Fragile Blossoms

Title: Fragile Blossoms
Author: shenanifan
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Genre: Romance, Angst, Smut
Pairing: Draco/Harry
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy et al are fictional characters created by J.K. Rowling as part of the Harry Potter series. I don't make any money from it.
Warnings: Language, M/M, warnings will change for later chapters

Chapter II

The next morning Harry found himself surprisingly awake at breakfast in the Great Hall, despite his nightly sit-in on the astronomy tower. He sat across from Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley his best friends who didn’t take too much notice of him at the moment as Ron was occupied in getting as much food in his stomach as possible and Hermione was absorbed in a large book on Arithmancy.
Meanwhile Harry picked at his food having no real appetite and scanning the tables for possible brooding-types.
They shared not many words yesterday and were sitting an hour without any kind of interaction and still the other boy asked him to come back tonight. Harry hadn’t a clue what that was all about. But he sure as hell was curious and he had to admit it was quite comforting to sit there knowing somebody was next to one.
He still had no idea who belonged to the voice. But the other boy had to at least be in his fifth year or higher. The sound was just too deep and rich to be any younger. Deep and rich? Right, any minute now he was going to write a poem about his mysterious stranger and his intriguing voice. How pathetic!

Classes were as usual. History of Magic slowly lulled him to a short nap; Herbology brought Harry some minor scratches from an ill-mannered plant.
At lunch he noticed the absence of his arch-enemy Draco Malfoy. The git was definitely up to something. He looked paler and thinner every week. But though Harry tried to catch him at whatever Draco was doing he just seemed to vanish every time Harry got close.
Even more suspicious than his sickly appearance was the lack of insults against Harry and his friends lately. Usually there wouldn’t be one day without at least one minor fight or argument between Malfoy and Harry. But lately the Slytherin Prince just seemed to be focused on something else. This unnatural behaviour made Harry very uneasy indeed.
He would never admit it openly but he rather missed those arguments with the Blond.
There were few people in Hogwarts who would openly challenge Harry, most of the students just saw in him the Great Harry Potter and not much else, but Malfoy didn’t care about his status, hated it even and made Harry feel more like a real person, not just a symbol. Of course Hermione and Ron treated him as a person too, but they were his friends.
Harry just wished to be seen as the boy he was, with fears and dreams of a live of his own outside of the hero-being.
And somehow Malloy’s insults helped him to not loose totally the ground under his feet.
But now there were none of this insults and Harry was worried.

The afternoon brought Harry a double-potions class. With Snape as the slimy bastard par excellence dragging points from Gryffindor for people breathing too loud. Oh, how he hated that man!

As the night approached Harry still was unsure about going back to the astronomy tower. He should get a good night’s sleep, but he really wondered why the other boy asked him to come back. Did the other one know who he was? But it was pitch black up there; he couldn’t have seen him, could he? Maybe tonight would be a bit more light and he could catch a glimpse of the boy behind this voice?

Fifteen minutes before curfew Harry left the Gryffindor common room and headed up to the astronomy tower once again. He couldn’t have gone to sleep anyway with his mind wandering constantly to the boy of last night. He just would find out who it was and would leave for good afterwards. Just to ease his mind. Right. That’s the plan.

When Harry reached the platform of the tower he looked around finding no one else there and settled down the same place as the night before. He noticed that he could see a bit more than last night. He could even see the outline of the forbidden forest and he let his mind wander off to the same topics who usually occupied his mind when he was away from everyone else.
Some time later he snapped out of his trance when the light suddenly vanished. And as if on cue he heard the familiar rustle of clothes approaching the edge of the tower.

“Did you make it dark?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I would like to see you, know who you are.”
“No.”
“Why not, are you disfigured, or something?”
A small snort escaped the other boy’s throat before he answered. “Believe me, you don’t want to know and I like it dark. It feels comforting. One doesn’t have to keep up an appearance.”
Harry sighed but had to agree that it was quite comforting. Sometimes it really seemed to be much easier talking to strangers about his feelings than to his friends. Though in being Harry Potter it was kind of hard to find any strangers to talk to. Harry didn’t really know too many people himself but simply everyone knew him.
They sat together in comfortable silence for a while until Harry couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Why did you ask me to come back?”
“I don’t know. But I guess it felt agreeable with you around. Not quite as depressing as when I was here alone.”
“But didn’t you come here to be alone?”
The other boy sighed. “Well, yes, but… I don’t know.”
Though it wasn’t really an answer Harry thought he understood how the other boy was feeling. He had felt the same way last night. He came out here to be alone too, but he had appreciated the company all the same.
“So do you want to talk about something or just sit together minding our own business?” Harry asked.
“We could talk, I guess. But no questions about names, looks, houses or friends.”
Harry could accept that. He liked the idea of having a mysterious stranger to talk to. Maybe even a friend nobody else knew about.
“Alright. How should I call you then, when I don’t know your name?”
“Call me whatever you like, I don’t really care.”
“I could call you buttercup and you wouldn’t care?” Harry chuckled.
The boy let out a small laugh. “Only if you want me to call you sweetie pie.”
Harry actually had to laugh at this. “Alright. I guess I will call you Harvey. I don’t think we know enough of each other yet to pick a fitting pet name!”
“I guess you are right. But why Harvey?”
“Oh it’s from a Muggle Movie. It’s the name of an invisible friend in the form of a bunny.”
“So it’s still a pet name but in disguise…” another small laugh came from the boy “Invisible friend, I like the sound of that.”
Harry’s heart made a small jump. “Would you like us to be friends?”
“Yes, I would like that, if you want to?”
Harry smiled at that. “Yeah, I’d like that too.”

After that both boys fell silent comfortably sitting next to one another and staring out in the night each lost in his own thoughts. When both boys rose to head back to their dorms no words were necessary to know that they would meet again the following night.