quite like that Blaise Zabini. He's a friendly chap."

Harry felt his mind stop working for a brief, merciful moment. He met Hermione's eyes over Ron's head.

"Yeah - yeah, good for you," Harry assured him, and then shook himself out of the horrible daze. "Look, Ron, are you feeling any better? Lupin just told me when and where Snape's telling the teachers about what happened to him."

Harry nodded. "He might also have recommended that I have an orgy," he added thoughtfully. "I think we'll stick with the first plan, though."

Crowding together under the Invisibility Cloak had been much easier when they were eleven.

They made their crabwise way down to the dungeons with great difficulty. Harry kept his hands in his pockets in spite of the balance problem this created, because no matter what crisis he was undergoing he was not anxious to get lucky with Ron or Hermione.

He shook his head to clear the disturbing images, and then hissed: "Ron, d'you have the Extendable Ears?"

"One for each of us," Ron muttered back. "I've been deliberately poisoned by a scheming madwoman, I'm not stupid."

Even though it was bright outside, it was pitch dark in the dungeons. Harry privately thought it was a wonder that Draco and the others hadn't gone near-sighted, and then it occurred to him that this was the corridor they had found McGonagall and he went cold - and then Ron tripped over something, and they all went flying.

"Good God, the barbarians have stormed the village," drawled a familiar voice. "Take our women and our cattle, only spare our lives. I think a Weasley just trod on me."

"We're eavesdropping on Professor Snape's meeting," Pansy's voice whispered from the darkness.

"Just like you lot," Ron observed, in the sour tones of one who is still feeling nauseous. "Creeping around spying on people. It's disgusting."

"That's different," Ron said. "Professor Lupin practically gave us permission. This is - teacher-supported spying."

"Professor Snape did give us permission," Draco observed in a superior voice. "This is practically a Slytherin field trip."

The dark shapes were becoming clearer as Harry's eyesight adjusted. Zabini had his ear pressed to the wall and Pansy had a hand on Draco's arm for no reason he could see.

Hermione was already hiding the Cloak under her robes. Harry saw Draco tilt his head towards her, but he didn't say anything until Ron produced the Extendable Ears and started passing them around.

Zabini and Pansy both put their hands out, and he glared at Pansy and gave an Ear to Zabini. They immediately curled together, pushing their ears to the Ear, and it was possibly this kind of behaviour that had made Harry think Zabini was just as heterosexual as the next man.

Pansy shrugged. "You're the one who likes one of them," she pointed out. "Don't look at me. I wouldn't spit on them if they were on fire, and that involves less physical contact."

"Believe me, Parkinson, the idea of physical contact with you makes me feel sicker than your poison sticks," Ron said hotly, and Pansy was beginning a sneering retort when Draco interrupted.

"She will not be the one sharing an Ear with you!" Ron exclaimed, and everybody made frantic shushing motions.

"Gosh, Weasley," Draco drawled. "I don't know what to say. This is so sudden. Of course, you're not really my type-"

"Gryffindors, ladies and gentleman, masters of stealth and cunning," Draco said. "This is a corridor, the Silencing Charm is not guaranteed to be effective! For the love of - Harry, would you get over here and share your stupid Ear, then? Honestly!"
He shot Ron a look Harry was pretty much certain was venomous, and then dropped to his knees.

Harry very carefully had no thoughts whatsoever, and knelt too. He put his ear to the Extendable Ear, and concentrated hard on the sound that came blaring out to him.

"-If we're talking about suspicion," Snape's sneering voice said, "we might do well to examine the fact that the Gryffindors have lost fewer students than any other house."

"Maybe," Sirius snarled back, "that's because we're better at guarding ourselves than any other house."

"Oh yes," said Snape. "I myself have always been deeply impressed by Harry Potter's brilliant 'let's all plunge into reckless danger and break a few laws' method of self-protection."

Harry felt the breath from Draco's mouth on his face, and Draco's hair tickling his forehead. He focused all his attention on the voices.

"That is not true," Dumbledore's voice interrupted peaceably. "Professor Snape has always been most concerned about Harry's wellbeing. He has watched over him as assiduously as a father."

There was combined and loud protest at this. Harry could just picture Dumbledore's smile.

"That's right, of course," Snape said. "He's the son I never had, and thus never got to expose on a hillside for the wolves to feast upon."

"Professors," Dumbledore said. "I don't believe we are here to discuss the character flaws of a student who is, fortunately, still with us. Nor do I think that a little professional courtesy would be too much to ask for. We are all here to hear Professor Snape's report, not to listen to you two bickering."

"Two sugars, thank you, Remus," Dumbledore said. "Might we have the pleasure of hearing your report, Severus?"

There was a pause. Harry did not like pauses. Pauses made him think about things beside the voices. Draco smelled like - well, actually, Harry didn't recognise it, like a person he supposed, or maybe like expensive shampoo because he went through bottles of the stuff. The point was that he smelled good, and he was close and warm and it was wrong and unfair how much Harry wanted to do... something about that.

He clutched the Extendable Ear as if it was a lifeline into a world where he would not want to molest his friends.

"It was the Captus charm as Professor Lupin suspected," Snape said in an altogether different voice, and Harry sat upright and suddenly had no problem focusing his attention. "He's been putting them into a Captus sphere."

It's thought that Dark Magic has recently been used to create prisons within spheres. A thousand tiny Azkabans Voldemort can keep in his pocket, which Dementors can patrol and nobody can ever escape from.

"I've seen it," Snape answered tightly. "The Dark Lord keeps it with him at all times. I tried everything I could think of, but I never got a moment alone with it and I eventually roused suspicion against myself. You know I'm supposed to be a spy for them here, but they won't tell me who the other spy is, and they watch me all the time."

"They don't just watch him." That was Madam Pomfrey's voice. "Headmaster, those curses have taken it out of him. He needs to be in the infirmary and he insists on not taking proper time to recuperate-"

"That's not relevant," Snape said crisply. "The point is that the Captus sphere is being used. Those disappearing are not dead, and there has to be a way to free them."

"I mean, if physical objects can be made to Apparate or if we could get Snape to set up a Portkey-" spoke up a voice like Professor Vector's.

"It's a rough sphere, the colour of a lapis lazuli," Snape continued in a dry voice, and then he stopped. "Set up a Portkey? What have I been telling you about-"

"Oh no, oh please," Draco moaned softly, pushing in closer and pressing his ear to the Extendable Ear, but that meant that he was leaning further into Harry and so was effectively moaning into Harry's ear.

He had to be doing this on purpose, he absolutely had to be, so Harry looked at him in outrage, and saw he wasn't. He was intent on the conversation inside, his eyes half-closed and his head turned towards the wall and he was oh, God, so close that the edge of his cheek had brushed Harry's and Harry could feel his own skin heating up and he wondered for a moment if he could possibly lick Draco's throat and then claim it was a platonic gesture.

With the distraction that was Draco almost in his lap removed, he could think properly again. The Captus sphere. They were going to have to take another trip to the Restricted Section.

"Well, it's good news that they're not dead," Hermione said. She looked tired, he noticed, and Ron still looked a bit sick. They had been up too late most nights this week.

"Yeah," said Pansy, leaning back against the wall. "But what can we do about it? If even Professor Snape can't..."

She looked tired too, Harry thought. Of course she did: of course they all were. Even Zabini's sly face was unmistakably worn, and the big boots Pansy probably thought made her look tough just made her look sort of fragile.

There was a delicate moment of balance, of almost-unity, there in the dark corridor, simply because they were tired and desperate and they didn't exactly distrust each other anymore.

Harry felt a brief flicker of triumph. All that effort had been worth it, he thought, and looked over to share the triumph with Draco. Draco did not appear to have noticed the moment. He was climbing to his feet and now he was less close, Harry thought he might look paler than usual.

"All right," Hermione agreed. "But if we're having another one, I need to go get some NEWTs studying done now. Thank heavens we don't have Potions on and I can catch up on my Arithmancy."

"Oh, Granger, what a thrilling life you lead," Pansy said. "I'm going on an extended cigarette break." She smirked suddenly. "Want another, Weasley?"

Ron shut his eyes. "I am going to be sick," he announced in a level voice. "Then I am going to go to sleep."

"Weasley, I am desperately envious of your glamour and charm," Draco sneered. "How even this Arithmancy vixen was lucky enough to win you for her very own leaves me at a loss."

"Don't pretend to knock Arithmancy," Harry said. "I've seen your colour-coded notes."

Draco looked disconcerted. Pansy lit up, and then coughed a bit and hit herself on the chest.

"The man has a point," she remarked after a minute. "I know about the theory books you didn't really have to read, too."

Harry laughed. "I bet you anything that you're going to use this free class to study, too. Admit it. Embrace the notes."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Actually, I thought we might go get that ice-cream we were talking about a few days ago. But if your heart is set on notes, go study by all means. I'm sure Pansy will be happy to come eat chocolate ice-cream with me."

"I think I could be persuaded to have ice-cream," he said. "You know. Not that I'm not dedicated to studying," he added, glancing at Hermione's disapproving face.

"Please stop talking about food," Ron begged. "Hermione, she's smoking at me. I think I really might be sick."

"I could escort you into the Slytherin bathrooms," Zabini offered courteously. "They're closer."

"No thanks," Ron replied, looking apprehensive that he might catch something Slytherin.

"No thank you," Hermione replied, looking apprehensive that something Slytherin might catch him. "Harry, I really think you should study..."

"I will, Hermione, I will," Harry promised. "I just need the sugar. For energy," he offered. "Which I will then devote to studying. Er, obviously."

Draco grinned his quick, wicked grin. "What's the matter, Granger?" he asked. "Don't you trust us?"

Zabini was glowering at Harry, Pansy was enveloping herself in a cloud of smoke, Ron looked like he might be sick at any moment and in any direction, and Hermione was looking very anxious.

"Don't quibble, Harry, it's the sign of a small mind." Draco snapped his menu shut. "My order stands," he told the waitress firmly. "A cappuccino, an espresso and a latte, please."

"I thought we were getting ice-cream," Harry grumbled. "Chocolate ice-cream, please."

To his surprise, the waitress giggled. He looked up at her and, to his further astonishment, she winked.

She walked off while Harry was still working out that she had not, in fact, been talking to Draco. He looked over at Draco and mouthed, "Me?"

Draco beamed at him. "You," he confirmed brightly. "She was pretty, didn't you think? And she's older. I think," he said with great deliberation, "that you should crisis her."

Draco waved a sugar packet dismissively. "You know what I mean. Get her to use her sophistication and nubile body to clear up your boyish naivete and confusion! You know you want to!"

"Stop changing the subject," Draco said haughtily. "Besides, I told you that I only read them to laugh at the imbecilic Muggle authors. I think you should crisis her right now!"

"I am not kind, and I think that it's funnier to mock people when they're helpless," Draco said. "When they're crying is even better. Now crisis her like a desperate stoat in heat!"

"Keep your voice down, Draco, or she is going to hear you!" Harry exclaimed, and avoided the curious eyes of some couple who looked uncomfortable, unable to talk to each other and distracted by Draco's rising voice.

"I told you those jeans were your size," he added absently. "I am a fashion genius. Oh yes, and I'm not a nerd."

Draco glared. "It was implied. Implied in front of a Weasley. Just because I have some intellectual pursuits, unlike other people who are complete brainless sports fanatics, also sitting at this table, their name rhymes with 'otter.'"

The waitress came back with a tray full of Draco's coffee, for which Draco rewarded her with his slow, bright smile. She smiled at Harry again and Harry seriously began to wonder if she had vision problems.

"I'm not a brainless sports fanatic," Harry corrected him. "I have a lot on my mind. This whole defeating evil thing is just something you've taken up: it's been my job since I was eleven. I don't have time for poetry."

"Because you have no soul," Draco said placidly, obviously reduced to a state of nirvana by all the coffee. He began to stir each cup, one by one. "I mean. One hobby. Besides Quidditch. Defeating evil does not count. Go on. Name one. I dare you."

"Er..." said Harry, and ate a spoonful of chocolate ice-cream to put off the evil moment. "I like, um. I collect Chocolate Frog cards!" he said with relief.

Draco stared at him, and then took a sip of one of his coffees, very slowly, as if he was going to need every drop and had to ration.

The low, coaxing tones of anyone's voice were not something that could be immediately and horribly attractive.

Harry handed them over before he realised what a very stupid thing he had just done. He squinted and blamed it on Draco, whose face was now a pale blur with wavy glasses on its nose.

"Er," he said. "I'm, er, Harry Potter. And my intellect hasn't really progressed from the age of twelve. I really like, um, Quidditch, and also, evil is bad. Hermione's really more into the brainy stuff. Thank you for your time."

"Fine," said Harry, and did his best at affecting a drawl. "I'm Draco Malfoy. I think I'm cool, but I have colour-coded notes, and I think I'm self-possessed, but I throw almost daily tantrums, and I think I'm God's gift to women, but the waitress is eyeing up my clearly more toned and muscular friend. I suppose I should have paid more attention to Quidditch, which I actually really like but am acting snobbish about just now, because I am also a horrible, horrible snob."

"I'm, er, just an ordinary boy, like every other boy," he countered. "Sorry, who did you say you wanted that autograph made out to? Okay, great. You know who're nasty? Prejudiced people! I think they should all be ostracised and then possibly killed, because, we are better than they are. Look! There's evil! Should I alert the proper authorities? No, for I am Harry Potter, and it is my sacred duty to vanquish it! I am the bane of the powers of darkness!"

This chocolate ice-cream was probably better when you weren't choking on it and laughing.

"I once made a speech about cheating as an art form," Harry drawled, "and I have a friend with the notes to prove it. I have a mental list of students who can be counted on to cry if I'm mean to them, and I talk too much - hey-"

Draco had given up on the sugar packets, and started throwing paper napkins. Harry ducked.

"You have to calm down, Sirius!" Lupin said behind them. "How can we get anything done if-"

"He started it!" Sirius interrupted, striding ahead of Lupin with his black robes flaring. "I'm not - hello, Harry!" He looked bright and pleased for a moment, and then his expression changed as he glanced over at Draco. "Here with your friend, I see," he noted.

"How nice," said Lupin, walking more sedately behind Sirius and catching his elbow. "Not all that law-abiding, but very nice. Hello, boys. Mr Malfoy, Professor Snape wants to talk to you and Miss Parkinson and Mr Zabini at the earliest opportunity. I'm going to pretend I didn't see this truancy."

"I'm sure it was all that Slytherin brat's idea," Sirius said in a not-quite-undertone aside to Lupin.

"Yeah," Harry said loudly, "because as we all know, Gryffindors never break the rules."

Lupin laughed, then smiled at Draco and turned away to order two coffees to go. Sirius still stood by their table, looking suspiciously down at Draco. Draco bridled under his eyes and tapped his fingers against one of his coffee cups.

Then he began to sing, quite softly. "We're the men in purple," he declared, "we always get our man..."

Outrage bloomed on Sirius' face a split second after Harry began to sing quietly back. "That's why Slytherins all sing," he reminded Draco, and Draco broke off to make a face at him.

Sirius got that blank look he always wore when someone called him Professor Black, as if he could not imagine who they meant, and then he mustered up a smile for Harry as he always did.

"Yes, fine, fine," he said, glaring at Draco and looking unconvinced on this subject. "Come and see me sometime, won't you, Harry? I hear you and young Ginny Weasley-"

"Your curiosity about the students' love lives might be, though," Lupin remarked, handing Sirius his coffee. "People might start to think you have none of your own."

"Don't snigger, Mr Malfoy," Lupin added. "You'll be old and grey yourself one day."

Sirius gave Draco an exasperated and still-suspicious look, then Harry a worried one, and then stalked out of the shop. Lupin told them goodbye and then followed with a resigned air.

Draco glared after Sirius, and then lounged back, very deliberately, into his chair. "I'm Professor Black," he said in a low voice. "It's never my fault if I lose my temper and act like a complete idiot. I do exactly what I want to do, because I'm better than everyone, and I'm certainly not completely socially maladjusted because of my twelve years of jailtime in which I could only get touch from Dementors..."

Harry frowned at him, and then picked up one of the napkins and put it on his head.

"I'm Professor Snape," he declared. "I hate children, and sunsets, and butterflies and kittens. I have bitterness oozing out of my hair follicles."

"Point taken," he conceded. "Now Harry, for God's sake take that napkin off your head before the pretty waitress sees."

"Want? Want? Want does not come into it, Potter," Draco told him, making a nasty face at him. "When you refuse to crisis saucy young waitresses, your friends have to take matters into their own hands. We have to investigate the strange corners of your psyche, or condemn you to a life of bitter solitude. Now come on, there have to be some crushes."

Draco had insisted on taking the long way back, and walking around the lake, and Harry would have had absolutely no objection to that if Draco's sole goal in life had not appeared to be embarrassing Harry horribly.

"Cho Chang," Harry repeated stubbornly, sticking to what he knew. "For almost three years. I'm the faithful type."

"You're the stubborn stalker type," Draco corrected him. "And that is truly sad. Come on, Harry, please! You were fifteen for a whole year! There has to be someone else. We need an array here. A crush on a neighbour, a teacher, a Weasley, your aunt. I promise not to judge you. Not even if it's horribly unnatural, not even if it's a toad or Ron Weasley."

"No!" said Harry. "He's been my mate for years. That would be like having a crush on Hermione!"

It was disturbing, the unholy light in Draco's eyes when he thought he was making a breakthrough. He also had to stop pointing at innocent people.

"I need a drink," Draco announced, rolling his eyes and producing a hip flask from his jeans.

"Besides, it's not that strange," Harry muttered. "Plenty of people didn't have crushes when they were fifteen. Ron didn't. And what d'you mean, teachers?"

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Every girl in Hogwarts wanted some special tuition with Professor Lockhart, remember?"

"Urgh, yeah," Harry said. "But, I mean - you never had a crush on a teacher, did you?"

The flush was making its way down his cheekbones, growing brighter. Harry hoped he was not about to hear something disgusting, like Professor Trelawney.

"If we're going to go over every detail of my life, I think you can share a little too."

Draco gave his coffee flask a hunted look. "You are not permitted to repeat this," he informed him. "Professor Lupin."

Draco gave him a single look, and then choked on his coffee. Harry watched, still in a state of shock, as Draco continued to choke and bent double. Eventually he became a bit concerned, and touched Draco's shoulder.

"How can you be so stupid?" demanded Draco, his voice still rasping slightly. He straightened up. "I mean, if you didn't - Harry, you cannot go around randomly kissing boys without knowing their preferences! Someone is going to thump you. Someone should - oh, dear God," he said as another undoubtedly insane thought occurred to him. "You haven't kissed Weasley, have you?"

"Except for - um, the people you already know about," said Harry, feeling himself go hot under the collar. He felt this was very unfair, since it was Draco who had been whipping out the revelations and waving them around. "Professor Lupin?" he said. "Professor Lupin? Why? Not that I don't like him," he added hastily. "Great man. One of the best."

"It was just a tiny little crush," Draco said dismissively. "He treated the Slytherins like everyone else. That's rare, you know. And he was intelligent, and a good teacher, and funny." He paused, then smirked and licked his lips. "And I liked his voice, and the way his hair fell into his eyes. Horrible clothes, though."

"It was just one of those things. Then I got a crush on Pansy and forgot all about it."

"Oh, well spotted," Draco said. "You know, it is perfectly possible to like both-"

"Oh, you do know?" Draco asked, making a gesture that looked something like an overly dramatic flail. "Well, good, because I was just about to start from scratch and explain to you how babies are made."

"I'm not stupid," Harry said. "I just didn't spend my childhood writing little love notes to Lupin."

"I bet you still think it's a question of storks. I bet this whole crisis is founded on terminal bird confusion."

Harry pushed his hair back with a certain amount of agitation. Draco was gesturing and talking too fast, and this was the most surreal conversation he had ever had.

Draco lifted his eyebrows. "Naturally I do. I like girls, girls are wonderful, and also it seemed more appropriate. For instance, you enjoy Quidditch and collecting Chocolate Frog cards. You discuss Quidditch with me, but not the whole card thing, because I am not an avid collector. Similarly, I might discuss Quidditch with you, but Chocolate Frog cards with Zabini. If you follow me."

Harry frowned. "I do, but it's giving me these horrible images," he said. "Why did you never tell me?"

"I thought you knew!" Draco exclaimed. "It's not a secret or anything, I was being polite, I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, I was being mannerly. You never asked about the relationship I had before Christmas when I mentioned it, I assumed you'd heard the gossip."

"Well," Draco stopped. "I'm not sure, actually. I might just have been an experiment, to tell you the truth. He said he'd never done anything like that before. Look, this is... not pleasant."

Draco ran a hand through his hair, and Harry looked at him with concern. The wind had already ruffled it, but the gesture was always a sign of extreme inner turmoil.

"I'm sorry," he told him, his voice low. "I didn't mean to - you don't have to tell me."

"No, it's all right," he said. "He got a little sentimental about it, and it was all rather messy. And there wasn't much spark there, near the end. I don't like people to be stupid, that's all. It doesn't bother me."

"I see," Harry answered slowly. He leaned back against Draco's shoulder, a little. That was comforting.

"Does this bother you?" Draco asked. "I mean, I know you're going through a crisis and everything, but you might well feel un-"

"No!" Harry said quickly. "No, no, it doesn't bother me. No, it's fine, absolutely, I'm just surprised. Even if I wasn't - even if I hadn't - er. No, of course not." Another horrible thought occurred to him. "Um. Draco, do you mind if I ask-"

"This might help you with your crisis, mightn't it," he speculated. "Ask away. I'm being supportive. Anything you like."

"All right," Harry said awkwardly. "Did you ever - collect Chocolate Frog cards with Blaise Zabini?"

A friend who things happened with once or twice, Draco had said. Harry had presumed it was Morag whatshername.

"Then Pansy and I fancied each other, and eventually we got around to going out, and that fell apart just before the end of fifth year. That summer I was looking for some support against the Dark Lord from the old families - just discreet questions, you understand, and there was a boy from Durmstrang who was a bit older than me. Sixth year Zabini and I messed about a few times, and then that summer I met a girl from Beauxbatons who was a daughter of one of my mother's friends. Then there was Terry, and that happens to be all five."

Draco looked triumphantly at Harry, as if he expected Harry to become enlightened and instantly pack his bags for Durmstrang or something.

"Nice arithmetic. Well done. These things just happen," Draco told him. "It's not a battle plan or anything. It's not like it matters all that much."

For something that didn't matter all that much, it felt a bit like his head might fall off with shock. He squinted at the choppy waters of the lake, and blamed it in an obscure and vicious way.

"I can't believe you didn't know," Draco remarked, as if all that was settled now. "Why on earth did you do it, then? Weren't you afraid that I'd go mental and thump you?"

Of all the questions. Why on earth had he done it, as if he hadn't been asking himself that since it happened. Because he had been happy, and he hadn't had to think, and he had been at a point so far away from all this confusion, and the worries and fears they all had to deal with these days, that now he could not even seem to reach back and know exactly why.

"You wish," Draco told him. "Don't you dare doubt the legendary prowess in battle of the Malfoy clan. Might I remind you that I vanquished you utterly in that Muggle duel a few months ago-"

"Yes, but I beat you in no less than two fights in fifth year," Harry argued. "I can take you to the cleaners."

"The first time did not count, one of the Weasley brood was helping," Draco returned indignantly. "And the second time we were stopped, and it counts as a draw."

They turned away from the lake, and back to Hogwarts. Harry tried not to think about all this new stuff, tried to just relax and be happy as he'd been in the teashop. Everything was difficult enough, and most of the time they all had to think so much about survival that happiness went by the board.

"A draw? Ha," he said. "I recall distinctly that I challenged you to a rematch, and you never took me up on it. Scared, Malfoy?"

"A Malfoy knows not fear," Draco replied haughtily, and then grinned. "Well, more or less."

Harry, in keeping with his theme, mentioned the entire Forbidden Forest and indeed Hagrid himself. Draco retaliated with a comment about Dementors, and Harry felt forced to remark on how a certain person here had volunteered to go first with Hippogriffs, and a certain person had hung back in terror and then been slashed like a silly idiot.

"I don't see how anyone could know that a little stick was going to be poisonous. I think it could have happened to anyone," Ron argued. "Don't you think, Harry?"

So - this new knowledge, did it make it better or worse? Draco had not stormed off because he was repelled by the idea of boys, but because he was not at all enthusiastic about the idea of Harry.

"Anybody with even a basic knowledge of Muggle Studies would have known," Hermione disagreed. "You've visited my house, Ron, you've seen my father smoking a pipe. And you should have known better than to take anything from that cow Pansy Parkinson. Am I right, Harry?"

Well, Draco had always been at pains to point out that Harry dressed badly and had horrible hair. He had glasses he kept breaking and a dirty great scar on his forehead and it was all hardly the kind of thing that sent girls into a frenzy of lust, he supposed, or boys who liked boys. Or boys who were having it off left, right and centre and fancying Lupin.

"I thought we were all supposed to play happy families now," Ron said. "I was trying to co-operate like you both asked, and I ended up poisoned. It's like I always said, you can't trust Slytherins an inch."

So - Terry Boot. Quiet and intelligent, and he liked books. Draco would like that, Harry supposed, but then you didn't get off with people just because you both liked reading or Hermione and Madam Pince would have become an item years ago.

The thing was that it seemed wrong to think of boys as - well, attractive. Harry knew how it was supposed to go, had been taught by things Sirius and Dumbledore and everyone had said. One day he was going to be like his parents, and girls would be pretty and he would marry the one he liked best and his parents' tragedy would be redeemed and he would be happy as they were supposed to be.

He knew how to tell if girls were attractive, but it seemed off, all wrong, to be speculating on whether boys were. He knew when they were handsome, but actually adding that up to... He knew how to tell if girls were attractive, but he couldn't seem to care about that. He could not think of whether a boy was, but there was just something about Draco's smirk or his nose or his neck that he couldn't seem to help trying not to do without.

"I don't see why we had to go trailing all over the school just so you could yell at me," Ron grumbled to Hermione. "You can do it just as well in the common room. Ginny takes it down and reads it to Mum later."

"I heard Professor Vector telling Blaise Zabini Snape wanted him to come here," Hermione whispered. "If Snape is anxious enough to pass messages to the Slytherins through other teachers, I want to hear what he has to say."

Harry thought it over, then nodded. If it was important, of course they had to hear it. It was as simple as that.

When he heard Pansy's voice breaking as she spoke, though, he glanced over at Ron and saw his own guilty unease written large there.

"Sir, please, you can't," she said. "M-my brother said people don't speak well of you. And we all know they're torturing you - you can't go back. They'll kill you, and then you'll be no good to anyone."

Snape's voice was a harsh rasp. Harry remembered the cruel words he'd heard that voice speak, and how he had hated that voice from the first time he'd heard it say anything.

"They have my students trapped there," he said. "There's a chance I can get to them. There is no other choice."

"What about Draco?" Pansy demanded. "He can't go on acting like a Head of house, it's ridiculous, things are falling apart and we can't trust-"

"I'm fine. I'm handling it," Draco said sharply, sounding insulted. It was so like Draco, to be offended that people did not think he was omnipotent. "Why should he stay here and watch us all disappear too? He can't do anything about it here."

"Draco is quite correct," Snape observed, and he sounded unpleasant and grudging, and proud. "I have to be where I can be of most use to you all."

"We need you here," Pansy said, her voice somehow hard and distraught at once. "Sir, you're going to die-"

"This is a war," Draco interrupted in a furious voice Harry thought indicated he was scared and upset too.

He and Hermione were straining to hear more when Ron pulled away from the door, and looked at both of them.

"She's - I think she's going to cry," he said, in a troubled way. "We shouldn't be listening to this."

"I don't care, I'm not eavesdropping on girls crying," Ron said flatly. He stepped back from the door, and Hermione glanced up at him and then reluctantly followed.

Harry stayed by the door, hesitating. He did not want to spy on anybody, but Snape leaving was important news, and Draco would be entirely unscrupulous if he thought keeping secrets would be best for Slytherin.

Inside the room, everything went still. Harry stepped back from the door an instant before it flew open, and Pansy Parkinson strode out. She did not look as if she was going to cry. She looked absolutely enraged.

Hermione's face went cold and she looked at Draco, who had come to stand in the doorway.

"I thought you were supporting interhouse harmony?" she pointed out. "What are you going to do about this?"

Draco's face was just a touch too pale already. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Hermione's accusing face, at Pansy with her dark hair flying and at Ron with blood seeping between his fingers.

And the protective instinct for his threatened friends, the new confused outrage because Snape was leaving and Harry had never liked him but the Slytherins needed him, and the thoughts that had not stopped tumbling around his head since Draco's confession, turned into fury.

Draco lifted his cold grey eyes to Harry's face, and said deliberately, "Don't tell me what to do, Potter."

Or he tried to. He tried to knock him sideways, but Harry turned, caught the blow on one shoulder and pushed the other shoulder, hard, into Draco's chest.

Draco's eyes narrowed. "I'll do more than threaten," he promised, and hit Harry on the mouth.

Harry dimly registered that Draco was only this vicious when he was scared, in the same sort of way he noticed the blood seeping into his mouth. Most of his mind was echoing the roaring in his ears as he charged and knocked Draco against the wall.

Weeks of being ashamed and embarrassed and picturing Draco's horror, and all the time....

"I think you should just shut up," Harry snarled, and swung at Draco, pushed back against the stone wall with his face flushed and just begging to be mauled.

Draco ducked and Harry's knuckles split against the wall. Before he recovered from the shock of pain, Draco grabbed his shirt as he ducked and tried to pull him off balance.

Harry let himself go, hearing his shirt rip, and grabbed Draco as he went and threw him down under him. Then he hit Draco in the eye.

Like the blood at the back of his throat, the voices were unimportant and distant. What mattered was Draco, scared and desperate and actually angry with Harry as well, lip curled back from his teeth. He tried to swing at Harry and missed, but Harry's glasses went askew as he dodged the blow and then the world was a blur. He concentrated on the pale blur as Draco struggled and squirmed ferociously under him, keeping him pinned even when Draco lunged up and slammed his forehead against Harry's. He punched him in the ribs and tried to gain a purchase on his shirt so he could hold him in place and hit him properly.

The harsh, small sound Draco made when Harry slammed his shoulders back down against the floor seemed much more important, but it was the voice that caused the outside interference.

Hands grabbed Harry and pulled him away, fighting to get out of their grasp and back to Draco. Draco caught him a blow in the stomach as he was pulled back.

Draco snarled something incoherent and imperious, and Hermione hurried away from Harry to lend Ron a hand.

"Control yourself, Mr Malfoy!" rapped out Snape, letting go of Harry and stepping in between them. Draco blinked and subsided, stopping the active attempt to get away from Ron and Hermione. Snape whirled on Harry. "As for you, Potter! You and your little cronies were not only eavesdropping on a private meeting, but you decided with your usual brilliance to make matters worse by attacking a fellow student unprovoked!"

"Yeah, I just punched myself in the nose, did I?" Ron demanded, adding belatedly, "...Sir."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Did you, Mr Weasley?" he inquired scathingly. "Well, you always were clumsy."

He was such a petty, nasty creature. Harry had always hated him, and he spluttered in outrage along with Ron, and he almost hated all the Slytherins for drawing proudly to Snape's side

"I think that'll be forty points from Gryffindor," Snape continued with satisfaction. "I suppose you two had better be getting along to the infirmary, though I feel it would be a salutary lesson for Mr Potter if he learned that his actions actually have consequences."

"D'you think I care about house points now?" Harry asked furiously. "Don't be pathetic!"

"And suddenly it's fifty points," Snape observed. "Mr Zabini, Miss Parkinson, you can let Mr Potter go now. One of his lackeys should probably bring a shirt with more buttons on it to the infirmary, too."

Harry put his glasses on firmly and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring. Draco shrugged out of Ron and Hermione's hands with a great show of disdain, and proceeded to utterly ignore his own dishevelled clothing in favour of smoothing his hair.

"You should go first, Mr Malfoy," Snape urged. "Mr Potter can certainly wait around here, in order to prevent a repeat of this savage attack."

There was a pink swelling around Draco's eye. He paused while Pansy did her best to haul him off immediately, and looked at Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Harry intended to sneak down early and talk to Draco but Ron, who had been wandering around the place triumphantly relating tales of vicious Slytherin harpies and psychotic Slytherin attackers, caught him as he tried to slip out.

"I thought it'd be best to go down early, so there wouldn't be a scene in front of, er, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws," said Harry.

So they all went down together, and the only effect of getting there early was that Draco's hair was still wet from a shower, and he looked cross.

"What a pleasant surprise," he said, flinging open the door. "I always love being caught in a state of deshabille by Gryffindors."

Apparently being caught in a T-shirt, socks and tracksuit bottoms was an enormous comedown for a Malfoy. He scowled at them horribly and returned to vigorously towelling his hair.

It took him a few moments to realise that Pansy was also in the room, entirely unembarrassed about being seen in a flannel nightshirt and eating a serving of chocolate mousse that looked like it was intended for a family. He blinked at her, and she gave him a comprehensive gesture with her spoon.

"Let me make myself clear," Draco said indistinctly through the towel. "We are all going to be absolutely, perfectly, beautifully polite to each other tonight. I bear no grudges. I plan to be the soul of courtesy. Do you understand me?"

He emerged from the towel, with his hair in soggy spikes, and gave them all a venomous look, settling on Ron.

"Excellent, then," Draco said. "My room is your room, Weasley. Only don't touch the bed, or the books, or any of my clothes. It would be such a bother to have them disinfected."

Ron did not look like he was burning with the desire to handle any of Draco's possessions, but he was giving the chocolate mousse a speculative look.

Pansy gave him a dark look. "Shame you didn't bring any food, then," she remarked in a stony voice.

Ron seemed to give up in the face of this incurable Slytherin rudeness, and stood protectively beside Hermione. He only gave the mousse a few furtive glances.

Hermione still sounded suspicious. "So you two aren't going to get into another punching match."

"Of course not," Draco answered Hermione airily. "A fight clears the air tremendously. Men do it all the time. And we are men. Manly men. Have you seen my hairbrush?"

Draco's careful civility lasted all the time he was drying and brushing his hair, and then Crabbe and Goyle arrived. He sat behind them as the others all filed in, using their bulk to shut out everyone else, making that familiar unit of Malfoy-and-his-thugs that had existed since first year.

It had never really occurred to Harry that they were a comfort to Draco, and he felt a brief humiliating moment of envy.

He forgot about that when the Ravenclaws came in. Terry Boot gave Draco a shy smile when he came in, and even though Draco looked balefully through him for a moment before remembering that he was a host, Harry actually recognised that brief flash of possessive feeling.

He experimented with the idea of being angry with Terry, but the idea of hitting Draco was much more appealing, and this had to say something about how annoying Draco was or how twisted Harry was or quite possibly both.

He felt, once more like he should have realised all this before. On the other hand, Ron had always been furiously affected by Draco too, and if Ron fancied Draco something desperate he was hiding it astonishingly well.

Harry informed himself that he was being pathetic, and collected his wits enough to start explaining to everyone about the viewing of the Pensieve.

He gasped out, "They're gone. All the emergency supplies. They're just - gone. The spy has taken them."

Harry remembered when Dumbledore and Lupin had insisted on stockpiling the emergency supplies. It was at the start of sixth year, even before the first disappearances at Hogwarts, and the idea that they might need supplies, that they might be besieged by the enemy at safe, unPlottable Hogwarts had seemed so unlikely that it seemed a waste of time.

Hogwarts seemed so unsafe these days that it had become a comfort to know that the supplies were there, and Harry had not even realised that until he looked around and saw all the dismayed faces.

Parvati, beside him, made a soft sound of distress, and he spoke to try and comfort her. To try and comfort all of them.

They looked at him with expectant hope, because they had no-one else to turn to. He was the Boy Who Lived, after all, and he was supposed to have put a stop to this sixteen years ago.

"What use are the supplies to us? I mean, we're being picked off anyway, it's unlikely we'll get to starve to death even if there is a siege," said Harry, and then realised he could have been slightly more tactful when Mandy and Lisa looked like they might faint in unison.

"But he's betrayed his hand," he went on. "I mean - he must have some secret means of going around and out of the castle, or accomplices, or something. He can't go around with tons of food stuffed up his jumper."

"What a helpful comment, Zabini," Draco retorted. "I can see that we're falling back on the plan of defeating the Dark Lord with our dark and mystical knowledge of personal remarks. Carry on, Harry."

Harry nodded. "I know all the secret passages of Hogwarts, and I know when people are using them," he went on.

Now several people were regarding him in an awed fashion. He felt like a complete fraud for having the Marauders' Map while people thought he had arcane powers.

"Been spying on all of us?" Blaise added, with just the faintest hint of insinuation.

"I have a... special map," he said carefully, and then continued. "So either they've built new passages - and I think we'd all have noticed - or they've got some other method of transporting all these people and things."

"Maybe they're using the Chamber of Secrets," Terry Boot proposed. "How did Slytherin's monster get around? There could be secret passageways."

Harry had always thought that Terry contributed intelligently to discussions before, but as Draco nodded it occurred to him that he was actually an enormous, horrible show-off who did nothing but try to impress people with his cleverness.

"No," he said, a little triumphantly. "The Chamber can only be opened by a Parselmouth, and the basilisk used the pipes, snakes don't need secret passages..."

"You're a Parselmouth," Pansy pointed out bluntly. "Should we put you on that list?"

"Leave it, Pansy," Draco ordered. "People who have been taken over by the Dark Lord can speak Parseltongue, can't they?"

"Yes," Harry said slowly. "But that's not what I meant. Voldemort can speak to snakes and they do what he wants. If it was snakes spying, it'd never show up on the Map."

"What is this map? And how exactly are you suggesting that armless snakes are carrying piles of supplies away?"

"No!" Ron exclaimed, looking terrified that she would cry. "We know that they're alive in a-"

"Well said, Pansy," Draco chimed in, giving Ron a poisonous glare. "How do you think snakes are kidnapping people, Harry?"

"I know it sounds stupid," Harry said crossly. "But they could. They could all be working together, there could be cobras - or they could be making sure the coast is clear and everyone is asleep before they show people the way in. The point is that they could be doing it! It needn't be a human spy at all. It needn't be one of us at all."

It seemed like such far too easy and painless a solution, when once before it had been someone trusted and loved, and there had been betrayal as well as disaster.

But he saw everybody else looked suddenly bright, and that was good. That was all he had intended.

Harry felt suddenly tired. "You don't need to do anything," he replied. "Leave it to me."

Second Place- Alternate Universe Third Place - Romance

Second Place- Alternate Universe
Third Place - Romance