Rating: probably Pg:13 might get up to an R

Pairing: mmmmm I'll tell you next chapter . . .though I think u will work it out

Main characters: Harry P, Draco M

Summary: it's 7th year and two people are in love, but neither know it.  They both have one last chance. Will they take it?

Feedback: plz plz plz plz plz plz plz if you read it tell me what you think???? I REALLY need the encouragement =P thanx muchly  

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~ A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words ~

It was just another lunch time, just another boring day somewhere, thankfully near the end of another dreary and difficult, yet annoyingly dangerous but miraculously final year for the 7th year students at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. Or at least that was how it appeared to two particular students that lunchtime. All most as if nothing could change, as if they were doomed to live this final year over an over again until some mysterious something happened. Little did they know that that something would happen, that their lives would soon change forever.

The enormous Hogwarts Great Hall was filled to overflowing that day, students of every size crammed together between the cold, ancient stone walls, eating, talking and resting in what little time they had before the next class, watched over by the adults at the head table, some reproving some rejoicing, while the famous, magically charmed ceiling hovered far above them all, grey clouds clustering here and there, the pristine blue perfection obscured by layers of mist and swirling fog, while the sun waited on the edges, soon to erupt across the great dome of the midday sky, chasing away the clouds and enlightening, illuminating the path for those lost in the darkness.     

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Harry sat surrounded by his friends and housemates, all crowded around a huge red and gold trestle table in the great hall. Around him, all he could see was mounds of food for every possible taste and preference, and the happy, chattering faces that always accompanied these lunchtime gatherings, the result of the delicious food and short but much needed respite from the daily chore of classes. No matter what classes or what teachers they had, lunchtime was one thing that everyone enjoyed, everyone but Harry that is.

Meal times were the hardest times of the day for Harry. He was forced to sit and smile and constantly keep up "the act". Yeah, that one, the "I am the great and courageous Harry Potter, defender of the weak and defeater of all evil, the fearless, the intelligent and the pure, and I'm your friend" act. Not that Hermione and Ron and all the others weren't his friends, but how they really expected him to be so perfect he would never know, he was just an average guy, apart from the magical powers he supposed, but even they were pretty average.

No one person could be all of those things, could be immune to temptation, totally fearless. Sometimes Harry got scared, he felt stupid, he felt dirty, he just didn't feel like he could go on any more and he couldn't always be everything to everyone, couldn't give up everything he was to be everything they needed. If he did, he would lose himself in them and Harry was so very afraid that if that happened, he wouldn't be able to find himself again. Harry was not perfect.

You see, Harry had his share of secrets, all different kinds, that little innocent kind when he happened to have borrowed hair mousse last week because he just happened to be all out of his own, very masculine, hair gel, to the kind of secret where he cheated off Ron's Potions homework the week before that (although it hadn't really helped him that much) to that special variety, the deep, dark, shameful kind of secret that he kept locked deep within his heart.

With all these secrets just straining to get out, Harry was deathly afraid people were going to start noticing cracks in his mask of perfection, that they would finally see through to the real Harry, the little boy who was still so terribly afraid of not being accepted just for being him, the almost-man who was afraid of himself, of the power he had no idea how to control, the foreign darkness he knew lurked somewhere deep inside himself and the terminally confused teenager coming to terms with the fact that things were not how he had originally thought they were, finally getting to know himself, to look deep inside himself and try to see what was there and struggling to understand the alarming, yet irrefutable truth he found there.

 Harry Potter was in love.

And no one could know.

No one could know that he was not as perfect as they thought he was.

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Draco Malfoy sat surrounded by strangers and enemies, his head filled with their spiteful, thinly veiled insults and vicious comments. But Draco was blind to their pinched, beady eyed visages, blind to the mountains of supposedly delicious food that left only a bitter taste instead of a feeling of satisfaction, all he could see was one face, one person who seemed to shine with a golden aura of purity, seemed to shine with the goodness, the faith that was their very essence. As he did every other day, Draco stared at his beloved, the one person who he would change for, who could change him, make him become a better man and not just the twisted, cold creature he was becoming. But Draco's love was unrequited, he was forced day in and day out to live with the knowledge that he could never have that which he craved the most. True love. Trust. Friendship. Every thing pure and good that was the essential opposite of himself. These things he needed like oxygen. Like a life raft to keep him afloat in the sea of darkness and despair that had become his world and all he knew.

Draco griped the hard wood of the ancient table so hard that he left finger-sized dents, clenching his jaw as a shudder went all through his wiry frame. He could not let himself go on like this, the constant yearning was slowly tearing his soul apart, piece by tiny piece. Long ago Draco had accepted his destiny, accepted that he was fated to someday let the darkness consume him and let his heart and soul be lost in a sweeping tide of evil. At least that was what he constantly told himself, but some small part of him still fought on, battling the bleak future and holding up his love as a shining beacon to light the way to salvation. But the rational part of Draco knew that he could never really have his beloved, just this hollow mockery that was his twisted and lonely obsession with an angel.

Draco Malfoy was not quite the hardened, cynical, sadistic bastard that everyone saw him as. He watched them all from behind his mask, longing for the chance to break through the stereotype, the preconceived image that he hid behind, to share his true self and to be liked for just being himself, just another flawed individual with hopes and dreams like everyone else. He waited patiently for someone to try to break through to him, to touch the terrified buy hidden deep beneath his frozen exterior. Absolutely paralysed with the fear that no one would ever come close enough, that though the years, through every snide comment and hateful glare, his true self would be buried under ever growing layers of lies, or the icy armour he constructed around his fragile heart, the aura of power, cool control and disdain that he held about himself like a cloak, a vain effort to protect himself from the chilling blast of hatred and fear he was subjected to every day.

Draco Malfoy was in love.

And no one would care. No one would dare.

Not one person, especially his beloved, would give a damn that he was slowly dying inside, before their very eyes.

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TBC. Next chapter – the announcement

A/N – PLZ R/R??!?!?!?! *blushes* thanx muchly