Title: When No One Hears

Author: mintapotter

Overview: Draco finds Harry in the saddest of positions, and something inside him changes forever.

A/N: Thank you to the beautiful reviewers who have stuck through a lot with me: HandsOff, confusedpotter, Hotaru Snape Riddle, saikoXcrazy, smurff, Lanfear1, brionyjae, oliver1234, RanmasAngel, coolmarauders, fifespice, female half - breed, Meg Finn, Cithara, MimiTaylor, Dreaming-Sensations, &JadeLilyMalfoy!

Chapter 27 - When No One Hears

"Are you UP? We need to be ready to go boys, we only have 20 minutes and this is not a joke!"

Mrs. Weasley was the closest she had ever been to having an aneurism on the morning of the departure to Hogwarts. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Harry and Draco had all awoken plenty early but by the time each had showered, collected books for the nether regions of the house and figured out whose new quills were whose her schedule had been blown to shreds.

"Get into line so you can be disillusioned, and stop fussing Ginny! I'll send the things you leave behind! Get into line, go!"

They all hastily arranged themselves into a line in front of the door to 12 Grimmauld Place. Mad Eye Moody stood at the door, nearly yelling the incantation for the disillusionment charm over each of them to be heard over the din of Hedwig and Pig both screeching madly as their cages were levitated across the room. Mr. Weasley and Tonks were both dragging the trunks out the front door as the newly invisible trio and Draco exited the house.

"Reckon she'd faint if I told her now?" Draco whispered to Harry just as he was ducking to enter the Ministry appointed car, the thought of laying such a thing on Mrs. Weasley at a time like this causing him to bang his head loudly against the door frame.

"She wouldn't only faint; she might have a heart attack and die. We already wrote the letter, so did Ron and Mione. I think we should give her a full week after this catastrophe."

Harry could barely see the shimmering outlines of Ron and Hermione join himself and Draco on the bench seat in the back of the magically expanded car. Ginny sat in a seat one in front of them with her Mother beside her and Mr. Weasley and the driver to the very front.

"A week Harry? I'd give it a month and even then I'd feel bad about it." Ron whispered from Harry's immediate left.

"Feel bad about what?" Mrs. Weasley snapped as the car screeched forwards, the driver harassed to get his very precious cargo to the Hogwarts Express in less than 10 minutes time.

"Nothing Mum, absolutely nothing." Ron immediately responded, thankful the in his disillusioned state his Mother wasn't able to see the guilty look plastered on his face.

This won't be nothing! This is huge, explosive, massive, scandalous… this is exactly what I want. I want the world to know how I love him and if they can't handle it then fuck them! And if I can hold it all in for another week it'll be an act of God…

Draco had to fight down butterflies every time he even thought about telling the world his greatest secret to date. That he, the son of a Death Eater and honorary Prince of Slytherin was completely and madly in love with the one and only Harry Potter.

He could feel Harry's warm hand slip into his own and it led only to increase the number of butterflies exponentially. But it was the comfort that he lived for, the one thing he could count on to always be there, to be his constant.

This is why we're going to do it; this is why we're even here still. Still together, after all this…

Draco didn't want to think of all the things to come out of his most explosive summer, of all the lies and inevitable truths that had changed how he and everyone around him viewed each other. Every detail about his family, every secret of his own had been laid bare and he was thankful that he was among people who cared rather than judged.

Draco hated to think of how often he or Harry had let the little, stupid and insignificant things rip them apart. He was hopeful that maybe after the craziness they had endured through two months would only make them stronger in the 10 to come. That maybe everything that was in store for him at Hogwarts would be the relative calm after the storm.

I mean, how long can people talk about the two of us being together? Even the best gossip has an expiry date… maybe they'll think of something else to talk about after a month…or two…

"We're nearly there everyone! You're staying disillusioned until we reach the platform so don't worry about your trunks, we'll grab them. Just run the train, don't look back!" Mr. Weasley's words ended just as the car stopped in front of the train station. Every door was thrown open so that they could make the final run for it.

"Come on! Don't tell me that's as fast as you can run!" Harry tightened his grip on Draco's hand and pulled him on a full out sprint, tugging him within centimeters of other slightly alarmed Muggles on his way. Draco could hear the slapping of Ron and Hermione's shoes somewhere to the side of them, and Ginny's not to far to his right but he wasn't concentrating on much but the hand gripping his.

Oh, like I'd possibly let you win…

"You absolute-"

"Gorgeously amazing sprint master? I'm sure that was what you were thinking?"

Harry sat and stared up at Draco from the floor of their private compartment, still panting from their mad dash across the platform.

"I was thinking 'insufferable bugger' but I suppose yours works just as well."

Draco smiled in spite of himself, his breathing and heartbeat slowly returning to normal.

"I suppose mine works twice as well! And since when were you a terrible loser?"

Harry pulled himself up onto a seat as the train began to gain speed only to grab Draco by his waist and pull him down beside him.

"I'm not a terrible loser, I'm simply out of shape and I let you beat me because I felt like you should win at something."

Draco laughed, slapping Harry's arm in annoyance. "You just suck at something, admit it."

"Alright, I admit that you won. Can't you be the gracious winner and at least give me a kiss for trying so hard?"

Ok, so that was a pathetic plea for a kiss but I think I'll do anything that works…

"Maybe in all my graciousness I could give you a little peck…" Draco leaned into Harry and after a good thirty seconds of entanglement was more than thankful that the two of them were both still completely disillusioned.

"Harry? Draco? You two in here?" Hermione's bushy brown head poked around the corner just as the two boys had decided to come up for air, just enough time for the both of them to move an inch apart and answer her coherently.

"Yeah we are Mione and if you could just disillusion us that would be great…" Hermione had already begun the charm to make them visible and after the peculiar shiver ran down their spines both the black and blonde haired teenagers were visible.

"Ron and I have to patrol the halls for a bit more and then we'll be back to see you two…" Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, the thought of keeping first years and Ron in line already tiring her. "And I never thought I'd have said this but I wish that you had kept the post as Slytherin Prefect Draco, you're loads better than that Zabini boy."

Draco smiled in thanks for the small compliment but shook his head in a silent but firm no.

"I'll be lucky if the Slytherin's will even allow me to stay in the dungeons any longer, let alone be a prefect. I'll take the rest of it as it comes I guess, see how everything turns out. It was just one thing too many to deal with for the year."

And this way you'll have more time with me and less doing Prefect duties during the year you bugger… was all Harry could think of.

"Well I'll be off but I'll try and get us back by the time the food trolley comes round. And if we aren't-"

"I'll grab loads for Ron and you Mione, no worries."

Hermione sighed as she closed the door of the compartment behind her because of the sound an echoing dung bomb exploding went off in a hallway nearby.

"They just get worse every single year…"

The silence left after Hermione departed was thick between Draco and Harry, the kind of silence the two of them only kept when something important was bound to be brought up.

Nothing can ruin this year; nothing could possibly go wrong or be as bad as the summer was…

"Draco?" Harry whispered, finding the hand of his lover and clutching it closely. "Don't worry about how the year goes. If you can't stay with the Slytherin's then there's tons of room around the castle. And we can be out in the open in a week or whenever you want… this year's going to be different Drake, I can tell. I've got you."

Draco flicked a nonchalant hand to close the drapes of their now private compartment and laid his head softly onto Harry's shoulder, nodding his response.

"It's funny but at about this time I'd only be waiting for you to barge in here and make fun of Ron and Hermione before leaving again. It was getting a little predictable."

Draco chuckled quietly, "As were your responses Harry, the fun of it all was losing its edge. In secret I was only bored of that little routine and that's the real reason I went to your house this summer. To shake you up a bit before the train ride."

Harry couldn't help to play with Draco's soft hair any more than he could to smile.

"Oh is that so? I thought it was all a carefully planned reconnaissance mission to get more dirt on me then there already was fluttering about. You were all in it for getting the gossip, right?"

Don't let this go downhill! Shut up you raving idiot! Don't remember all the way back then now that you're on your way to a new school year, a year with Draco and your friends by your side…

"I was in it to see a day in the life of the other side, to see how you all functioned. I was expecting a mansion and girls doting on you and a fan club. Not exactly… well your Uncle's in jail for years and years now, I suppose."

The silence that followed was deadlier than the once that had preceded it, the tension building in Harry as the seconds ticked past. He slowly removed his hand from petting Draco's hair and cleared his throat to continue talking.

"If you hadn't shown up I don't think that I would have told anyone. I wouldn't have, no matter how many times I had thought about it. I'm sure it had to be fate of something that you showed up Draco…"

Harry stared resolutely out the rain fogged windows, drowning his memories in the water drenched scenery rushing past. Draco couldn't help but to hold onto to Harry's hand a little tighter, observing him when he was most oblivious.

"Fate would explain a lot because if I hadn't found you it would have taken me ages to leave home, even when that was all I wanted to do. And it landed my Father in jail too, a life sentence for everything put together. A life in Azkaban…"

Harry remained silent long after Draco had finished speaking. Draco began to wonder if he was in some sort of trance from staring out the window so long but at the moment he was ready to ask Harry opened his mouth.

"Do you think this love that we got out of our massively fucked up lives is equal to them being put away for life, for years? If we had both just grown up happy and had never met like that, never had to recreate a relationship, would that have been equal to have had a happy childhood, to have had a normal life otherwise? Can you even compare the two?"

What's Harry even asking of me? If I'd trade him to have had a happy life with my Father, if my childhood was equal to having Harry around? If the jail time makes up for…everything?

"Harry I….I can't compare. Love with you and abuse by you are the two extremes and I wish that one hadn't created the other, but in a way it did. I can't change what happened to either of us, and if I could I don't think I would because we need that in a way. It's the reason that we're here. If I had seen nothing at you house-"

"Their house. The Dursley's, not mine." Harry whispered.

"Well yes, their house. If I had seen nothing than would I have changed sides and left home and fallen in love with you later? How am I to know? I can't compare anything Harry, if I try then my whole life will simply be a series of 'what if's'?"

Harry nodded, understanding coming slowly. "I guess I can't look back because that doesn't change anything does it?"

Yes, Harry, it doesn't change anything at all, not by a long run. Stop beating yourself up over the past, you can't be responsible for everything…

"It's kind of like that joke about if a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear it? When no one hears something, when no one knew about either of our problems does that mean that it wasn't happening? If I had never known what had happened to you would that mean that to me nothing awful had ever occurred? Would we even be here if it wasn't for the things we've learned?"

Harry finally turned to look into Draco's ever stormy grey and eyes and after all the turmoil and questioning his mind could spit out; he finally came to a conclusion.

Draco wrapped both his hands around Harry's face and kissed him as deeply and as passionately as he ever had. Harry didn't hear Ron and Hermione slip the compartment door open and back closed and to him that simply meant that they hadn't come around yet. He didn't care about any of his past problems, about anything that he had caused.

What he did care about was Draco Malfoy's delicate self. He cared immensely about his soft skin and light hair, about his grey eyes and soft lips. He cared about every square, living inch of the boy he kissed back and when they parted he had his answer, as clear as day.

Yes.

"Harry, this can't be coincidence. You and me, we're more than just fate and chance. I would have fallen head over heels for you eventually, even if it took me 5 or 10 years to get the courage to say that I love you. It wouldn't matter about our pasts together and apart, the simple fact of the matter is that we're meant for each other."

"And I love you." Harry whispered back.

"I know. And I love you more or else I wouldn't have stuck around, now would I?"

A/N: NEW: DEC 13 2010: To all who enjoyed this story, I offer you something new. A complete novel, original fiction (but just as dark and dirty, as well as slash as WNoH). You can find it at this is our blood dot tumblr dot com.

Love always,

mintapotter