Bleed Me An Ocean

It was the first week of classes after the Christmas holidays and Draco couldn\'t concentrate. He\'d been staring at his Herbology textbook for close to twenty minutes trying to read the assigned chapter. He, instead, had re-read the same sentence going on fifteen times. Harry lay on the bed next to him, his feet dangling over the edge. He was asleep, having collapsed not too long after they\'d returned from their last class. Draco\'s head was bowed over his book and his long hair hid his face from view as he watched Harry out of the corner of his eye, then glanced to the floor where Dreizehn was happily tugging one of Harry\'s shoelaces.

Draco wondered why Harry was so tired lately, he had not been sleeping well for months, but at least he\'d been sleeping. The past couple of weeks though had found him waking not two hours after going to sleep usually. Draco had woken up more than once to find Harry standing at the window or wandering aimlessly about the room, drinking. He\'d surpassed Draco on drinking lately with his late night sojourns into the darkness of their quarters. If only he knew what kept his lover awake all night.

The dreams had started to come with more frequency, now almost every night and they were becoming more detailed, more upsetting and vivid. The one from the night before had sent him into a near panic and he\'d awakened gasping and trying not to cry out. It had went as it usually did, except Draco had been sitting in a wasteland of felled timbers and churned, muddy earth while he screamed without stopping. It prickled the hair on the back of Harry\'s neck and his skin had crawled with gooseflesh at the sound of that scream. It reverberated throughout him, he wanted to go to the tortured boy, but his feet would not move at all. He struggled against the invisible bonds that held him all to no avail. Then Draco\'s eyes had met his, pleading and tormented before he had swirled into dust that blew into Harry\'s face, choking him on the acrid and forlorn taste.

Then had come the beach made of bone and the part that had woken him before the dream ever took him to the phantom city it usually did. Draco had stood, looking at him and raised the dagger just like he always did, parting his white flesh from elbow to wrist and repeating the same action on the other arm. As the blood had started to flow, Harry, instead of Draco, had spoken,\"Bleed me an ocean,\" and the pale boy had only smiled softly; lovingly at him and nodded as the red wave came to carry him away on its tidal surge of iron and salt.

Draco had woken up to find him pacing the room, the bottle swinging from one of his hands as he clenched and unclenched the other into a tight fist as he furiously tried to drink the . . . blasphemy . . . of what he\'d said in the dream out of his head. When Draco had approached him, asking what was going on, he\'d unthinkingly pulled the startled blonde into a crushing embrace, apologizing to him and saying, \"I didn\'t mean what I said.\"

He\'d avoided all of Draco\'s questions inquiring what he was babbling about, Harry had just said he didn\'t mean to wake him up, to please go back to bed. Draco hadn\'t bought it, but had dropped the topic for the time being and did as Harry\'d asked of him. He\'d lain awake the rest of the night however, thinking over Harry\'s strange actions and reaction to him. It had left him with a odd feeling that he couldn\'t quite put his finger on, but it had bothered him all day. Now Harry lay sleeping peacefully it seemed, but the occasional twitch of his cheek or shudder belied his otherwise calm appearance and Draco gave up the pretense of studying to watch him more closely. He absently picked at a small cut on his left hand he\'d gotten in Herbology the day before, not totally aware of what he was doing, but finding the subsequent twinges of pain soothing all the same. Something was definitely eating at Harry, troubling him to no end. Draco didn\'t have to be a Slytherin to notice all of the changes in his once restful sleeping. Then Draco jumped as Harry jerked himself awake, nearly falling off the bed in the process.

He looked wildly about the room for a moment as though he didn\'t know where he was or how he\'d gotten there. Then his gaze fell on Draco and he heaved a shaky sigh of relief, then looked at where Draco was still worrying at the cut on his hand as he stared at Harry with startled grey eyes.

\"What are you doing?\" asked Harry, gesturing at Draco\'s busily digging fingers.

Looking down, Draco seemed a bit surprised by his own actions, but shrugged, saying,\"Picking at scabs with ambition to bleed.\"

\"Don\'t say shit like that! Kali help me, please don\'t,\" Harry said, taken aback by Draco\'s casual morbidity. It was a bit too much to handle at the moment.

The dream had come once more as he\'d napped, and yet again he\'d spoken the words to Draco. However, the dream had played out to its full extent that time, taking him into what he had come to think of as the Haunted City. The city\'s streets had been slick wet with blood, there was far more of it than there usually was. Typically it was just a trail, but this time there was so much it looked as though it had rained blood on the mysterious city. It puddled in the gutters and potholes, glistening red underneath the neon glow of bar signs that seemed to be at every intersection. In fact, there were bars almost everywhere he\'d looked. Once again he\'d found himself in the center of the town\'s square, looking all over for his wayward love, only to find him behind his back, arms outstretched to be held. When he\'d pulled him into his arms, Harry had, as ever, choked back a sound that threatened to be a cross between a sob and a scream as the blood-soaked blonde clung to him and whispered those hateful words. Even though they\'d been spoken softly, the words had echoed, ricocheting off the buildings and falling from Harry\'s own mouth once more. Then he\'d started that terrible fall, sometimes he thought the last part was the worst part because of the thought that always raced madly through his head: All that you love will be carried away.

He shuddered at the recollection.

\"Harry, what\'s bothering you?\" Draco asked. His reaction to what he\'d said had been so harsh and bordered with panic that Draco knew whatever it was had something to do with him. He\'d already pretty much concluded he was having nightmares, and bad ones from the looks of things. Now he had the suspicion Harry was having nightmares about him. Seeing Harry start to shake his head and brush him aside once more, he gritted his teeth and said,\"Don\'t you lie to me. I know there\'s something wrong and I want to know. Maybe I can help.\"

Harry bent over the side of the bed and scooped Dreizehn up, cuddling the squirming pup to his chest and murmuring to him in order to buy time. He knew Draco wasn\'t going to let it rest, but he simply couldn\'t tell him about the dream, not the details anyway. He had to choose his words carefully. Rolling himself back upright with a black bundle of fur now in his arms, he turned to face Draco and said,\"I dreamed that I lost you.\"

\"That\'s what has been keeping you awake all hours of the night?\" Draco queried, looking doubtfully at Harry.

\"Yes. I can\'t stand them, they\'re awful. It\'s nothing so simple as you walking out on me, there\'s more to them than that. I don\'t want to talk about it though, not right now,\" he said, holding his hand up for silence when Draco opened his mouth to ask more questions.

Deciding that he was going to get nowhere, but at least temporarily satisfied with Harry\'s vague recounting of his dream, Draco acquiesced to his request and said,\"Well, what do you want to do? Homework?\"

Harry pulled a face at the suggestion, but knew it had to be done. Rising from the bed, he replaced Dreizehn on the floor and went to gather his books. He stopped halfway across the room, pulled his wand out and performed a cleansing spell. Seeing him do so, Draco asked,\"Puppy puddle?\"

\"Puppy pond, more like,\" Harry grimaced, then smiled a little,\"We\'re never going to get him housebroken having to keep him shut up and hidden away like this.\"

\"I know. But that\'s what magic is for,\"came Draco\'s voice from the bed,\"We\'ll be able to work on housebreaking him one day soon though when we have our own home.\"

Draco\'s mention of them having their own home made Harry\'s face light up. He loved the idea of spending the rest of his life with Draco by his side and he knew that they would do just that. We will be happy, he thought as he proceeded to gather his bookbag and lug it back across the room.

=*|*=

They had been plowing through their stacks of schoolwork for over four hours and were well into their evening tipple when a knock came at the door. They barely heard it over the roar of Draco\'s new stereo. He had been getting as much mileage out of it as possible and at first the constant noise had been distracting to Harry even though he liked the same kind of music. He\'d adjusted to it though and on the rare occasions that they turned it off, the silence was as deafening to him as it was Draco.

\"Answer it or ignore it?\" Draco mused as he took a sip from the bottle.

\"Ignore it,\" Harry answered.

\"Agreed,\" Draco nodded and passed the whiskey before turning back to his Potions paper.

However, their visitor would not be ignored and pounded harder on the door,\"Gah!\" Harry grumped, tossing his quill down in agitation. He\'d taken to not liking visitors and interruptions of this sort. He and Draco were very private and semi-reclusive these days,\"Why do they have to bother us?\"

Draco only shook his head without bothering to look up from his paper,\"Just don\'t pay any mind to it, whoever it is will give up eventually.\"

Then the doorknob began to twist back and forth and the pounding increased.

\"FUCK ME!\" Harry shouted as he rose from the bed and stalked angrily to the door.

Not bothering with the usual precautions, he yanked the door wide and glared unseeingly at the person outside the door and snapped,\"What do you want?!\"

\"Stop yelling, Harry,\" Hermione huffed weakly as she glared back at him through puffy, red rimmed eyes, then she recoiled as the wave of noise from the stereo assailed her eardrums,\"You\'ll both be deaf before your twenty first birthdays.\"

\"Hermione . . . what\'s going on? Why are you here so late? Have you been crying?\" Harry asked her, concern creasing his brow.

\"Oh, it\'s nothing really. Can I come in, please?\" she asked, peeking around his shoulder and narrowing her eyes a bit as she saw Draco hastily stuffing something into a drawer.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure the Slytherin had put their \'toy\' away, he turned back to Hermione and nodded. Stepping back to let her in, he warred with the feelings of concern and intrusion he felt.

After she had entered the room, she seated herself on one of their trunks and said,\"I\'m sorry about this, I know it\'s quite late and all, but I needed to get out of Gryffindor for a bit. This was the only place I could think of to come. You see - What in all the world is that?\" she broke off as Dreizehn bounded across the floor to sniff at the new person in the room.

\"That would be Dreizehn. Draco gave him to me for Christmas,\" Harry said, trying his hardest not to let on that he was about drunk and just waiting for a lecture about having an illegal animal at the school.

\"Harry . . . he\'s so cute!\" she squealed instead, moving from the trunk and onto the floor to play with the wolf cub,\"But you ought to know this isn\'t allowed.\"

Sighing, Harry slumped against the wall where he still stood by the door,\"Please don\'t lecture me, Herm. I know it and so does Draco, but I\'m not giving him up.\"

\"I wouldn\'t either,\" she said, smiling at the worried looking ex-Gryffindor,\"Just don\'t get caught. He\'s so friendly. I didn\'t think wolves were so outgoing.\"

\"They usually aren\'t. But he\'s a bit different than most wolves,\" Draco spoke from where he sat perched at the foot of the bed. Harry was alarmed to see that he was swaying a bit.

\"How so?\" she asked, interested and thankfully not noticing his state as Harry moved quickly to sit beside him.

\"Well his particular line, if you will, was bred specifically from wild wolves that had been somewhat domesticated and imbued with a little magic of their own. They\'re quite an old tradition in the wizarding world, actually. They\'re far more rare these days, but once they were a bit more common. The type of wolf Dreizehn is was once used as familiars by only the most powerful of wizards and witches. They are still used today, but since the great ones are few and far between, the numbers of the Wizard\'s Wolf has also dwindled,\" he said.

\"I knew he was different!\" Harry spoke excitedly, hurriedly stepping to the stereo and lowering the volume a bit, he wanted to make sure he heard all of what Draco had to say.

\"I could tell. Why didn\'t you tell me this to begin with?\" he asked as he went to stand beside Draco who still swayed ever so slightly at the foot of the bed.

\"I actually meant to, I just forgot is all,\"Draco said, pleased to the very core that Harry was even more impressed with his gift now.

Hermione\'s eyes widened in delight and she smiled,\"Now that you mention it, I recall reading about these wolves somewhere. It\'s really quite fascinating. Weren\'t there other animals that were also considered powerful familiars, moreso than the typical cats and what have you?\"

\"Yes. There is also a breed of horse that was once used, though they are even more scarce than the wolves,\" Draco responded,\"Only a handful of them remain in the world today.\"

\"I see. I thought there was another one as well? I just can\'t remember it right off. They were some sort of animal familiar triad of supposed great power, I think. And about the wolves - this type gets larger than an average wolf, correct? Not to mention, their intelligence is higher as well?\" she asked, growing more fascinated by the second with the pup as he tugged playfully at her sleeve. Disentangling his needle sharp baby teeth from the cloth of her robe, she picked Dreizehn up and cuddled him to her chest as she scratched behind his ears. The cub stretched his already thickly muscled little neck in pleasure and settled down against her breast with a contented grunt.

\"There was another animal, yeah, but I\'ve forgotten what type it is. As for the wolves, yes to both questions. He will get very large indeed,\" Draco finished, his statement punctuated by a loud hiccup that didn\'t go unnoticed by Hermione.

Growing even more alarmed, Harry grasped Draco\'s arm gently and gave him a warning look that the blonde promptly ignored. He didn\'t care for the look Hermione was giving him and he decided to change the topic and try and keep Draco quiet as possible.

\"Not to be rude, Hermione, but what brings you here so late? You mentioned having to get out of the Tower for awhile?\" Harry questioned her as he tugged Draco back to prop against the headboard. At least that\'ll make him not sway so much, Harry thought. It wasn\'t only Draco\'s obviously inebriated state that was causing him concern, he could also see that she was upset and knew better than to think her arrival at their door at that hour had just been intended as a random visit. It was also apparent that now a distraction had been offered - Dreizehn - she was avoiding the real reason she\'d come to him and clinging (literally and figuratively) steadfastly to the aforementioned distraction.

\"Oh, that,\" she said, her face falling,\"I told you, it\'s nothing, really. I\'m fine.\"

Looking at her still red-rimmed eyes, Harry told her,\"No you\'re not. What\'s wrong?\"

Her eyes began to water again and she felt a lump rising in her throat as she tried to bite back tears,\"Ron and I . . .,\" she started, sounding a bit ashamed at having come to Harry in such a state.

Unable to keep her tears at bay, she began to cry again and big, fat tears rolled down her pretty cheeks. Hermione’s head dropped to her chest as silent sobs wracked her body. Really, she hadn’t meant to intrude and didn’t want to burden their already tumultuous lives with her situation. She had only come to Harry because she truly missed talking with him and needed to be away from Ron. Absentmindedly, she shook her head in a negative answer, though the answer to what was questionable. She didn’t want to just lay everything on Harry and decided that maybe, she was wrong in going to him. Mumbling an apology, she placed Dreizehn back on the floor and made to stand but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

Watching the girl that had been one of his best, and only, friends for so long break down in such a way tugged at Harry\'s heart and when she stood to leave, he realized he couldn’t let her go. Not like this. It was apparent something was badly wrong and since she was trying very hard to prove to him that she still truly wanted be his friend, and Draco’s as well, he felt it was only right to find out why she was so upset.

When she shifted her weight, he reached out and lightly grasped her arm. “Hermione, please tell me what is the matter. You wanted to be friends again right? Didn’t we used to talk to each other when something was wrong?”

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes again and she clenched her eyelids shut tight. From the minute she had showed up he had been curt with her and truthfully, she couldn’t blame him. She and almost all the other Gryffindors had been horrible to Harry and she felt they all, herself included, deserved every icy word said to them. Now his voice was back to that gentle, loving pitch with nuances that hinted at worry and concern. She would have hugged him mercilessly if she thought it would be well received.

She sniffled and resituated herself into a more comfortable sitting position before turning watery chocolate-brown eyes to concerned, beryl green ones. Gods how she had missed being his friend. “Ron and I had a fight.” She sniffled again and dropped her head back down. Everything hurt right now and she was far too exhausted to bother keeping her head upright unless necessary.

“What happened?” Harry asked concerned for his friend. She was usually very hard to break; hell, she had even punched out Draco once before and to see her so emotionally distraught made him worry. He saw movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see Draco sway and lean precariously close to the edge of their bed. While this was their room, Harry wasn’t terribly thrilled with the idea of his pale-haired lover crashing onto the floor in a drunken fit in front of Hermione.

\"Harry . . . he found out. Ron found out that I was hanging out with you again,\" she stated,\"I didn\'t tell him. You know who . . . what . . . did though? Peeves! That bloody, meddlesome poltergeist!! He was livid when he confronted me, so mad I almost didn\'t recognize him. It was like he was a different person. I denied it, I never did tell him that it was true. Then, well, he grabbed me hard by my upper arms and shook me. He shook me, Harry! I was so scared and stupid me, I started crying and he let me go almost as fast as he\'d grabbed me and tried to apologize, but it was too late. I ran out of the tower and when I got into the hall I didn\'t know where to go, then I thought of you two, so I came here. I\'m sorry for dumping all of this on you, Harry. I\'m just so confused right now.\"

Harry\'s eyes widened in surprise, he couldn\'t believe it. His former best friend attacking Hermione, just for hanging out with him! His shock turned to fury and Hermione shrank from him as hard anger lined his features, \"Dirty git\" Harry murmured \"Who does he think he is?\"

She wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe and mutely nodded before speaking,\"Harry, I\'m sorry. I didn\'t ever let on that he was right. I just can\'t understand why he is so angry about all of this still.\"

\"Because he\'s a goddamned fuckwit,\"Draco said softly, so softly in fact they almost missed the comment over the somewhat quieter, but still pounding throb of the music.

\"Draco . . .,\"Harry said, his voice tense. Draco was still hanging half off the bed and seemed to be sliding ever closer to the floor. Hermione watched him curiously, his behavior was so unlike anything she\'d ever seen from him before and Harry\'s reaction to his lover was a bit odd as well. It was as though he were expecting Draco to do something horrid.

\"Well, he is,\"Draco retorted, finally beginning to try and right himself and only managing to slide ever closer to cracking his head on the stone flooring,\"Matter of fact, his mother should\'ve had an abortion.\"

Hermione could only gasp as her eyes flew wide open and her once bowed head jerked up to look in Draco\'s direction. She opened her mouth to speak, but Harry beat her to it.

\"Good gods!\"Harry cried out as he raced to clamber back onto the bed and attempt to right the struggling blonde.

As he grasped Draco\'s lower arms to pull him back on the bed, the fact that he was a far cry from sober gave him a nasty reminder as he almost overbalanced and went over the side of the bed with Draco. Luckily he recovered his equilibrium in time and yanked Draco fully onto the mattress. Leaning over, he whispered in his ear,\"Be still, Draco. Don\'t move anymore. Do you want her to know we\'re drunk? Hmm?\"

\"Can\'t see how it would matter, really,\"Draco said. Harry could tell he had misjudged how drunk Draco, in fact, really was. The pale young man was well soused and considering how he\'d practically matched him shot for shot, Harry realized that he was a lot less sober than he\'d believed as well. As though on cue, his head started to spin and he used every ounce of willpower to keep from wobbling to and fro as Draco had been doing earlier.

Unsure about what she should do, Hermione sat quietly and stroked Dreizehn who had snuggled against her thigh and watched the two young men. There was definitely something amiss with them and even though she was upset, she couldn\'t help but try and figure out what it could be.

She finally just asked the only question she could think of,\"Draco, why did you say that about Ron? You don\'t even know him.\"

\"It would seem to me, Hermione, that you may not really know him either. Did you ever think about that?\"Draco asked, ignoring the glare Harry shot him.

\"Enough, Draco!\"Harry snapped, at a loss on how to control the situation. This was entirely too much stress for a Wednesday night.

\"Fine,\"Draco said peevishly,\"But you both know I\'m right, you especially, Harry.\"

\"Just please be quiet,\"Harry pleaded with him. Draco was growing more belligerent by the second it seemed and Harry\'s own spinning head just could not process it at the moment,\"You can not be dealt with.\"

\"Maybe I should just go,\"Hermione hedged, already standing up to do just that.

Giving Draco a certified Go To Hell look, Harry walked to stand beside her,\"I\'ll walk you back, Hermione, we can use the cloak since it\'s so late.\"

\"Thanks, Harry, but I don\'t need to use it since I\'m a prefect. You may want to put it on though,\"she said, looking wrung out and exhausted.

As Harry bent to retrieve his Invisibility Cloak from its trunk, she turned her attention to Draco. He was sprawled limply on the bed and stared at her with eyes that she noticed were decidedly unfocused. He cocked his head to the side and said,\"What is it?\"

\"Nothing at all,\"she replied, noting the careful way he spoke, almost woodenly, like he was having to concentrate on each syllable of that one simple question.

\"Ready?\"Harry asked, standing anxiously behind her, cloak in hand. He saw how she watched Draco and had even given him a couple of similar glances. He seemed to have maintained better control than the blonde though, although, it was most likely because he\'d wanted to do so and Draco really didn\'t seem to give a damn about it one way or another. It was also strange to him how the real effects of the alcohol had suddenly seemed to come out of nowhere and slap him right on his arse. That had never happened before, though he recalled a similar story that Draco had told him. He\'d said that he was fine, had been sitting in his room at the manor drinking most of the night and hardly feeling anything, then Draco told him, he\'d stood up to go to the loo and about halfway there it\'d hit him like a runaway troll. He\'d said it was one of the oddest drunks he\'d ever pulled.

\"Sure,\"Hermione said and Harry slipped the cloak on and walked to the door. He opened the door for them to step out into the hall and she remembered she hadn\'t told Draco goodnight. She turned to utter a quick farewell, but froze with her mouth open. Draco had just pulled a nearly empty bottle of whiskey from their night table drawer and had the bottle turned up, drinking gluttonously. Seeing her, he didn\'t seem the least put out at her having seen him and simply waved lazily at her. There was something a little unsettling about the look in his pale eyes as he did so. It was a terrible, tortured look and then she realized his gaze was directed out into the hallway where the cloak-clad Harry had disappeared.

Harry hadn\'t seen, though and she quickly turned back and walked into the hallway with him, pulling the door to behind her. Not being able to see him, she whispered his name, giving a slight start when she felt warm fingers on her wrist. They began the walk back and she mulled over what she had just seen. She took into account Harry\'s unusually slow pace and the careful way he seemed to be walking as well.

\"Harry, stop,\"she said.

\"What is it?\" came his disembodied voice.

\"Take the cloak off,\"she calmly stated. She wanted to see the look on his face when she asked him her next question.

Doing as she asked, but looking more than a little uncomfortable, he lifted his eyes to hers and waited. When she wasn\'t forthcoming enough, he shrugged and started to walk toward the tower, assuming that she would follow him.

\"He\'s drunk isn\'t he, Harry? That\'s why you seemed so anxious and edgy,\"she spoke. She stood with bated breath as she saw his shoulders stiffen and then he whirled to face her. Throwing himself off balance, he staggered to the side a few steps,\"So are you! Both of you are drunk. You just weren\'t as obvious earlier. Oh my gods, Harry. How long has this been going on?\"

Having composed himself a bit, Harry straightened his shoulders and glared at her,\"Why don\'t you just, for once, mind your own damned business, Hermione? Is it really THAT difficult?\"

\"My friends and their safety are my business, Harry,\"she replied hotly,\"He\'s an alcoholic isn\'t he, Harry? I have the feeling you may be as well. You both need help!\"

\"The last thing I need is your bloody help,\"Harry snarled, all the hurt and anger of the past few months washing over him again, not feeling lessened at all,\"Instead, why don\'t you go back and tell Ron alllll about this evening. Hey, maybe he\'ll even slap you this go \'round.\"

\"You don\'t know what you\'re saying,\"Hermione said, looking wounded,\"Just please, Harry, think about it. Nothing good can come from you two drinking like you are.\"

\"I will do as I please and you just leave Draco out of this,\"he said coldly. It was one thing to call him such names, but to speak of his lover in such a manner bordered on unforgivable,\"He\'s been called enough names in his lifetime to last him two more.\"

\"Harry-,\" she began.

\"Drop it!\"he warned, not waiting for her to say another word before stalking back to his room to leave her standing open-mouthed in the now empty corridor. A loud bang as his room door slammed shut broke the silence and brought her back to herself. She decided to try speaking to Harry, who would hopefully be sober, again tomorrow. She couldn\'t watch them both drink themselves into oblivion without at least trying to stop it. Hermione loved her friend and even begrudgingly admitted to herself that she was starting to truly like Draco as well.

Reaching the Fat Lady, she stepped through the painting and made her way to her room. When she arrived there was a letter of apology from Ron begging forgiveness from her. He said he should\'ve known better than to listen to Peeves, that he knew the poltergeist lied. It was just the idea of her betraying him like that and hanging out with that traitor Potter and his Slytherin Slut that had set him off.

She set the letter aside on her nightstand, unwilling to deal with it at the moment and crawled into bed without bothering to change into pajamas. Folding her hands behind her head, Hermione Granger started to think about what the next day would bring. Shortly before sleep claimed her, a plan had formed and she smiled, pleased as ever with her cleverness. The small smile remained even as her eyes slipped shut and she fell into sleep.

A/N: Sorry once more for the slowish update. I experienced some uber evil technical difficulties and a fit of writer\'s block halfway through this chapter. Many thanks go to the ever amazing Rain for helping me out of that particular slump. The girl kicks ass. Also I wanna tell my pet Canadian thanks as well, she helped me with a fit I was pitching over dialogue. She\'s too patient with my ranting.

Finally, this is a really rough and unrevised version, so yes, I will be tinkering with it. A lot, most likely.

I hope you all like this chapter, and as ever, please, please, PLEASE review. They make all the technical difficulties and mental glitches worth it. :)