Limits (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter 3 - A Bit of a Shock

For a few seconds Harry just stood there and stared because he seriously thought he was hallucinating. A gorgeous looking (and he would deny that he had thought that to anyone who asked) Draco Malfoy appearing in his relatives' garden just under an hour before midnight, carrying what looked suspiciously like the horcruxes he had been researching all summer, just wasn't likely to be real. For a start Malfoy was not gorgeous, he was pointy, and did not tend to wear revealing red robes and secondly, the remaining horcruxes were supposedly spread all over Europe according to anything the Order could find out.

"Potter," his hallucination said in a voice that did sound very much like Malfoy, "I need your help. I brought these as a peace offering."

Harry had had enough of hearing voices in his second year, even if the voice had turned out to be real. Maybe the universe had decided to give him a birthday present a little early and send him round the bend, so he didn't have to deal with the whole Voldemort business. Maybe it was something that was supposed to happen to the current Chosen one because that would really have explained a great deal about Dumbledore.

When his hallucination reached out and touched him, he jumped back with a most undignified squeak.

"You're real," he said, pulling out his wand as his instincts finally caught up with the fact that this was reality.

"Of course I'm real, Potter," Malfoy replied. "Do you make a habit of hallucinating me or something?"

"No," Harry replied feeling the familiar annoyance that usually came with trying to have a conversation with Malfoy. "What the hell are you doing on my Aunt's lawn in the middle of the night and how did you find me in the first place?"

"I need your help and the Dark Lord has had this place marked for weeks, but no one could get in," Malfoy replied, clutching his burdens to his chest. "I took the chance that the wards let through people who mean you no harm."

Harry found that his eyes had drifted to the significant amount of leg that Malfoy was showing on one side and he dragged them back to Malfoy's face as quickly as he could.

"Why would I help you, Malfoy," he asked and tried to sound convincing, but part of his brain had already decided that Malfoy looked far too much like a damsel in distress for his Gryffindorish tendencies not to kick in, "and why do you look like a girl?"

"I don't look like a girl," Malfoy all but squawked, "I look like a male Veela. That's why I need your help and I brought these. The Dark Lord was hiding them in a trunk and talking about decoys, so I assumed they were important. They are important aren't they, because I didn't have time to bring anything else?"

Malfoy's eyes had gone big and round and Harry could have sworn his onetime enemy was about to cry.

"Yes, they're important," Harry said, his don't-make-girls-cry impulses kicking in, "and you're right about the wards. Let's get inside before someone sees you. My relatives are away for the week, thank god, or my aunt would be screaming at you already."

That he would be leading Draco Malfoy into his Aunt's house was not something Harry had ever thought he would be doing, but it seemed that the universe had a sense of humour.

"Put them on the table," he said as they entered the kitchen-come-dining room.

Surprisingly Malfoy did as he was told, and Harry couldn't quite believe it; there in front of him appeared to be what he needed so badly to find. Of course, they could be fakes, but he could feel something from them that was making his scar ache, so he was siding with probably not at the moment.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" he asked, somehow knowing that he was probably going to regret asking.

"You to shag me," was the response that made him think that his hallucination theory was actually still likely.