Harry read through his latest correspondence from Bill Weasley and glanced over the figures on the report that had come with it. Everyone knew that Harry was well off thanks to the money his parents had left him, but most people thought he was just living off the capital.

However, after his investment in Weasleys Wizards Wheezes had turned out to be so successful it had given him the idea to look into other options; Bill had been the first person he thought of and had been managing Harry's money for a generous retainer ever since.

Thanks to the sound advice of the eldest Weasley son and an inordinate amount of luck, Harry had increased his family fortune quite substantially. He never mentioned it to anyone and even Draco did not have any idea of how much was in the Gringotts' vault, but with the plans Harry had set in motion he soon would.

Draco was still firmly in denial and was refusing to admit that anything was wrong so Harry was using the time to sort everything out. He had owled the bank at the first opportunity about changes he wanted to make to his account and now he had a stack of forms to fill in. Banking when goblins were involved was a very paranoid, bureaucratic affair, but for once Harry did not mind having to sign everything in triplicate.

"That is a large stack of parchment," Draco commented as he wandered into their room from the stairway.

"Just stuff from the bank," Harry said with a smile, as if everything was completely ordinary, "investments and stuff."

His soulmate looked surprised and then interested.

"You have investments?" Draco asked curiously, but before Harry could answer his lover frowned and turned away.

For just a second Draco had forgotten that he was supposed to not be thinking about money or wealth or anything to do with family history and Harry realised this. If asked, Harry was willing to explain exactly what he was doing, but he knew Draco was not about to do that.

"Ron's brother Bill manages them," he said as if it was nothing at all, "every now and then he sends me stuff to sign; boring really."

Draco gave a very noncommittal reply and Harry sent his soulmate a mental hug before he went back to the forms. Ticking boxes and scratching his name in various places, he kept his mind firmly on mundane matters and looked forward to the surprise he was going to give his lover.

* * *

It took three days for everything to go through and then a red-ribboned certificate arrived for Harry on the talons of a large eagle owl accompanied by a letter. He opened the letter and scanned it quickly, just checking that nothing had gone wrong. Draco was chatting to Hermione where they were sitting with the other Gryffindor seventh years at breakfast when Harry placed the certificate next to his lover's plate.

"What's this?" Draco asked curiously.

He felt intrigued, but Harry just smiled at him.

"It's for you," he said quietly.

"Harry, wasn't that an official Gringotts owl?" Hermione asked conversationally from the other side of Draco.

Harry nodded openly.

"Lost all your cash on a bad Quidditch bet?" Seamus joked from across the table, having heard the tail end of the conversation.

"No," Harry replied with a grin, "I've just been making a few changes to my account. Which, by the way, is none of your business."

The Irish Gryffindor beamed at him cheerfully and raised his juice goblet in an unrepentant salute. Harry turned back to Draco to find that his soulmate had picked up the parchment and was looking at it as if it might bite.

[This is about all those forms you were filling in isn't it? What did you do?] Draco asked silently.

[Open it and see,] Harry replied warmly.

Looking at his soulmate suspiciously Draco pulled on the ribbon and slowly unrolled the official document. As Harry watched his soulmate began to read, keeping the parchment where only he could see it. Draco's expression went from curious, through disbelieving to amazed, and then his features were warring with several different emotions at the same time. Draco looked at Harry and Harry could feel the confusion in him.

[I ... ah,] Draco's mental voice was as confused as his feelings. [Harry you didn't have to.]

[What's mine is yours,] Harry replied firmly, sending all his love with the thought. [All I've done is made official what was already true. The account is ours now, yours and mine. My parents left it for me and now I'm sharing it with you; I think they would have approved. You should have your own key by next week, but that takes a little longer.]

Draco looked back at the paper again and then over at Harry.

[Harry,] he said slowly, [is this number right?]

Just to make sure Harry leaned over and peered at the bottom of the parchment and then nodded. He could not quite identify the feeling coming from his lover after that.

[I know you told me you had plenty of money,] Draco said very precisely as if he was trying to avoid something, [but, Harry, you never mentioned you were richer than half the pureblood families.]

Harry looked at his soulmate in surprise: this was news to him.

[I didn't know,] he said, it had never occurred to him how much was filthy rich in Wizarding circles.

He had been aware that he was well provided for and Bill had done a great job of increasing his wealth, but it had not occurred to him he could complete with some of the purebloods.

[I love you, Harry,] Draco said with a shake of his head and a half smile as he rolled up the parchment, [never, ever, change.]

* * *

Harry was peering very hard at the writing in his textbook and he still couldn't quite make sense of the instruction he was supposed to be following. The way he read it he had to cut up the ginger root, add it to the juniper berry pulp and then somehow chop it up even though he'd just done that, which couldn't be right. Much to some of his teachers' delights and some of his teacher's disgust his marks had shot up over the beginning of the year, but that didn't mean he suddenly found everything easy. Potions was still his hardest subject and it caused him problems.

[Draco,] he asked eventually, [what does this actually mean?]

He sent his soulmate a quick flash of the paragraph in question knowing that Draco would have the answer. The problem with the particular potion they were working on was that the recipe was very old and hence the language it was using was not very straightforward. Why no one had bothered to translate the instructions when they put it in the text book was a question that made Harry wonder if the Wizarding world would ever make it into the twentieth century, let alone the twenty first.

[Chop the ginger,] Draco replied efficiently without even pausing what he was doing at the other end of the bench, [add it to the juniper and then transfer both to the pestle and mortar and crush them together until they're a paste. They won't mix properly otherwise.]

It always made so much sense when his soulmate explained it; sometimes Harry wished he was as good at his other subjects as Defence Against the Dark Arts. Being in mortal peril always seemed so much easier than remembering to add the mugwort before the dandelion. Harry followed the instructions carefully and added the ingredients to his cauldron, watching the mixture go from brown to pinkish orange; so far so good.

Next he reached for a small jar which contained an off white powder: it was ground dragon's tooth and, if Harry understood it correctly, was the ingredient which would give the flame repelling potion its fundamental magical properties. The recipe only required a very little and so he picked up the scales he and Draco were sharing and placed them on the desk in front of him.

[You have to let it simmer for a few minutes before you add that,] his lover warned as he glanced over.

[I know,] Harry promised with a smile, [I was just going to measure it out. I don't want to miss the right point to add it.]

[You know, maybe there is hope for you yet,] Draco replied.

[Not all of us can be geniuses like you,] he returned with a laugh and unscrewed the top of the little pot he was holding.

[I know,] his soulmate replied dramatically, [sometimes I wonder how the world keeps turning without me.]

"Mr Malfoy, Mr Potter, no chit chat," Snape's cool tones drifted over the classroom, "you are here to learn, not to prattle on at each other."

The Potions master had developed a nasty habit of being able to tell exactly when Harry and Draco were talking, even when they were doing it silently. Snape was the only one besides their closest friends and Dumbledore who seemed to be able to do this and it was very annoying.

"Sorry, Professor," Draco said smoothly, "we were discussing the potion."

"That may all be very well, Mr Malfoy," Snape said evenly, "but you know the rules. In this classroom if you wish to converse with Mr Potter about the lesson do so out loud."

"Yes, sir," Draco replied, much to Harry's pleasure handling the whole situation with his usual charm, "sometimes we forget."

Snape fixed Harry with a stare and he knew who was receiving the blame for that one, but before either he or the Professor could say anything about that, Harry gave an almighty sneeze. He had just taken the top off the ground dragon's tooth and he hurriedly put it back on again as another sneeze threatened. This one nearly dislodged his glasses and he scrabbled in his pockets to try and find a handkerchief. Three sneezes later his nose was itching like mad and his eyes were streaming.

[Harry, are you okay?] Draco did not seem to be considering the rules.

[I just can't stop,] another sneeze interrupted all thought. [Sneezing,] he finished lamely.

"Mr Potter, is there a problem?" Snape had risen to his feet and was walking down the classroom.

Harry sneezed again and tried to figure out if he'd done anything stupid. The potions master picked up the half closed pot of off white power and looked at it with his eyebrow raised as Harry sneezed again.

"Did you inhale this?" Snape asked coolly.

Harry shook his head.

"I," sneeze, "barely got," sneeze, "the top off," sneeze.

"I was watching him, sir," Draco added his point of view to the conversation, "Harry didn't breathe it in."

Harry tried to keep his eyes on Snape between sneezes which were giving no sign of abating; the man appeared thoughtful.

"An allergy then," the professor did not sound sympathetic.

"But I've," sneeze, "never been allergic," sneeze, "to dragon's," sneeze, "tooth before," Harry said as quickly as he could manage and sneezed again.

It was then that something hit Snape on the back of the head. Harry saw the man's hair move and then the professor spun on the spot looking furious. A small globule of essence of unicorn milk fell from Snape's shoulder and landed with a splat on the floor. A few desks away sat an astounded looking Pansy Parkinson and an empty crucible. If it had been a Gryffindor, Harry was sure house points would have been falling, but since Pansy was a Slytherin Snape did not fly off the handle instantly.

"Miss Parkinson," the professor began in a very low tone.

Harry sneezed again, leaning over to try and catch his breath.

"Ugh," came from Draco's direction and Harry turned to see more of the essence of unicorn milk as it oozed off his lover's robe.

The sound had drawn Snape's attention and he rounded on Harry again. A very nasty suspicion entered his head as Harry felt another sneeze coming on. The moment it exploded from his nose he saw something out of the corner of his eye and with Quidditch trained reflexes grabbed his textbook and held it up just in time to catch another flying globule coming straight at him.

"Potter," Snape said dangerously.

"I'm not doing anything," Harry insisted, pleased that he could finally produce a whole sentence, but knowing there was another sneeze on the way.

Draco intercepted the next soggy missile when it arrived using his chopping board.

"Get out," Snape almost roared and Harry did not bother to argue, after all it did seem the sensible thing to do.

When the next sneeze came he was halfway to the door and he ducked, at which point the essence of unicorn milk hit one of his fellow Gryffindors in the chest.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor," Snape yelled as Harry fled the room.

It took twenty minutes, a trip to the hospital wing and an anti allergy potion from Madam Pomfrey for Harry to stop sneezing. Of course the story of Harry Potter and the incredible flying unicorn milk was all over the school by the end of the day, at which point he found himself summoned to the headmaster's study. He and Draco made their way there just before dinner.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were standing on opposite sides of Dumbledore's domain when Harry and Draco walked in.

"Headmaster," Harry's house mistress was saying pointedly, "I do not see how it can be considered fair or just to remove house points for what is clearly no one's fault, and so many at that."

"The incident disrupted the entire class," Snape returned coolly. "If Potter had simply alerted me to the fact that he was allergic to any of the ingredients it would not have happened."

"Ah, Harry, Draco," Dumbledore greeted in his usual manner and interrupted the two house heads, "thank you for coming."

Professor McGonagall smiled at Harry warmly and Snape glared at him and he wondered for the hundredth time why everything had to happen in the potions master's lessons.

"I believe we can clear this up quite quickly," the headmaster said brightly. "Harry, did you know you were allergic to ground dragon's tooth?"

"No, Professor," he replied, "I've used it before with no problem. I really don't understand what happened today."

Dumbledore smiled at him as if he had said exactly the right thing.

"There you are, Severus," the headmaster said cheerfully, "it was all just an accident. I'm sure Harry's very sorry that it happened, aren't you, Harry?"

"Yes, sir, very sorry," Harry replied on cue.

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to rethink the house points," the headmaster continued, "especially as it would be a shame for two houses to lose so many at the same time."

Snape stood up straight and took notice of that, he looked annoyed and suspicious.

"Two houses?" the potions master asked coolly.

"I'm afraid that if you penalise Harry, we shall be forced to penalise Draco as well," Dumbledore said in a very reasonable tone. "In school rules as well as in law they are considered to be the same person, rewards and penalties meted out to both equally."

Harry thought Snape might burst a blood vessel the way the vein on his temple throbbed.

[Well played,] was Draco's comment on the situation and there was genuine admiration in his voice.

"In light of the fact that it was an unfortunate accident," Snape said slowly through clenched teeth, "I can see that maybe I was slightly hasty. The house points should be restored," he paused, "but," Harry did not like the sound of that, "to avoid future accidents," Snape stressed the word 'accidents', "I must insist that Mr Potter be tested for any other unforeseen allergies, since his condition appears to create irregular phenomena."

Somehow Snape's suggestion sounded decidedly unpleasant.

[Snape's on his game,] Draco appeared to be enjoying this far too much.

[He's going to try and poison me, you realise that don't you,] Harry replied. [Remember when I suffer you suffer.]

[Dumbledore will never allow anything like that,] his soulmate replied calmly, [just enjoy the show.]

"A very good idea, Severus," the headmaster said to Harry's horror and he looked at Draco in desperation, "it would be unfortunate if something like this were to occur again. I'll have Madam Pomfrey arrange it, would you mind assisting her with the substance supplies?"

[Albus Dumbledore has the snitch,] his very Slytherin lover said in Harry's head.