Title: Harry Potter: Face-to-Face with an Adult's Destiny
Chapter Title: "The Tarnished Golden Boy"
Author: Hitokiri Batsutousai
Rating: PG-13 - R
Warnings: Slash/yaoi, blood, cutting, Voldemort's evile intentions(Category unto itself.)
Pairings: Remus/Sirius and others(I'll post them after the first chapter that they appear in the story.)
Summary: Fifth year is over, and Sirius is gone. Now Harry knows his destiny; to kill, or be killed. How can Harry cope?
Disclaimer: I'm gonna say I own Harry Potter until you lot decide I don't, k?(I hate Disclaimers….)

A/N: And Draco appears! [dances]

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Draco Malfoy had gotten bored with his manor and had decided to visit the Muggle world, a habit of his that he knew his father must never learn of. He wore black jeans and a cool green shirt with a silver snake wrapped around it. His blonde hair, which was just touching his shoulders, had not been slicked back for once and hung lazily around his face, moving in the occasional blast of warm summer wind.

Draco did a double-take. Harry Potter, the boy who was on the very top of the boy's father's master's most wanted list, was sitting outside a Muggle ice cream shop, in broad daylight, eating ice cream. His Firebolt leaned against his chair lightly and he was dressed in a ragged cloak with a pair of blue Muggle jeans and a large red t-shirt underneath. A pile of bags sat before him on the table from various shops in the vicinity. He looked, at first glance, like a perfectly peaceful wizard. But, upon further inspection, and perhaps knowing the Boy-Who-Lived far too well, Draco noticed the cut up wrist and troubled eyes.

The blonde Slytherin stepped over to the black-haired Gryffindor and sat at Harry's table. "Well, well. If it isn't the famous Potty. What might you be doing all alone out here, Potty? Hoping to get killed?"

"I suppose that would make everyone's lives easier." Harry shrugged. "I might need some help, though. Every time I try it myself, it fails." He looked pointedly at his marked wrist.

Draco stared at the other young wizard, shocked. "Are you drunk, Potter?" He finally managed.

Harry shrugged again. "Not unless someone spiked my ice cream, no."

"Have you gone mental, Potter?"

"Probably."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" For a reason unknown to even himself, Draco was starting to worry about Harry. This was nothing like the Boy-Who-Lived that Draco knew and hated.

Harry sighed and looked at Draco warily. "Everything, if you must know. Remus found out about this," he held up his wrist, "and grounded me, but that's only a small part of it."

"Remus?"

"Lupin."

"Why are you staying with him?"

"My godfather left me in his care when he died."

"Oh." Draco settled his chin in the palm of his hand. "Other than the werewolf, what's wrong?"

Harry gave the blonde a slightly annoyed look at the insult to his second godfather, but answered the other boy anyway. "I got into a fight with Rom and can't go see if Bill's okay. And, yeah, Voldemort's still after my blood." Harry looked around with a suddenly interested look as Draco gaped at him. "Speaking of old snake-face, aren't you or your father going to call him here?"

Draco shook his head, trying to sort Harry's words out as he answered him. "Father's not here and I have no contact with the Dark Lord." He met Harry's empty eyes. "What did you and the Weasel fight about, and what's all this about a guy named Bill?"

"Oh, Ron and I fought about Voldemort's attack on St. Mungo's and us having to leave. And don't call him that." Harry added as an afterthought. "Bill is one of the elder Weasleys. He works at Gringotts. But, he got hurt last night in an attack by the Death Eaters. Remus won't let me visit him at St. Mungo's again until I tell him why I was hurting myself."

Draco stored all of the information away for later and attacked Harry's last statement. "Why were you hurting yourself?"

Harry shook his head. "Can't tell."

"Why not?"

Harry paused for a brief moment to consider his response before speaking, something Draco hadn't seen the boy do very often. "Well, two reasons, I guess. One, because it sounds kind of stupid, and two, because it could get some people into trouble."

Draco leaned back in his chair, watching the Potter. "It's times like this that I really wish I had some Veritaserum on me."

Harry offered a lopsided smile. "It's times like this I'm glad you don't."

"Wait, maybe I have some in one of these pockets…" Draco smirked, going through his pockets under the table. He glanced up at a terrified and pale Harry when the boy let out a squeak. "I'm joking, Potter!" Draco held up his empty hands, shocked. Definitely not the Potter he'd known from school. "I haven't got any. I swear it on my honour as a Malfoy."

Harry took a few deep breaths to calm down. "Sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Ice cream?"

"What?"

"Would you like to get some ice cream? I was going to go get another bowl, since this one's all gone." Harry showed his unlikely companion his empty bowl.

"I don't carry around Muggle money, Potter." Draco sneered.

"That's why I'll pay." Harry stood. "What flavour do you want?"

Draco blinked in shock, an emotion Harry seemed to be shoving at him at every turn. "Whatever you're having, I suppose…"

"Alright. I'll be right back." The boy disappeared into the store.

Draco glanced at the bags Harry had on the table. Most of it was food that would keep for a few days. He pulled out a small, sheathed knife and frowned at it. The most surprising part was that everything appeared to be from the Muggle world. Harry may have spent the majority of his life in said world, but it didn't make sense that Harry, saviour of the wizarding world, would want to live any sort of Muggle life when he had the chance of a wizard one. Not to Draco, at least.

Harry came back out and set the ice cream bowls on the table before snatching the knife from Draco's hand. "It's not polite to go through other people's stuff, Malfoy. Didn't you learn that when you were a toddler?"

"Potter, what are you playing at? What's all this for?" Draco inquired as the darker-haired wizard sat in his chair and set the knife in a pocket.

Harry put a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth and let it melt as he thought. "Everywhere I go, Voldemort hunts. Everyone I'm with, is in danger of being attacked. I'm best of disappearing into this world, this Muggle world. I know it so well, and I have enough money to take care of myself for a long while, assuming I live that long."

"This is foolish." Draco hissed, ignoring his ice cream and leaning across the table to glare at Harry better. "You're being stupid, Potter. Get back to your home, our world. I'll drag you, if I have to."

"You don't know where I live."

"Then I'll take you to my house and send an owl to Lupin or Dumbledore, you fool."

As Harry opened his mouth to reply, a thick male voice cut through the air angrily. "What are you doing here, boy?"

Harry flinched before turning to face a large purple-faced man, a thin, horse-like woman, and a gigantic boy. "Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley." He nodded to them.

The purple-faced man strolled over to their table coldly. The boy and woman stayed as far away from the two young wizards as they could. "Why aren't you in your world with that ragged man that came to pick you up? Tired of getting people killed with your dementy-things and your Lord Voldybort?" He laughed cruelly.

Draco glanced at Harry, fully expecting to see the boy rise to the insult. Harry, on the other hand, was staring avidly at his ice cream, but not eating it.

"Answer me, boy." Vernon ordered, settling a large hand on the back of Harry's neck and squeezing tightly. Harry's face scrunched up in pain.

Draco narrowed his silvery gaze dangerously at the cruel smirk on the Muggle's face. "Let him go, you." He said in a low, dangerous voice. That was no way for a Muggle to treat a wizard, let alone Harry Potter!

Vernon laughed at the young Malfoy. "And what might you do, boy?" Harry let out a barely audible whimper.

"Blow your arm off." Draco pulled out his wand smoothly and pointed it at the man. Vernon had stopped laughing and was paling quickly, but he hadn't let Harry go. "I said, let him go. Now." Draco repeated sharply.

Vernon let Harry go, pushing his head into the table as if Harry were something most unpleasant, all the while watching Draco's wand warily. "The little whore isn't worth it," Vernon sneered before leaving the two young wizards for his family.

Draco stood and hurried over to Harry's side, stuffing his wand back into his pocket as he went. "Potter. Are you alright?"

Harry glanced up. His glasses were broken and there was a thin line of blood traveling down from his forehead. "I'll be fine," he muttered, wiping at the blood with a napkin.

Draco made a face. "You should get contacts. They don't break all the time."

"They're a bloody pain to deal with."

"Not magical ones."

Harry stared at Draco for a long moment. "And where might one find some of those?"

Draco smirked. "I only help out Hogwarts students."

"Tricky little bastard, aren't you?"

"Will you agree to come back?"

Harry looked over his things quietly before looking back up at Draco. "Fine. Let's go." He stood, grabbing one bag and his broom.

"What's in the bag, Potter?" Draco questioned, leading the way to an eye place that dealt in magical contacts.

"My secret." Harry returned with a smirk.

"Suit yourself." Draco threw an arm around Harry's shoulders in a way that was both friendly and possessive at the same time.

"Ah, Malfoy?"

"Deal with it, Potter. You're my job right now. You don't want to be Harry Potter, fine. You can be someone else for a while. We'll get you contacts, change that dreadful hair, hide your scar… You'll be safe with me. Let the rest of the wizarding world worry over Gryffindor's Golden Boy. From here on out, at least until school starts, you are Raymond Ling."

"Raymond Ling?" Harry asked Draco, barely controlling a grin and the urge to laugh.

"Problem?"

"No, no… Just, where do you come up with these things, Malfoy?"

"I'm creative, okay?" Draco said defensively.

Harry tossed an arm back over Draco's shoulder. "You're fine, Draco. You're fine."

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A/N: I decided I've been updating Abandon too much. Not that anyone should mind… [sighes] Abandon is easier to write. It's because it's coming out of no where, I suppose. Top of my head. This thing is already written down and kinda tedious and boring to type up.
Anyway, Severus comes in next chapter, and even Lucius gets a small part! Yay! It's a bloody long chapter, too. I'm going to hate typing it up, but I'll do it for you all. Right? [winks]

LunaLovegood61: Girl, you're keeping me on my toes! [grins] I love it!
You have to remember that Harry's been spending a while with Remus. There was that rather large(more like undetermined) time period between chapters 3 and 4. And Remus has been kinda fatherly in the series. Kinda.
Well, silver or not, it would have had a handle, and the proper way to hand a knife to someone is handle first. [nods] We'll just say that the handle was wood or plastic and leave it there…

Keep up those reviews, damnit! [grins]

Batsutousai

Next Chapter: Raymond Ling – The Truth About Harry Potter