Disclaimer. You know what the word means people, I'm not explaining it to you.

This is like the first chapter, because I like where it ends, but it's one of the shortest so don't be discouraged. The others will be much longer. Also, it's slash. It's rated T to be safe, but I'm not sure I'll do a sex scene.

Prologue:

Harry Potter was not asleep, even if it was around the time most normal people would be. He was sitting in a chair in the Slytherin common room, of all places, hoping to escape. After talking with 'Mione and Ron, Harry had gone for a walk. During that walk, he had ended up in the Forbidden Forest, down the same path he had taken hours earlier. When he got to the clearing he died in, he sat there for hours before returning to the castle. Now, there were people in the castle looking for him; most named Weasley. They were all either looking for their Boy Who Lived-Twice, or sitting around on the ground in a pile around Fred Weasley's dead body. One of the twins; died laughing, just like Sirius.

Hearing a noise, Harry brought himself to the present. No one should be around with all the Slytherins leaving either before or immediately following the battle. No one would think to look for Harry here, or so he thought. Draco Malfoy, the most annoying git on the planet next to dear old Voldie, was standing at the entrance to the Slytherin dorms and staring at him like he was a ghost. For all Harry knew, he might be. Maybe yesterday was a dream. Maybe he actually had died.

"Potter, what are you doing in my house? How do you even know where it is to get in here!?" Draco, despite knowing he was a nobody now and his father at least was going to prison and he might be too, seemed not to care that he had just insulted the Chosen One. Harry almost smiled at this. After yesterday, he appeared to not have it in him to hate Malfoy. He had come to understand Draco Malfoy in this last year. After Severus Snape's memories, he knew that everything was not as it seemed when it came to Slytherins.

A quote from a scifi book he had read as a kid adequately describes his feelings. "In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves." Irony at it's finest.

Tilting his head, and seeing no reason to lie, Harry stated simply, "Because I've been here before. Second year. Polyjuice Potion of Crabbe and Goyle," He winced slightly when Draco flinched at the names; not a good idea to bring up the recently deceased. "You let us in yourself. We wanted to know if you were the heir of Slytherin. Plus, Parseltongue overrides whatever password put on the dorms."

That had been a recent discovery. He wanted to be alone after killing the crazy man that had been after him his whole life. No one would understand, so he went to the one place they wouldn't go or at least couldn't get into and had tried Parseltongue on the wall that concealed the entrance. He hadn't be sure he still had the Parseltongue ability, but when he had said, Open, it came out in snake-tongue.

"That's preposterous, I would've known if I was talking to you and the Weasel, who I can only assume was with you. You also couldn't have possibly made Polyjuice in our second year, we only learned to make it last year-" The mention of last year made Draco pause in his ranting before he blundered on like it hadn't happened. Harry almost stopped him and told him he didn't blame him for last year. "And where would you have put it? Polyjuice takes a month to make! Where did you get the ingred-"

Harry looked up when Draco halted again. He had the look he always had when he was planning something, but this time without the obvious malicious intent. Draco started up again, "Snape's stash was broken into. Of course! All that was taken were things needed for Polyjuice!"

Harry smiled at him like a second grade teacher smiles at one of the kids getting something right. "Moaning Myrtle isn't all that bad you know." He was of course referring to last years battle in her bathroom where he had walked in on Draco talking to her as much as the fact the third floor bathroom was where he, Ron, and Hermione-Well, mostly 'Mione if he was being honest- had made the potion.

Draco got the subtext. He looked somewhat embarrassed about being caught crying before remembering that Harry had almost killed him afterward and then his eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes, well,-"

Harry cut him off before he could get started ranting again. "I know. I know. I've saved your life since then, I'm sure that makes up for it. Besides, I didn't know what that spell was for anyways."

Draco seemed to finally realize he had been standing at the entrance this whole time and moved to sit in the chair beside Harry's at one of the common room fires. "That's bollocks Potter, only an idiot would use a spell they didn't know," He paused then looked up in surprise, as if he hadn't known it was Harry he was talking to even though he had said his name, then continued. "Oh right, this is you we're talking about."

Harry had to laugh at the joke. It was perfectly Malfoy. A little mean, but still funny enough to make you laugh. Not completely unpleasant. "Oh, just think what we could've accomplished had we become friends. This war might've ended very differently." Harry looked at the small fire he had made when he first came in wistfully.

Confused, Draco replied. "But you still would've been in Gryffindor and we still would've been enemies because of that."

Harry smiled. "No, maybe not. The hat chose Slytherin, I chose Gryffindor. Dumbledore used Hagrid to influence me into distrusting Slytherins and Ron was the first wizard I talked to about Hogwarts and you know how he feels towards Slytherins. Meeting you, the pompous brat you were at the time, didn't help matters." He may have forgiven Dumbledore, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand how manipulative he was. Sending him to the Dursleys so he would grow up humble, allowing Hagrid to tell them about Fluffy, and countless other times he was tested. Tested to see if he had what it took to martyr himself.

Harry fiddled with the ring in his jacket pocket. It had a crack down the middle but you could faintly see a circle in a triangle with a line through it. He had changed his mind about keeping the ring after much thought. He was afterall the rightful owner of all three of the Hallows. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying, Dumbledore had said. He had however promised himself he wouldn't use the ring. He didn't want to go insane like the second brother had.

Draco's indignant voice penetrated Harry's musing. "What do you mean you chose Gryffindor!? What do you mean the hat chose Slytherin? That's not possible! The hat never allows something like that! What am I saying this is you we're talking about…" He trails off, muttering to himself before suddenly stopping as if processing what Harry said in full. "'Dumbledore used Hagrid to influence me'?" He quoted back in question.

Harry smiled. Malfoy was the perfect Slytherin. Sly, deductive, observant. "Well he couldn't very well allow me to be in the Slytherin no matter what the hat wanted. What would the public think? Their sparkling savior, a Slytherin? No, that just wouldn't do. Better to put him in Gryffindor with the Weasleys who can keep an eye on him. Everyone expects him in there because of who his parents were- who he was. Can't have him ruining all my hard work." Harry was now mocking Dumbledore and he knew it, he just didn't care at this point. Not after he figured out the true meaning of the prophecy, the truth in the choice he had made at King's Cross Station. (Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss.)

...either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…

"Potter what in Merlin's name are you on about now? What hard work?" Draco was looking annoyed as well as confused now and Harry had to say, it wasn't an attractive look.

"Why, putting me with muggles who hate anything different, of course. Not to mention allowing my Godfather to rot in Azkaban without trial. Let's not even mention the six times, one each year, that I fought Riddle directly. Up-front and in person."

Draco, the clever little Slytherin he is, was starting to catch on; was starting to understand that Potter wasn't who he thought he was. "Magic hating muggles?"

Harry smiled sadly at him, then nodded in agreement. "Magic, Harry-Potter-hating Muggles. Dumbledore had to have known what they were doing. I'm not sure if he did it so I would have a similar childhood to him, burdened with responsibilities, or to keep me humble. Living in a cupboard and basically being a house elf will do that to you."

The nonchalance that Harry was using forced Draco to believe he wasn't lying. No one brought up like a Malfoy was wouldn't understand where Harry was coming from. Harry was right, who knows what would've happened had he been in Slytherin with him.

Looking over at Draco, he remembered the three wands in his possession and moved to get one of them out.

"What are you-?" Draco stopped when he saw what Harry had brought out. Hawthorne and unicorn hair. Ten inches precisely. Reasonably springy. This was the wand of Draco Malfoy. Ollivander's words came back to him when he passed the wand back to it's rightful owner.

"I believe this is yours." Harry said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

Draco looked at it before slowly reaching out and grasping it with his right hand and taking it from Harry. Speechless, he simply held it in his lap and stared. Harry allowed the silence to reign, waiting for Draco to be ready to say something.

Finally, "Thank you. We have wasted a long time fighting haven't we?"

The question was rhetorical but Harry answered nonetheless, "Yes, I do think we have." He then shoved his right hand between them, the significance of what he was doing not lost on either of them. "No more."

It was phrased as a question, Draco knew. He could accept or walk away. Reaching out, he joined their hands briefly, locking eyes with Harry. Understanding passed between them. They knew that though they would bicker and fight, the friendship would last just as surely as the fighting would.