Chapter 4
In Which We Learn That Pandora's Box, Once Opened, Rarely Accepts Returns

Harry trudged down to breakfast, feeling wrung out and exhausted. He'd spent the night tossing and turning, sweating and dreaming and generally being tormented by erotic visions of Draco bloody Malfoy. He'd woken up at dawn damp and chilled, belted his dressing gown tightly over the evidence and gone to the bathrooms to take care of the problem before anyone else awoke. He'd briefly considered a cold shower, but gave in to the hot shower and the temporary respite it gave him.

Hermione and Ron were in their usual places in the Great Hall, flanking his empty spot. He must have spent longer in the bathroom than he'd thought if they had woken up and come down already. A glance at the ceiling showed pale grey clouds chasing one another across a sky like blue steel, bright but somehow menacing and leeched of colour. He'd have a few bites of toast and then head out for a walk, in the vain hopes that a bit of fresh air, even as windy as it seemed to be, would clear his mind.

He plopped down between his friends and grabbed for the toast, adding a liberal glob of marmalade. "Morning!" he said, trying to keep his voice light and cheerful.

Hermione gave him a halfhearted wave from where she was buried in a truly enormous folio, apparently on the use of magical sigils. Ron grinned at him through a mouthful of porridge, yesterday's argument water under the nearly-flooded bridge of their long friendship. They ate in companionable silence, Harry once again putting his worries about Draco on the back burner in favour of his worries about the Slytherins in general, wracking his brain once again for ways to anchor them, protect them, shield them from harm.

Three untasted slices of toast and a glass of something later, he glanced up from his contemplation to see Draco arriving, flanked by the still-imposing figures of Crabbe and Goyle. Against all odds, Draco's blond head now rose an inch or two past theirs, but they each amassed as much as three of him, all of it muscle and sinew. They were always up for fighting the good fight, and Harry felt a twinge as he wondered just whose side they'd be fighting on.

Draco glanced up at him, and he felt himself flush despite the innocent nature of his current line of thought. Which of course immediately derailed the train to a different line altogether, causing his cheeks to burn brighter and his skin to tighten. His breath left him in a rush, and all sorts of things began to stand on end, starting with the hair on the back of his neck. Draco raised an eyebrow at him, and Harry grinned feebly, slouching down in his chair.

Draco smiled back, and although his lips formed the familiar sneer, there was something open and almost raw hovering behind his eyes like curtains fluttering behind a half-open window. Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gaze never leaving Draco's, pushing the feelings out of himself. His heartbeat slowed marginally and although he didn't soften, he didn't get any harder. He could do this, he could take Draco's willingness at face value, he could be a friend.

Draco sat, leaving Harry blinking as though he'd been staring into the sun too long. He glanced left and right, and wondered blindly if he even knew how to be a real friend anymore. "I'm gonna go for a walk," he blurted, practically stumbling in his sudden haste to leave the hall.

He got bare murmurs from the distracted duo, and was obscurely grateful for their distance. Even if he didn't have them to confide in, they also gave him the time alone he'd craved so often since the deaths began. He realized he'd become more and more pensive and withdrawn, and it probably wasn't for the best, but what could he do. No one else seemed to understand how he felt, the burning need to keep one more student alive, to stop this terrible parade of death. Responsibility like an obsession more than a burden, one he bore willingly, something to fill the aching void that loomed a little larger each time someone died.

The wind hit him like a slap in the face, making his skin sting and eyes water. He pulled his robes closer and stepped out into the merciless sunlight, feet crunching on grass still frosty from the last cold snap of the season. He was surprised enough by the sound to really look around him, seeing the world covered in a silvery veil that reminded him forcefully of Draco's eyes. The frost was beautiful, but it camouflaged what lay beneath.

He stalked across the slippery grounds, heading for a path his feet knew well, a circuit that skirted the edge of danger but never quite made its way into the Forbidden Forest. He meandered past the few optimistic flowers that edged the path, their petals now rimed with sparkling white, and tried to find some metaphor in there for the war. In the end, he had to concede that the blossoms' beautiful death was its own tragedy, not symbolic of anything but the risks of optimism.

He shook his head to try and clear it; he'd found he had a poetic streak that only really came to the fore when he was thinking about the wrong things, or more accurately avoiding the things he really ought to be contemplating. It was a sign from his own mind that the war, no matter how looming, was not the real reason he'd needed a breath of fresh air. Harry stopped, spread his feet out, and stretched, arms rising from his sides to reach for the sky, back arched, eyes closed. He stayed like that for long moments, feeling things move and crack and pull, muscle and bone, tendon and sinew, grounding him in the physical world.

He spared a sad thought for Firenze, who had taught him that trick and many others before going back into exile, but let it go like all the other errant notions, a speck floating away on the diligent breeze. He took deep breaths, bringing the cold into himself and sending it back out, warm and moist from his body. Then he whirled around too fast and ended up sprawling, listening ruefully to the crunch crunch of Draco's boots as he moved through the frozen grass to offer Harry a hand up.

Harry took it wordlessly, storing away the thrill of skin-to-skin contact for a later time and instead concentrating on the bite of the air in his lungs, and the flash of sunlight off of everything silver. Even Draco's clothes were edged with it, bright metal threaded in where some students might only have a soft grey. Harry spared a moment to wonder how much of his display Draco had seen, then gave up. He'd seen what he'd seen, just as Harry had heard and couldn't forget.

"You trying to catch your death, Potter?" Draco sneered, fingers still lingering at Harry's wrist, eyes flickering over him like they were afraid to rest on any one part too long.

"Not today," he said softly. "Some days, maybe, but today I just needed..."

"A breath of fresh air?" finished Draco. "Something got you hot under the collar, Potter?" Draco's fingers stroked over the pulse point, then he dropped Harry's hand abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets with practiced nonchalance.

Harry smiled, then winked, unable to resist testing their newfound truce just a touch. "Y'know, dreams."

Draco's eyes went a bit wide at that, and pink chased across his cheeks. "Still not," he made the hand gesture again, and again it seemed more elegant than lewd.

Harry fought the urge to ask, "How do you *do* that?" and instead simply shrugged, then grinned mischievously. "You?"

That surprised a laugh out of Draco. "I am seventeen," he replied, then added thoughtfully, "And I doubt our house-elf has the same... predilections... as yours."

Harry laughed with him this time, assailed once again by images his mind didn't quite know how to process. "Thinking of girls or boys?" he asked instead, pushing the thoughts out of his head.

"Only if you tell me about your dreams," said Draco mysteriously.

Harry kicked at the grass and said, "I don't really remember, but I did do a bit of soul-searching last night." He let it hang, wanting to hear Draco ask again, to know that he wasn't just that desperate to share that he'd tell the first somewhat-friendly ear. While same-sex romance wasn't totally unheard-of at Hogwarts, it wasn't exactly the most socially acceptable preference, either.

Draco's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and he took a half-step forward, arm outstretched. Then, much to Harry's surprise, he let his hand drop and cocked his head to one side. His voice sounded strained, as though it was an effort for him not to commit whatever act he'd been about to do. "So, did you find you fancy boys, or is it girls after all?"

Harry took a deep breath, then looked away, losing himself for a moment in the silver-laced black of the tree branches overhead. "A bit of both, really, but lots more, er, boys." He knew he was blushing, and didn't bother to hide it as he turned to look Draco full in the face, adding, "But I promise not to, y'know, try and take advantage or anything."

Draco's face was flushed, although it could be the cold as much as the conversation that brought the high spots of feverish colour to his cheeks. "I guess we've more in common than I'd thought," he said softly. He looked down, drawing meaningless patterns in the frost with his toe before adding, "I think Snape worries too much."

Harry's breath caught, but he forced himself to say, "I still think you and I both might need a friend more than any kind of fancying."

Draco's eyes shot up, and then he smiled crookedly. It was just about the most honest expression he'd ever seen on Draco's face, at least that wasn't rage or spite. "Perhaps you're right."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, breath streaming away in thin white clouds as the wind picked back up again. "The forest is so lovely like this," said Harry thoughtfully. "It's almost hard to remember what's inside."

Draco shuddered, either from cold or memory, and Harry offered him a hand wordlessly. He looked from the hand to Harry's face several times before shrugging eloquently and fitting his own oddly warm hand into Harry's. They stared a few minutes more, then Draco gave his hand a tug. He stumbled, shoulder hitting the taller boy in the chest with a soft oomph. Draco slung a friendly arm around Harry's shoulders, and Harry steadied himself with a hand on Draco's slender hip.

"We look like a couple," said Draco lightly. "Y'know, if anyone were to look out here."

Harry glanced up at him, then grinned. "Let 'em wonder."

There was silence again, stretching out long enough that the shadows were slowly drawn back into the forest until they huddled against the trees. "You don't mind?" Draco asked, his voice blank.

"I've learned that the opinions that count aren't the ones made on rumour and gossip," said Harry, remembering the students' reactions to him in second year, fourth, fifth. Over and over again, he'd worried about what people thought, but with Sirius' death he finally realized that it only mattered what he thought of himself, and that he had friends who cared by his side.

Draco looked over at him. "And whose opinions do you care about, Harry Potter?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at the use of his full name, then tugged gently until Draco moved in closer, pressing their bodies together from knee to shoulder, or at least chest in Draco's case. Harry leaned his head against Draco's chest, smelling the faint scent of soap and skin despite the wind, which seemed now to be trying to scour them clean.

"Mine, my friends'. Yours. Snape's, oddly enough, and of course Dumbledore's." He turned them around until they could see the castle. "Even though I want to save them all, in the end it doesn't matter if they praise or hate me for it, as long as they're alive."

More silence fell, this time weighted with unspoken arguments, and past mistakes. Harry had a feeling Draco understood better than most that a person's respect was, in the end, a small price to pay for their life. "You're sure this isn't just an excuse for you to get a bit of a cuddle?" asked Harry finally, retreating to humour when the air grew too thick to breathe.

"Naah," said Draco, not missing a beat. "You think I'd snog the likes of you? You wouldn't know a comb if it bit you. I bet you kiss like a dog, all slobber and enthusiasm."

Harry grinned, giving Draco a last squeeze before pulling away and walking back towards the castle. "I wouldn't know, really. I guess you'd have to teach me," he shot back over his shoulder. His hands were trembling with something, lust or nerves or just plain cold, but he was concentrating too hard on appearing nonchalant to even think about why.

After a few seconds, he heard Draco crunching along behind him. "What, like tutoring for poofs? I think I'd start with some basic grooming before I got too frisky."

Harry laughed, shoving his freezing hands into his pockets. "I doubt even your primping skills could make my hair behave," he said, grinning like a fool. Draco caught up, and Harry's steps faltered when he realized that Draco must have been as isolated as Harry was to be willing to try this hard, this soon. A glance showed him that the arrogant mask was back in place as they rounded the corner and headed for the main entrance.

"Is that a challenge, Potter?" Draco's eyes were glinting evilly.

Harry shrugged, suddenly assailed by the butterflies that he'd thought might have finally left the building, or at least his stomach. "And if it was?"

"I'll bet you I can make even you look presentable, hair and all." Something in the way he said it made Harry suddenly wonder about trusting old enemies.

"Only if we get someone to supervise. I'm not having you shave 'Property of Draco Malfoy' into my head or anything." He stopped at the door, hand resting on the handle. "Stakes?"

Draco looked thoughtful. "I could tattoo it to your forehead, instead. It would make a nice cover-up."

Harry snorted. "You know, I think I'm going to reconsider. Love, evidently, doesn't involve blind and foolish trust."

Draco laughed, and Harry opened the door, putting them back onto familiar ground. The laughter slid away from Draco like it had never been, his old mannerisms settling around him like a second skin. "Probably wise, Potter, we wouldn't want you starting to think of yourself as even more of a catch."

Harry snorted at that, and Draco raised one aristocratic eyebrow. "Right, a catch. I'm the Boy Who Couldn't Get a Date, remember?"

Harry could see the laughter trying to crack the mask, Draco's eyes sparkling with suppressed mirth, his lips twitching. Harry looked around the hall and saw that they were the subject of several sidelong glances and a few open stares. "Besides, I wouldn't want to end up poncing around like you, worried a stray draft might muss my perfect locks." He winked, then glanced meaningfully at the crowd.

Draco seemed to get the hint, and Harry hoped he understood that whatever they had so far, he wasn't ready yet to share it with the world. "I could always just hex you a few times, Potter, it certainly couldn't make you look any worse."

There was a fierce joy in Draco's eyes now, burning behind the arrogant front, and it sent a thrill down Harry's spine and blood rushing to his groin. Harry wracked his brain for another insult, finding an odd sort of enjoyment in their sparring now that the malice had been, if not entirely removed, at least dampened in shared understanding. "Worried I'll get all the girls, and you'll be left with Goyle for the Leaving Ball?"

Someone off to their left laughed at that one, and Harry scored a mental point for himself. "You wouldn't know what to do with a date if you had one," said Draco, his voice positively icy. Either Harry had scored an unwitting hit, or he was a better actor than Harry had realized.

A glance showed Harry that there were now teachers coming to break them up, a routine tactic by the faculty since they'd managed to hex a couple of innocent bystanders last year during a fight. "We'll continue this later, Malfoy," said Harry, hoping to convey his desire to meet up in private.

"I'd wait until you were no longer unarmed to finish our battle of wits, but then we'd be delayed for eternity." Harry's eyes narrowed, a flush suffusing his face. He hoped that Draco was still kidding, but it had sounded too much like the Malfoy of old to be sure.

"Break it up, you two," said McGonagall, advancing on them with her face twisted in anger. "Five points from each of you, and shut the bloody door."

Harry winced and pulled it shut with a heavy thunk, cutting off the cold wind that had been chilling the entryway. He didn't bother to acknowledge either her punishment or Draco's last insult, instead turning on his heel and stomping off toward the Owlery. He vaguely heard Draco making a token argument against the points loss before he was out of hearing range. Once out of sight, he broke into a loping run, much to the consternation of the paintings, desperate to get somewhere quiet so he could sit and shake.

Hedwig swooped down, hooting softly when he curled himself into the corner by the door. He petted her gently, then dropped his hand and just let himself tremble, letting out the tension that had been mounting since Draco walked up. Their newfound friendship seemed so fragile, and a part of him doubted it was based on anything real, just smoke and mirrors planted in his mind by guilt and magic. Eventually his tremors ceased, and he sat, limp and exhausted, inhaling the dusty smell of owls and hay and parchment.

She hooted at him again, more impatiently this time, and he returned to scratching her feathers. He fished a scrap of parchment out of pockets full of oddments, finally giving up and transfiguring a straw into a ballpoint pen. "D-" he wrote, unwilling to make the note any more incriminating than it had to be. "Same place, 3 o'clock. Dress warm. -H"

He gave Hedwig a few owl treats, then tied the small note to her leg and whispered, "I know you're going to think this is odd, but can you give that to Draco Malfoy when no one's looking?"

She hooted again as though she found, by this point, very little odd in Harry's life anymore. He smiled softly, and gave her another thorough scratch and some more treats before sending her off. She gave his hair an affectionate tug with her beak, then launched into the air and disappeared out a window. He'd have to go down and visit Hagrid soon, to thank him again for such a lasting gift.

He sighed, checking the sun for the time, then dusted himself off and headed back down to the Great Hall for one more go at that eating thing. His stomach was still tight, and his chest felt as though a broken-winged bird was fluttering madly where his heart should be, but he felt he owed it to someone to at least attempt to keep himself healthy. He'd need his strength when the day came, and the battle began in earnest.