Title: A Suitable Preparation
Author: Trombone Borges ()
Artwork: Mirror by Ndi
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Thanks so much to the inimitable Cassie for her crackerjack betaing, and to Aja for much support along the way. Thanks also to Bob Dylan, whose incredible song "Mississippi" I listened to roughly four thousand times over the writing of this, and a few of whose lyrics from that song ended up paraphrased below.
"In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war."
--Horace, Satires ii.2.
The day before the war began, Draco went to say goodbye to his owl.
There were only about a dozen left now, mostly the school's mangy barn owls, but Draco noted two snowies in the corner, one of which was presumably Potter's pet-store bird. Bootes was the only great horned left, and he sat placidly in the center of the Owlery, ruling the roost, staring at Draco and shifting his weight thoughtfully from foot to foot.
"I brought you a vole," Draco called out. Bootes ruffled his chest.
Bootes had been one of the youngest owls in the Malfoy Parliament; he was the only one Draco had ever used, whether at home or Hogwarts or on holiday. He was the closest thing to a pet Draco had ever been allowed. Draco fumbled and drew the frozen rodent from his shirt pocket and started the climb up the tall ziggurat stairs that circled the room to the baroque perch that formed the centerpiece of the room.
"They're sending you away, you know," he remarked. "I mean entirely away. Where you can't get hurt and you can't get intercepted and you can't betray us."
Bootes hooted. Two screech owls behind him whinnied.
"I know you wouldn't betray us. But apparently you're too easy to charm or hex. So the Order is sending you away where you'll be safe, and maybe you can even come back someday." He spoke slowly, casually, fingering the defrosting food in his hand nervously. He was passing through a corridor of owls, all of whom turned to stare as he picked his way through the maze of owl pellets. The windows in the walls, paneless, admitted entry and exit of the owls but not of the elements. They cast a warm blue moonlight into the room, freckled with the silhouette of the heavy, falling snow. The snow beat in vain against the charmed windows, collecting slightly on the sills but never passing into the chamber proper.
He held out his arm like a falconer. Bootes dutifully hopped to it and thoughtfully bit the head from the proffered vole.
"I was going to let you go," he informed Bootes. "I came up here to release you, let you fly somewhere else. You could meet up with me later and come with us to the war. Stay with us. You wouldn't have to go where the others are going."
Draco watched the snow beat against the invisible field keeping it out of the tower. It was odd, the complete silence: seeing the wind, but not hearing it. Bootes continued to eat.
"You're not going to do it, though, are you," Draco said, still looking at the windows. "You're going to do the right thing and go with the rest of them." Beat. "Because it's the right thing to do." He thought. "You're a Malfoy by training, you know. You can't have learned that from us."
Finishing the vole, Bootes hopped back to his perch, hooting softly. He leaned over and nipped playfully at Draco's outstretched fingers. Draco dropped his hand and flipped his wand out of his pocket. He took three rapid steps back, breaking the dreamlike, placid rhythm of the tower. Stretching his arms to his sides and closing his eyes, he breathed in the silence, the stillness, and he whispered, "Finite Fenestrula."
The wards on the windows vanished.
Instantly, wind rushed to fill the calm, howling like a banshee through the Owlery. The noise was deafening, an endless, wailing white noise, and Draco could barely hear the owls as they screeched in fear and discomfort. The wind drove him to his hands and knees to keep his balance, and he crawled to the bottom of the high stairs and crouched there, trying to get a sense of what was happening. The snow, in his face, on his lashes, made the room sketchy and blurred, just a mess of feathers and white powder and puddles. Draco stared deliberately into the snow, forced himself to focus. Not a single owl had moved; they perched immobile in the center of the tempest. Bootes remained in his position of honor, staring at Draco.
A voice called from a distance, "Committe Fenestrula!"
Silence engulfed the room, except for a pounding, rhythmic gasp that, after a moment, Draco realized was his own breathing. He slowly lifted his head and brushed the snow from his fringe and his eyes.
Across the room, Harry stood, both arms fully extended, hands shaking slightly. With a rush of movement and noise one of the snowies launched herself and lighted on Harry's left arm. Draco stood up.
"You triggered the alarm," Harry said, staring. Draco said nothing. "What on earth did you think you were doing?"
Draco looked for help to Bootes, who gave him the same stare as Harry.
"You could have been killed," Harry said. "You could have fallen."
"Why isn't anybody cleaning up the owl shit in here anymore?" Draco found his voice.
"What were you doing?" Harry said again.
They regarded each other silently then, across the wide chasm of two dozen staring eyes and the rustle of early morning.
***
Two weeks before the war began, Draco and Harry got into a shouting match about werewolves outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
"Can you believe they used to let a werewolf teach this class? Can't wait for the new laws to go into effect," Draco said a bit too loudly to Terry Boot as they turned to head towards the dungeons, "and they force-feed our old professor a silver-filing sandwich."
Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Potter, Granger, and Weasley freeze as one and turn. "What did you say?" Potter spat in his direction. Out of the other corner of his eye, Draco noted Boot fleeing down the other corridor.
Draco turned and started to saunter towards them. "Oh, nothing," he said. "I was just saying how glad I was that the Ministry was taking steps to protect us, and I won't have to worry anymore about eating breakfast thirty feet from someone who might decide at any moment that I was breakfast."
"You take that back," said Potter, reaching for his wand. Ron and Hermione each took a step back, but squinted menacingly at Draco.
Draco blinked. "Take what back, Potter? Honestly, can't you at least make a little sense sometimes?"
"You actually think they should go ahead and kill all the werewolves," Potter said in amazement, as if Draco had just suggested they instead give them all salsa lessons.
Draco boggled right back at him. "Well, let's see. They're vicious, bloodthirsty beasts, they'd eat us all if they had the chance, and they're in thrall of the Dark Lord. No, I think we should invite them to a slumber party."
"You don't have the first idea what you're talking about," said Harry, starting to shake with rage. Draco was pleased. It wasn't usually this easy. "You can keep it under control, you can take the potion--"
"Potter, someone ought to teach you some taste," and Draco was laughing now, "hanging about with werewolves and Mudbloods, honestly, I--"
A shout rang into the mostly empty hall as Potter lunged, held back by his sidekicks. "You never say that word in front of me!" he hollered. "Never, do you hear me?"
Draco took a deep breath. "I'll use whatever language I feel like! Don't you dare tell me what to do, Potter! I don't know what privilege you think that scar gives you--"
"It's common decency, you bastard!" Potter spit.
"Well, there's nothing common about a Malfoy!" Draco yelled back.
And on and on and on. Eventually Granger and Weasley tired of it and took off. The two boys stood in the hallway, shouting themselves hoarse, circling like rams, murder in their eyes, until they'd shouted themselves out. Eventually, with a final "You can piss off, Potter," Draco turned and strode off towards the dungeons, and only then did he realize: nobody had come. No teachers had come running to break up the fight; no other students had come to watch. It stood to reason, thought Draco. The students were busy peering around every corner, wondering if they'd be next to disappear. The teachers were busy using class time to teach protective wards, healing charms, escape hexes. Nobody had time for Potter and Malfoy's stupid feud. Nobody had time for him.
***
Eight weeks before the war began, Draco Flooed home to a drifting, dusty stillness he had never before felt.
The freezing rain crashed outside, and he was soaked from the walk through the grounds. Leaving his bags in the front foyer for the house elves, he breathed home in deeply: clean leather, old tobacco, rare books. The silence of the well-insulated house was welcome compared to the overwhelming howl of the weather outside. He took his usual returning-home route, passing through the series of receiving and drawing rooms that tunneled directly down the center of the Manor to the main banquet room and the ballrooms, rather than slipping into the network of small rooms to the sides that led to the kitchens and, more indirectly, to the bedrooms, libraries, studies, the private dining room, the armory, the alchemist's chamber, the chapel, the servant's wing, the dungeons and torture chamber, the stables, the underground passage to the tack house, and, through a secret staircase found by knocking on the portrait of Pavo Malfoy's forehead, the barbican.
The manor gave off its usual impression of utter tranquility. If the house elves were about, they were careful to not leave a footstep that could interrupt their masters' engagements. His parents themselves tended to move only occasionally and deliberately, settling like stones into one room or another for hours at a time. The only time Draco ever saw his father move quickly was when he fenced, and as far as he knew, his mother never moved hastily at all. He'd been taught this deliberateness when small, but he'd never really taken to it. The house, built for an army of relatives and friends but occupied by only three, was ample for his rather more irregular, active style.
Still, his parents had their favorite spots, and could usually be located by twenty minutes' effort, give or take. Anyway, the house elves usually knew where they were, and the house elves were all too easy to find. Passing into the Louis Quinze Room, Draco turned to look at the front door. Oddly, his luggage remained untouched.
Louis Quinze was empty, despite being one of his mother's favorite rooms. But then, so were Chippendale, Arte Nouveau, Hepplewhite, Victorian, and Regency, and after that he was in the ballroom. He'd left doors open and lamps lit, so that when he turned he could see the evidence of his passing behind him like a history, an invasion of yellow light into a dry grey quiet that now seemed eerie.
"Hello?" he said out loud. The noise vanished immediately into the pile of the carpet. He walked over to the fireplace and, tossing some of the grains in the gilded bowl on the hearth into it, hollered, "Binky?"
Flames flared and died away, but there was no response. Where had the butler got to? Draco cocked his head at the portrait of Elliot Malfoy, his great-great uncle. "Where is everybody?" Didn't they know he'd been on his way home?
Elliot looked away from Draco, ignoring him. Draco turned. All the portraits in the room tried to look busy, a difficult task given their cramped frames.
"Norma?" he said to one. "Grandma Virgo?" to another. Nobody answered. There was only the slightly rustling as they arranged themselves in positions of quiet snubbing.
Draco withdrew to the center of the room and sat down heavily on the parquet. After a minute: "Would one of you bloody say something? Where is everyone? Where's my mother? Where's Binky?"
A muffled cough came from behind him. Draco tried a different tack. "As heir of the Malfoys, son of the master of the Manor, you owe me your obedience! I demand that you answer me! Tell me where my mother is! Tell me where the house-elves are! Where has everybody gone? Tell me, or I'll rip you out of your frames and throw you in the fire!"
Nothing. After a few more minutes of silence, Draco let a furious bellow hang in the air of the ballroom as he marched back through the endless corridor of sitting rooms to retrieve his luggage and drag it up to his room.
Two days later, having convinced himself that no one was home, and having gotten not a single word out of the portraits, even after threatening his Uncle Mortimer with a can of turpentine, he Flooed back to Hogsmeade and walked straight back to Hogwarts. He had nowhere better to go.
***
Ten days before the war began, Snape told Draco that Potter had been chosen as the leader of the student offensive. Snape had to Placidio him so he didn't wake up the whole school.
Draco continued to form angry words for a few more seconds before he realized they came out as only a vague, dusty whisper. Then he folded his arms, threw himself into the severe tall chair in front of Snape's desk, and looked up sullenly at Snape, who looked sullenly back at him.
"Yelling accomplishes nothing," Snape muttered, half to himself, and looked down as he continued to scratch at a parchment with his goose quill. After a moment, realizing Draco was still there, he sighed, quill hovering in the air. "Mr. Malfoy, if I take the spell off, will you try to conduct yourself with the decorum befitting our house?" Draco looked resentful, but nodded. "Well, Finite Incantatum and all that, then," Snape intoned, brandishing the quill vaguely.
"It's not fair, Professor," Draco said in his normal voice. "Why Potter? Why a Gryffindor?"
Snape kept the quill in the air. "I do not like it any more than you do, Mr. Malfoy. However, considering we now make up the entirety of Slytherin House, I hardly feel we are in a position to protest. I have lodged my complaint with the Headmaster myself, and suggest that rather than waking up the entire East Wing with your bellowing, you do the same."
Draco burned for a minute in the chair. The howl of the wind from the blizzard outside was faintly audible even here in the dungeons.
"Besides," Snape said, turning his eyes back to his papers, "I did not exactly have a recommendation for an alternate. Potter, for all of his other faults, has certainly shown courage in the face of the Death Eaters in the past. And he's certainly faced off against them more than any of the rest of the students, and, despite his constant willful disregard for such petty things as rules, so far he consistently has..." Snape trailed off.
"Sir?"
"Won," said Snape thoughtfully.
"What about a Slytherin?" Draco pressed. "Someone who knows how the enemy thinks, who has inside information and the strength to command?"
"Someone like yourself, Mr. Malfoy?" said Snape drily. "Someone mistrusted by the rest of the school because his father was Voldemort's chief lieutenant?" Draco winced at the use of the name. "Someone who, although he has an exemplary academic record, is hardly popular among the other houses?"
"But Professor, you hate Potter!" Draco's voice rose again. "How can you stand by?"
"Hate," said Snape, now returning his quill to its holder and folding his hands. "No, I don't hate Potter. Not hate."
Draco felt himself turning pink. "Professor, with all due respect, it's never been my impression that he was anything but your least favorite student."
"Potter is a reckless, ignorant, selfish boy. He's an indifferent student. He doesn't have a head for Potions and so he doesn't treat the subject with the respect it deserves. He's a loafer. His father was a loafer." He suddenly leaned forward intently. "But hate-Mr. Malfoy, I am Potter's professor, just as I am yours. It is my job to impart knowledge, and teach him respect, and discipline. He is farther from those than many - than you, even. But I will continue to try to teach him until he learns. He must learn those things somewhere.
"But never forget, Mr. Malfoy, never, that without Mr. Potter, without unruly, indolent Potter, we would none of us be here today. It has been a long time since Harry Potter was merely the Infant Who Lived. You would be wise to study what has become of him in the intervening years, because surely without him there would be no Hogwarts today.
"Nowhere, Mr. Malfoy," and Snape's eyes drilled into Draco's, "for you to turn when your father was killed and your mother vanished."
Draco stood up, hunching his shoulders defensively. "Professor, you can't expect me to follow him! He's going to give orders and I'm going to have to obey. A Malfoy commands. He does not obey. He is his own master."
"Draco," said Snape with sudden, unusual calm. "Please calm down."
"You and Dumbledore and the rest can't make me!" Draco was barely aware of what he was saying. "I trusted you! You're my Head of House and my favorite professor! How could you let this happen?"
Snape stood now, eyes flashing under his sallow brow. "Mr. Malfoy! You are acting like a child!" After a pause, a little quieter: "I am not asking you to fall in love with Harry Potter. But he, and you with him as part of his team, are our last, best hope. You must come to terms with Potter. You are crucial. He is crucial."
"Professor, do you know what you're asking? I hate Harry Potter. He hates me. We hate each other!"
Snape sat down again and took up the quill thoughtfully. "Sometimes," he said, again half to himself, "we find we must grow up, and put away our childish things, very suddenly and very quickly indeed."
Draco glowered.
"You are dismissed, Mr. Malfoy," said Snape. "You must learn to understand, as I did, that this is bigger than you."
Draco nodded, said his goodbye, and stalked away from Snape's office towards the Ravenclaw rooms, where he'd been sleeping since his return to Hogwarts. Someday, he thought to himself, I will be part of something that is not so much bigger than me.
***
Four months before the war began, Lucius Malfoy, woke up, shaved, dressed, called Kaddy in, ordered coffee and three poached eggs on wheat toast with gravlax, snatched the morning Prophet from Tooby's outstretched hand, settled into a red leather armchair in the French Provincial Dining Room, read International, National, and Sport, felt a tap on his shoulder, and folded down the paper to note Kaddy holding a plate of eggs and, behind her, Nott, Rea, Zabini, Polinski, and Malory scowling at him, wands pointed at his head.
"Gentlemen," he started to say.
"They made Tooby open the door, sir, they--"
There was a set of overlapping shouts, a flash of sickly green light. Lucius, eyebrows raised in now-permanent surprise, topped head over heels out of the armchair. Kaddy dropped the eggs. The five men turned as one and swooped from the room.
The next, Narcissa Malfoy gathered her things, set the usual wards around the house for when she traveled, and Apparated to her second cousin Hyacinth's house in Aix-en-Provence, where she reverted to her maiden name, Baker. She took two of the house elves with her. The rest scattered.
***
Three days before the war began, Potter held his first and only War Council, in the prefects' bathroom. For some reason, it was the only Hogwarts password that hadn't yet been compromised to the Death Eaters.
The student offensive, all of twenty strong, had assembled around the empty bath, in which Potter, using wooden blocks, had set up a simple model of what was known of the layout of Voldemort's Romanian keep. He'd charmed his wand to emit a tiny red dot that he used to highlight various parts of the model. Everyone stood in rapt attention, except for Weasley, who paced nervously back and forth behind Harry until the mermaid asked him to stop because she was getting seasick; Granger, who sat on a pile of fluffy towels in the corner, flipping through three or four snakeskin-bound tomes and making marks in them with various colors of ink, seemingly in reaction to Potter's planning; and Draco, who was rolling his eyes and generally chuckling to himself about how seriously Potter was taking all this.
"Seamus, you and Dean are going to take the flyers in from the west, here," Potter was babbling and pointing. "Meantime the tunnelers--that's Justin and Hannah's team--will be here, and my team will be here."
Draco looked. Harry was pointing to the front gate.
"Great plan, Potter," he drawled. "Are we going to just go up to the front door and knock?"
Weasley turned to scowl at him. Draco scowled back. Harry ignored all this entirely. "Now, the tunnelers will need to make sure they've set the Decrusto charms by the time the other teams are ready to enter." He looked up and peered over his glasses at Justin. "That all right by you?" Justin nodded.
"Potter," said Draco again. "I asked you a question. Why are we just knocking on the front door?"
"It's the quickest way in once the wards are down," offered Weasley from the back of the room. "Haven't you even been paying attention?"
"Not sure why I should be paying attention to this Gryffindor nonsense. The quickest way in? The Dark Lord's main target, his best friends, and his former trusted lieutenant's son are walking in the front door? You know, jumping into the lake chained to a rock would be faster."
"Shut it, Malfoy," said Weasley. The rest of the students stirred uncomfortably.
"I'm asking a question," Draco said louder. "I deserve to be heard. What, can't we question our fearless leader?"
"Not by you, you little puke," Weasley threw back. "You're lucky you're part of this at all. By rights you should have stayed to rot in your bloody country estate."
"Cutting, Weasley," smirked Draco. "At least I have a nice home to go back to, you-"
"Ron!" roared Potter, unexpectedly, since he was in fact cutting off Draco. Potter and Weasley locked gazes for a moment, and Weasley slowly closed his mouth. Potter whirled on Draco.
Draco assessed the situation. Granger was staring at him from across the room with unabashed hatred. The other students were avoiding looking directly at him. He decided to look at Potter.
"Malfoy, you have to trust this plan," said Harry with remarkable calm. "We don't have time for petty arguing."
"No one's shown me that you're anyone I should bother listening to," said Draco coldly.
"I've been to the castle. I've done the reconnaissance. I've faced Voldemort before." A collective shudder at the name, except for Harry, and Draco, briefly, hated him for that. "You need to listen. This is what we've got. This is what we're going to do."
There was a deadly pause.
"Is that all right with you?" Potter said quietly, but not plaintively.
Draco glared, but said nothing.
There was another, deadlier silence, broken by a deafening, echoing crack as Potter brought his hands together. The sound bounced around the tiles and the marble and rang in the students' ears. "All right!" said Potter. "Everybody out. We pick this up in an hour. No -" looking at his watch "two. Back here at half four and we'll talk about what happens inside the keep. Ron, Hermione, take everyone to the pitch and drill. Ron, you're hexes, Hermione, countercurses. The practice targets are in the equipment shed; Susan and Terry, you help carry those." Pointing: "Malfoy, you're with me."
"In the snow?" said Weasley plaintively.
"In the snow," nodded Harry. "Voldemort has kept us blanketed in snow for a month now. We need to learn to work in it."
Nobody moved for a moment, and then Potter, in an exasperated, commanding tone that Draco had never heard from him before, shouted, "Go!"
The students poured around the two boys and out of the bathroom. Weasley clapped Potter on the shoulder reassuringly as he passed by, and Granger gave him a sympathetic look.
When all had gone, Draco stood, hands on hips, and glared. "I'm with you? What is this about?"
"We need to have a little talk, Malfoy," Potter said, and turned to head towards the door without further ado. Draco found himself resenting the lack of courtesy extended to him, as if he were being treated as an inferior. He also realized that he needed to hurry and catch up with Potter, which would lose him major points in establishing the power dynamic of the conversation. His eyes narrowed.
"Why should I come with you?" he demanded. "I don't think we have anything to talk about. I'm along for this ride, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."
Potter did stop, then, his hand on the doorknob, and turned. "Because you have nowhere else to go," he said, with deadly calm. "Although you're welcome to stay here and play with the taps for the next two hours."
Draco, not wanting to let him get the last word, hurried to catch up and slipped through the door as it was closing. "I've got plenty of better things to do than listen to anything you have to say," he rejoined.
"No, you don't," said Potter.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Draco sounded more bitter than cross. "Will you slow down? Fine, you're right, I have nothing better to do than have this conversation with you. The least you could do is talk to my face."
"We're going to the East Tower. We'll talk there." After a time, Potter added, seemingly out of nowhere, "This doesn't work, you know. We can't do this anymore."
"What? What are you talking about? Is this some of your great wisdom, you pillock?"
"You can insult me all you like, Malfoy," Potter remarked. "I've heard it all at this point. It's not going to do us any good anymore."
"Raving nutter," Draco muttered to himself. Louder, "So are you going to try to sell me on your great cause? 'Work with me, Malfoy, we have the same goal?'"
Potter shook his head. "I'm not stupid, Malfoy. I know there's nothing I can sell you. I just want to ask you something."
They climbed the stairs to top of the tower in silence, Draco lagging a few steps behind. Eventually the stairs opened onto the roof of the tower. Draco was surprised by how exposed it was. It had a simple gravel floor and no roof. Only a wall about three feet high, broken regularly by decorative slits, prevented anybody from going over the edge. The snowfall was light now, a rare reprieve, but the sky was pink with the anticipation of more. Potter crossed, brushed off an inch of powder, and sat up on the wall. Draco stood opposite, near the door.
"Why do you hate me, Malfoy?"
"What?" Draco found himself brought up short. He was ready for a fight, for shouting, but not for that.
"Why do you hate me?"
"Why do I hate you? Because you're Harry Potter, that's why."
Potter shook his head impatiently. "That's not good enough anymore."
"I don't see as how that's any of your business."
"It's my business because we have a war to fight," Harry said intently. "It's my business because we're being silly. We act like children around each other, Draco. What have I ever done to you?"
"What do you mean, what have you done to me?" Draco was incredulous, and winding himself up for a fight. "You're Harry Potter. The big hero. The enemy of my father. You get all the attention in school because of something you did when you were an infant. You're not a great wizard, particularly. You don't study much. You treat Potions with ill-disguised contempt, as if it's a lesser field because someone teaches it who doesn't fawn all over you. You wander through life and things just fall into your lap. You're the hero of the wizarding world! You're the youngest Seeker in a century!"
"Draco, you're raving," Potter said quietly.
"You take the House Cup from Slytherin because of something that has nothing to do with school! You get excused from being out after hours because, oh, the great Harry Potter doesn't need rules! He's got to go save the world! My father quaked in fear at the thought of you, Potter! In fear! And you're just some badly-dressed speccy prat with powerful friends!"
Harry was rocking back and forth thoughtfully on the wall, looking off to the side. He looked back at Draco now: "Are you done?"
"No!" Draco fumbled for more things he hated about Harry. "All right, yes. Yes, I suppose I am. What do you have to say for yourself?" he demanded.
Harry sighed. "We're not twelve anymore, Malfoy. I don't know if you've noticed, but there is no more Slytherin. There might not be any more Hogwarts in a few weeks. Who cares about Quidditch? Who cares about house points? It's ancient fucking history. You need to not hate me any more, Malfoy. You don't have a choice."
"I can't help hating you," said Draco irritably. "You're very hate-able."
"I don't hate you any longer," Potter remarked offhandedly, pausing to wipe his glasses on his robe to clear the snow from them.
"Why not?" demanded Draco.
"Because I don't know you any longer. You've just been going through the motions of Malfoy-ness since Christmas. What do we have to fight about? You make rude comments about my friends, throw around insults, and we yell at each other. It's boring, Malfoy. Our rivalry is boring. We've got more important things to think about. And you're not hateful. You're very, very sad."
"This is where I hit you in the face," said Draco.
"I don't mean you're pathetic," Harry said hurriedly. "I mean I worry about you."
"Don't bother."
"It's no bother," Harry said mildly. "I don't think you hate me. I think you remember hating me."
"Oh no, Potter. I do hate you."
"You'd like to see me dead."
"That's right. Or at least horribly maimed."
Harry abruptly turned and jumped up onto the wall, pulling out his wand. "Sonorus," he muttered, and then, highly amplified, "Oi! Ron!" After a moment, "I'm going to throw my wand down to you! Hang on to it until I get down there!" And then, "No, it's all right!" To himself, "Quietus. Wingardium leviosa reflexio." And he dropped his wand over the side, where Draco knew it would drift as slowly as a feather towards the ground.
Harry turned and stood on the wall, arms outstretched. "Well, kill me then," he said. "Go ahead, knock me off the wall."
"I'm not going to knock you off the wall, Potter," said Draco.
"Why not?" Harry demanded. "You hate me. You hate everything I am and everything I stand for. Knock me off the wall. Look, I probably won't die. Someone will see me fall and they'll charm me and I'll drift to the ground like my wand and I'll be fine. But won't you feel satisfied? Knock me off the wall!"
"Look, I'm not going to knock you off the wall! Have you lost your tiny little mind, Potter?"
Potter grinned infuriatingly. "Can't do it, can you?"
"No!" said Draco in frustration.
"Why?"
"It's just not worth it!" Draco spat out. "What's the bloody point?"
"What's the bloody point of hating each other?"
"What else do I have?" Draco ejaculated suddenly, without thinking. Potter seemed taken aback, and slowly climbed down from the wall. He walked towards Draco a few feet.
"You're Draco Malfoy," he said quietly. "That's what you have."
Draco looked stricken. "I can't believe you made me say that, you bastard."
"Draco," said Potter tentatively.
Draco glared. "Potter..."
"Call me Harry."
"Why?"
"Because my name is Harry. And I don't hate you. And I don't think you hate me anymore. I think you used to hate me, but I think you were different then." Harry stared intently at him. "I don't think I know you, now. I think I'm meeting you again."
"Maybe I don't want to meet you," said Draco.
"Maybe you don't have a choice. Here we are."
Draco hesitated, then found his pride again. "I offered you my hand once. You didn't take it then."
"Offer it to me again." Harry's eyes burned into Draco's with a gravity Draco had never seen.
Draco returned the gaze for a moment, appraisingly, and then turned and took off down the stairwell.
"Bloody hell," said Harry, and hopped down from the wall to chase him.
Harry caught up to him in the wide hallway off of the passage to the tower, the end of which featured a large mirror occupying the top half of the stone wall. A very faint sound of yelling and crackling came from his left, where, down a hall and many flights of stairs, the student offensive was drilling. Draco was looking into the mirror, arms at his sides, when he heard Harry's footsteps approaching softly from behind him. He didn't turn around.
"Why didn't you take my hand?" Harry called out.
"I have nothing for you," Draco said, just loudly enough to be heard. "I have nothing for this war."
"That's not true," Harry insisted. "I know it's hard. I know this is new."
"It's not that," said Draco, still not turning. "I had nothing before, either. Not for you, not for my father, not even for myself."
Harry said nothing.
"I've been walking," said Draco, "for the past month or so. In the snow and the freezing rain. Through the mud and the decaying leaves. I've ruined two pairs of shoes. My father would kill me if he knew how wasteful I was being."
"It sounds different coming from you, somehow, when you say 'my father would kill me.' "
"It's been terrible, the weather, you know. But it's better than being the only Slytherin in the Ravenclaw common room. Better that listening to people gossip about which of your housemates is wanted for torture and murder this week, or wonder out loud about why Dumbledore was foolish enough to let me back into the school." He paused. "I used to be somebody here. When did I become a stranger in my own school? I used to be the rival of the great Harry Potter."
"We don't have time for rivals anymore," Harry said, without rancor.
"I came back. I did the right thing," said Draco bitterly. "I was only two things. I was my father's son and I was Harry Potter's rival. I lost one. I came back for the other."
"Things are different now," Harry insisted. "Just because you can come back doesn't mean you can come back all the way."
"I've trapped myself here. I feel closed in."
"Even here? Look up."
Draco turned now and, for the first time, looked to the ceiling. It had been enchanted to reveal a rich, indigo sky. Vines trailed just above the tops of the walls, climbing ivory trellises into the cloudless dusk. A few stars twinkled at him, and every now and then he saw a bird, silhouetted, glide across width of the hallway, rippling as if seen through cut glass.
He frowned, distracted. That didn't seem right.
He took a step forward, and realized that there was a pattern in the sky, as if someone had taken a charcoal pencil and drawn a wide diamond pattern in thin shadowy grey across the whole scene.
He took another step forward. The pattern moved, but as if it was much more in the foreground than the sky. He laughed, suddenly, out loud, in realization.
Harry was looking up at it. "How can you feel closed in? It's like the Great Hall. It's so open. We could just fly up into it."
"No it's not," Draco said impatiently, trying to break Harry's romantic reverie. "It's trompe l'oeil."
"Draco, why would anybody do trompe l'oeil if they could just enchant it to look like open sky?"
"Because they couldn't always enchant it to look like open sky," said Draco, still looking up at it and feeling smug. "The charm on the Great Hall ceiling only dates from the seventeenth century sometime. Before it was invented, they used to do this instead. An enchanted trompe l'oeil on the ceiling. Looks much the same except that you can see the lines from the vaulting, see? Walk around; the lines move in the wrong perspective compared to the sky. This ceiling is from the mid-fourteenth century sometime. That staircase," nodding to his right, "used to go down to the old Quidditch changing rooms instead of directly to the pitch, but those were removed in 1900 or so. This ceiling was supposed to inspire the players to greater flight, or some such. But it's just a painted ceiling. We're still boxed in here. We're always still boxed in."
He looked down. Harry was staring at him as if he'd just grown four extra arms and offered him a full-body massage.
"Honestly," said Draco irritably. "Hasn't anyone read Hogwarts: A History?"
Harry stared.
"You great idiot," said Draco, still looking at the ceiling, but for the first time, it sounded more teasing then cruel.
"Draco," said Harry, finding his voice again. "This is the most civil conversation we've ever had."
Draco thought about that.
"You shared something with me," insisted Harry. "You taught me something. Thank you."
"Your greeting-card sensibilities notwithstanding, Potter, I'm sure you'll feel a sense of smug satisfaction when I say I'm trying. You bastard, you've won, I'm trying."
"Harry, Draco. I'm Harry. And I know."
"So many things, over the years, though," Draco continued. "So many insults and fights. Maybe we just can't find the energy to hate each other now."
"That's good enough for me, for now."
"All the insults and fights. We can never undo those, you know." He paused and took in a very, very deep breath. "I'm sorry," he exhaled quickly.
"I know you're sorry," said Harry simply. "I'm sorry too."
"I came back for you," Draco said. "I didn't know where else to go."
Harry nodded. "You made a choice. You crossed a river."
"I crossed it to your side."
Harry said nothing.
"It was stupid of me, really," said Draco, a bit of frustration back in his words. "I'm probably the second name on the Dark Lord's hit list, and I'm standing in the same room with the first. I'm not a Death Eater, so now I'm one of the heroes? I'm going to start getting along with Granger and Weasley? Not likely."
"The war starts in three days." Harry started slowly walking towards him.
"It does."
"You'll be with Ron and Hermione and I, taking the direct approach. We'll be dependent on the other teams taking out the surface defenses on the castle."
"We will."
"Ron and Hermione are my friends, but I'm leading this mission. What I say goes. They'll have to follow me."
"They will."
"So will you." Harry was standing in front of him.
Draco hesitated. Harry watched him closely.
"I will follow you," said Draco.
Harry leaned forward and kissed him.
Draco felt distantly the crash of Harry's body against his, the brushing of wild black hair against his forehead, the pressure of spectacles against his temple and his nose. For a moment it was mostly warm, humid, and uncomfortable, but then he seemed to slip back into his body and found himself full of Harry. He realized his eyes were still open, and his field of vision filled with emerald and black. He closed them.
Their arms remained limp at their sides; even now their bodies, below the neck, did not touch. Draco expected something relatively quick, but found that they both lingered, exploring. Harry's tongue was huge and alien in his mouth. He opened his eyes again to see Harry idly, eyes closed, brush loose hair from his fringe, and smiled into the kiss, his teeth scraping Harry's lips. Harry pulled back now, with only one last, reluctant press of his lips onto Draco's. Draco realized he was still grinning like an idiot.
"This," said Harry amiably, "is the first time I have ever seen you smile like that."
"It sort of hurts my face," admitted Draco.
"So all I had to do, all this time, was kiss you?"
"Don't tease me, Potter," growled Draco. "It's still a little early for teasing."
Harry stepped back and folded his arms, his eyes twinkling. "Sorry," he said easily.
"We ought to get down to the pitch and drill with the others," Draco said thoughtfully.
"You're right," said Harry, crossing in front of him and grabbing his hand. "Come on."
"Harry?"
"Draco?" Harry stopped and turned. Draco looked hesitant and lost.
"I don't know what's happening."
Harry laughed, the laugh he used around his friends, and started dragging him down the hallway towards the staircase to the Quidditch pitch. "Neither do I, Draco. But stick with me anyway. Things should start to get interesting right about now."
***
Now Harry stood in blue glow, surrounded by owls, staring. "I can't understand you," he said in frustration.
Draco stood helplessly still. The dusting of snow melted off the floor and off of owl wings.
"Were you saying goodbye to your owl?"
"What business is it of yours, Potter?"
Harry looked around. "I thought we were done with that. Yours is the great horned, right?"
"His name is Bootes," Draco found himself saying. "I don't want to send him away."
"I don't want to send Hedwig away," said Harry.
"But we have to."
"We do. They'll come back. We'll bring them back when the war is over."
"He's the only family I have anymore." Draco said. He looked at Harry in frustration and confusion.
Harry cocked his head. His look was one Draco was slowly getting used to: similar frustration, but also earnestness and curiosity.
"We'll bring them back," he said. "Thank you for telling me his name." Bootes hooted in acknowledgement.
He didn't look away, and Draco let the silence hang for a moment. Finally Harry straightened his head, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and folded his arms contemplatively.
"We have a lot to talk about, you and I," he said. "A war to fight, first. But then, a lot to talk about."
Draco nodded guardedly.
"Let's go to breakfast," Harry continued. "I'll tell the professors it was a false alarm." He hesitated. "I don't know you, Draco Malfoy. I don't. But I will."
Draco nodded, and then, before he could stop himself:
"Kiss me again before we go."