A/N: Happy birthday, ShayaLonnie! I asked her for a pairing so I could flash her a bit on her birthday. She said, "Gotta say, I'd love to see what you do with a Drarry. ;)"So, for the birthday girl, my first bit of slash… Be gentle?

AU. I just, er, manipulated events for my own reasons… It was going to be added to Glimpses of Hermione (because I added one) but then…I changed my mind.

Legal Matters: I own many copyrights in the real world; this is not among them nor will it ever be. All things Harry Potter are the property of J.K. Rowling and all to whom she has given license. I'm just here to wish Shaya a happy birthday.

Bright lights flashed everywhere under the awnings over the pitch, keeping the arena bright, even in the deep darkness of the August night. Minister Fudge's voice called after the final score, "Krum caught the Snitch for Bulgaria, but Ireland wins the match!"

Harry cheered along with the entire Weasley family, yelling himself nearly hoarse as Ireland's Quidditch team flew about the pitch, arms raised in victory to wave at the screaming masses.

"It's mad!" Hermione shouted near his ear.

He laughed but pulled her into a one-armed embrace and yelled, "I didn't see you reading during this game!"

She jerked away, refusing to meet his eye, though hers did happen to search skyward as the losing Bulgarian team made their own, non-victory lap. Despite the fact that they'd lost, the team received a lot of support from raucous fans.

Harry let his own gaze wander until it landed on Malfoy, the git. Malfoy was cheering as well, albeit without Weasley-level hysteria. Really, Harry'd seen bits of football matches at the Dursley's house and he'd seen the insanity amongst the fans. It was much like the celebration happening now, save for the Malfoys.

What were they doing here, anyway? They didn't seem at all involved with the celebration, but detached from it, speaking in quiet tones that didn't carry. Perhaps they were up to something? Never did trust a Slytherin, he grumped internally. Behind him, he could hear Ron recounting—as if he were Ireland's Keeper!—the way the Quaffles were systematically blocked. He heard Hermione's gasp of surprise when someone up on a broom dropped something on her head.

"Hey!" she shouted.

"Krum!" George and Fred called, sounding thrilled. "Hermione! Krum dropped one of his game gloves on you!" The twins continued to tease her. "You know Krum? Cor, 'Mione! Can you ask for his autograph?"

"Stop it!" Hermione insisted, sounding flustered. "I've never met the man."

"But he threw his glove at you!"

Harry checked back over his shoulder, but his best friend didn't seem hurt or anything as she held the long, heavy Quidditch glove in both hands, so he pursued his curiosity and jogged up behind Malfoy.

". . . Do you suppose I could play for Bulgaria even if we don't live there, Dad?"

Harry was getting over the shock of that when Lucius Malfoy spoke. "You're a fine Seeker, Son, but I imagine that, to play for Bulgaria, you'd have to transfer to Durmstrang."

"Durmstrang!"

Narcissa Malfoy sniffed delicately. "It's far too cold there, Lucius. That and our son will be in line to take the Malfoy seat in the Wizengamot one day. It'd be easier for him to be of political influence if he were educated at Hogwarts. We've discussed this."

Harry blinked, a bit astonished. His body subconsciously kept up with the Malfoys, however, as they took a left turn and entered a row with small, portable buildings.

"But Mum, I could play for years before retiring. And Dad will be in the Malfoy Seat for decades. If I were playing Quidditch all over Europe, just think of the connections I could make!"

Overwhelmed by what felt like sports and political maneuvering, Harry didn't notice that the blond trio had halted. He ran directly into Draco Malfoy's back.

"Pardon me," the other boy said before he turned and saw Harry. "Oh, it's you, Scarhead."

"Draco," Narcissa Malfoy snapped, hurrying to her son's side as Lucius took his place on Draco's left.

"Mister Potter," Lucius intoned, looking down his high-bridged nose at Harry. "I thought I saw you with the . . . others."

"Where's the Weasel?" Draco asked with a sneer.

Disconcerted to have separated himself from his friends, Harry still tried to present himself as a Gryffindor. He shrugged in feigned nonchalance. "Back there pretending to be Krum, maybe?"

"Are you lost, Mister Potter?" Mrs. Malfoy inquired with cool politeness. She flicked a bit of lint from Draco's immaculate shoulder. "I wouldn't want your . . . hosts . . . to worry." She exchanged a quick look with her husband, a slight furrow on her forehead.

Something in the quality of that nonverbal bit of communication made Harry feel nervous, as if something were about to go very wrong. Again. "I might be," he confessed, "but I'm sure I can find them, given a moment. Hermione's probably already looking for me, and she's quite good at finding things."

Draco snorted but before he could make a derogatory comment, all Hell broke loose with shouts and flares of spellfire. "Get the boys out of here!" Lucius directed his wife, pressing something into her hands as dark shapes darted overhead.

Harry felt the certainty of danger tingle over his scalp. "I should go—"

"No time!" Narcissa Malfoy declared, her tone firm and unhurried, despite the patent urgency. Flames erupted somewhere, painting the sky with angry oranges and reds. "Draco, we'll side-along."

Draco Malfoy, the bane of Harry's scholastic existence, held quite still as he stared into Harry's eyes. "I don't want to wrap my arm around you, Potter."

"Me, either. Compromise?"

"Boys! Now!" The elder Malfoy nudged his son and Harry had no choice but to steady the other boy with an arm around his waist. "Cissa, take care, my love."

Mrs. Malfoy took Draco's left arm as Draco wrapped his other around Harry's shoulders. "Gee, Malfoy," Harry began as Lucius kissed his wife. "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't!"

Narcissa Malfoy then lifted her wand and Apparated them from the Quidditch World Cup just as the Dark Mark flared into the sky.

"Shit!" Harry shouted, but he couldn't get away. All he could do was hope that Hermione and Ron would be all right.

They landed at the gates of Malfoy Manor and Harry struggled to keep his feet. Mrs. Malfoy pushed open the large iron gates immediately, calling, "Don't let your guest fall, Draco," over one shoulder as she half-jogged to the manor proper.

"Yeah, don't let me fall," Harry muttered, his mind spinning. He still held Malfoy around the waist, but when he tried to let go, he . . . couldn't. Instead, he stared at that spot where his fingertips could be seen in the space between Malfoy's arm and body. A sudden, weird tension vibrated in that space, it seemed to him.

Malfoy huffed out a breath. "Not going to let you fall, Potter."

"Thanks." Harry felt the other boy's hand grip his shoulder and he jerked his chin up to meet the silver-gray eyes on a level with his. Malfoy frowned and tilted his head a little. Harry took a breath, catching the scent of something like wood and spice mixed before he realized he'd turned under Malfoy's arm and was almost in his . . . embrace.

The boys sprang apart as Draco clearly came to the same realization at that moment but still, Harry couldn't help staring at him. "I, er, sorry."

Draco Malfoy tugged impatiently on his sleeves before smoothing his black silk tie. "Side-along. It's never a good thing. C'mon. My mother would be angry if I just left you out here."

"Don't want to make her angry," Harry said, his mind whirling with confusion. This was Draco Malfoy. A Slytherin. And his parents, also Slytherins. Merlin's pants! Why were they acting so polite? "Er, I should thank her, too. I saw the Dark Mark," he explained with a frown.

Malfoy shuddered visibly but turned to indicate the gate. It seemed, Harry supposed, that he was determined to act the lord of the manor. "Well. Come on, then. We have to figure out a way to get you back to the hovel." The gate closed behind them with a soft clang.

As they strode toward Malfoy Manor, Harry wanted to make some sort of retort, but he didn't. Instead, he decided to ask, "Is this a pureblood thing?"

"What?"

"Being all lordly and all? I mean, we're not friends, Malfoy."

The blond boy snorted as they reached the large doors that were still slightly ajar from Mrs. Malfoy's passing. "No, we're not. But you're a Potter and your House has a seat in the Wizengamot, same as mine. There are rules, Potter," he added with a bit of disdain.

Torches lit the foyer brightly, light bouncing off marble surfaces that Malfoy heeded not at all as he led them to a parlor, where his mother was kneeling in the midst of a firecall. Malfoy shook his head and left immediately, taking Harry's arm as he did. "Come on."

"All right, what's happening?" Harry demanded quietly as Malfoy led them to a drawing room of some kind. It was darker, but the window gave a view of the front gate. Malfoy moved there, framed in the faint light of the cloud-studded sky. Harry studied him, watching to see if the Slytherin Prince was going to hex him or talk to him.

"I'm not sure," Malfoy said slowly. "My father didn't tell me."

Hearing the uncertainty in the other boy's voice, Harry moved closer. If I'm closer, I can grab his wand if he decides to hex me after all, he thought in justification. He ignored the fluttery feeling in his stomach, the strange kind of need to be close to Malfoy, for the moment. It was weird and likely borne from the emergency side-along Apparition experience, right?

"People don't tell me things, either," he said after another moment. "It's frustrating." Understatement of the decade.

Malfoy turned slightly with a nod. "Yeah." He shifted a bit, leaving more room in front of the window, as if in silent invitation.

Harry accepted it, ignoring the sudden thump of his heart as he did so. He heard Malfoy blow out a breath and saw him tug at his tie. "You all right there?"

"Of course," Malfoy snapped. "I'm just wondering when we can send you back."

Harry laughed. "You're not the only one to have wondered that."

Malfoy half-turned toward him, leaning in apparent negligence against the glass panes of the window. "What, you're telling me that people try to get rid of the famous Boy Who Lived? The Weasels sure don't. They're all about keeping you close, aren't they?"

"Leave them out of it."

"Why? You mean you like it when they keep you like a pet, Potter?"

At least five things leapt to Harry's tongue to say, but he remembered just in time to have a care. It was as if Hermione was in his head, reminding him that the Malfoys were his best shot at getting back to the Burrow, just now, and didn't want to make them angry. Instead, he tried for casual. "Jealous, Malfoy?"

"Of you? No."

"Them?"

"No! Though a man has to wonder why you'd choose Weasley for a friend when I offered my hand in good faith that first day on the train."

Harry sighed. "Good faith? Your name means Bad Faith, Malfoy." At Draco's startled glance, he smiled a little. "What? It's not like it's a secret."

Malfoy stood straight, leaning in a bit. Harry didn't back away, choosing to appear unintimidated as the aristocrat cocked one brow. "Look, I only meant to be a friend. I was being polite, Potter. Not that you'd understand that."

"Hey!" Harry stepped forward as well, feeling the heat from Malfoy's body when neither backed down. "You certainly haven't been polite since."

"What about tonight?" Malfoy said with a slight push, shoulder to shoulder.

Harry pushed back. "Your mother made you. Does she have to bring friends home for you all the time?"

Malfoy moved fast, but Harry was quick on his feet as well and the boys were locked in a struggling half-embrace, half-stranglehold. "Take that back!"

"Make me!"

Malfoy smirked right into Harry's face before tripping him with a foot behind one of Harry's ankles. The pair fell solidly to the floor, Harry rolling immediately to gain the superior position. He smirked right back into Draco's startled eyes.

Eyes which widened, as did Harry's own. He tried to get up, but his limbs didn't want to cooperate, all at once, and he merely shifted to one side.

Draco pushed Harry's glasses up his nose and Harry offered him a quiet "Thank you."

Once, years ago, Harry Potter had been told he was a wizard. It was a revelation that had changed his life forever. As he studied Draco's—when had he become Draco, rather than Malfoy?—face in the shadowed space under the window in Malfoy Manor, Harry learned another new thing about himself that was equally life-changing. As magic seemed to flow easily when he grasped his wand for the first time, so did this feeling, this realization, suffuse his awareness.

Without further thought, he lowered his head to Draco's, running his nose alongside the other boy's. Warm. Draco's skin was warm and his breath stuttered when he whispered, "Harry."

Harry didn't have any good reason for what he was wanting to do, he had no words of explanation, so he did what he always did: he leapt before he thought. Closing his eyes, he met Draco Malfoy's lips with his own, tentatively, with a light, stupid kiss that he didn't know how to deepen. He only knew that he didn't want to purse his lips like a kid, he wanted to taste, to feel, to see if it would affect him like magic itself had done, years before.

The jolt that hit when Draco moved, rolling up and catching Harry's face between his hands, was surprisingly welcome. Clearly, the other boy had done this before, Harry thought with some relief. Their lips met, clung, smoothed, and then another jolt hit Harry, a bolt of lightning that buzzed in his groin when Draco made a moaning sound against his skin.

"Damn, Harry."

"Same, Draco."

Draco adjusted Harry's glasses again and Harry smoothed Draco's tie just as Narcissa Malfoy appeared, her form a silhouette against the torchlight from the corridor beyond. "Boys? Draco? Are you all right?"

"Fine, Mum," Draco said, rising to his feet as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Harry envied him his poise, but tried to emulate it as Mrs. Malfoy flicked her wand and candles hissed and flamed. "We're fine, Missus Malfoy."

"Fine. Well, Mister Potter, I firecalled Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore has asked that we host you tonight, for your own safety. He'd like to meet with you tomorrow, however."

Harry nodded. "Did he have any news about Ron and Hermione?" Draco made a soft, impatient sound, but Harry ignored him, stepping forward to better study Mrs. Malfoy's smooth, impassive face. "Or any of the others?"

"He did not, no, but he assured me he will. I have one of the house-elves preparing a guest room, Mister Potter. I hope that will be satisfactory."

Harry felt, more than heard, Draco's approach. "Which room, Mum?"

Mrs. Malfoy arched one slender brow. "The blue room, of course. I didn't think he'd want the green one."

Harry couldn't help his smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy."

She nodded, appearing impatient. "Show him to his room, Draco."

"But what about Father?"

Nodding, Harry drew a bit nearer to the blond boy in a show of subconscious support. "What was happening, Missus Malfoy?"

"Lucius will be home later. I imagine he had a meeting," she added with a heavy look at her son. "I'm sure he'll be with us at breakfast, but do refrain from an interrogation, Draco."

"Yes, Mother. Come on, Potter."

"I hope your father's all right," Harry offered quietly as they started up the wide staircase to the first floor. Lucius Malfoy was not his favorite person, untrustworthy to the core, but he was still Draco's father.

Draco merely nodded, obviously preoccupied. "Your room is over here, next to mine," he said stiffly. A white door with decorative moulding opened as if, well, by magic. "Bath is just there, next to the wardrobe." He remained in the open door, not entering the room after Harry stepped inside. "Potter."

Harry turned and studied him, uncertain as to what he should say or do, just then. He'd started off suspiciously following the Slytherin and ended snogging him. What did that mean, precisely? Was he bent or was it just Malfoy? "Draco," he said in some kind of answer.

"Look. This doesn't change things."

Harry snorted. "No? I think it does."

Draco's eyes narrowed as his nostrils flared. "It doesn't. You're still . . . you. Friends with the Weasel and the Mud—"

"Don't go there, Malfoy. She's my best friend."

"Bookworm, then."

Surprised but relieved, Harry nodded. "That, I grant you. I never won't be friends with them, though." Draco's expression fell, then. A bit of that poise lost. Something in Harry wouldn't let that be, though, so he moved next to Draco and grabbed his shoulders with both hands. "Things changed, Draco. Just now. I—I don't know how but they did."

"I'm not going to Hogsmeade with you." At Harry's snort, Draco smiled a little. "But I might look for a broom cupboard."

The following day, Harry found out just how much had changed overnight, with a Death Eater attack at the World Cup. Important things happened, and Hogsmeade was likely ruled out for the foreseeable future anyway.

Still, Harry had to smile a little. Hermione whispered to him about the rose she'd found tucked inside Krum's game glove. "I kept it. He, he said he'd find me later and get his glove back. Is that normal?"

"I have no idea," Harry admitted. "But I might have a souvenir of my own from last night." It would be a while, though, before he showed her a certain black silk tie.