Comments: Thanks entirely to my beta-reader Starkiller

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I just play with for fun.

Summary: Harry remembers a time long ago, Harry/Draco pre-slash

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Harry was up in a tree for no particular reason other than to remember. To remember a time when he was happy and practically care- free. A time, in fact when he was up in a tree. It hadn't started asa happy time, in fact it had been quite the opposite. Harry, at the age of six had decided to kill himself. He was a miserable and unhappy child. He had started school with Dudley, and his cousin had immediately made sure that he had no friends. Now it was summer. He was at a park with dozens of other children and Dudley wouldn't let him talk to a single one of them. He had in fact chased Harry off of the playground, and up into a tree, a rather tall tree. Dudley had been too out of shape even then to climb the tree after him, and his friends had been afraid of heights. So Harry had stayed there.

Everyday Dudley had chased him up into his tree and he had watched the children playing. So he decided that if this was the way his life was going to go then he would simply kill himself. He climbed as far up into the tree as he could, almost to the very top of it and jumped off. Instead of dying like he had expected he had landed on top of another boy.

The other boy had pushed him off and stood up looking quite startled to have had another boy land on top of him.

"What do you think you're doing? It's not very nice jumping down on top of people." The boy brushed himself off.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to land on anyone."

"Well that's alright, I suppose. Just be careful next time, you might hurt someone."

"What's your name?" Harry had asked, he noticed that Dudley was too busy beating up some other kid to notice that someone was talking to him.

"Marvin the Magnificent." The boy stood up tall and proud.

"Marvin the Magnificent? That's a funny name."

"It's not my real name, it's just for fun. You know I'm Marvin the Magnificent and you're Waldo the Wonderful." Marvin looked exasperated.

"Okay, Marvin the Magnificent." Harry looked around and noticed that Dudley looked like he was moving towards them. "Do you want to climb my tree? It's fun."

Marvin looked at Dudley and then back at Harry. "Sure, I want to stay away from that kid, he said I looked like a girl." With that they climbed up into the tree.

He had enjoyed Marvin's company. Everyday after the first when he arrived at the park, Marvin would be up in the tree waiting for him. He liked that the other boy's hair was long like his, Aunt Petunia had been desperate to hide his scar so she kept his hair extra long and it practically fell into his eyes.

He had never had a friend before Marvin, and Marvin had admitted that he didn't have many friends either. After a short couple of weeks they had become the best of friends. Harry had felt he could bear the Dursley's for as long as he had Marvin. They never talked about their homes, they just talked about fantasy worlds that they made up.

Sometimes they talked about what the future would be like. They decided that when they grew up, Marvin would be a girl and they would get married. This was after they had discovered that boys couldn't marry each other.

Harry giggled at the thought. He knew he was gay now, but he had forgotten that the first person he had ever had a crush on was another boy when he was six. They had even sealed their deal to get married with a kiss. They had both been grossed out by it and had then agreed that when they got married there would be no kissing.

At the end of the summer he had shown up and found Marvin crying in their tree. Marvin had told him that his father thought he was too old for playgrounds and wouldn't let him come play anymore. He had begged his father, and he had allowed him to come back one more time to say goodbye. They had cried and hugged each other, but Harry hadn't want to say goodbye in such a sad way, he wanted to have good memories, so after a while they played like they had every day. When it came to be time to go, Harry took a lump of silver out of his pocket he had gotten attached to. Dudley had melted one of his mother's necklaces with his father's soldering iron. He had blamed it on Harry, so he wouldn't get into trouble and his aunt had thrown out the lump of metal. Harry had rescued it because he thought the

smooth surface was kind of pretty. He gave his lump of silver to Marvin. Marvin in turn had given him an oblong black marble.

Harry had been miserable when he finally had to say goodbye. He had cried every day for a week. But Marvin had given him the hope that one day his life would be better. He had thought of him regularly until he got his letter to Hogwarts, having had most of his dreams come true, he no longer needed to think of Marvin. He probably wouldn't have thought of him again if he hadn't discovered that marble this past summer when Aunt Petunia had asked him to find something in the closet under the stairs. He had found it wedged in between two floorboards.

He looked at the marble in his hand and closed his eyes trying to remember everything he could about Marvin. Most of the details were blurry now and all he could remember clearly was his smile. He squeezed the marble. "I wish, I wish, I could just say thank you."

"Hey Harry, you coming down from there soon?" Ron called up from the ground.

"Yeah, can't miss dinner." Harry laughed and nimbly jumping from the tree doing a roll when he met the ground so he wouldn't hurt himself. When he had found his marble he had told Ron about his friend. Ron had suggested doing a locator charm on the marble, the only problem was that it might not work and it would destroy his marble. He would

rather keep the memory than be left with nothing. At least with the marble, Marvin had a solid sort of quality.

After dinner he had detention with Snape. He was pleased that instead of sending him to Filch he just had him making a potion. The bad thing was that he had to make a potion with Malfoy.

"Professor, he'll mess it up." Draco complained.

"You need two people to make the potion and I simply have other things to do. He has to help you and if he messes up he'll lose a lot of points from his House." Snape said simply.

"You better not mess this up, Potter, I've only got one chance and I'm not having you screw it up." Draco sneered at him.

"Fine." Harry sighed resignedly and started work on the potion. Draco refused to tell him what it was that they were making, just that his head would be on a stake if he screwed up.

After what seemed like hours of stirring and chopping the potion was finally done. "Malfoy, it's done. Can I go now?" Harry asked rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Wait, not until I know that it's working." Draco dropped something into the potion then peered over the edge of the cauldron and screamed loudly. "What did you do? You messed it up. How could you mess it up?" Draco grabbed him by the collar and shook him with his eyes glaring.

"I didn't do anything wrong. I followed everything perfectly. What did you drop into it, maybe that's what messed it up." Harry edged over to the cauldron and looked in. He saw his reflection. "What color is it supposed to be? It just looks like a mirror to me." He looked over at Malfoy and saw him curled up in a ball on the floor with tears running down his face.

"Malfoy? I'm sorry I didn't mean to mess it up. Maybe we can do the potion over again." Harry said calmly, he really had tried to make the potion perfectly. He didn't like seeing anyone unhappy even if it was Malfoy.

"I can't do it over again. I only had one chance. It's ruined and it's all your fault." Malfoy angrily wiped away his tears.

Harry sat down across from him and waited. He knew that Snape would get mad at him and probably give him another detention along with all of his lost points. He sighed and took his marble out of his pocket.

He sighed and started tossing it from hand to hand. He knew he wouldn't drop it. After a while the marble was snatched from mid air in between a toss.

"Hey, give that back it's mine." Harry yelled when he noticed that Draco had taken his marble.

"They don't make these anymore. Where did you get this, steal it off of some kid?" Draco drawled while tossing it up in the air.

"No, anyway it's just a marble, you can buy them at a dime store."

Harry said annoyed and tried snatching it away.

"So why don't you go buy another one? I like this one." Draco smirked.

"You can buy yourself one, that particular one means something to me. It was given to me." Harry tried grabbing it again.

"Ooh, Potter boy wants his marble back." Draco paused with a small smile on his face that made Harry shudder. "Fine, I'll give you your marble back. All you have to do is tell me which one of your many admirers gave it to you." Draco finished with a smirk.

"Fine." Harry sighed. "I got it a long time ago, it was given to me by a boy named Marvin." He put his hand out waiting for Draco to drop the marble into his hand.

"Last name?" Draco smirked.

"No clue, I doubt Marvin was his real name anyways." Harry groaned he sincerely hoped that Draco wouldn't be cruel and hold that against him, he held out his hand closer to Draco.

Draco stood up and walked over to his potion. Then he looked back at Harry. After he watched his potion for a minute he walked back over to Harry and dropped the marble in his hand. He sat back down and rested his head against the wall.

Harry stuck the marble back in his pocket and waited for Snape to arrive. A half-hour later he finally did. Draco had dumped the potion out and cleaned up while they waited. He was sitting at a desk when Snape finally arrived.

"So, Draco, did you find what you were looking for?" Snape asked.

"Yes, I thought the potion was messed up but it seemed to have been correct." Draco drawled.

Snape grimaced at Harry, as much as he liked Draco, he had hoped Harry would mess up so he could deduct points from Gryffindor. "You both may go."

Harry grabbed his stuff and headed for the door. When he reached it he noticed that Draco was standing outside of it.

Draco paused and looked at him. "See you tomorrow, Waldo."

Harry nodded and started walking towards the dorms. After a second he paused and turned around. "Marvin?" He looked at Draco.