Harry Potter had seen a lot of things in his seventeen years of life, but one thing he had never expected o see was Draco Malfoy being ravished in an alley way. The blonde’s hair was a mess and his pale cheeks flushed a deep rosy pink as some man held him crushed against the wall as he feasted on his throat. Harry had definitely seen his childhood rival in a new light.

Not that he hadn’t already been slightly confused over his feeling for the Slytherin. Despite what he might have told his friends he did feel sympathy towards the other boy. In some ways, he was even a little angry at Ron for pestering Hermione until she spilled what had happened both during the meeting with the Headmaster and when she had confronted Malfoy in his room. And she called him reckless. He was even more upset with Hermione for letting Ron’s pestering get to her.

All those thought flashed briefly through his mind as he stared into the alley. He had been listening to Hermione, who wanted to go into the bookstore they were standing in font of, argue with Ron, who insisted they wait until later because if they went in now she would be there all day. He had just settled in for the argument that was sure to last at least the next ten minutes or so, when out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of movement in the narrow passage across the street. Over the past couple of years, Harry had been proud of the way he had learned to control his temper, but he felt it flare as he saw what looked like a guy shoving a slighter figure up against the wall. It reminded him too much of his own childhood for him to restrain himself. His friends didn’t notice as he took a couple steps forward, ready to dash across the street, then stop in his tracks as he got a better view of exactly what was going on against that wall. It was no bloody fist fight, that was for sure.

Two boys were making out heavily, the smaller of the two was clutching at the other who with both his arms and legs. It had been a while since Harry had had any romantic prospect of his own and he felt himself firm up in his trousers at the sight. It wasn’t until the smaller boy lay his head on the other’s shoulder that Harry got a good look at his face. He eyes went wide as he made eye contact with Draco Malfoy.

“Harry?” came Hermione’s voice, breaking into her friend’s shock.

Harry looked up just as his friends started to look for what he found so interesting. “Wait!” he shouted. They were looking at him expectantly even before he realized he had spoken.

“Lets...” he stammered, “Lets go to Honeydukes first before the third years clear it out. I thought I’d get Sirius some chocolate to go with the rest of his birthday present.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look but didn’t say anything as they followed their friend to Honeydukes. Harry walked fast, the image of his former rival still burning into the back of his retinas. It was all he could do to keep from looking back.

Later, as they were walking back to the school, Harry had almost managed to put the situation out of his mind until he caught sight of Malfoy walking alone behind him. Ron and Hermione were already ahead, bickering like an old married couple, so they didn’t notice him drop back even further until he was walking next to the Slytherin. Harry noticed the stiffness in his step and the relaxed set of Malfoy’s shoulders told the whole story. The Gryffindor felt his cheeks warm and thought, ‘that good, huh?’ but kept that to himself. He didn’t feel like being hexed today.

After several moments of silence, during which Harry wondered if the other boy even realized he was there, Malfoy spoke: “Thank you.”

Harry looked at him steadily, never breaking eye contact. Finally, he reached up to his own neck and rubbed it pointedly until Malfoy got the hint and tugged his collar up a bit higher to hide the vivid red mark on the base of his neck.

“You’re welcome.”

That night in bed, Harry found he couldn’t get to sleep because of a problem in his pants. As he reached down to take care of it, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be the one to put that flushed look on Malfoy’s face.

His name was Tanner and though he was no Harry Potter, for a first year he was one hell of a Quidditch player. Draco waved the boy over to him at dinner.

“Hey Tanner, I know we didn’t have a spot for you on the team, but I thought that you might like to go flying with some of us after dinner tonight.”

The first year Slytherin looked at him suspiciously for a moment. “But I’m a first year,” he said pointedly.

“You’re still a good player and we want to keep you that way for next year,” Draco told him. “Besides, my little brother and his friend will be with us too. They’re both first years, though they’re in Gryffindor.”

Tanner finally nodded, “OK. Are we meeting a the pitch?”

“Yeah, about a half hour after dinner ends. That should give us time to get some good flying in before we have to be inside,” Draco replied. Tanner told him he would be there and Draco moved to take his seat next to Blaise.

Though it was already the end of October and there had not yet been another Hogsmeade weekend, Draco found he was fairly content as he sat down to dinner. Mr. Parkinson had been sent to Azkaban at the beginning of the week with little hassle and Mrs. Parkinson’s trial date was set for the following week. Pansy had made no grand announcement but it was now generally known, at least amongst the Slytherins, that Draco was not responsible for Pansy’s condition. The Slytherin girl would be leaving to go live with her aunt on Halloween. Strangely enough, Draco felt sad when he though of her leaving. He was still upset about the entire situation, but now that things had died down he found that he really couldn’t blame her. In fact, he found he was disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to rebuild their friendship, and friendship was what both of them needed desperately.

Draco had talked to Blaise about Ian that Hogsmeade weekend that the other Slytherin had practically asked him out. It had been a tense discussion and Blaise had admitted that he had feelings for Draco but said that he understood. Their friendship had gotten even strong during the following weeks as they started opening up to each other about other things. Draco even let Blaise listen to some of the CDs Ian had sent him, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t see the closed-off look on his friend’s face whenever he mentioned his lover. As a result, Draco mentioned Ian as little as possible, which became increasingly stressful the longer they were apart.

Draco’s strange illness had also not so much gone away as he had learned how to cope with it. He still didn’t eat much at meals but he had made a habit out of stuffing a couple rolls or apples into his bag to eat whenever he felt like he could keep something down. He soon found himself snacking every couple of hours and as a result he found he was less nauseous during most of the day, though eating this way had its own unique problems. He had been starving in Ethics that morning and had snuck a chunk of roll out of his bag. Unfortunately, Black saw and took points, reminding him that he should make sure he got enough to eat during meals as food was not welcome during class. Draco had stared down at his desk in embarrassment. Later, Blaise likened his eating habits to those of Pansy, who was still occasionally coping with morning sickness. Draco was not amused.

Pansy was having her own problems. Most of her friends had abandoned her after her pregnancy became too real to handle. It was fun in the beginning, when all the girls felt it as their duty to glare at Draco in support of their friend or when they were looking through Baby Magic magazine looking at all the baby clothes and asking Pansy if she thought it would be a boy or a girl. Now Pansy was in her second trimester and starting to show, her food choices were starting to become more interesting, and she had as much as admitted that it was some unknown muggle who had gotten her pregnant. Having a baby was more than just cute baby clothes and being a single mother with a bastard child was not something most Slytherin girls wanted to be associated with.

“Is he coming Draco?” Blaise asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I told him we would meet him at the pitch,” Draco replied as he picked at his chicken. He had eaten about half, which was good for him. “I just have to tell Ben and Harper where to meet us.”

“Great, maybe some others from our team will be out there and we could play a short game,” Blaise suggested.

Draco nodded, “It would be good to go up against Tanner as a seeker. I think he’ll replace me next year.”

“You really think Tanner could match you as a seeker?” Blaise asked as he finished how own meal.

“Either that or he’ll make an awesome keeper. He’s small, fast, and he knows his way around a broom. I think he can definitely match me,” Draco replied as he too pushed his plate away.

“Well then,” Blaise said, “lets go get our stuff so we can see if this boy is as good as you think.”

Forty-five minutes later, they were on the pitch. Ben and Harper had just arrived and had resigned themselves to some evening flying when a couple Ravenclaws came onto the field. “Hey,” one of them called, “You up to putting a quick game together?” Draco was only slightly surprised by the invitation from the other house. Now that there was no more speculation about the war, the fervor over quidditch had reached an all-time high. It was played whenever, wherever and with whoever as often as possible.

“Yeah, we were waiting to see if anyone would come out who was interested,” Blaise called back.

“Well, we’re interested and we saw some Gryffindors on their way out with their brooms just a minute ago,” the other Ravenclaw said

On cue, a group of five Gryffindors appeared on the pith and Draco noticed at once that Harry Potter was one of them. It had been almost a month since that embarrassing moment when Harry had spotted Draco in such a compromising position. They hadn’t spoken since that day, but whenever they were in the same room Draco could feel Potter’s eyes on him. The Gryffindor would look away as soon as Draco started to turn his way, but anyone worthy of the house Slytherin would be able to pick up on the strange vibes between them. They weren’t fighting, which was good, but something was up even if Draco couldn’t put his finger on it.

“You up for a game?” the Ravenclaws asked the new arrivals

The Gryffindors looked at the Slytherins warily for a moment before Seamus Finnigan answered, “Sure, who’s on what team?”

It took only seconds for the teams to be decided. It was basically Slytherin versus Gryffindor except that each team had a Ravenclaw and Ben and Harper seemed to have become honorary Slytherins. They were short players so they improvised and each team would only have two chasers instead of the usual three. Draco had been tempted to give Tanner the seeker position, but Potter was looking at him again. Maybe if they got back to being rivals this awkward feeling would go away.

Tanner and Ben got the rest of the equipment from the quidditch supply shed and soon they were in position. Harper released the snitch for them before racing to taker her spot. The game began.

It felt good to be in the air and playing a game. It was a nice evening and Draco enjoyed the wind on his face as he flew. In the past weeks he had been so preoccupied with his position as captain and on making sure his lunch stayed where it should that he had not been able to truly enjoy the game. Even with Potter sneaking glances at him every two seconds, Draco could only be amused at his lack of concentration.

As he flew, Draco tried to keep tabs on what was going on around him. At one point, he heard Ben’s cry of “cobbing” and looked down to see Dean Thomas trying to elbow Ben off course as the first year clutched the quaffle securely against him. Draco had to smile. If you want to see Benjamin Pierce serious about something, put him in a quidditch game. The boy was surprisingly competitive, which probably came from spending most of his childhood playing the game with much older boys.

Draco watched as Ben started to veer just left of the other teams hoops, as if Thomas and the other chaser, Andrew Kirke, had succeeded in pushing him off course. A second before the first year pulled up on his broom, he pulled a Porskoff Ploy by letting go fo the quaffle so that it feel straight down to Harper, who Thomas and Kirke had completely forgotten about in their attempt to cut off Ben. Within seconds, Harper was putting the quaffle through the other team’s rings. The Ravenclaw keeper looked astounded. He hadn’t expected two first years to out-maneuver two seventh years so easily. Draco joined in the cheer that went up as Ben and Harper raised their hands in victory.

The game got more serious as the other team realized how much they had underestimated the first year chasers. Draco felt the pride for his brother and friend rush through him as they continued to hold their own. Weasley and Finnigan had upped the stakes as they smashed the bludgers into Ben and Harper’s paths, but Blaise and the other Ravenclaw were giving as good as they go and before long it became more a competition of who could smash the bludgers across the pitch the hardest, rather than distracting the chasers. Blaise was practically snarling at Weasley as he sent the bludger careening across the pitch.

As for the seekers, well Draco had yet to catch even a glimpse of the snitch. So the game went on, with the Slytherin group still just barely in the lead. It was getting dark and Draco was wondering what they would do if they couldn’t find the snitch as he spotted Snape walking out to tell them it was time to come inside. It was only as he turned back to the game that he saw it. Just barely out of his reach the snitch hovered, but in the space of a blink it took off towards the opposite end of the pitch. Draco was right behind it. Mere seconds later, he became aware of Potter flying at his side. Draco leaned forward on his broom, pressing himself as flat against the broom handle as the snitch led them in a chase, zigzagging them up and down, left and right.

It looked like they were just starting to gain on the snitch when it halted and then started heading right at them. Neither Draco or Potter reacted at first as the snitch passed right between them to continued on in the other direction, but Draco didn’t even think as he loosened his grip on his broom and swung so he was upside down. He let the shift of his body weight and his momentum pull the broom momentarily straight down until he was able to level out. In a matter of seconds he had switch directions, barely losing any of his speed, while Potter lagged momentarily behind. Draco smiled. He had learned that move from Ian.

His advantage didn’t last long though, and soon they were neck and neck, arms straining as they stretched out over their brooms, just barely out of reach. The two seekers were tight on its tale, never taking their eyes off of the snitch, which was why neither of them had time to react to the warning cries from their teammates.

Draco heard Ben cry out his name even as the bludger came from underneath, hitting right where his belly lay flat against his broomstick. He was barely aware of the loud crack or the way the handle of his broom fell away from him. He couldn’t breath! He was aware of nothing but the pain.

The next moments were a blur, but much later his friends would tell him what they saw. As Draco curled in on himself, the impact of the bludger threw him to the left and right into Potter. Knocked off balance, the Gryffindor tried to pull himself back up on his broom at the same time as he tried to wrap an arm around Draco’s waist. Potter’s broom was pulled downward by the dead unbalanced weight but for a brief moment it looked like they would be able to make a successful, if ungraceful, landing. That is, until Potter started to lose his hold on the Slytherin. When he attempted to regain his grip Draco howled in pain and unconsciously fight to relieve the pressure on his abused abdomen. Their friends watched as both boys tumbled down, the broom falling with them.

It is incredibly hard to hit two moving target with any spell, especially two boys who were falling as fast as they were, but Snape managed it when they were a mere fifteen feet from the ground. The speed of their fall was too much for the spell to handle, but it slowed them down and without it , Pomfrey would later say, neither of them would have made it.

Potter hit the ground first as he hadn’t let go of Draco and somehow he managed to keep the other boy above him during the fall, hoping to spare the Slytherin any further damage. Draco hit a moment later, his shoulder ramming right into the Gryffindor’s chest even as his stomach hit Potter’s twisted knee. Neither boy cried out in pain. They couldn’t. The last thing Draco saw before he lost consciousness was blood.