Revelations (Fic, H/D, PG)
Title: Revelations
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Type: Fiction
Length: ~3,100 words.
Main character or Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Canon compliancy: Canon through the end of OotP.
Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I am not nor have I ever been J.K. Rowling, and therefore hold no legal claim to Harry Potter or anything in his canonical universe. Those belong to J.K. Rowling and all of her many affiliates. Only the writing style and plotline are mine.
Warnings: Slightly AU, Slash
Summary: When Harry comes back for his sixth year at Hogwarts, it’s obvious to many just how much he’s changed. Draco Malfoy, in the midst of a tumultuous life of his own, tries to make his rivalry the same as it’s always been. What he gets instead, he never expects.
Cards Drawn: Eight of Swords, Ace of Swords, and Seven of Wands.
Card Interpretation: Eight of swords in the past position, indicating frustration, fear, and powerlessness. Ace of swords in the present position, indicating determination, change, and decisive action. Seven of Wands in the future position, indicating courage and victory leading to opportunity.
Author Notes: Huge thanks to my lovely beta, my best friend/stalker Jade (jade_chan), but any and all mistakes made are mine and mine alone. Also, I took the title from the Audioslave song of the same name, because as I writing, I listened to it and realized how well the lyrics fit with certain parts of the story. And just to point out…originally, this was all part of a much larger idea that ended up getting shrunk down to this. I think it still fits, honestly. And there’s always the option of going back and expanding it later.
Revelations
When Harry Potter returned for his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was obvious, especially to those closest to him, that he was far from the innocently curious boy that had been embarrassed to ask Molly Weasley how to pass through the barrier onto Platform 9¾ in 1991. He no longer walked the halls of Hogwarts like he’d found Heaven on Earth. He no longer laughed openly with the others in the Gryffindor common room at the slightest provocation. And most importantly, he no longer held onto that infectious hope that magic would be his ticket to a better, easier life.
Draco Malfoy was one of the first to notice the changes. He’d noticed how Potter had stared at his plate throughout the Beginning of Term Feast, apparently unaware of the concerned glances Weasley and Granger were aiming at him, and then sharing with each other. He’d noticed how, despite Professor Snape’s relocation, Potter actually talked and smiled less during Potions than he ever had before. And he’d most definitely noticed how Potter would always stare at the floor as he walked, seemingly oblivious to Draco’s brilliant and well-planned insults, not even willing to spare an angry glare at his arch rival for old time’s sake.
It was the third week of term when Draco decided that this was one area of his life he wasn’t going to allow to change. Every other facet of his life had started being pulled out from under him, but this, his famous rivalry with the Boy-Who-Lived, he wasn’t going to let that one go without a fight, and he knew just how to throw the first punch.
When Harry walked into the Potions classroom that Wednesday afternoon, he felt the same anticipation that he’d felt at the beginning of every Potions class since the beginning of term. He’d quickly discovered that, without the critical glare of Severus Snape following your every move, Potions could actually be a somewhat pleasurable class. He used it as time to get away from the world, to only focus on the potion in front of him and his own thoughts. He let go of his stress, his fear, and his anger. Unfortunately, though, at the same time, this meant he usually let down some of his shields, which he’d kept in place all throughout the summer and anytime he wasn’t alone once he’d gotten to Hogwarts.
Of course, he knew the attention his new mood seemed to be drawing to him, but he focused on the idea that, after about a month, people would likely forget about the new, much quieter and more sullen Harry Potter. He saw all the pitying looks he got from the younger students, and he noticed the valiant efforts of Draco Malfoy to insult him into a violent reaction, but he refused to be baited. He couldn’t risk the all-too-likely probability that it would lead to him snapping at someone who didn’t deserve it. And no one deserved him losing control of his temper. Especially not now.
That was why, when Draco Malfoy approached his table toward the end of that Potions class, he didn’t think much of it. He’d weathered everything else Malfoy’d said to him since the beginning of term. Things about his parents, his friends, his house, everything that he’d said many times before and would undoubtedly say again. But whatever he was expecting Malfoy to say, it didn’t even approach the reality, and he didn’t even have a chance to throw up his mental shields.
Malfoy, having finished with his potion a couple minutes before Harry himself, sauntered over and perched himself on the edge of Harry’s table. He was adorned with a smug-looking smirk, but that wasn’t much of a difference, if you asked Harry. “Alright, Potter, spill. What’s been up with you lately. You’ve been walking around here like your dog died.” He felt the overwhelming anger completely consume his body and his thoughts. He tried to shove it back down, tried to forget the notion that Draco Malfoy could know anything about Sirius or the impact his death had had on Harry. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron and Hermione, not glaring at Malfoy in righteous anger, but staring at Harry himself with genuine, growing concern. “Did your stupid little mutt finally kick the bucket, Potter?”
Before he even realized what he was doing, Harry had his wand out and had sent Malfoy flying backwards into Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson’s table, sending both them and their newly finished potion crashing to the floor. Malfoy was up in an instant, lunging toward Harry, and Harry met the onslaught with the force of all the anger he’d been holding inside ever since Dumbledore had told him that it was his fate to either murder the most dangerous dark wizard in the world or die a likely painful death.
By the time Ron and Goyle had pulled the two boys apart, Malfoy’s lip was bloodied, Harry’s robe pocket was ripped, and Horace Slughorn was glaring at the two of them, purple with rage at his newly destroyed classroom. Harry shoved himself out of Ron’s grasp, making to toss his things into his bag in preparation to bolt as soon as class was dismissed.
He vaguely registered Slughorn’s order that he and Malfoy report to the dungeons at eight for a long, painful detention, and dashed down the corridors toward Gryffindor tower as soon as he was told he could leave. He was still angry, mostly at himself for losing his control like he had, and he needed to be by himself before he had a chance to snap at someone that hadn’t actually done anything to him. He’d never be able to focus all his power into training if he allowed himself to blow up like he just had on Malfoy. It’s all for the training, he thought to himself over and over again as he ran. It’s all for the training. It’s all for the training.
Back in the dungeons, despite a bloodied lip and the looming threat of detention, Draco Malfoy was grinning smugly. He’d finally gotten a reaction out of Potter, and now he had a night’s worth of detention to really get under his skin. He would salvage that rivalry yet, even if it took all term.
***
Walking into the Potions classroom that night, Harry knew that the hours ahead would be the biggest test of his control the year had brought thus far. At dinner that evening, Hermione hadn’t held back her annoyance at how he’d let his temper get the better of him, especially in front of an entire classroom full of people, and Slytherins no less. If it ever got back to Voldemort just how much Harry was training, how powerful he was forcing himself to become, the consequences not only for Harry himself but for Hogwarts as a whole could be catastrophic. They were all things he’d heard before, but still, now that Malfoy had found a way to get at him, he wasn’t going to stop.
When he arrived, Malfoy was already there, looking disgustedly at the large assemblage of potion-stained cauldrons stacked in the middle of the room. Harry volunteered his wand to Slughorn, a distinct memory of Filch’s favorite trophy-cleaning detention traveling to the forefront of his mind at the sight, and watched as it was stashed in one of the many drawers of Slughorn’s desk.
Professor Slughorn glared at the both of them now, a strange smirk on his face. “You can leave only when every one of these is clean, and they are only clean when I say they’re clean. Understand?” He didn’t even wait for them to nod before continuing. “Good. I’ll be in my office if there are any problems, which I sincerely trust there won’t be.” He fixed both of them with a meaningful look. Then, with another glare and a wave of his hand toward the cauldrons, he swept out of the room with all the grace of a very large three-legged hippogriff.
Harry, more than used to the idea of extensive manual labor, rolled his eyes at Malfoy’s still disgusted expression and began working, pulling several of the cauldrons off of the top onto the floor in front of him and pulling one each of the two rags and buckets to his side. He was almost done with his second cauldron when he looked up and saw Malfoy still standing, studying him with a curious expression.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Malfoy shook his head, as though breaking out of some reverie. “Nothing. I was just…trying to figure something out.” Harry waited for him to explain, but he followed that vague explanation only by plucking a cauldron of his own from the top of the pile and lowering himself onto the floor next to the other rag and bucket.
In truth, Draco had been trying to decide exactly why it was that the idea of scraping dried, crusty potion from the bottom of old cauldrons disgusted him so, but seemed to have no real effect on Perfect Potter. Was it the Gryffindor sentimentality that kept him from defying an order from a professor? But even then, shouldn’t he look a bit more ill at ease than he did, scrubbing year-old sleeping potion out of the school cauldrons with nothing more than a rag and some soapy water?
But since he had no real idea how to get the answer to that question, he shook his head when asked. Instead, he tried a different tactic to get into Potter’s head. “There was quite a bit of power in that spell you hit me with today, Potter. Did you and the great old coot finally decide that it would take more than living the perfect life of the Boy-Who-Lived to defeat the Dark Lord?” He expected Potter to tell him to sod off, but instead, he looked up to see that Potter had fixed him with an expression he couldn’t really place. Confusion? Curiosity?
Harry was staring at Malfoy with a curiosity that he could only assume appeared similar to the look Malfoy had been giving him only moments ago. He’d always wondered just what kind of life it was people thought he lived. Of course, they all knew about the stuff involving Voldemort. Thinking of the prophecy, he cringed. Well, they all knew most of it. “Do you really think I have a perfect life, Malfoy? Is that really what people think?”
When Malfoy fixed him with an incredulous look, Harry let out a short, cynical laugh. “Alright, Malfoy, tell me about my life. Give me the public’s version of what it’s like to be the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Draco frowned, suddenly wishing he knew exactly where this conversation was leading. He may have started it, but now it had taken a dramatic turn and he knew he was no longer in control of the broom. When he spoke though, he tried to make it sound as though he knew exactly what was going on. “Alright then. You became the only person to ever survive the killing curse at one-years-old, and then you were taken in by your muggle relatives who, of course, praised your very existence as often as they could. Then, when you came to Hogwarts, it was as though you could do no wrong. None of the rules applied to you, and despite the several times you should have been expelled, you were always welcomed back with open arms.” Draco stopped here because the expression he couldn’t place was back on Potter’s face.
Harry honestly didn’t know whether to be confused or horrified by Malfoy’s words. Did people really think of him that way? The answer came easily. Of course they did. They thought that, other than having to face Voldemort on an obviously regular basis, his life was straight out of a child’s fantasy. He closed his eyes and shook his head, the cynical laugh erupting from between his lips once again.
He stared down at the cauldron he was cleaning as he talked. He didn’t even know why he was going to try to set Malfoy straight. He certainly didn’t know why he wanted to. “Do you remember the first time we met, Malfoy? In Madame Malkin’s?” He looked up just long enough to watch Malfoy nod in confusion. “Did you know that I’d only found out the night before that magic even existed?”
Malfoy’s wide eyes were confused, and Harry smiled a grim smile. “I spent the first eleven years of my life thinking that my parents had died in a car crash, that I’d managed to live through it with only a scar for my troubles. Even when I started getting my Hogwarts letters, my uncle would take them from me and burn them. He even tried to run away from them. He took my aunt, my cousin and I to an island in the middle of nowhere, and that’s where Hagrid had to come find me.” Harry looked up at Malfoy then. “Does my life still sound perfect?”
Harry sighed. “Well, if I’m going to give you new ammunition, I may as well give you all of it. Have you ever spent the night in a two by two meter cupboard underneath the stairs? No, I didn’t think so. Well, for the first eleven years of my life, that was my bedroom, a bedroom I was allowed out of only to do the cooking and the cleaning. They only gave me the tiny bedroom meant to house my cousin’s toys after I got my first Hogwarts letter that was, of course, addressed to ‘the cupboard under the stairs.’ He figured people were spying on him.” Another cynical laugh. “How about this. Have you ever spent your Yule holiday picking up the mounds of paper from your cousin’s presents, only to have an unwrapped pair of your uncle’s used socks thrown at you as an afterthought? Have you ever had to run up a tree just to escape someone beating you almost to death, only to be punished with a broken arm after you get down because you ‘ruined your cousin’s fun?’”
Draco was absolutely dumbfounded. It was a new feeling: he’d never been shocked into silence before. He couldn’t even think of a snide comment about why Potter would want to protect muggles when his own relatives had treated him so badly. What he did feel, however, was a strong flare of anger. Anger not at Potter, but on Potter’s behalf.
Harry didn’t know how his mind had floated so easily to Sirius, but when he started talking again, the topic was no longer his uncle or his cousin. “And then when I found out about Sirius, when I realized that he’d really loved my parents, that he hadn’t been the one to betray them, I finally thought that he might be the chance I’d always wanted for a real family. I mean, I love the Weasleys. They’ve been better to me than anyone else in the world. But Sirius was the one I was supposed to go to, if my parents died. He was supposed to be my family. But then,” he said, his voice turning bitter as he finished scrubbing his tenth or eleventh cauldron, “then, your absolute bitch of an aunt comes along and sends that last hope flying out the window into eternity. And now, I‘ve got no hope for a normal life at all, because I‘ve found out that not only does Voldemort want me dead, but I have to find some way to kill him before he can kill me because that’s the only bloody way out.” He wasn’t crying. He was fairly sure that, after that summer, he couldn’t anymore.
Grabbing the last cauldron from the formerly heaping stack, he turned to Malfoy with the grim look still in his eyes. “Well, Malfoy, was that what you wanted? I spilled my soul to you, told you things only Ron and Hermione know. That should have you set for life, insults-wise, shouldn’t it?”
But Draco didn’t answer. He was lost, deep inside his thoughts, wondering exactly what it was that he had wanted out of the conversation. Had he wanted to know that Potter’s life was just as imperfect as his own? Had he truly just wanted more ways to get under Potter’s skin? Or had he not even realized that it was all just a way to get to know the actual Harry Potter? And the real question, had it really been the rivalry that he’d been afraid of losing? He looked down at his cauldron, the one he’d been cleaning for much longer than one should clean any cauldron, no matter how dirty, and finally set it aside. When he looked up, he saw that Potter was already on his way toward the door, off to let Slughorn know that they had finished cleaning the cauldrons. Draco watched him go, still unsure of what to say or what to do next.
He stood uncertainly by as Slughorn waddled back in and inspected the cauldrons, finally dismissing them with a wave of his hand and a warning not to disrupt his classroom again. But as he watched Potter sweep out the door and start heading toward the stairs that would lead out of the dungeons, Draco couldn’t help but follow. He ran, catching Potter’s sleeve just as he started up the stairs.
Harry whirled, surprised, but he frowned when he saw who it was that had grabbed his sleeve. “I’d have thought you’d at least wait until we had an audience. What do you want, Malfoy?” He had no idea what to do when Malfoy pulled him back down the couple of stairs he’d already ascended, and he certainly had no idea what to do when Malfoy’s mouth covered his own. Despite the initial response of wanting to push the other boy off and run for it, Harry found that he couldn’t. Half of him wondered if it was some kind of prank, if Malfoy was only doing this for pictures to send to the Daily Prophet, but when the hidden camera didn’t flash, and Malfoy didn’t back up with a laugh, he was left more than a little confused.
When Malfoy stepped away with a grin, the only word that Harry could force out of his mouth was “Why?”
Draco only shrugged and smiled at the other boy without a hint of smugness. “I had a revelation.”
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Type: Fiction
Length: ~3,100 words.
Main character or Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Canon compliancy: Canon through the end of OotP.
Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I am not nor have I ever been J.K. Rowling, and therefore hold no legal claim to Harry Potter or anything in his canonical universe. Those belong to J.K. Rowling and all of her many affiliates. Only the writing style and plotline are mine.
Warnings: Slightly AU, Slash
Summary: When Harry comes back for his sixth year at Hogwarts, it’s obvious to many just how much he’s changed. Draco Malfoy, in the midst of a tumultuous life of his own, tries to make his rivalry the same as it’s always been. What he gets instead, he never expects.
Cards Drawn: Eight of Swords, Ace of Swords, and Seven of Wands.
Card Interpretation: Eight of swords in the past position, indicating frustration, fear, and powerlessness. Ace of swords in the present position, indicating determination, change, and decisive action. Seven of Wands in the future position, indicating courage and victory leading to opportunity.
Author Notes: Huge thanks to my lovely beta, my best friend/stalker Jade (jade_chan), but any and all mistakes made are mine and mine alone. Also, I took the title from the Audioslave song of the same name, because as I writing, I listened to it and realized how well the lyrics fit with certain parts of the story. And just to point out…originally, this was all part of a much larger idea that ended up getting shrunk down to this. I think it still fits, honestly. And there’s always the option of going back and expanding it later.
Revelations
When Harry Potter returned for his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was obvious, especially to those closest to him, that he was far from the innocently curious boy that had been embarrassed to ask Molly Weasley how to pass through the barrier onto Platform 9¾ in 1991. He no longer walked the halls of Hogwarts like he’d found Heaven on Earth. He no longer laughed openly with the others in the Gryffindor common room at the slightest provocation. And most importantly, he no longer held onto that infectious hope that magic would be his ticket to a better, easier life.
Draco Malfoy was one of the first to notice the changes. He’d noticed how Potter had stared at his plate throughout the Beginning of Term Feast, apparently unaware of the concerned glances Weasley and Granger were aiming at him, and then sharing with each other. He’d noticed how, despite Professor Snape’s relocation, Potter actually talked and smiled less during Potions than he ever had before. And he’d most definitely noticed how Potter would always stare at the floor as he walked, seemingly oblivious to Draco’s brilliant and well-planned insults, not even willing to spare an angry glare at his arch rival for old time’s sake.
It was the third week of term when Draco decided that this was one area of his life he wasn’t going to allow to change. Every other facet of his life had started being pulled out from under him, but this, his famous rivalry with the Boy-Who-Lived, he wasn’t going to let that one go without a fight, and he knew just how to throw the first punch.
When Harry walked into the Potions classroom that Wednesday afternoon, he felt the same anticipation that he’d felt at the beginning of every Potions class since the beginning of term. He’d quickly discovered that, without the critical glare of Severus Snape following your every move, Potions could actually be a somewhat pleasurable class. He used it as time to get away from the world, to only focus on the potion in front of him and his own thoughts. He let go of his stress, his fear, and his anger. Unfortunately, though, at the same time, this meant he usually let down some of his shields, which he’d kept in place all throughout the summer and anytime he wasn’t alone once he’d gotten to Hogwarts.
Of course, he knew the attention his new mood seemed to be drawing to him, but he focused on the idea that, after about a month, people would likely forget about the new, much quieter and more sullen Harry Potter. He saw all the pitying looks he got from the younger students, and he noticed the valiant efforts of Draco Malfoy to insult him into a violent reaction, but he refused to be baited. He couldn’t risk the all-too-likely probability that it would lead to him snapping at someone who didn’t deserve it. And no one deserved him losing control of his temper. Especially not now.
That was why, when Draco Malfoy approached his table toward the end of that Potions class, he didn’t think much of it. He’d weathered everything else Malfoy’d said to him since the beginning of term. Things about his parents, his friends, his house, everything that he’d said many times before and would undoubtedly say again. But whatever he was expecting Malfoy to say, it didn’t even approach the reality, and he didn’t even have a chance to throw up his mental shields.
Malfoy, having finished with his potion a couple minutes before Harry himself, sauntered over and perched himself on the edge of Harry’s table. He was adorned with a smug-looking smirk, but that wasn’t much of a difference, if you asked Harry. “Alright, Potter, spill. What’s been up with you lately. You’ve been walking around here like your dog died.” He felt the overwhelming anger completely consume his body and his thoughts. He tried to shove it back down, tried to forget the notion that Draco Malfoy could know anything about Sirius or the impact his death had had on Harry. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron and Hermione, not glaring at Malfoy in righteous anger, but staring at Harry himself with genuine, growing concern. “Did your stupid little mutt finally kick the bucket, Potter?”
Before he even realized what he was doing, Harry had his wand out and had sent Malfoy flying backwards into Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson’s table, sending both them and their newly finished potion crashing to the floor. Malfoy was up in an instant, lunging toward Harry, and Harry met the onslaught with the force of all the anger he’d been holding inside ever since Dumbledore had told him that it was his fate to either murder the most dangerous dark wizard in the world or die a likely painful death.
By the time Ron and Goyle had pulled the two boys apart, Malfoy’s lip was bloodied, Harry’s robe pocket was ripped, and Horace Slughorn was glaring at the two of them, purple with rage at his newly destroyed classroom. Harry shoved himself out of Ron’s grasp, making to toss his things into his bag in preparation to bolt as soon as class was dismissed.
He vaguely registered Slughorn’s order that he and Malfoy report to the dungeons at eight for a long, painful detention, and dashed down the corridors toward Gryffindor tower as soon as he was told he could leave. He was still angry, mostly at himself for losing his control like he had, and he needed to be by himself before he had a chance to snap at someone that hadn’t actually done anything to him. He’d never be able to focus all his power into training if he allowed himself to blow up like he just had on Malfoy. It’s all for the training, he thought to himself over and over again as he ran. It’s all for the training. It’s all for the training.
Back in the dungeons, despite a bloodied lip and the looming threat of detention, Draco Malfoy was grinning smugly. He’d finally gotten a reaction out of Potter, and now he had a night’s worth of detention to really get under his skin. He would salvage that rivalry yet, even if it took all term.
***
Walking into the Potions classroom that night, Harry knew that the hours ahead would be the biggest test of his control the year had brought thus far. At dinner that evening, Hermione hadn’t held back her annoyance at how he’d let his temper get the better of him, especially in front of an entire classroom full of people, and Slytherins no less. If it ever got back to Voldemort just how much Harry was training, how powerful he was forcing himself to become, the consequences not only for Harry himself but for Hogwarts as a whole could be catastrophic. They were all things he’d heard before, but still, now that Malfoy had found a way to get at him, he wasn’t going to stop.
When he arrived, Malfoy was already there, looking disgustedly at the large assemblage of potion-stained cauldrons stacked in the middle of the room. Harry volunteered his wand to Slughorn, a distinct memory of Filch’s favorite trophy-cleaning detention traveling to the forefront of his mind at the sight, and watched as it was stashed in one of the many drawers of Slughorn’s desk.
Professor Slughorn glared at the both of them now, a strange smirk on his face. “You can leave only when every one of these is clean, and they are only clean when I say they’re clean. Understand?” He didn’t even wait for them to nod before continuing. “Good. I’ll be in my office if there are any problems, which I sincerely trust there won’t be.” He fixed both of them with a meaningful look. Then, with another glare and a wave of his hand toward the cauldrons, he swept out of the room with all the grace of a very large three-legged hippogriff.
Harry, more than used to the idea of extensive manual labor, rolled his eyes at Malfoy’s still disgusted expression and began working, pulling several of the cauldrons off of the top onto the floor in front of him and pulling one each of the two rags and buckets to his side. He was almost done with his second cauldron when he looked up and saw Malfoy still standing, studying him with a curious expression.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Malfoy shook his head, as though breaking out of some reverie. “Nothing. I was just…trying to figure something out.” Harry waited for him to explain, but he followed that vague explanation only by plucking a cauldron of his own from the top of the pile and lowering himself onto the floor next to the other rag and bucket.
In truth, Draco had been trying to decide exactly why it was that the idea of scraping dried, crusty potion from the bottom of old cauldrons disgusted him so, but seemed to have no real effect on Perfect Potter. Was it the Gryffindor sentimentality that kept him from defying an order from a professor? But even then, shouldn’t he look a bit more ill at ease than he did, scrubbing year-old sleeping potion out of the school cauldrons with nothing more than a rag and some soapy water?
But since he had no real idea how to get the answer to that question, he shook his head when asked. Instead, he tried a different tactic to get into Potter’s head. “There was quite a bit of power in that spell you hit me with today, Potter. Did you and the great old coot finally decide that it would take more than living the perfect life of the Boy-Who-Lived to defeat the Dark Lord?” He expected Potter to tell him to sod off, but instead, he looked up to see that Potter had fixed him with an expression he couldn’t really place. Confusion? Curiosity?
Harry was staring at Malfoy with a curiosity that he could only assume appeared similar to the look Malfoy had been giving him only moments ago. He’d always wondered just what kind of life it was people thought he lived. Of course, they all knew about the stuff involving Voldemort. Thinking of the prophecy, he cringed. Well, they all knew most of it. “Do you really think I have a perfect life, Malfoy? Is that really what people think?”
When Malfoy fixed him with an incredulous look, Harry let out a short, cynical laugh. “Alright, Malfoy, tell me about my life. Give me the public’s version of what it’s like to be the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Draco frowned, suddenly wishing he knew exactly where this conversation was leading. He may have started it, but now it had taken a dramatic turn and he knew he was no longer in control of the broom. When he spoke though, he tried to make it sound as though he knew exactly what was going on. “Alright then. You became the only person to ever survive the killing curse at one-years-old, and then you were taken in by your muggle relatives who, of course, praised your very existence as often as they could. Then, when you came to Hogwarts, it was as though you could do no wrong. None of the rules applied to you, and despite the several times you should have been expelled, you were always welcomed back with open arms.” Draco stopped here because the expression he couldn’t place was back on Potter’s face.
Harry honestly didn’t know whether to be confused or horrified by Malfoy’s words. Did people really think of him that way? The answer came easily. Of course they did. They thought that, other than having to face Voldemort on an obviously regular basis, his life was straight out of a child’s fantasy. He closed his eyes and shook his head, the cynical laugh erupting from between his lips once again.
He stared down at the cauldron he was cleaning as he talked. He didn’t even know why he was going to try to set Malfoy straight. He certainly didn’t know why he wanted to. “Do you remember the first time we met, Malfoy? In Madame Malkin’s?” He looked up just long enough to watch Malfoy nod in confusion. “Did you know that I’d only found out the night before that magic even existed?”
Malfoy’s wide eyes were confused, and Harry smiled a grim smile. “I spent the first eleven years of my life thinking that my parents had died in a car crash, that I’d managed to live through it with only a scar for my troubles. Even when I started getting my Hogwarts letters, my uncle would take them from me and burn them. He even tried to run away from them. He took my aunt, my cousin and I to an island in the middle of nowhere, and that’s where Hagrid had to come find me.” Harry looked up at Malfoy then. “Does my life still sound perfect?”
Harry sighed. “Well, if I’m going to give you new ammunition, I may as well give you all of it. Have you ever spent the night in a two by two meter cupboard underneath the stairs? No, I didn’t think so. Well, for the first eleven years of my life, that was my bedroom, a bedroom I was allowed out of only to do the cooking and the cleaning. They only gave me the tiny bedroom meant to house my cousin’s toys after I got my first Hogwarts letter that was, of course, addressed to ‘the cupboard under the stairs.’ He figured people were spying on him.” Another cynical laugh. “How about this. Have you ever spent your Yule holiday picking up the mounds of paper from your cousin’s presents, only to have an unwrapped pair of your uncle’s used socks thrown at you as an afterthought? Have you ever had to run up a tree just to escape someone beating you almost to death, only to be punished with a broken arm after you get down because you ‘ruined your cousin’s fun?’”
Draco was absolutely dumbfounded. It was a new feeling: he’d never been shocked into silence before. He couldn’t even think of a snide comment about why Potter would want to protect muggles when his own relatives had treated him so badly. What he did feel, however, was a strong flare of anger. Anger not at Potter, but on Potter’s behalf.
Harry didn’t know how his mind had floated so easily to Sirius, but when he started talking again, the topic was no longer his uncle or his cousin. “And then when I found out about Sirius, when I realized that he’d really loved my parents, that he hadn’t been the one to betray them, I finally thought that he might be the chance I’d always wanted for a real family. I mean, I love the Weasleys. They’ve been better to me than anyone else in the world. But Sirius was the one I was supposed to go to, if my parents died. He was supposed to be my family. But then,” he said, his voice turning bitter as he finished scrubbing his tenth or eleventh cauldron, “then, your absolute bitch of an aunt comes along and sends that last hope flying out the window into eternity. And now, I‘ve got no hope for a normal life at all, because I‘ve found out that not only does Voldemort want me dead, but I have to find some way to kill him before he can kill me because that’s the only bloody way out.” He wasn’t crying. He was fairly sure that, after that summer, he couldn’t anymore.
Grabbing the last cauldron from the formerly heaping stack, he turned to Malfoy with the grim look still in his eyes. “Well, Malfoy, was that what you wanted? I spilled my soul to you, told you things only Ron and Hermione know. That should have you set for life, insults-wise, shouldn’t it?”
But Draco didn’t answer. He was lost, deep inside his thoughts, wondering exactly what it was that he had wanted out of the conversation. Had he wanted to know that Potter’s life was just as imperfect as his own? Had he truly just wanted more ways to get under Potter’s skin? Or had he not even realized that it was all just a way to get to know the actual Harry Potter? And the real question, had it really been the rivalry that he’d been afraid of losing? He looked down at his cauldron, the one he’d been cleaning for much longer than one should clean any cauldron, no matter how dirty, and finally set it aside. When he looked up, he saw that Potter was already on his way toward the door, off to let Slughorn know that they had finished cleaning the cauldrons. Draco watched him go, still unsure of what to say or what to do next.
He stood uncertainly by as Slughorn waddled back in and inspected the cauldrons, finally dismissing them with a wave of his hand and a warning not to disrupt his classroom again. But as he watched Potter sweep out the door and start heading toward the stairs that would lead out of the dungeons, Draco couldn’t help but follow. He ran, catching Potter’s sleeve just as he started up the stairs.
Harry whirled, surprised, but he frowned when he saw who it was that had grabbed his sleeve. “I’d have thought you’d at least wait until we had an audience. What do you want, Malfoy?” He had no idea what to do when Malfoy pulled him back down the couple of stairs he’d already ascended, and he certainly had no idea what to do when Malfoy’s mouth covered his own. Despite the initial response of wanting to push the other boy off and run for it, Harry found that he couldn’t. Half of him wondered if it was some kind of prank, if Malfoy was only doing this for pictures to send to the Daily Prophet, but when the hidden camera didn’t flash, and Malfoy didn’t back up with a laugh, he was left more than a little confused.
When Malfoy stepped away with a grin, the only word that Harry could force out of his mouth was “Why?”
Draco only shrugged and smiled at the other boy without a hint of smugness. “I had a revelation.”