分卷阅读22（1 / 2）

So, after the most awkward hour and a half of Harry’s life was over and Draco could remove himself from Harry’s person without Harry yelping in pain, Draco wordlessly disappeared into a room, which Harry assumed was the bathroom to, as Harry assumed, wash off that hand about a million times. Harry himself would have done the same thing except Malfoy had beaten him to the bathroom.

So Harry resolved to just ignore the fact that Malfoy’s hand had been under his shirt for over an hour, and set about making sure that everything he owned was carefully stored in his trunk (which had arrived at some point unknown to both Harry and Draco via the house elves). Everything was there, and Harry made sure that he locked the trunk before making his way to his bed, or what he assumed was his bed by the fact that the pillow cases were a bloody, red color. Very funny, Malfoy, he thought in Draco’s direction before climbing in. This was when he realized that the sheets (and the blood red pillow cases for that matter) were silk. Harry blinked…twice. And then decided that he really didn’t or shouldn’t care. Whatever message Malfoy might or might not have been trying to send by that was not going to be received by him, at least not tonight.

Harry was vaguely aware of the water shutting off in the room which Draco had disappeared into, and was even less vaguely aware of Draco padding into the room in black silk pajamas, and was even less aware of the whispered “Nox,” which cast the room into almost complete darkness. But he could not sleep. Not even when his eyes adjusted to the gloom to the point where he could watch the steady rise and fall of the other boy’s chest three feet away could his brain seem to shut itself down for sleep. It almost wasn’t fair, his sleepy mind thought. It’s not fair that Draco can be more at ease than I am about this. And Harry drifted off to sleep before he could even register that he had just thought about Draco Malfoy using his first name instead of his last.

Harry was now starting to enjoy falling asleep at night, especially with the complete halt of nightmares, which he would grudgingly admit when awake, came with the announcement of Draco’s Veriae blood. It was nice to have dreamless sleep in which the only thought which was shown to him was one of complete comfort and protection. After so many instances where he had to protect himself from the world, it was nice to feel protected, really protected. And as Harry drifted through this sleepy haze that was his dream world, he felt the silken caress of the ebony wings which surrounded him, and there was something else soothing too. Almost as if someone was there with him, something that he had never experienced in any form of a dream before (unless you count Voldemort’s nightmares as people being in a dream with him). But this person, a male, was unobtrusive, and seemed just as calm as the aura of the dreamscape. The two seemed curled up together as if nothing in the world really mattered to them, as if nothing would ever break the serenity of this dream…

That is until Harry’s eyes opened to make out in the dim light, sleepy silver eyes that were also opening, and when both Draco and Harry jumped apart from the embrace in which they’d been cocooned in with identical shrieks.

Chapter 12: Home is Where the Heart is…Isn’t it?

For a minute there was absolute silence before both boys said two different things at the same time. “What the hell?” and “What is going on?”

There was then a second of silence as each boy waited for the other to repeat what he had said. Deciding then that this was not going to happen, Harry spoke.

“Do you mind explaining what you were doing in my bed, Malfoy?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Sleeping, what did it look like? And Potter, you’d better check again, because you were the one who climbed into my bed!”

Harry looked over his shoulder slightly to see his bed sitting there as if no one had slept in it at all during the night. Damn. Turning back to Draco he snarled, “Why the hell did I end up in your bed?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the Veriae.” Harry replied in a droll tone.

“And so that makes me responsible for every little thing you don’t like?” Draco was incredulous. “I don’t exactly enjoy the idea of you sleeping in my bed either, Potter, but what am I going to do about it? Time travel isn’t exactly one of the Veriae powers, you know, so I can’t go back to last night and stay awake long enough to kick you out of my bed!”

“But I didn’t crawl in your bed in the first place,” Harry pointed out. He was absolutely sure that he had fallen asleep in his own bed, not in Draco’s.

“Whatever.” Draco sighed slightly and without another word disappeared into the bathroom to take a very long shower.

Lucius sat at the window of one of his rooms, thinking and sipping a cup of coffee (this time in the morning was too early for wine). It had been irking him since yesterday, that thing about impulses that Voldemort had been so happy about. What had it been… something about Harry walking right into a trap because of…those impulses.

Oh. Right. And Lucius remembered. Harry had given into the impulses to “save” his godfather, someone who was the closest link to family that Harry had…or so the Dark Lord was of the opinion. But then…if, and it was a big if, if Harry’s impulses had stepped in to make him save Draco, then Draco’s earlier assessment of Potter would prove to be incorrect.