Rita Skeeter waltzed into Dumbledore's office and posed, looking over Harry and Draco. Her bright green suit shimmered in the hearth light. Harry sunk in his chair. "Hi, boys. Long time, no see. But we've got quite a story to tell, haven't we?" She made an acknowledging wave to Dumbledore and plopped her purse down on his desk. She reached in and took out her quill.

"I'm not saying anything if she uses that lying quick-quill-thing," said Harry, almost to his feet.

Dumbledore gestured with his hand. "I'm afraid Professor Potter is right. I won't allow you to use that quill. You will just have to do it the old-fashioned way…by hand."

She screwed up her red lips and squinted through her glasses. "Okey dokey. You're the boss." She slammed the purse down and picked up what looked like a normal quill and a roll of parchment. She hitched herself up on the corner of Dumbledore's desk and crossed her shapely legs. With the quill poised, the feather end sweeping upward almost to her chin, she said, "Now. We all saw The Quibbler this morning and I think we should just forget it."

"I sure wish we could," muttered Harry.

She leaned forward. The quill bounced toward them. "What I want is the real story! Who you are. Who you were. Where you want to be. What's it really like everyday living at Hogwarts as two young gay teachers."

Harry turned a miserable expression to Dumbledore, but the old wizard sat back in his chair and merely stared back.

I see. This is my punishment. Harry sighed and raised his face to Skeeter. "Okay. What do you want to know?"

"Well, let's begin at the beginning, shall we?" She leaned over and stared through her slim glasses at Harry. "When did you have your first stirrings that you were different?"

"By 'different', do you mean-?"

"Other boys were looking at girls. Who were you looking at?"

Harry blushed and deliberately avoided looking at Draco. "Okay." He licked his lips. "I guess you could say I was certain about it when I was twelve-"

"Twelve years old. So young. How is it you could possibly know for certain at twelve, not yet even a teenager?"

"Well you just know, don't you. I mean, I hadn't the slightest flicker of interest in girls. Eccept as friends, of course."

"Yes, your best friend Hermione Granger…" And then she put the feathered end of the quill to her lips in thought. "Hang on. I thought she was your girlfriend the year you competed in the Tri-Wizard Tournament."

"No. That's what you printed, but it was wrong." Harry took great pleasure in saying so to her.

She shrugged cavalierly and touched the quill back to the parchment roll. "Oh well. So no interests in girls. Who were you interested in then?"

The fleeting pleasure at besting Rita Skeeter faded. "Um…well…actually, I was always only interested in…in…Professor Malfoy."

Skeeter proffered a wide, toothy smile toward Draco. He scowled back.

"And did he return your affections?"

"No! He never knew. No one knew."

"And why not?"

"Because my life was a living hell already with Voldemort always trying to kill me. I didn't want to add anything else on top of it."

"And so you considered your feelings to be something to hide?"

Harry's throat suddenly felt very dry. A butterbeer or firewhiskey would help. Maybe a lot of them. He thought furiously what he should say. He could tell by her tone how she was trying to twist it. "Well…back then I did. I was a bit confused by it. I had no one to turn to. Maybe if someone like a teacher had been openly gay I could have talked to him and it would have helped."

She wrote for several seconds and then whipped her head toward Draco. "And you, Mr. Malfoy? When you were twelve, were you interested in girls?"

Draco swallowed. His dark brows drew down over his eyes like a shield. "Yes, I was."

"Oh? So you were not as confused as Mr. Potter?"

"Well…I had a lot on my mind."

"Like what?"

He turned to Dumbledore but the old wizard offered nothing. Draco eased his palms over the arms of the chair. "At home. My family was…we were…that is…It's no secret my father had his allegiance to Lord Voldemort. That was a pretty big part of my home life and a concern at school."

"Weren't you, in fact, told to make life difficult for Harry Potter?"

"Not in so many words but…yes." He glanced at Harry apologetically.

Harry certainly knew this on an intellectual level, but no one had ever voiced it before and to hear Draco actually say it was worse by far.

"Perhaps this is the heartbreaking truth and tragedy about Draco Malfoy," Skeeter went on in an overly dramatic tone, seeming to quote herself. "Forced into a life of Dark Magic, he could not see the love that was offered him so early on."

"Um…yeah. Maybe. But I was thinking I was heterosexual so that wasn't much of an issue."

"And what changed all that? How did you come out?"

He looked at Harry. His eyes held a great deal of pain and fear. Harry reached out with his mind and touched Draco's.

You don't have to go into the details. Just be vague.

Draco wasn't expecting Harry's legilimency and snapped up in his chair. He looked at Harry a minute before he tentatively answered, Why do we have to do this? That was a very private and personal thing. I don't want to share it with the world.

Just tell her what you told Luna Lovegood: You ran into me accidentally and the feelings just started to grow.

He turned to Skeeter. "I ran into Harry accidentally and the feelings started to grow. And that's all I'm going to say about it!"

She huffed and wrote and then looked up from her parchment again. "So what's everyday life at Hogwarts like?"

Harry answered, letting Draco smolder quietly in his chair. "Everyday is a challenge. It has nothing to do with being gay, I just mean it's a challenge dealing with students and their problems and helping them to learn."

"What do you find the most challenging of your day?"

"Oh, just making sure the students don't get hurt when they practice their spells and hexes. Making sure feelings aren't hurt and everyone gets along. You know. The usual."

"But when all is said and done for the day and all the students go off to their snug little beds, where do you two find yourselves?"

Draco sunk down in his chair, his scowl blackening. Harry felt he must have a similar look on his face. "Do you mean are we sleeping together?" he said tightly.

She leaned forward again. "Here you are; two handsome young men in the prime of your lives. Our readers would be most surprised if you didn't."

"Well then print that."

"But Harry-"

"I'm not answering that! Next question."

And so it went on. The next hour and a half was torture. Harry and Draco each carefully answered Skeeter's embarrassing questions: What was their first date like? How did they feel about each other when they went to school? Has Harry ever gotten over the horrors of his childhood?

Almost done, Skeeter looked at Harry with those insincere but penetrating eyes and asked, "What do you two see in each other? I mean, you were enemies for so long. You seem to be such opposites. What is the magic?"

Harry looked at Draco. He could tell that Draco was this far from grabbing his wand and hexing her, despite everything Dumbledore said. "I never really disliked Professor Malfoy…"

"Oh come on, Potter!" said Draco, obviously losing it.

"Draco, calm down," he hissed.

Draco clamped his lips shut and threw himself back into the chair. He crossed his arms and looked up sullenly at the vaulted ceiling.

"I never really did," Harry insisted to him. "I just hated what you stood for and some of the things you did and some of the things you said. They were pretty awful."

Draco sneered. "Oh, but other than being killed, Lord Voldemort, how was the war?"

"Draco, stop being an arse, okay? We're almost done here. Just…hold on."

"Well I did dislike Harry Potter!" he yelled suddenly, startling everyone in the room. "And you can bloody well print that! I hated him with a white-hot hate. Because he was famous for no good reason. Because he flaunted it to get his way with everything. No matter what imbecile thing he did or got into, he was always let off. The Boy-Who-Frigging-Lived can't get too much punishment so let's reward him with a House Cup instead."

Harry stared. He felt as if a knife were plunged into his chest. He knew that Draco must have felt those things once, but why did they seem so close to the surface now? Where did all this anger come from?

Draco turned to him. His gray eyes had grown cold. Harry remembered those eyes from school but he thought they were gone forever.

"And you, Harry?" asked Skeeter, writing furiously with her quill. "I don't believe you finished telling us how you felt."

"Like I said," he said slowly. He felt numb and a little disoriented. "I didn't hate him. I was attracted to him. I wanted a relationship then but he was straight, or thought he was."

"So if love had bloomed at Hogwarts at the tender age of twelve, then some of the horrors of Hogwarts might never have occurred?"

"So blame me for that, too!" cried Draco. "I wasn't gay then. Crikey, Potter! Yeah, it's all my fault. Let's forget that Voldemort threatened to kill my parents. Let's forget that he did! Let's forget that I watched it-because I'd sure like to!"

"I wasn't blaming you, Draco!"

Malfoy shot to his feet. "This interview is over." He made it to the door and then turned around. "And you know what? This relationship is over, too. It's just not worth it. I'm tired of being the one to blame. That is done." He grabbed the door ring, pulled the door opened, and slammed it behind him.

Harry stared at the closed door, frozen in his chair.

"Wow! What an ending!" said Skeeter. "Thanks, Dumbledore. I'll be on my way now." She packed up her belongings, waved her fingers at Harry, and left through the same door through which Draco departed.

Harry didn't move.

Dumbledore rose from his place and moved around the desk. Harry felt the wizard's hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry this happened, Harry. Perhaps it can be salvaged. Let Draco cool down."

"Yeah. Okay." Harry rose out of his seat. Dumbledore walked with him to the door, let him go, and then Harry found himself outside the gargoyle statue in the corridor. But that was as far as he got. He stood for a while and stared at the far wall. Draco was so angry. He couldn't blame him. But what could Harry possibly do about where that anger was coming from? Maybe Draco just needed to cool down, as Dumbledore said. But what if he didn't? What if he meant what he said? Could he possibly mean it, after all the words of love they spoke to one another?

Harry started walking but he didn't know where. Each listless step brought him upward and finally to his Defense room. When he passed under the archway, he stood on the wooden floor. Shafts of late morning light angled toward him, washing the room in golden tones. Motes of dust traveled up the shafts reaching for the source of the light, and Harry suddenly realized he was like that, reaching toward the light, trying to find an elusive happiness that always seemed to be wrenched away. Draco was the light. If he wasn't there, what was left of Harry?

He made his way to his private rooms, hoping that Draco might be there. The bedclothes were still disarrayed from their lovemaking, the duvet halfway to the floor.

What had gone wrong? They never should have done that stupid interview with Luna. If only he could have a Time-Turner and make another choice! He wondered if he should floo to Draco's room and he stared at the fireplace that so lately burned with a cozy fire.

But wait a minute! Draco may be tired of being blamed but Harry was damned tired of being a victim, too. If Draco wanted to act that way, then he had every right to, but he wasn't going to drag Harry down with him. Dammit! Draco was just acting like some spoiled Slytherin.

He marched up to the fireplace, grabbed a handful of floo powder, and made his way over the hot coals. He threw down the powder and yelled, "Draco Malfoy, Potions!"


On to Chapter Four
"Dueling Club"

Back to Chapter Two
"The Quibbler"

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