Title: The Binding

Author: Jessica

Rating: G-NC17

Summary: Revelations and lots of other stuff in Harry's sixth year.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing here. J.K and WB own all things that are HP and I am nothing more than a poor teenager doing this for fun and no profit.

Feedback: I don't write for free, y'know.

The Binding
By Jessica

Green eyes watched the silvery-haired Slytherin raise the snitch victoriously. Black hair was tossed back to reveal the scar it had been hiding as Harry Potter watched Draco Malfoy land below him. He simply cruised his way down, knowing that he'd be slaughtered by his teammates
once on the ground. He was somehow to numb to care, just like he'd felt ever since the end of his fourth year. Ever since Lord Voldemort had returned.

Things around Hogwarts hadn't changed much, despite that enormous event. He was almost certain that Draco Malfoy sported the Dark Mark, but that was perhaps the only thing that was different. Of course, that was something Harry had expected. The Slytherin was a Malfoy after all. Or should that be the Malfoy was a Slytherin?

Finally reaching the ground, Harry was accosted by his teammates and the captain's furious tirade. No one blamed him outright, but they all were thinking it. He knew, of course, that they were right. He had lost his concentration and he had let Malfoy just zip right passed him. But so what? What was Quidditch in the grand scheme of things?

He waited for the lectures to finish before silently slinking off to the Gryffindor locker room. He sat on a bench patiently waiting for everyone to get cleaned up and leave. No one bothered him, all probably to annoyed with him to do so and he waited quietly until the last straggler had left.

Silently he stripped and stepped under the warm water. He didn't look down at his body, having mapped every inch of it several times before. He knew every muscle, every dip and curve, every vivid scar. This was why he'd waited; no one could see the marks of what he did when the world became too much. It was hard to hide them sometimes, being in a dorm with four other nosey males, but so far Harry had succeeded.

He lent back against the stall's wall, letting the water pound him relentlessly. He closed his eyes and tried to remember where things had gone so wrong. Perhaps it was last year, when Slytherin had won not only the Quidditch Cup but the House Cup as well. He'd been surprised he hadn't been kicked off the Quidditch team. Perhaps it was the summer before that when he'd begun to distance himself from Hermione and Ron to keep them from following Cedric Diggory into death. But no, he thought bitterly, it was of course the moment that Lord Voldemort had returned, that Harry had been unable to save Cedric that had changed him forever.

He still talked to Hermione and Ron sometimes, but he knew that he'd created a rift that might never heal. He'd meant for that to happen. He knew now that he could have no friends, no close alliances at all. Voldemort would not go after innocent by-standers if Harry could help it. He planned to keep this battle, won or lost, between himself and the Dark Lord only. Harry jumped as the shower curtain was ripped back and wide green eyes met even wider gray eyes.

"Shit!" Draco Malfoy yelled in surprise. He stared at the Gryffindor in pure astonishment, his eyes straying to the scars that criss-crossed his thighs, his upper arms, his back, all places that wouldn't easily come into view by others. "Jesus, Potter." he breathed.

Harry was totally speechless as he stared at Draco Malfoy. He felt heat that wasn't due to the hot water creep up into his cheeks and he knew that this was the moment he'd feared. He had been found out and by the one person he couldn't bare to have know.

Wordlessly he walked passed Malfoy, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around himself. "Can I ask what the hell you're doing in Gryffindor's facilities, Malfoy?"

Draco turned to face him. "The Slytherin showers were full. When that happens I sneak in here and borrow yours. Usually no one's in here, so when I heard running water I decided to have a look."

"Good for you." Harry said. "You looked. Now what?"

"Huh?"

"I suppose you'll use this to manipulate me somehow? I mean you could go blabbing to the whole school and ruin what's left of my reputation." Harry stated.

"You're right," Draco said, dropping down on a bench opposite Potter. "I could."

"Well? What do you want?"

"I could, Potter, but I won't." Draco finished, smirking at the look of surprise on the Gryffindor's face.

Harry took a moment to process this. What was Malfoy playing at? he wondered. "What?" was all he could come up with in response.

"Perhaps if you weren't so busy pushing people away, Potter, you'd have a clue what was going on around you," Draco said, sighing. In a quick movement he pulled up the sleeve of his robe, extending the arm that would once have carried the Dark Mark. The skin was clear and unblemished.

A soft hiss of surprise escaped Harry's lips. "You didn't take the mark." he stated.

"Very astute, Potter." Draco stood then and moved toward the other boy slowly as if he were a scared animal to be treated with caution. He was, in a way, the Slytherin mused. "I had a rude awakening the summer Voldemort returned and things rather went down hill from there. I'm a Malfoy now only in name and Voldemort and Lucius are just as much after my hide as they are yours."

Harry shook his head, trying to digest this news. "Why tell me? Why tell me now?"

"Because someone has to knock sense into you. You've spent the last two years drowning yourself and..." he paused to stare significantly at Harry's scars, "paying yourself back for things you couldn't stop."

"When did you become such an all-knowing person?" Harry snapped.

"Since I saw those scars just now. You did all of that to yourself." Draco paused, thinking, then slowly opened his robes and shrugged out of them. Next came his shirt and he turned to let Potter have a good view of his back. "Lucius did that when I refused to take Voldemort's mark. I know what knife scars look like and you're being a complete idiot dealing that way."

"You sound nice and calm for someone who's bastard of a father did _that_," Harry noted, gesturing at the criss-cross of scars on Malfoy's back.

"I came to terms with things a while back. Appears you still haven't." Draco met emerald-green eyes that held too much for a 16-year-old. They looked like his own, he mused, full of to many dark things and painful knowledge. "You can trust me, Potter. But you won't win this war alone, you can't."

"I have to keep them safe, Malfoy," Harry snarled softly. "I won't have them die because of me."

"Shouldn't it be their decision then? I have no friends because of the decision I made. I have to keep a constant eye on my back because of it, but at least I know I made the right one, for once. Weasel and Granger should at least get to make their own decisions as well."

Harry shook his head and gave a humorless laugh. "I never knew you cared, Malfoy. Never even thought you had a speck of humanity in that Slytherin mind of yours."

"That's what you get for thinking, Potter." Draco offered his hand to the Gryffindor. "Come on then, Potter. It's time you started rebuilding relationships. And once we have a chat with that pair, you and I are going to have a long talk."

"I can hardly wait," Harry muttered sarcastically as he took the Slytherin's hand. He dressed slowly, only breaking the silence to ask, "If the Slytherins hate you so much, how come they keep you on the Quidditch team?"

"Same reason the Gryffindors keep you on. We're the best they've got."

Harry finished dressing then. They moved toward the door together and he had to shake his head again. "I don't believe this. Keep this up and I might actually think you've changed."

"The more things change..."

"The more they stay the same." Harry finished, smirking slightly.

"You'd better go talk to them now," Draco half ordered, half suggested. "It won't wait forever."

"What am I supposed to say? I've changed too much over the last two years. Like you, Malfoy, I'm not who I was."

"Then I suggest you deal with who you are now and start living again. The Boy-Who-Lived needs to start doing what he's famous for." Draco smiled triumphantly when Harry nodded slightly.

"Maybe," was all he said as they stepped out into the sunlight.

Chapter Two

It was a silent walk from the locker rooms into the castle. Instead of parting ways as Harry thought they would, Malfoy followed him up to the Gryffindor's tower. Pausing outside the fat lady's painting, they stood silently for a moment.

"Go on," Malfoy urged.

"You think they'll approve of you walking in, Malfoy?"

"They won't, but I'm passed the point where I care, Potter." Draco said, shrugging. "Just bloody get on with it."

Turning to the painting Harry mumbled the password and immediately the painting swung open. He stepped into the nearly empty common room, Malfoy on his heels. Ron and Hermione were in a corner together, studying. He hesitated when he saw them, wondering if he really could do this. Two years of nothing more than occasional conversations and homework swapping wasn't going to disappear like that.

"Are you going to stand there like a petrified Mudblood all day or are you going to talk to them?" Draco urged, shoving Potter forward. Honestly, why was he bothering?

Ron's head came up so fast at the sound of Malfoy's voice that Harry was surprised he didn't get whiplash. "What in the bloody hell is _he_ doing here?" he asked, staring pointedly at Harry and then Malfoy.

"Returning something of yours, Weasley," Draco said, dropping into a chair well away from the two Gryffindors in the corner. "I believe he as something he wants to say to you two."

Hesitantly Harry stepped forward until he was a few feet away from the pair. He didn't think he could do this, especially not with Malfoy watching. "Damn it," he muttered at the silvery-blonde boy, "Go away, Malfoy."

Draco got up half-indignantly and ducked out of the painting with, "I'll be waiting. You still owe me our little talk."

Grimacing, Harry turned back to his fellow housemates. "Sorry," he said. "We had a chat and I think he thinks we're friends now."

"Wonderful," Ron said sarcastically. "Remind me to request a password change, by the way. He might not have the Dark Mark, but I still wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

"Didn't you want to talk to us about something, Harry?" Hermione interjected curiously.

"I..." he paused, searching for words."I came to try and fix things. I know two years of what I've been doing won't evaporate or anything, but I thought it worth trying..." he faltered, looking at his friends.

"It won't," Ron agreed a bit stiffly. "I don't know what you thought you were doing-"

"Protecting you," Harry interrupted. "Trying to, anyway. I thought I'd be better off with out friends. That you'd be safer with out me."

"Harry, you are such an idiot sometimes," Hermione said, shaking her head. "We're not any safer without you than with you. In fact, I think we're less safe without you."

"Voldemort hasn't exactly gone after you or anything," Harry pointed out quietly. "It was working."

"Maybe," Hermione agreed. "But you need us. We need you."

"Yeah, Harry," Ron finally said, looking as if he still was unsure how much he wanted to try and poor back into the trio. "We stuck by you for four years. I think you owe us enough to stick by us."

Harry felt an ashamed flush color his cheeks and he made an intense study of the rug he was standing on. "I was just trying to keep you safe," he mumbled.

"We should decide whether we want to be kept safe or not," Ron replied.

"Funny, Malfoy said the same thing about you."

Hermione lifted an eyebrow questioningly. "He did?"

"He did," Harry confirmed. "He's right. I shouldn't have tried to-"

"We know why you did," Ron cut in. "Why don't you not do it again. I might have to kill you if you do," he added with a slight grin.

"This may be the first time in six years I'm glad you listened to Malfoy," Hermione murmured.

"There's a first time for everything," Ron noted. "But I still don't trust him."

"So, should we have another go at well, us?" Harry asked, slowly extending a hand. That nagging pain that lived with him now was there, the one that demanded the blade for relief. But it was quieter, less persistent. He _had_ been an idiot, he thought.

Hermione was the first to take his hand, and then Ron's joined the triple hand-shake. "I think we should," Hermione agreed.

"It's worth a try." was Ron's grudging reply. He would, Harry realized, be the slower of the pair to forgive him. It would all come, in time.

Wordlessly they separated their hands and Harry turned for the painting. Stepping out, he found Malfoy leaning nonchalantly against the opposite wall and offered him a tentative smile. "I hate to admit it, Malfoy, but you were right."

"Aren't I always?"

"Not always," Harry said, sitting down with his knees against his chest. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

Draco took up a similar position to Potter's. "Like you don't know?"

"Fine," Harry sighed. "Then _why_ did you want to talk about it?"

"Because," Draco said, "I want to."

Supposing that was all the answer he was going to get, Harry shut his eyes and regrouped his thoughts. "I cut myself."

"Obviously."

"Shut up," came the quick, sharp reply. "I cut myself. I do it because it makes me feel like I have control over _something_. It's a punishment and a pleasure..."

"You're very sick, you know that?" Draco stated.

"If you'd been through what I have, you would be to. As it is, I'm surprised you aren't a bit more twisted yourself."

"Different for everyone, I suppose. I don't understand, though. Why didn't you get help? Tell that pair in there?" Draco was sincerely curious. He'd never thought of Harry Potter, famous defeater of Lord Voldemort, doing this. Not in a million years.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Once I started, I didn't want to stop. I still don't." He shook his head in amazement. "I can't believe I'm opening myself to _you_."

"I can't believe you are either, actually."

"It's painful," the green-eyed boy replied.

"What is?" Draco asked, sensing something behind the words.

"Life," Harry finally said heavily. "Do you think its easy being me, Draco?" There was a stunned look from Malfoy that got a grim smile out of Harry.

"No, I don't think its easy being you. It's not easy being me, either."

"I suppose not," Harry replied, before they fell into a mutual silence. "So, what are we?"

"What?" Draco asked, surprised.

"What are we? Friends? Allies?"

Draco stood then, and shrugged. "I don't know, Potter. We're enemies with a mutual goal, for now."

"I suppose that's all I can expect, Malfoy." The Boy-Who-Lived rose too and stepped toward the painting. "Thanks, Draco." he added, before muttering the password and disappearing inside.

"You're welcome," Draco replied to no one.

Chapter Three

A scream broke the silence of the Gryffindor dormitories, but no one heard. Shaking, Harry pulled himself to a sitting position, tossing damp bangs out of his eyes. The silencing charm he'd begun placing on his bed when the nightmares had started two years ago still held true, making sure no one heard his rasping breaths or the whimpers that occasionally escaped. He shut his eyes for a moment, fighting for control. Two years. Two long years of the nightmares that embodied
every bad thing that had ever happened to him and he still woke up screaming. He still woke up in a cold sweat, shaking with terror.

With trembling hands, Harry pushed back the crimson and gold hangings of his bed and slipped from it. Dressing quietly, he pulled the invisibility cloak from his trunk and draped it around his form. As silently as he could, he crept to the door and slipped out and down the stairs to the portrait hole.

The fat lady was snoring loudly as he slipped out of the tower. His footsteps echoed slightly on the cold stone as he found the familiar path to the astronomy tower. He'd tread it many times, seeking comfort and refuge in the high place. He reached it quickly and slipped inside, surprised to find someone already there.

"Malfoy," he muttered without thinking and saw the Slytherin's head come up.

"Potter?"

Seeing no reason to hide now, Harry slipped out of the cloak. "What are you doing here?" he asked tiredly.

"I could ask you the same thing," Draco noted, staring at the unkempt teenager. His hair was messy as ever and his eyes were wide and brilliant in the paleness of his face. Something glimmered in those green depths that the blonde couldn't identify.

"I came to think," Harry said shortly, dropping down onto the cold stone floor. "I come up here sometimes after..."

"After?"

Harry hesitated, unsure whether or not he wanted to tell Draco Malfoy his troubles. "I may tell you, but not tonight."

Draco nodded and they sat in silence for several minutes. He finally broke the silence with, "To think, too."

"What?"

"You asked why I was up here. I was up here to think as well," Draco explained, giving Potter a long look. The Gryffindor looked unearthly in the moonlight spilling through the windows of the tower.

"Yet again I'm stunned. We've shared the same space for nearly half an hour and we haven't insulted each other yet." Harry noted with a weak grin.

"Would you prefer we do so?" Draco asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No, just commenting." They fell into another long stretch of silence. Harry finally rose, swirling the cloak around himself. Somehow he felt calmer, in spite of his company of the night being Draco Malfoy. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," Draco agreed, standing as well. He rolled his eyes at the now-invisible Potter and moved passed, a scarce few inches separating them. "You really need to learn how to have a conversation again."

"No arguments here," Harry noted softly as the Slytherin left. Sighing, he turned to the moonlit window for a moment. A deep itching urge for the blade against his flesh accosted him, as if Draco's presence had been all that restrained that dark need. Luckily, he thought, he didn't have a knife with him and the itch in his fingers had no outlet tonight. Turning from the window, he made his way back to Gryffindor.

The next morning it was Ron who shook Harry awake gently. "We'll be late for breakfast," he told him, offering a slight grin.

Harry groaned and rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. A few more persistent shakings got him out of bed and dressed and the pair walked in a somewhat companionable silence down stairs. Hermione was waiting for them and the trio walked into the Great Hall, exchanging laughs over one of Ron's stories. It felt good, Harry realized. Good to have someone beside him again; someone to share things with. And yet, he could never tell them the darker things of his life that would never leave him alone.

They slid into seats at the Gryffindor table, Ron on Harry's left and Hermione on his right. Conversation stilled as they ate and Harry was the first to leave the table. Neither of the other two Gryffindors questioned him and he soon found himself on the outskirts of the Slytherin table. Malfoy was the one nearest to Harry, so he didn't have to worry about passing by the other under-handed teenagers. Pausing behind Draco, he waited to see what kind of reception he might get.

"Got something to say, Potter?"

Well, he didn't sound friendly, but he wasn't being sarcastic either. Harry swallowed and spoke. "Can I talk to you for a minute, Malfoy?" The silvery-blonde Slytherin nodded and rose, apparently ignoring the jibes of his tablemates. They stepped out of the Great Hall and down a side passage where Draco gave Harry an expectant look.

"I was wondering if you could meet me tonight at the astronomy tower," Harry said, not daring to look directly at Malfoy.

"Why?"

"To talk." Harry answered. There was a pause as he assumed Malfoy thought it over and then, "Alright then. I'll meet you around midnight." Nodding, Harry stepped out of the passage first and made his way to his first class.

Chapter Four

Harry didn't bother trying to sleep that night. He didn't want the nightmares tonight, not if he was going to meet Draco Malfoy. A few minutes before midnight found him entering the tower and just as midnight rolled around, Draco Malfoy stepped in, looking arrogant as ever, but with a bit of nervousness coloring his expression.

"You came," Harry said, a little surprised.

"Of course," Draco replied, leaning against the wall lazily. "When the great Harry Potter says he wants to talk, I show up." But there was no mocking in his tone as he stared at the Gryffindor. Potter's gaze was definitely shadowed with something, still unidentifiable by the Slytherin.

"You told me yesterday that we're enemies with a mutual goal. But you also told me I can't win this war alone," Harry began. He paused, noting that Malfoy was intently listening. Would wonders never cease? "Neither can you."

Draco lifted an interested eyebrow. What Potter said actually made sense. "And you're proposing what?"

"I'm proposing we try to be friends," Harry said uncertainly.

Draco considered the pros and cons of that for several moments. "I spent nearly three years hating your guts Potter. I spent the last two wondering how you could be such an idiot. There has to be a compromise in there somewhere."

Green eyes looked up into gray ones. "I suppose so," the Gryffindor agreed. "If we're going to do this, we need to know a bit more about each other." Harry swallowed hard before he spoke again. "Ask me something. Anything."

Draco considered that. People would jump for the chance to explore the Boy-Who-Lived's past, but he knew that he'd better tread with caution. "Maybe we shouldn't ask questions yet. Maybe we should just start over." He extended his hand to Harry with a mock bow. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

Harry laughed slightly and grasped the Slytherin's hand. "Potter. Harry Potter." Their gazes locked once more and they broke out into laughter for several moments. It would take a while for them to become true friends in any sense of the word, just like it would take time for the rift between himself, Ron and Hermione to heal. But all of it would come, in time.

They parted soon after that, no questions asked about each other's pasts. That would come at a later time. Harry slipped back into Gryffindor feeling for the first time in a long while like he had
something akin to control over his life. A feeling that evaporated once he slid into sleep.

Chapter Five

The next morning Harry was up before Ron. He slipped out of his pajamas and dressed quietly before going downstairs and out into the corridor. He let his feet lead him to the great hall where, surprisingly, he wasn't the only one to be seeking an early Saturday morning breakfast. Draco Malfoy was slumped at the Slytherin table looking half-awake and staring fixedly into his glass of pumpkin juice.

"Morning," Harry greeted tentatively as he dropped down next to the gray-eyed boy. For the first time he took a moment to assess Draco's body and what he saw made him squirm slightly. Malfoy was thin, graceful, and beautiful. He was _not_ handsome, he was beautiful. But Harry had little time to reconcile this fact with his own sexual preference before Draco answered his greeting.

"Morning, Potter. Early riser, aren't we?"

"I try to be," Harry said. "It's always been a habit, though I can usually ignore it now."

"You've got lots of habits don't you?" Draco noted, finally looking up into the Gryffindor's green eyes. "I think last night you asked me to ask you something. Can I ask you now?"

"I...I guess..." Harry stammered, sure of what was coming. In the next moment he was proven correct.

"How did it start?" Draco's hand reached up to trace Potter's back where he knew a few long, vivid scars lay from the brief glimpse he'd had in the locker rooms. He took his own moments to assess Potter's body and he had no trouble acclimating the fact that Harry Potter was handsome to his own preference for males. He wasn't going to even touch that subject, not now, not here, though. He quickly withdrew his hand, feeling suddenly as if he were violating something.

Harry sighed and placed his chin in his hand. "You ask the hardest questions, don't you?" Silence met the rhetorical inquiry and he sighed again. "It was the summer after our fourth year," he began. "I spend my summers with my Muggle family and they aren't exactly fond of me."

Draco lifted an eyebrow- an action that was becoming a constant daily activity lately. "Why not?"

"They're Muggles. They hate everything to do with magic. The minute I'm off that train, I enter hell. My things are taken and locked up and I become the Dursleys' slave for the summer." Harry said, not looking at Malfoy. "It was somewhere near the end of the summer and I'd been having nightmares for a while." he paused.

"About what?" Draco asked, curiously.

"That night. The night Lord Voldemort came back," Harry muttered, figuring it was now or never to try and make friends with Draco Malfoy. "They actually left me alone that night and I found some of Uncle Vernon's stored brandy and..."

"You got drunk." It wasn't a question.

"I did. Very, very drunk." Harry's cheeks flushed scarlet with the memory. "And things kind of went from there. I told myself that the one time, sitting in the middle of the bathroom like that, blood on the floor, and would be the last. And it was, for about three days."

Funny, Draco thought. Harry Potter was supposedly brave and strong and somehow, Draco had once thought, unbelievablely stuck-up. But he was far from that, the Slytherin realized. He was just a normal teenager thrust into a position he'd never asked for and didn't want. Feeling as if he should give something in return for the conversation that had just unfolded, Draco said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Harry asked, finally looking up.

"Everything." It was a simple reply, but somehow, Draco knew Potter got the meaning. That was a habit he must break, he thought. Wouldn't due to call a friend by his last name. If that, indeed, was what they were to become.

"The past is the past. We started over, remember?"

"I do, Harry," Draco murmured. He saw a flicker of surprise cross the other sixth year's face before he stood and moved toward the Gryffindor table wordlessly. Draco didn't feel that he was being ignored, though. It was simply a silent acceptance of things between them. What ever those things were.

The day rushed by Harry in a blur and soon it was night again. He lay in the Gryffindor dormitory, staring up at the canopy above him fixedly. He didn't want to fall asleep; he didn't want to descend once more into the depths of the same nightmare. But when he finally did sleep, it wasn't the usual nightmare, but another one. He didn't wake screaming from this one.

Draco had been alone with his thoughts that night in the astronomy tower, though he'd half-expected Harry to show up there. Threading down from the tower as silently as he could, he caught a glimpse of movement and froze. Was it Filch's cat? But no, it was a human figure with messy black hair. Without thinking Draco hissed at it, "Harry!" He wondered what the Gryffindor was doing without his invisibility cloak. When the figure didn't pause, Draco Malfoy got the distinct feeling that something was wrong, but restrained himself from following. He watched as Harry stepped out of the illuminating moonlight and into the shadows. Where ever he was going, he was going alone. Still with a vague feeling of unease, Draco retired to Slytherin house for the night.

Chapter Six

There was a sigh and the thud of a closing book as Harry stepped into the common room. Hermione was sitting primly in one of the overstuffed armchairs, Ron haphazardly sprawled in another. It had been Ron who'd shut the book, looking far to frustrated for what Harry guessed hadn't been more than half an hour of study.

"That bad, huh?" he greeted. Things between the three were still carefully crafted as if the ties regrowing between them might shatter at the lightest touch.

"That boring," Ron muttered, sitting up and tossing Harry the book. He'd been right, it was boring. Tossing it back, Harry dropped down next to Ron.

"I talked to Malfoy a couple nights back," he said, broaching the subject carefully. Hermione and Ron immediately had their attention on Harry and he squirmed. "He and I decided that perhaps we should put grudges aside and-"

"You're going to try and make friends with _Draco Malfoy_?" Ron asked, half awed, half disgusted.

"Well, yeah," Harry admitted, looking flushed in the face. "I didn't think you'd be that thrilled."

"I hope you know what you're doing," was all Hermione said.

"I don't think you do," Ron put in, "But it's your life. Do what you want." He sounded to Harry as if he was a bit annoyed, but not flat-out furious as he'd expected. Harry'd take what he could get, he supposed.

The next half hour was spent in silence as Harry took the boring book back from Ron. He was half-asleep over it when the painting of the fat lady swung open and someone no one expected stepped through.

"You should learn to mutter the password a bit less clearly, Harry," Draco noted with a smirk. He saw Weasley's eyes narrow and waved carelessly at him. "I'm here to talk to Harry, Weasley, not you. I'm fresh out of good insults anyway."

Apparently to stunned to speak, Ron watched Harry rise and drop his book back in the red-haired boy's lap. The two ducked out of the painting silently, Harry pausing to stare at Malfoy. "What's up? You keep this up and they'll think we're dating or something."

Draco was surprised at the reference and lifted one arched eyebrow, but didn't comment. Instead, he got to the point. "What were you doing out last night?" He saw Harry's face wipe itself clean of expression.

"I wasn't out last night," Harry said. His face was still blank.

"You're either lying or you really think you weren't out,," Draco observed. If he was lying, he thought, then he had underestimated Potter's ability at that.

"I really wasn't, Draco," Harry said again. His face was still like a wiped blackboard and that made Draco wonder.

"I believe you," he lied. "Meet you tonight at the tower?" A quick nod from Harry ended the conversation abruptly. Draco left, still contemplating Harry's first comment to him.

The Slytherin was the first to be at the tower. He waited nearly a quarter of an hour passed midnight, that uneasy feeling back again. He stepped from the tower in time to see a fleeting shadow passing down a side passage. Draco darted down and after the figure without a second
thought.

He followed the figure back down passed the other, shorter towers of the castle and lower. Soon they were on the first floor and a shaft of moonlight finally confirmed what Draco had suspected all along. Harry Potter was briefly outlined before he disappeared through a door. It wasn't until Draco entered that he realized where they were. The girls' bathroom on the first floor- Mertle's bathroom.

"Harry?" he questioned tentatively, moving through the darkness. He heard footsteps and saw a shadow. He paused, then reached to grasp Harry's shoulder and shook him. A soft moan escaped the Gryffindor and he swung around, wavering on his feet, and eyes full of...fear.

"What the-"

"You normally sleep-walk?" Draco asked, for he realized now that was what Harry had been doing. Something was off with this picture. Very, very off. "And sleep-walk into the girls' bathroom at that?"

"The...the girls' bathroom...?" Harry managed, still shaking cobwebs from his brain. He turned to inspect where he'd been standing and froze. He had paused right in front of the opening to the Chamber of Secrets. "Oh..." he breathed.

"What?"

"I don't know," Harry muttered, avoiding the many questions in Draco's one word. "I don't sleep-walk and I'm not sure _why_ I came down here." He turned to Draco, eyes full of fear and confusion.

Draco sighed softly. "I saw you near the astronomy tower first. You were apparently going to keep our meeting." He reached out and cautiously placed a hand on Harry's cheek. Warm skin was damp under his fingers. "No clue why you're down here?"

"No," Harry said faintly. Something was beginning to squirm to life in the back of his mind. A nagging suspicion told him he was down here for more than a simple case of sleep-walking. "This feels wrong," he mumbled as he felt Draco leading him out of the bathroom. "Sleep-walking or not I shouldn't be anywhere near there."

"Why?" Draco asked curiously. They really needed to get a move on before Filch caught them wandering about so he practically pulled the Gryffindor toward his tower.

"That's where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets lays, Draco." There was little time for that to sink in as a low hiss alerted them to Mrs. Norris and the two pounded their way up flights of stairs to the painting and through it.

"Close one," Draco panted. Harry still looked shaken and what he'd told the Slytherin finally sunk in. He didn't comment though, but simply eased them both into the same armchair. Somewhere amidst the gold and crimson they fell asleep there, before any questions could be asked or answered. And that was where Ron Weasley found them the next morning.

END PART 6