AN/ Bad news kiddies, I had another 4 chapters written... but my computer just died. Not sure I'm going to be able to update much for a few days, having to use mum's computer and on top of that am stressing over all the stuff I might lose, including three new fics I had written, and the next 4 chapters completed for this fic, oh and the planning for the entire story. Frick.

Please leave a review, will help encourage me to keep kidnapping mum's laptop despite its ridiculous keyboard and slow internet. Also, haven't uploaded anything because I wanted to get a few chapters finished and had Tafe keeping me off the internet, instead just writing it during class. Haha. Anyway, hope you like this chapter. Won't be quite to my liking, but at least I would have put something up.

Unbeta-ed.

Plotting, Planning and Worshipping

Chapter Nine

By ScreamForSOH

Just to show how trivial some of the things Draco and I fought about during our school years, I don't even remember what we were fighting about on the Trivia Night. But I do remember the events that followed after.

Whatever we had been fighting about before hand, had lead to an argument of who out of the two of us were worse off, and finally I snapped. I admit that was what happened; there was no other way to describe it. I asked him how the hell he could know all that stuff about him, why he paid so much attention to me, and above all why it mattered...

He stared at me in shock, spluttered – yes that's right, spluttered – a few times, before frowning and relaxing into a defeated stance. His shoulders hunched, head bowed, hands by his sides, and he shrugged; just a single movement, and as if something clicked, a decision made, he looked back to me. Cocking his head to the side, he seemed to be inspecting me, searching for my reaction to what he would say.

"I guess I wanted to know how you handled it all, the stress, the pressure, and the dangers of the unknown future..." He said simply.

Knowing him the way I do now, I can recall the way he said it, and I realise now that he had more to say, but stopped himself. At the time however, I assumed that's all he had to say, and what he said didn't really surprise me. It was the way he said it, the obvious honesty behind his words that made me gape for a moment before nodding and answering the unasked question within his admission.

"I'm not sure how I do at times, I guess it's because what I have now, with my friends and opportunities in the future, and everything else compared to before this life came along, I forget about all the risks, and just try and keep going for the sake of others... though at times I do tend to act out of habit and in routine, doing things how they expect me to, to keep them happy and to show to them that I'm fine. Because if I'm not fine, then things will only get worse; after all, I am 'the boy who lived' after all. And if I can't be that successfully, I surely can't be trusted."

I'm not sure where the conversation went after that... but I remember that before we knew it, there was a soft knock at the door the others had left through, and Hermione poking her head into the room. "Uhmm, sorry to interrupt, but we have done everything we can out here, and the others want to know what's going on. Is it alright for us to come back?"

Draco and I just shrugged, and returned to whatever we had been discussing. When the others came into the room and found us sitting at our places from before, neither injured, I think they were kind of disappointed... although, I do recall Hermione sending a nod to Neville and Luna. The games continued on as before, though our team ended up winning, what with Draco and I working together now and not just trying to make things difficult for each other.

After the games had ended, and everyone was heading off to their own houses, I remembered the party that the others were organising for the following week. As we were leaving, I called Draco aside and asked him if he wanted to come, from his slight hesitation I thought he would say no, but after a moment he said he would, if Pansy could come along too. I told him that she could come, and gave him the details before bidding him good night and following Hermione and Ron up to the Gryffindor Common Room, trying to figure out how to tell them that I thought that befriending Draco wouldn't be such a bad thing.

AN/ by the time I finished rewriting this chapter, my brother has fixed my computer, but some files are missing... including this chapter, chapter eleven and some other fics, so bear with me while I have to sort out all my documents and programs all over again. They might be in there somewhere, but from what I can see, they aren't. So I'm going to just rewrite them all, the story has shifted slightly as I wrote this, so all of it will need redoing anyway.

Sorry for the delay. Again, using someone else's computer, with a stupid keyboard, so my typing speed and accuracy is suffering.

Please review.