A Portrait of Time

By Sozuki

Chapter One

Growling, Harry slammed his hands on the table making Ron and Hermione jump in surprise and pushed himself up from his seat. He had just about enough of them complaining. Nobody seemed to take to heart the effort Harry was trying to make at getting rid of the rivalry between the four Houses.

Harry had talked to as many of the people he trusted as well as the people he hoped would listen and help him in his endeavor. He knew that Slytherin would be the hardest to convince as they were the least trusting of them all. They mostly kept to themselves and had very few friends from the other Houses. Harry was counting on those he knew had friends in Slytherin to reach out and spread the word and make living at Hogwarts a much better, not to mention safer, place.

He had thought that Ron and Hermione, most of all Hermione since she was all for equal rights, would be helpful and be an active part in Harry's plan. But apparently he was wrong, because Ron hadn't even tried to back off on the insults and Hermione hadn't tried to stop him.

Was it so ingrained into their minds that they didn't even realize what they were doing?

While Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff were getting along better than before, nobody had bothered to take that first step towards Slytherin. Since Harry was the one to give the idea motion, he decided that he would be the one to take the first step.

People were surprised, though the Slytherins were suspicious, when Harry had offered to help a Slytherin during class. Harry then got into the habit of offering any help he could towards the Slytherin students, no matter their year. He helped a couple first years pull a small prank on a fellow Gryffindor classmate of theirs, a second year with her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay, a third year with his spell casting, and so forth.

It had only taken two days of this type of attitude towards them for Draco Malfoy to approach him. Though, when Draco did get to him, he didn't come for help or anything of that matter. Draco showed his true Slytherin side and accused him of planning something against his whole House.

After that, there were still many fights between the two of them, but they were getting fewer and farther apart as the year went on. Finally, Draco had taken it upon himself to corner Harry and demanded to know what he could do to repay him for his kindness towards his fellow Housemates. After all, he didn't want to be indebted to Harry Bloody Potter of all people.

Harry had just laughed and shook his head. When Draco insisted that something be done to equal the balance between them, Harry had decided on what he wanted from him.

He asked if Draco would work on his patience when they were in each others presence.

"I have enough healed scars from our past encounters, I think I can live without another addition." Harry had said and laughed. Draco agreed to work on his patience, but only if Harry worked on being more tolerable.

After a couple weeks of effort, Harry and Draco had inwardly agreed that they became friends. But if anyone asked, they were just able to tolerate the other for a long period of time.

Hermione had rolled her eyes when Harry said that and the proceeded to define the word "friend" to him.

Currently, three months after Draco and Harry's confrontation, Harry was tired of their complaining and decided that leaving the Great Hall and his barely touched lunch sounded like a good idea.

Draco, who had been on his way over from his table to talk to Harry, stopped in front of the two Gryffindors that were left behind.

"What did you do now, Weasel?" Ron glared and Hermione rolled her eyes. Both of the men before her haven't been able to get past their, as she decided call it, disagreements.

"Before we get into our petty arguments, children," Hermione started, drawing both of of their gazes to her. "I'm going to the library to do my homework, like someone else that I wont bother mentioning." She shot Ron a heated look. She stood up and shouldered her bag before reaching for Harry's that he left behind. Holding it out for Draco to take, she began again. "Would you please bring this to Harry? I'm sure we said something in the past five minutes that upset him, but I'm sure it's nothing big."

When Draco took the bag, she continued, leaning forward slightly. "He hasn't been sleeping very well lately so he's a little cranky." Ron snorted and she smacked his arm with the back of her hand, not even bothering to look and ignored him as he rubbed it to sooth the pain.

Draco looked at where Harry had sit, noticing that he hadn't eaten. Through out their time together, Draco had picked up on some of Harry's lesser known traits. Like when he was stressed about something, he would loose his appetite, not that he ate much anyway.

"His map should be in there so you shouldn't have a problem finding him." He looked back to Hermione when she spoke. Ron stood and shouldered his bag as well before reaching over and grabbing a dinner roll.

Ron tossed the roll to Draco as he passed him, following Hermione out the Great Hall, the unspoken clearly heard between them.

Sighing, Draco sat Harry's bag down and started his search through the surprisingly organized contents. Pulling out the map, he grabbed another dinner roll and shouldered the bag along with his own.

---

There is another room somewhere a couple doors down from where Fluffy had lived in the third floor corridor. It may have been a living quarters sometime in the past, but was deserted sometime before Fluffy and the Philosophers stone. The room, although dusty from the lack of use, had a warm decor. Though Harry had asked Dobby to clean it a bit when he decided to make the room a place to frequently visit. There was an overstuffed couch in front of a fireplace that lit whenever someone entered. There were small bookshelf's on either side of the fireplace, though the books were anything but interesting. There was a bed in the far corner that Harry and even Draco had fallen asleep in on occasion.

On the other side of the room, there was a painting of a time-turner and nothing else. The painting was wonderfully colored and part of the magical item reflected light back from where ever it had been when it was painted. Behind the time-turner, there was a sea of different colors blending together, though most of the colors were either blue or green.

Draco walked though the door, not bothering to knock, and found Harry standing in front of the painting. Harry glanced over towards him just in time to catch a dinner roll before it hit in the chest.

Walking over to where Harry was standing, he dropped both their bags by their feet and started pulling a piece of the dinner roll apart and shoving it into his mouth. Harry followed his example and turned back to the painting.

"What would you do if you could go back in time?" Harry asked, placing another chunk of bread into his mouth.

Draco shrugged. He never really thought about it. Of course, there were many things he'd want to change, but he never wasted his time thinking about what could have been.

Before anything more could be said, the time-turner in the painting suddenly flipped upside down before a few quiet clicks could be heard as it was twisted many times over.

Suddenly, bright Celtic runes were appearing and surrounding them on the cold stones beneath their feet.

There was a brief flash of light, and they were gone.

---

Well, that's it for the first chapter. Salazar and the others will appear in the next, so keep a look out!

For those of you who are wondering about the pairing, this fic will for sure have two. Salazar/Harry and Godric/Draco. If you dislike those pairings, then please disregard this fic and head on to another.

Please let me know if you see any errors that need to be corrected.