"Harry?" Ron asked in a hesitant voice and Harry felt himself freeze.

He was sitting on his bed with his back towards the doorway where Ron's voice had come from. There was no one else in the room, despite the late hour.

Harry heard the door close and let out a sigh of resignation, knowing he couldn't avoid this confrontation forever. He turned around slowly and looked over at Ron as he hesitantly made his way across the room.

"What do you want, Ron?" Harry asked in a tired voice.

Ron faltered for a moment, looking entirely unsure of himself, but finally he pressed on and walked over to his bed and sat on the side facing Harry. He fidgeted awkwardly, picking at a loose thread for a moment before an impatient sigh from Harry pulled Ron out of his stupor. Ron grimaced, pulled in a deep breath, looking resigned.

"I'm sorry."

Harry arched a single dubious eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I… I was a real prat for doing that. Er… the whole trying to make you choose between me and Malfoy. That… that wasn't okay. And I'm sorry," Ron pressed on, awkwardly.

Harry remained silent, just watching Ron warily.

Ron, for his part, looked entirely unsettled by Harry's lack of a response. He shuffled uncomfortably for a moment, appearing to be searching for some idea of how to proceed before settling on something.

"Um, so… so Hermione said that you and Malfoy… that you're…" he grimaced as if the mere thought of what he were talking about gave him indigestion. "That you're together," he forced out and then huffed out a heavy breath. "At first I couldn't believe that all this stuff was going on, and you'd never told me about any of it. You being… you know… into blokes. And you being with Malfoy of all people… But Hermione… well, she pointed out about how I've been such a prat that of course you wouldn't tell me, and I guess she's right."

Harry made a small scoffing snort in his throat, still staring at Ron with a blank, unamused, expression.

Ron grimaced again, ducking his head for a moment and sighing. "I don't like Malfoy. I really have a hard time getting that you could like him, but obviously you do. And maybe I would get it, if I wasn't pushing you away so much. I don't know. It's really hard for me to understand how a person can do a total one-eighty and completely change their mind about someone. You hated Malfoy just as much as I did, and I don't even know when that changed. It was like, one minute everything was normal, and then the next, you didn't hate him anymore, and I had no idea why." Ron paused and glanced hesitantly at Harry's face but flinched at the flat glare he got back.

"But… but that was ages ago," Ron mumbled. "That was last year, and it's not like I haven't had plenty of time this year to try and understand how it happened. I just haven't. I guess I figured you'd come to your senses or Malfoy would do something to show his true colors…"

Harry heaved a heavy disappointed sigh, continuing to glare flatly at Ron and remaining otherwise silent.

"But that hasn't happened," Ron whispered. "And now it's like I turned around and a whole bunch of people are telling me that they changed their mind on Malfoy while I wasn't paying attention."

Harry cocked a single curious eyebrow at that.

"Er, okay, maybe not exactly a bunch of people…" Ron backtracked, "But Hermione has changed her mind… which is just crazy to me, really. But even Fred and George don't seem to think it's a big deal, and even Ginny defended him. Or, at least, she defended your ability to judge for yourself. Said we should trust your judgement or something… My own family doesn't seem to see anything wrong with this. No one else seems to see how crazy all of this is, or how messed up it is that you and Malfoy are…" he trailed off, flinching a bit at the increasingly disinterested look on Harry's face.

"So maybe it's not everyone else that's wrong… Maybe it's me," Ron mumbled, looking down at his lap.

Harry snorted. "You think?" he said in a clipped sarcastic tone.

Ron's head sank lower and his shoulders hunched more. "So… so I'm sorry for all that too. For being too stubborn to listen to you, or Hermione. For being too pigheaded to even try to look at Malfoy any differently. I was an arse after your name came out of the cup, and I was wrong. But when that was finally all over, I just wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be, and I think I just… I just wanted to pretend that nothing was different and just keep going like things were normal. If I pretended that the Malfoy thing was just a crazy phase, or you trying to mess with me as payback for what I did, but now that we'd made up, it would just go away. That he would go away. But I was wrong. So instead I just ignored it all, and didn't see any of the signs and just… didn't see anything. I missed it all. I missed whatever stuff was going on with Malfoy that made you start to like him. I missed the fact that you started to like blokes… I missed all the important stuff that a friend is supposed to see.

"I get it now though. I get that I can't just expect to keep being your best mate if I don't… if I don't actually act like one. Like a real friend. I've been a shite friend, and I'm really, really, sorry."

Harry's brows had slowly risen into his forehead with growing surprise at Ron's little speech. It was more real and thought through than he'd ever expect Ron to be able to manage.

"Okay," Harry said.

"Okay?" Ron echoed.

"Okay, you apologized. What are you expecting now?"

Ron blanched and grimaced again. "Uhm…" he trailed off uncertainly.

"Because if you think that things can go back to 'normal' now," Harry said, making air quotes with his fingers at the word 'normal' and rolling his eyes, "then I'm afraid you're wrong."

Ron let out a frustrated whimper. "What can I do, Harry?" he asked, almost pleadingly.

"Do?"

"To make this better. To fix my screw up!"

"I'm not sure there's anything that you can do Ron," Harry said, flatly.

Ron seemed to look around almost desperately, as if searching for some sign of what to do next. "There's got to be something! I mean… we've been best mates since first year! After all that we've been through together, it can't end! Not like this!"

Harry heaved a tired sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know, Ron. I'm still angry. Maybe you should ask again after the winter holiday and I'll have cooled off by then."

Ron made another desperate little whimper, looking around the room helplessly again. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Harry looked at him in confusion. "What happened, when?"

"To make you start to change you mind on Malfoy," Ron said. "Help me understand. You guys kept telling me that he'd changed and stuff, and I just didn't see it. And that's true - I like… intentionally didn't see it. I didn't want to see it, so I never tried to. But I want to try and see it now. I want to know what it was that happened that made you change your mind about him."

Harry pushed out a heavy breath and shifted in his place on his bed, looking thoughtful. "I guess… he stopped being mean to me. He stopped going out of his way to be snarky or rude to me. And he saved my life during that Quidditch game, when he definitely didn't have to. I never would have expected him to. But he did. And then later on, we talked some and found that we had some things… in common, that we hadn't realized fully before. And we wrote some letters back and forth over the summer hols, and I started to see that there was a real person in there that I'd never gotten to see before because he was always wearing this mask. But he dropped the mask around me, and I liked the person I saw under there."

Harry paused in thought, chewing on his lower lip as he considered his next words. "I mean, it's not like we don't have any interests in common. We both love Quidditch, and flying. We're both Seekers, and the truth is that we follow the same teams. Er, of course, he's not a Cannon's fan though. We like a lot of the same subjects. We always have stuff to talk about, and it's so easy to talk to him. We just click, Ron. It's not really something I can put into words. I mean, when he stopped trying so hard to act like his father, and actually started acting like himself, I realized I liked what I saw. He had this front he put up, but in reality, he was actually really insecure about a lot of stuff, and under a mountain of pressure from his family to live up to all these expectations…"

Harry frowned, thinking for another moment before pressing on. "There comes a point where you have to realize that things aren't as black and white as you think they are. Things aren't clean cut and simple. Everything is complicated. Everything is a shade of grey. If you look at something and have the idea in your head that it's totally black, that's probably because you haven't bothered to really see it. You're keeping yourself ignorant to details and circumstances, and different points of view… but nothing's really that simple or clean cut. Just the same, you can have the idea in your head that something's pure and white, but when you start to really look and really dig, you start to see faults and flaws and questionable choices… I think that I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that no one is really evil, and no one is really pure and perfect. If you really think that someone is perfect, or someone is evil, then you're probably missing the bigger picture."

Ron looked dubious at that. "Yeah, but not You-Know-Who. I mean. you're not going to tell me that Malfoy's got you thinking that You-Know-Who isn't really such a bad guy after all?"

Harry snorted and shook his head. "No, no. Draco hasn't been trying to convert me to the dark side, Ron," Harry chuckled. "He's never made even the slightest hint of trying to defend the man, so don't worry about that. We actually haven't even talked about Voldemort. It's one of those subjects we've always kind of dodged and danced around. And you've got a point. I mean, if I'm gonna say this stuff, but then back-peddle on Voldemort maybe I'm being a hypocrite.

Harry paused, looking thoughtful but also grimacing slightly. "I guess there's probably something more to Voldemort's story. At some point, maybe he wasn't a monster. But he messed up. He mutilated himself, Ron. He destroyed his own humanity and made himself into a monster… So, I'm not about to go making excuses for every person who has ever done any horrible things. And I won't deny that Draco was a right prat our first couple years, although we gave as good as we got. There are mistakes that can be forgiven, or viewpoints and actions that can be changed, and warrant reconsidering any preconceived ideas, but there are also times when a person's done enough awful stuff that you might have the right to not want to forgive them.

"And I suppose that's probably where you believed you were at. You didn't want to see any other side to Draco. You didn't want to forgive him his past or try to see him as a real person, and not just the simplified caricature of a person that you knew. And you could go ahead and do that, and have every right to do so. But at some point I realized that I just didn't have it in me to hate him anymore. Hating someone is so much work, and it hurts you more than anyone else. I've already got too many people to be angry with. Too many people who've wronged me. But what Draco did in the past, versus the way he was trying to change his behavior… I just didn't see the point anymore. I just couldn't hate him anymore. It was too much work, anyway.

"But you couldn't give up that hate. You wouldn't give it up. You wouldn't even try. A friend would consider at least trying to see things differently, if it became obvious that it was important to their best mate. I guess it was your stubborn refusal to even try to see anything differently that I find so bad. Like… you didn't see any reason to try. Like, I wasn't important enough to you, to even try, even after I asked you to, and tried to explain it to you, and made it clear that it was important to me. It just made it clear to me that you're own stubbornness was more important to you than our friendship was. More important to you than me."

Ron's face crumpled a bit and he dipped his head in shame, heaving a sigh and nodding. "Yeah. I get that now. And I'm sorry I was so stubborn, and so stupid. I want to fix this, Harry. Because our friendship is important to me. And I've been an idiot to miss how much I was screwing that up."

"It's gonna take a lot more than an apology to fix this."

"I know… just… what can I do?" Ron pleaded, helplessly.

Harry sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, Ron… it'll take actions, not words. It'll take time."

Ron seemed to swallow thickly and nodded his head in understanding. "Alright, Harry. I'll… I'll make this better. I swear."

"We'll see."

— —

"He seriously said all that?" Hermione asked with honest incredulity.

"Yeah, I could hardly believe it myself. I mean… well, Ron's never been the most self-aware person on the planet," Harry said as the pair were walking down the hallways towards the grand staircase and away from the Gryffindor Common Room.

"You mean he's selfish and insensitive," Hermione said in a deadpan.

It was the next day and Ron was still asleep when Harry left their dorm, and Harry had felt no real inclination to wake the ginger before leaving, so he'd just met up with Hermione and then left for breakfast. It was in Ron's hands now. Harry was done doing the work. If Ron wanted to salvage their friendship, Ron was going to have to do it himself.

"Er… well, yeah. Hey, uh, 'Mione… can I ask you a question?"

She arched a questioning eyebrow and nodded.

"I get what Ron did to piss me off so much, but I doubt you're angry about him refusing to even give Draco a chance, or any of the other crap he's put me through lately. What's he done that's got you so riled up lately? I mean, for a while there things seemed pretty stable, and I could tell it was bothering you that you were being forced to pick between us or whatever…"

Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes. "Why, exactly, can I not also be angry with him about Draco or any of that other stuff?" she asked dryly.

Harry's brows raised into his forehead. "Er… no reason, exactly. I mean, you and Draco have been… better. I just didn't think…"

Hermione sighed and deflated a bit. "Honestly, Ron's been a right git to me too, so it's more that than anything else. He's just been so dense lately. More so than usual, it feels like. But maybe not. Maybe I'm just used to you having matured over the last year or so, and Ron having… not."

Harry flushed a bit and ducked his head, hiding a small amused grin.

"So is he still expecting you to try and find his date for him?" Hermione asked with a mild roll of her eyes.

"Oh… I have no idea. But he'd better not be, or else he'll be going stag," Harry remarked.

They reached the bottom of the Grand Staircase and headed into the Great Hall. It was the second day of break, but it wasn't nearly as deserted as the school usually was this time of year, thanks to the Yule Ball. All of the first and second years, and most of the third, had still left as usual, but a decent chunk of the fourth years and up had remained behind. Plus there were still the contingents from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang filling seats - though now they looked considerably less crunched for space than they had when the full school population was there.

Hermione and Harry headed towards the Gryffindor table, though Harry's eyes remained trained on the Slytherin table as he made the traversal. They skimmed up and down the table, but quickly determined that Draco wasn't there yet, and so he refocused his attention on getting breakfast instead.

Fay actually ended up sitting opposite them, and they shared some easy conversation with her. Harry wondered at how he'd managed to go this many years into his education without ever having really spoken to this girl before, and yet had managed to be aware of Lavender and Parvati. The same for Kellah, he supposed, since he hardly gave her a thought either. They were all room mates with Hermione, and they were all in nearly every one of Harry's classes. But then again, Lavender and Parvati were loud, gossipy, and rather annoying. It was hard to ignore them.

Fay was quiet and had a knack for fading into the background, and Kellah only ever seemed to talk with Fay. Harry had also often seen Kellah hanging out with a group of third years, and if he recalled correctly, she had a younger brother in third year. Harry glanced around, but didn't see any sign of Kellah or her brother.

He casually asked Fay if Kellah had stayed behind for the ball as well, but apparently she and her brother had chosen to go home instead.

Neville arrived to breakfast shortly after, followed by Seamus and Dean. Harry wondered if any of them had bothered to wake Ron, but he doubted it.

Talk around the table was filled with discussion on the Yule Ball, and on Christmas. There were only two more days until the ball, and Harry was as anxious as anyone to get it over with and get back home. But at least he wasn't dreading the dance nearly as much now, as he had been before. It helped that he didn't feel nearly so uncomfortable around Fay as he'd feared he would, and the legitimate lack of any expectation or commitment cut down drastically on his stress level.

It had snowed the night before, leaving a fresh coating of fluffy white blanketing the grounds and Fred and George proposed a snow ball fight. Harry shrugged and agreed to join up. Hermione wasn't sure about participating, but said she'd come along.

Harry's eyes drifted across the hall as the group of Gryffindors started to get up from their table, and he searched the Slytherin table for Draco. His eyes fell almost immediately on the blond, and as if some unseen force had alerted Draco to Harry's gaze, he looked up at just that moment to gaze back.

Harry smiled. Draco smirked. Their eyes remained locked for several beats before Fred slapped Harry on the back, jarring him a bit and breaking the connection. The ginger asked Harry if he were coming, and Harry rolled his eyes. George then leaned in on Harry's other side and quietly spoke. "You're welcome to invite your new snakey buddies to come along if you were so inclined."

Harry blinked at George with mild surprise before he smiled gratefully and looked back towards Draco.

The blond had a curious look in his eyes. Harry jerked his head towards the door and made a sort of questioning gesture before nodding his head, trying to get across the idea that Pansy and anyone else were welcome as well. This was all done silently and from all the way across the hall, and yet it still seemed that Draco got the message. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to speak with Pansy and Blaze.

Harry finally let the twins finish dragging him from the table and the group made it to the large double doors of the Great Hall where Harry paused and watched as Draco got up and made his way over.

"What's up?" he asked as he got there.

"We're all heading out to the grounds to goof off in the snow," Harry said, chuckling.

Draco's eyes rolled skyward, but he smirked. "I'm guessing the twin gingers came up with this idea?"

"Yup. You guys can come… if you want."

Draco looked mildly surprised before glancing back towards the Slytherin table where Pansy, Daphne and Blaze were watching him curiously. Crabbe and Goyle were still stuffing their faces and didn't seem to be paying anything else much attention.

"Any of us?" Draco asked, as he looked back at Harry.

"Yup," Harry said again.

"And your friends are all okay with this?" Draco asked again, still sounding skeptically surprised.

"It was Fred and George's idea," Harry said with a shrug.

Draco hummed curiously. "Well, I'll go ask. We'll meet you out there."

"Okay, great," Harry said, smiling excitedly. Somehow the idea of further bridging the giant chasm that divided the lions and the snakes was a bit exciting. He never would have expected it were possible, but there'd been quite a lot of success the last month with he and Hermione, and Blaze and Pansy. Hell, Pansy had gone from one of the most frigid snakes he knew, to teasing him and encouraging him to pursue her best friend.

With all the success Harry had had with the various people he'd been outed and had outed himself to, and he and Draco's gradual lessening of their public inhibitions, in regards to their budding relationship, Harry found himself feeling a bit daring on that front.

Besides, people had known for months now that he and Draco were friends. People had had time to get over the shock, and if he and Draco Malfoy could bury the hatchet and actually become friends, surely other people could start to consider the prospects of a more open mind in regards to whether or not inter-house friendships between Gryffindors and Slytherins were possible.

Harry ended up leaving the Great Hall and hurried out to the grounds to catch up with his housemates. The group had only just barely begun to stack up some piles of snowballs, and the twins had begun construction on what promised to be an epic snow fort, when the Slytherins emerged from the castle.

Draco had even managed to drag Crabbe and Goyle away from their breakfast, and Harry realized that despite all the time he'd been spending with Draco over the last couple months, he still had yet to interact with Crabbe and Goyle much at all.

Seamus and Dean both watched the Slytherins warily at first. Fred and George, however, proved in that moment just how amazing they really were, by calling the group of snakes over and including them without a moments hesitation, or even the slightest indication that any of this was at all out of the ordinary.

Harry was actually really impressed with how well the pair socially engineered the situation.

It wasn't long before snowballs were flying every which way and laughter and teasing taunts filled the air. Harry and Draco shot a few snowballs back and forth but then decided to join forces and ended up ganging up on some of the others instead. Harry had just dodged a particularly rapid fire volley from Blaze and Pansy when he caught sight of Ron cautiously emerging from the doors to the Great Hall.

Harry got pelted with a couple snowballs in the back, so he rolled down behind the make-shift snow-wall Draco was currently crouched behind and then used his wand to send a few snowballs right back. He kept an eye on Ron with his peripheral vision, but made no active efforts to encourage the ginger over.

Ron, for his part, was hesitantly working his way closer, looking both wary and determined.

"Hey, Seamus! Heads up!" Ron called out finally, flicking his wand and sending a glob of snow soaring through the air and hitting the Irish boy in the chest, just as he was about to send another snowball towards Crabbe.

"Oy!" Seamus yelled back with a startled laugh. "Don't attack me! Git yer arse over here and help us with Crabbe and Goyle!"

"Weasley won't be enough to save you!" Crabbe yelled out, and Harry was pleased to see that the normally brutish boy actually had an amused grin on his face with none of the normal stoic aggression, or blank confusion, that Harry was more accustomed to seeing on his face.

Ron smiled hopefully and jogged across the open bit of ground, dodging a few snowballs sent his way from his twin brothers, and joined Dean and Seamus. Dean seemed mostly focused on fortifying their slowly growing snow-fort wall. Blaze and Pansy probably had the most impressive defenses constructed, though Draco was making decent progress on the one he and Harry were currently crouched behind.

Blaze took advantage of the distraction that Ron's arrival had cause and sent a wave of snowballs out, going after Crabbe, and Goyle, but also Harry and Draco. Pansy jumped up as soon as Blaze was out of his current stack of snowballs and sent another volley at Ron, Seamus, and Dean.

"Ha ha!" Pansy called out in triumph as several of her attacks managed to hit Seamus and Ron as they were trying to attack the twins.

Their snow battle continued on for another twenty minutes or so before they all decided they were wet enough and cold enough, to call it quits.

Pansy declared that she and Blaze had won, but Draco objected, insisting that he and Harry had clearly won, and that would be obvious to anyone with eyes.

Goyle sided with Draco, while Crabbe just looked confused and asked how anyone could tell if anyone won.

Dean then insisted that their fort was still in the best condition and that should obviously be a sign that they'd done better. Blaze guffawed, pointing out that their fort hadn't taken as much damage because the three of them were pants at actually staying behind it properly, so they'd been firing at the three Gryffindors rather than their fort wall.

Fay and Neville made no attempt at all to claim that they'd won, as they'd been pretty passive with their attacks anyway - mostly in it just for the company and the fun.

Ron then spoke up, saying that Hermione had been watching the whole thing, but hadn't participated, so she should get the final say on who won.

All eyes turned expectantly to Hermione, who had been sitting on top of a bolder that she'd melted all of the snow off and then dried before perching on it and watching, back when the whole thing had just begun.

"But Hermione will just side with Harry!" Seamus said.

"I will not!" Hermione said, affronted.

"Oh come on! Even if you two aren't officially dating, everyone knows you're… you know," Seamus sad, wiggling his eyebrows.

"They most certainly are not!" Draco almost squawked in offense.

Seamus guffawed at Draco. "Awfully touchy, eh Malfoy?"

"I just don't think you should go around propagating a blatantly false rumor," Draco drawled airily, tilting his nose up in the air.

"Eh? Do you know something we don't then?" Seamus asked, looking entirely too interested in the prospect of further gossip on the matter. "If you're so sure that Harry's not dating Hermione, then maybe you know who he is dating?"

"Maybe Harry's not dating anyone," Ron cut in, glaring a bit at Seamus.

"Oh come on! We've got ourselves a Veela for a roommate! He's the most desirable bloke in our year, if not the whole school. Harry's been having to beat the girls off with a stick! I've seen at least a dozen girls try and corner him the last couple weeks, trying to ask him to this dance, or get him to ask them. And he's turned them all down! No way a bloke does that unless he's got someone already, and, no offense Fay, but we all know he's not your type. So come on, Harry! What gives? Why all the secrecy? If it's not Hermione, then who?"

"Why the secrecy?" Harry echoed incredulously. "Seamus, do you even remember what happened to Hermione after that awful Skeeter woman published that article about her in Witch Weekly?"

"So you do have someone!" Seamus declared triumphantly.

Harry rolled his eyes skyward and threw his hands up in utter exasperation.

"Back off Seamus. If Harry doesn't want to talk about it, he's not gonna talk about it," Ron said, stepping in front of Seamus and folding his arms across his chest.

Seamus just snorted and rolled his eyes. "You're just trying to suck up to him since you went and pissed him off so bad."

Ron's face went red and he made to take a step closer to Seamus when a great hulking figure cut him off quite suddenly and came to stand between Ron and Seamus. Goyle now stared down at Seamus with his meaty arms folded across his chest and his heavy brow and grim frown set in a blatantly disapproving scowl.

Seamus blanched at the unexpectedly quick movement and took an unsteady step back.

"Leave Potter alone," Goyle said in a flat gruff voice.

Harry felt his jaw drop, and saw that just about everyone else had done the same. Pansy looked amused, and Blaze just had a single eyebrow cocked with obvious interest, and a tinge of amusement.

Seamus seemed to be so thrown off the the utterly unexpected act that he just sort of stumbled away mumbling and looking with obvious bewilderment between Harry and the large Slytherin boy who had done nothing but glower threateningly at Harry for the first three years of their attendance at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The awkward encounter put a rather abrupt end to what had otherwise been a perfectly enjoyable morning, and the group soon dispersed. Harry let his fingers brush subtly against Draco's as they tried to get in a quick moment before going their separate ways. Draco tossed out the idea of spending some time in the library later, but Harry shook his head with a grin and told the blond he had something special planned, and asked Draco to meet him by a specific statue at a certain time later that evening, before the pair were dragged away by their respective groups.

"Blimey, that was weird," Ron said in a rather astonished tone as he tagged along behind Hermione and Harry as the pair began to make their way through the entrance hall towards the grand staircase. "Never in a million years would I have expected Goyle to do something like that."

"Honestly… me either," Harry admitted.

"I have to admit, I'm really quite astonished with just how much influence Malfoy seems to have over his house mates interactions with us," Hermione mused. "I mean, it was one thing for him to suddenly take up with Harry for his own reason, but I'm surprised that so many of the other Slytherins are willing to follow suit without any clear explanation why." She hesitated then and then glanced questioningly over towards Harry. "Unless they… know why?"

Harry scrunched up his face thoughtfully. "Well Pansy knows everything, but I have no idea what any of the rest know."

"So Parkinson knows that you two are… you know?" Ron asked curiously.

"She's the one who kind of… pushed me to… uh…" Harry said glancing around the deserted staircase but then just sort of shrugged helplessly, not really sure what to say even if he did feel comfortable talking in a place so public.

"To what? Ask him out? Wait - did you do the asking out, or did Malfoy?"

Harry gave Ron a rather unimpressed glare at Ron's lack of discretion, but fortunately, there didn't appear to be anyone around anyway.

Harry paused, looked around and heaved a mildly defeated sigh before getting off at the next landing and heading into the office that Lockhart had used in second year. He was glad to find it completely empty, and did not miss the dozens of smiling portraits of the man that had once littered the walls.

Part of Harry wasn't sure why he was even bothering to discuss any of this with Ron, but at least the ginger hadn't made a single snide remark about Draco, or any of the other Slytherins, the whole morning, so Harry had to admit that was progress. Ron was, at least, trying.

"I wouldn't really say that either of us actually asked the other out," Harry said finally. "We just sort of danced around it. Basically, Pansy told me that Draco was gay, and threw out a bunch of hints that maybe Draco liked me."

"Not that you noticed," Hermione said, airily. Harry gave her a mild glare before rolling his eyes.

"Anyway, Pansy got me thinking a lot about… Draco. And how I really felt about him, I guess. Merlin, this is weird to talk about with you."

"Hey, I'm being good, right?" Ron said with a defensive sort of desperation. "How weird do you think it is for me to hear you talk about Malfoy like that?"

Harry arched a single brow in Ron's direction, and the ginger hunched over a bit, sheepishly. "Er, sorry."

Harry sighed and shook his head dismissively. "It's fine. I get it. So basically, after I got myself sort of figured out, and the moment sort of presented itself, I told Draco I was gay, and he sort of admitted it back, and we just kind of grinned at each other, and… stuff went from there. Neither of us has ever really asked the other out."

"So you're not actually dating?" Ron asked, looking confused.

"Er… no, I'd say that we are… just… it kind of happened naturally. No one had to do anything like ask the other out. It just sort of… we just sort of were dating. And we both silently knew it."

Hermione was smiling, looking sappy and quite pleased for her friend. Ron in contrast, just had his face screwed up in mild confusion.

"And tonight we've got a date, so I'd say that means that we're dating," Harry added with a one-shoulder shrug.

"You do?" Hermione said in surprise.

Harry grinned. "Yeah. Dobby found this brilliant place for us, so we'll have guaranteed privacy. No more risk of the twins, or anyone else, popping in and seeing us."

"It's hard to imagine anywhere in the school with guaranteed privacy," Ron said, looking dubious. "I mean, how long do you two really hope to keep this secret?"

"Well, we're hoping that we won't have to deal with coming out until after the holidays. Draco doesn't want to have to interact with his dad any time directly after the news comes out. The more time between Lucius Malfoy learning the truth, and Draco having to go home, the more time the man has to cool off."

"Yeah, but what about that," Ron asked, looking worried. "I mean… what if his dad pressures him to help spy on you, or what if he tricks Malfoy or something, to go after you in some way?"

"I trust Draco to spot it if his dad seems to be up to something," Harry said with a shrug. "Besides, honestly, I'm sort of planning for the worst."

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"That Lucius Malfoy blows a gasket and disowns Draco, and he has to come and stay with my family in Iledevol. Or maybe even the family that he's got over there. He says he's on good terms with them."

"But won't it be a problem is Malfoy is surrounded by a ton of other Veela?" Ron asked.

Harry's lips parted to reply but he stopped and paused for a moment before sighing and shrugging. "Erm… okay, I'm really only telling you this because it's inevitable that it's gonna get out… and pretty soon, too. But Draco is Veela. Like me."

Ron's eyes widened and his eyebrows disappeared behind his red-orange fringe. "Whuh?" he said, inarticulately. "But wait - what? How?"

"Apparently Lucius Malfoy is one-eighth Veela, but the traits were recessive in him. He basically crammed Draco full of shame his whole childhood. Making him feel like he was worth less for having the veela traits turn out to be dominant in him, even though he's only one-sixteenth veela. Honestly, I think a lot of the whole pure-blood rubbish he used to spout was just kind of a self-loathing insecurity thing. He hated the fact that his blood wasn't pure because of all the shame Lucius ground into him. This is why Draco and I connected. I realized he was veela, just like he realized that I was veela. I guess I kind of helped him come to terms with what he is and stop hating himself so much for it. My grandfather and I helped him sneak behind his father's back and get a veela tutor over the last summer too."

Ron's jaw slowly dropped and he gaped at Harry with a look of dawning understanding. "Bloody hell, so that's what happened!" he finally exclaimed. "Merlin, it just never made sense how everything could just change with no apparent reason. It was like a switch got flipped and no one bothered to tell me how or when."

Harry grimaced guiltily. "Er… yeah… sorry about that. But it wasn't my secret to tell."

"Yeah, I guess I can see that. So is Malfoy planning on coming out or something? Why do you say that this is gonna come out soon?"

"Er, well, like I said, Draco is veela… like me."

Ron nodded slowly. "Yeah, I get that."

"Um, when two younger veela find themselves drawn to each other because they're compatible, but haven't come into their allure yet, it has a tendency to draw the allure out earlier than it normally would have. The veela sort of do it to each other. My grandfather thinks that we're really close to that happening, and I think he's right. From what I've felt lately whenever Draco and I are close… it feels like something is coming. Like, something is just on the cusp of crashing over me like a wave. Once our allures kick in, there's no hiding it anymore."

"Holy hell! Wait, so you think this is gonna happen this year? I thought you weren't expecting that allure thing to happen till next year at the earliest!"

"Well, like I said, two compatible veela draw it out early in each other."

"Bloody hell…" Ron whispered. He stared off into space for a moment before a smirk cross his face and he snorted. "Should have guessed Malfoy was Veela. He's such a damn pretty boy, and all the girls get all googly-eyed over him, even though he's such a pra…" Ron trailed off before grinning apologetically. "Er… even though he used to be such a… a prat," he recovered lamely.

Harry couldn't help but grin and chuckle weakly, shaking his head. He sighed but then smiled happily to himself. "He is pretty. That's for sure."

Ron snorted and rolled his eyes.

— — —

AN: What's this? A new chapter of Extended Family!? What is this nonsense!?

So yeah - don't take this as a sign of some sort of guarantee that this one will be getting a lot more love or anything. It's not like Again and Again or Rebirth where I picked them back up and wrote a hundred pages. This (15 pages) is literally all I got out when I went back to readdress this one. But I would like to find the time and energy to poke at it again. Just no clue when that might happen. But I figured I'd post what I got done.