Draco sat cross-legged on the ground opposite Harry in the Malfoy guest room and watched the potion turn dark green as he added fluxweed to the cauldron. Harry chucked in the knotgrass and waved his wand over the fizzing liquid, which sent up a puff of acrid blue smoke between them before bubbling down to a simmer. The two of them had been sitting there for the last half hour trying to perfect Part One, Step Two of the polyjuice potion, having gone down to the room after dinner. It surprised Draco that Harry seemed to have almost found making the potion fun. But then again, a playfight with a blast-ended skrewt would be fun compared to what Harry had been going through at school recently, what with the anger he had faced from his fellow students ever since being chosen to compete in the Triwizard.

"Now what?" asked Harry.

Draco checked his watch. "We have to wait for sixty minutes, then we can do step two. We'll finish the final two steps tomorrow."

"Should we leave and come back in an hour?"

He shook his head. "You have to be really precise about the timing with this potion, and I don't want to risk being late. But if you want, you can go. There only needs to be one of us here to take the potion off the heat."

Harry considered for a minute, then surprised Draco when he said decidedly "I'll stay. Keep you company."

Draco was taken aback, unsure why Harry would want to be around someone he was barely even friends with, but smiled. "Thanks."

The silence began to stretch and become awkward as Draco grappled for something to say, now that he couldn't just concentrate on making the potion. Nothing came to mind. Luckily, Harry broke the silence before it became deafening.

"What do you think of Professor Moody's class?"

"Moody?" Draco shuddered a little. "He creeps me out! Remember the first class we had with him, where he talked about the unforgivable curses?" Harry nodded. "He made that spider jump on my head! It was horrible!" Draco felt a nervy, jumpy sensation in his stomach that had nothing to do with the memory of the spider as he watched Harry throw his head back and laugh loudly.

"I remember!" He said, grinning. "You had the funniest expression on your face!"

"Shut up, Potter!" Draco tried to sound angry, but he couldn't help grinning back at Harry. He had a very contagious laugh. "It scared the life out of me! I don't like his teaching methods at all,"

"Yeah, I can tell." Harry laughed again, and then pulled a very comically scared face. "Help, help me! Professor Moody's put a horrible monster on my head!" He cried in a stupidly high voice, "You wait 'till my father hears about this!"

"I do not sound like that!" Draco leant forwards over the cauldron to push Harry, and all of a sudden found them - for want of a better phrase - play fighting on the ground next to the cauldron. He went red, thinking how childish this was, but it was fun somehow and Draco was having trouble fighting Harry off because he was laughing so much. Then, despite his wriggling and struggling, he found himself pinned down with Harry holding his hands against the floor above his head, his knee pressing down on Draco's stomach, which performed that now-familiar leap as if it were trying to jump out of his body. Then, as they looked at each other, Draco saw Harry's face flush bright red. He quickly rolled off of Draco and went back to his original seat next to the potion, which had somehow stayed upright during all this. Draco pushed himself up and grinned. "You know I let you win, right?"

Harry's face was still quite red, but he smiled through it. "Sure you did, Draco. I totally didn't just win because I'm stronger, faster, and agiler than you, and you're simply a mortal weakling."

"Shut up!"

"Sorry, princess," Harry smirked. "I promise I'll never mention your puny demeanor again." Despite himself, Draco laughed with Harry. As they caught their breath, Harry seemed to remember something. "Hey, where's Manimi? You brought her last time."

"She just stayed in the dorm today. Didn't feel like coming, I dunno why.." Draco didn't mention the fact that he had asked her not to come because he was terrified that she would tell Harry about his father starving him in the holidays, or the nightmares that seemed to be getting worse, or anything to do with how badly he was doing at the moment.

"Oh, right. Tell her I said hi?" asked Harry, happily unaware of what was going through Draco's mind.

"Sure."

The silence that followed wasn't awkward this time. It was friendly. Draco always found it disconcerting how at-ease he felt around Harry, completely different to how he was around Pansy and his other Slytherin friends (with the possible exception of Blaise. It was beginning to dawn on Draco that there were only four people in the world whom he truly trusted – his mother; Manimi; Blaise; and, most surprisingly, Harry Potter. He didn't know when it had happened, but it had. The feeling was a chaotic neutral: not bad or good, but troublesome just the same.

The evening continued to pass, the silence interspersed with bouts of conversation. All too soon, Draco found the last step of Part One complete, and the boys dispersed to their separate dormitories, leaving the potion to bubble overnight.

0o0oHarry0o0o

Harry was confused. Why had he felt like that when he and Draco had play fought? Why had it made him go red, and feel embarrassed? What was it about Draco – another boy, for Merlin's sake! – That had made him feel the same as he felt when he saw Cho Chang? It seemed each question spawned two more, and Harry resolved not to think about it. He was a teenager. Everything was everywhere. It was normal to feel weird things that didn't make sense – right?

The fire was dying down in the Gryffindor common room as Harry sat chatting with Ron, and Hermione in their usual comfortable armchairs. The pair were making good progress on their own potion and were at a similar stage to Harry and Draco. Harry suspected they were enjoying their time alone together, but didn't ask about it. He doubted either of them had figured out what was going on between them.

Hermione was the first to go to bed, leaving the two boys in front of the embers as she usually did on school nights. As they sat together in companionable silence, Harry was struck by a thought.

"Ron," He began a little hesitantly, "what do you think of people being gay? You know, like, liking the same gender?"

Ron looked surprised. "Blimey, Harry. Bit off topic."

"We weren't talking about anything else, and it just occurred to me that I have no idea what the Wizarding World thinks about it."

Ron considered a minute. "When I first found out about it, I thought it was a bit off, you know? It grossed me out, the idea of two blokes being together like that. I mean, it still makes me feel a bit weird to think of two guys together-" He paused and shook himself a little, like a horse shaking off a fly. "But I guess I got used to it." He continued, "And anyway, Ginny pointed something out recently which I thought was pretty interesting: statistically, there is probably at least one gay bloke in my family. So I don't really have the option to be homophobic, do I?"

Harry hadn't thought about that. He had heard somewhere that one in ten people were gay, so it did make sense that at least one Weasley would be. Ron, he noticed, was giving him a slightly weird look.

"Uh, Harry?"

"Hm?"

"If you need to tell me anything, just, uh,"

Harry shook his head quickly. "That wasn't why I asked. I was only wondering, you know," Harry hoped he didn't sound defensive, while simultaneously wondering why he felt the need to be defensive. It wasn't as if he was gay or anything like that.

"...Okay." Ron was still looking at him strangely, but he appeared to have decided not to pursue the topic. "Anyway, when were you planning to go to bed? I'm pretty tired."