Chapter 3
In Which We See What Happens to Contents Under Pressure

Harry sat down next to Hermione in the library, and she acknowledged him with a half-hearted wave. He'd thought about going to Ron, but he knew it would inevitably turn into another of their halfhearted fights, and he just wasn't in the mood for it. His friendship with Ron these days was something that added to that hollow place in his chest instead filling it, and made him feel helpless and alone. He sighed, and Hermione patted his shoulder absently, nose still buried in her book.

Hermione seemed to be coming to the end of something; he could practically see her mind swimming up out of the book to try and break the surface of the world again. She snapped the book shut rather authoritatively, jotted a few notes down on the parchment next to her, and then leaned back in her seat to look at Harry critically. "All right, what's happened now?"

He snorted a laugh and said, "I'd protest that I just wanted to see you, but we both know better by now." Once they'd been close friends, but these days neither of them really had time for the trappings of simple friendship. There was a war brewing, and soon there would be fighting in earnest. Hermione's formidable mind was being put to use by the Order to research anything that might help them fight Voldemort, and Harry was being groomed by pretty much everyone to be the visible leader, Dumbledore's right hand.

She shook her head sadly and said, "We don't have a lot of time for fun anymore, do we?"

He smiled wistfully, thinking back to the times when Ron and Hermione had been the first thing he thought about out of bed, and the last when he went to sleep. "No, we don't. And now I've gone and done something impressively stupid."

She raised one eyebrow at him and said, "Do I even want to know?"

He sighed. "We made healing potions in class today, the one that's a cure for any physical ailment?" She nodded, and he went on. "Well, Snape had written a few notes on the board about the potion, and a few more about how the potion was only a couple of ingredients away from being..." God, it was hard to say.

"You dosed yourself with a love potion." Her voice was flat, almost emotionless. "And who is it that's now tugging at the heartstrings of the great Harry Potter?"

Harry shot her a look, but her face was closed, eyes shuttered. "Snape and Dumbledore think that because of the nature of the potion I should be able to keep it at a friends level, but..."

She rolled her eyes. "You're falling in love with Malfoy, aren't you?"

He laughed, the sound slightly desperate. "How did you get to be so damned right all the time?"

"Let's just say I've seen you in Potions enough to know who you'd be looking at when you drank the thing." She shook her head, and some of that coldness melted when she put her hand on his arm. "Oh, Harry, I hope they're right and it's just friends. Because I've always known that when you fell, you were going to fall hard."

He saw something else in her face just then, and he laid a hand over hers. "I'm sorry it was never you."

She looked away, cheeks reddening. "I always knew it wouldn't be, but I think we all sort of hoped that Ginny would eventually get through to you."

Harry shook his head sadly. "I'm too stubborn to fall for her. Besides, even I'm not dumb enough to start dating a girl with the entire Weasley clan looking after her virtue!"

They shared one last honest laugh, and then he stood. "If you can, find out more about just what I've done to myself?"

She nodded, then picked up the next heavy tome from the pile next to her. It was dusty with neglect, but by now Harry was pretty sure that she'd been given free access to every nook and cranny of the library, and was making good use of it. She'd unearthed all kinds of odd spells that had gone out of favour before their great-grandparents were born, and her efforts were making life easier for everyone, from house elves to Aurors. She'd even been teaching a night class on simple spells that could be cast with the will alone, no wands or words.

"Thanks, Hermione." He gave her shoulder a friendly pat, then left the library, heading finally to the common room and some rest.

---

Draco caught his arm as he walked towards the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, pulling him into one of the many odd little nooks and crannies that littered the castle. He spoke softly, almost apologetic. "Snape wants you to get more tears tonight, if you can. He's tacking it on to your detention, 'cos you were late, and making me go along for backup."

Draco seemed mostly tired and irritable, and Harry felt bad for dragging him into this. "I can go alone, if..."

Draco shook his head. "No way, can't go letting the Boy Who Lived get eaten by a giant bat or something, can we?"

Harry snorted. "Fine. But I've got to get some things out of my room. Meet me at the front doors in ten minutes?"

Draco nodded, and Harry hurried up to the Tower. Ten minutes later, he was bundled up against the cold and carrying a lantern and two crystal vials. Draco was lounging by the door, looking very put-upon and glaring at anyone who looked like they might be considering trying to make small talk. "Took your sweet time, didn't you, Potter?"

"I'm sure you were terribly inconvenienced," said Harry snidely. He thrust the lantern at Draco. "Here, you take this, and keep your wand out." Harry drew his own wand, and they walked out into the night.

They made a beeline for the forest, and as they approached the dark shapes of the trees, Draco said nervously, "Er, how will you get the unicorns to show?"

Harry blushed. Last time, he'd ended up singing an odd little charm that called the unicorns to a clearing, which was where he was headed now. "There's, um, a spell. I have to do it, on account of... er, unless...?"

"No, Potter, I'm most definitely not a virgin. I do have a social life, unlike you." Harry blushed deeper, wondering suddenly just who Draco's social life had been with, and when. What they'd done.

He nearly tripped on a root, he was so distracted. "Watch it," sneered Draco from behind him.

"Hold the lantern higher," he snapped back, ashamed of his line of thought. He was pretty sure he knew when Draco had lost his purity, and it hadn't been at all pleasant, or even voluntary. He disguised his shiver as cold, and walked on in silence.

"Much further?" asked Draco after a few minutes of tromping, trying to disguise the fear in his voice under arrogance. "I haven't got all night."

Harry ignored him, stepping through the trees to reveal a moonlit clearing, complete with the rock in the middle that always reminded him a bit of an altar. "We're here."

"Oh," said Draco softly. "Now what?"

Harry sighed. "Now, I have to do the sodding spell. If you tell anyone, ever, that you saw me do this, I will hex you so hard they'll have to put you in St. Mungo's." Draco's eyebrows went up, and Harry trudged reluctantly over to the rock.

He got up on top of it, just like the last time, and spread his arms wide. Took a deep breath of the crisp night air and tried to put Draco out of his mind, instead to connect to the forest, to throw his sorrows out onto the night air and draw the unicorns to his pure heart. Or at least get them to show up and give him potions ingredients. He opened his mouth, and sang softly.

He didn't know what the words meant, or even what language they were in, but the song was haunting, and Firenze had made him practice it until it was like a part of him, automatic and natural. His mind wandered through all the tragedies of his life, which was the hardest part, far worse than any embarrassment at having Draco watch him singing on top of a bloody rock in the middle of the night. To have to relive all the death, to lose them all again, his parents, Cedric, Sirius. To have to acknowledge that he was still alone, might always be alone.

He was crying quietly, the song still going on even through his grief as the first white shape moved in the trees, and he barely remembered to tap the vials with his wand, activating the charm that would carefully draw their precious tears into the waiting vessels. He sat down cross-legged on the altar, cradling the vials in his lap. The unicorns crept up to him, nervous of Draco's near-forgotten presence at the edge of the clearing, but still there, and still weeping for his pathetic life. One by one, they nuzzled him, waited patiently as he stroked their silken manes, whispered his thanks.

When they'd all left, he carefully capped the vials and wiped his own tears from cold cheeks. Draco's face was unreadable as Harry walked back over, handing him the two nearly-full bottles. "I hate doing that," he said softly, trying to pull back inside himself, pack the pain away in its carefully labelled boxes and get back to getting the bloody hell on with his life.

"What's the song about?" asked Draco, carefully pocketing the vials.

"Y'know, Firenze never told me. It's really just a focus, I think." Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking towards the school, shivering with more than cold.

"Focus for what?" Draco caught up with him, making sure the lantern lit their path back.

"All my personal bloody tragedy," spat Harry bitterly. "Every single horrid moment in my life, and of course the capping horror of being a seventeen-year-old virgin."

Draco was silent for long enough that Harry was worried he'd offended him somehow, but then he said softly, "There are worse things to be than still untouched, you know."

Harry went cold with shame for his own self-pity. At least he'd had people that really loved him, once. He put a hand on Draco's arm carefully and said, "I know."

---

They parted with nearly friendly farewells, Draco to return to the dungeons and Snape, precious ingredients in hand. Harry made his way up to the top of one of the less-used towers, a place he often went to be alone. They'd talked more as they walked this time, about trivial things, daily life, and Harry found the slow ache of longing had pushed out the sharp bite of grief. For that, he could only be grateful. The last time he'd done the ritual, he'd cried for hours afterwards, lying awake in his lonely bed.

He leaned against the parapet, breathing in the crisp night air, and tried to organize his thoughts. As much as he'd like to think so, he knew that not everything he was feeling was about spells or potions. He'd been watching Draco for nearly seven years now, first warily, then with the fire only bitter enmity can kindle, but eventually it had all burned down so that there were only the warm coals of familiarity left.

He'd watch Draco change just as he had changed, growing into something more than Lucius Malfoy's spoiled brat. He'd become de facto leader of his year group in Slytherin back in their first year, but instead of just abusing his power for seven years, Draco took on the mantle of responsibility when the world went and got serious around him. He did it quietly, and mostly for the benefit of his own friends and house, but he took care of his own when no one else would. Harry had spent enough time on the wrong end of people's opinions to know that what people thought didn't often have anything to do with reality.

His cheeks flushed as his mind chose that precise moment to remind him of the other parts of his conversation with Draco, about fancying and, er, taking care of one's bodily needs. He felt a bit odd that he was seventeen and he couldn't think of a single person he thought of that way, now that Cho was long gone and mostly forgotten. There was no use thinking about her, either; he already knew she mostly made him feel damp, guilty and confused. Although it felt a bit like tempting fate, he decided to try and see if he could find any spark of desire he'd been hiding from himself.

First he rifled through the girls he knew, shuffling them like a deck of cards in his head. Hermione had never affected him that way, he'd gotten too close to her too young. The Patil twins, and Lavender Brown with them, were lovely in their own way, but like the moon held in a puddle, shallow and elusive. He might have had some thoughts about Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, but even before they'd graduated, he was too intimidated by their status as Chasers. As he flipped through names and faces, they all became a blur and he realized that there was just no heat.

He switched his mental pack of cards for the boys, and began rummaging through. He got a flash of something when he thought of Dean Thomas, but it was buried beneath years of sleeping in a dorm two beds away from him. He got another flash when he thought of Remus Lupin, of all people, and a much stronger pulse of it when he let his mind wander past an image of Oliver Wood. Harry could only wonder just how he'd managed to live in denial for quite this long, but he supposed it had to do with the complete unavailability of the objects of his affections.

He finally let his mind wander over to Draco -- the tall, arrogant line of his body when he was tossing out insults, the cold grey of his eyes like silver covered in hoarfrost. The hair that was always perfectly in place but still looked touchably soft, strands so pale they almost seemed woven of colourless spider silk. He felt himself growing hot and heavy in his trousers, a flush crawling up from his chest to burn at his cheeks. Draco's lips were like a cupid's bow, perfectly curved and always carrying just that touch of pink. Harry imagined himself kissing them, and felt a jolt of desire so hot it was almost painful.

Well, that answered that. The question he couldn't answer was if these feelings had been there all along, or if the potion had pointed other parts of his body as well as his heart in Draco's direction. Snape maintained that the potion didn't automatically turn the drinker to lust, and if he was honest with himself, once he'd opened himself up to the idea, that path had seemed well-worn. His mind had supplied him with images of startling clarity, unlike the vague desire he'd felt for Lupin or Wood.

He opened that box in his head again, letting the images flow this time. The smooth column of Draco's neck, pale skin just begging to be decorated with love bites. The flash of his eyes when he was angry, and the hidden depths Harry had only glimpsed in unguarded moments. His hands, so long and dexterous, the hands of an artist or a musician, capable of such fine control, that Harry suddenly longed to have touching him.

He let his own hand wander downward, sliding a palm against himself, the touch making him gasp even through his trousers. He wondered if Draco's kisses would be tentative or passionate, and let his fingers undo button and zipper. He practically fell out of the opening, straining against the tent of his boxers, the damp head cold in the night air. He imagined what Draco might look like, inches taller than Harry, head thrown back as Harry nibbled at one sharply defined collarbone.

His hand seemed to have a will of its own, pushing his boxers down and curling around his length. He felt hot and heavy, almost unfamiliar, and he got a flash of Draco's slim fingers performing the same task. He could almost see the smooth line of Draco's body, jutting hipbones, graceful legs, tiny, pale nipples almost the colour of his lips. Those lips gone red and swollen with the force of Harry's kisses, the nipples hard in the cold night air.

Harry was panting, his breath rasping harshly through a throat closed with unacknowledged emotion. He wanted to feel the column of Draco's flesh in his hand, taste it in his mouth, slide it into his body in ways he only could vaguely imagine. He was stroking faster, faster, leaning forward to rest his head on the crenellated wall, forehead hot against the cold, rough stone. He tried to see Draco's face, those eyes gone dark and stormy with need, and his lips formed Draco's name even as the image in his mind called out his own.

When he came back to himself, he was shivering with the cold. Fluid like liquid pearls streaked the stone, glistening in the moonlight. He tucked himself away and pulled his robe closer, the sweat chilling on his body and making him ashamed. He'd violated Draco's confidence by listening in, and now he'd violated his trust by making him the object of his basest desires. He held himself tight, hoping that he could avoid ever trying to violate Draco's body, and resolved to suppress the lust, bottle it up and forget this little interlude ever happened.