"Potter?" The voice sounded concerned now. And familiar? He shook his head to gain some clarity. He looked to the side to see... "Malfoy?" He asked with clear surprise on his face. Sure enough Malfoy was standing in front of him with not an ounce of his usual contempt on his face. No aura of superiority. No sneer on his face. No anger. No disgust. Actually, emotions he never thought were possible for a Malfoy to possess were on his face. Worry. Concern. Fear. And shyness? Is this really Malfoy?
Draco gave a small nod. "I... I came to talk to you... may I sit?" Draco asked fighting back the nerves and the urge to run. He studied Potter carefully. Something was wrong with him. He seemed broken. This was not the face of his rival. This was not the face of someone so strong. This was not the face of the savior of their world. This was the face he quite recognized as his own. His own brokenness that he sees in the mirror everyday was on Potter's face. He didn't like it one bit. Potter shouldn't be broken. Potter gave so much in the war, he should be able to enjoy his life.
The polite way he asked sent confusion across Harry's face. Malfoy could be polite? The shock over that sent his head nodding in approval against his will. Malfoy sat down next to him. Harry observed him closely. He did not look so good. His skin seemed shallow. Like he hadn't had proper food or sleep in quite some time. Longer than the couple days since the battle. By the looks of it, it would appear to be months. Bags underneath his eyes. Lines of worry etched on his face. He didn't like it. This was not how his rival should look. Malfoy was supposed to be strong and defiant. Not... broken. Malfoy looked as broken as Harry felt. A sliver of companionship flared inside him. Maybe Harry had found someone who understood what it meant to be broken.
"I owe you an apology." Malfoy said gripping his robes in his hands rather tightly. Harry's eyebrow rose. An apology? From Malfoy? Certainly, a Malfoy would never apologize. That would mean taking credit for wrong doing. He didn't know much about Malfoy but he knew enough that 'Malfoys can do no wrong'. He wondered if it was a spell, or a potion. Confunded maybe? Amusement flickered briefly in Malfoy's eyes.
"No Potter it is not a spell." He said with a slight chuckle. Harry was confused. Had he spoken out loud? Malfoy must have seen the confusion and gave a small smile. Which confused Harry even more. Malfoy could smile? Surely only a sneer had ever been on his face. He wracked his brain trying to come up with one instance where he saw Malfoy smile… nope. Nothing. "No, you did not speak out loud. I could see it on your face. I have always been able to tell what you are thinking." Malfoy explained as if it was no big thing.
This confused Harry even further. Not even Ron or Hermione could tell what he was thinking most of the time. But Malfoy knew? That was just odd. But then not really. There were many times during their verbal matches that he knew what Malfoy was thinking. He could see it on his face. Ignoring his statement. "Why are you sorry?" He asked genuinely curious.
Surprise was on Malfoy's face. "Are you serious?" He asked. Harry nodded slowly wondering what was going on.
Draco sighed deeply. He had been hoping that this would be easy but it looked like Potter was going to make this difficult. "I am sorry for the way I have treated you Potter."
Harry's eyes widened. Say what?
"All these years of the insults and the attacks and the hate. I am sorry for it all." Draco said quietly not looking at him. Harry felt truly gobsmacked. Now he was wondering if he himself had been confunded. He was apologizing? Malfoy? What?
"Why?" Harry asked just as quietly. Harry looked up at him and he had to hold back a gasp. Pain. So much pain was in his eyes. The same pain he knew was inside his own. It was raw and it was consuming Malfoy. Harry could tell.
"I never wanted any of this Harry. I never hated you… well not really. Hate is such a strong word. There were plenty of times where I disliked you. Couldn't stand you… but never hate you. Not once. I really am sorry for the way I treated you. If there is one thing I wish I could do over it would be to go back and change it all." Draco said with determination.
Harry's mouth opened in shock. What? That was the only thing his mind could think of at the moment. Malfoy even called him by his first name too. This was so strange. The whole conversation was. This was not something he ever thought was possible. Malfoy was apologizing and he meant it. Harry could see the sincere way he spoke. He meant every word. This had to be an alternate universe. It just had to.
Draco wanted to smirk at his reaction but figured now was not the time. It would probably have a negative reaction if he did. He did always love it when he managed to get reactions out of Harry. No one else seemed to be able to. The spark in his eyes when he was angry was a sight to see. His usual emerald green eyes would darken slightly when he was angry. When he was surprised they would lighten a little. The variety of colors always amazed him.
"If you didn't hate me then why did you bully me?" Harry asked quietly. He chose the word bully on purpose. If Malfoy really was going to apologize for his actions, then he needed to understand how messed up they were. He almost wished he hadn't asked. He was worried about the answer. What do you even say to that? This whole situation was so unlikely. This would be like if Vernon suddenly announced his love of all things magic. Not bloody likely.
Draco sighed sadly. "Do you really want to know? It is a long story." Draco warned. If Harry really wanted to know then he would tell him but he would have to lay it all on the line. There would be no paraphrasing. He either got the whole story or none of it. He didn't even want to tell the story. Part of him wanted Harry to say no. So that he didn't have to own up to anything. But a bigger part hoped he would want to hear it. So that he could finally have everything out in the open. His own warring opinions made his mind feel like a battlefield.
Harry was unsure for a moment. He could say no and get back up and head to the common room and finish packing. He could pretend that this conversation hadn't happened and that Malfoy still hated him. But he didn't want to. Ignorance was something you could only live with for so long. He was curious, so curious He hadn't been this interested in something in ages. If he left now it would just eat at him, plus he doubted Malfoy would ever tell him again. It was so surreal to see Malfoy like this. It intrigued him. More than he thought was possible. He nodded his head firmly, not trusting his voice. Malfoy gave another sigh in response. Harry wanted to smile at that but chose not to. He didn't want him thinking he was taking the mickey out of him.
"Alright. You may have guessed this already but my father is... an arse." Harry snorted a little in surprise.
Draco shot him a slight smirk. There was no point in denying it. His father was an arse. "He was always one. There were moments when I could see some kindness underneath it all. They were brief but I still saw it. The Malfoy name is everything to him. That was the way he was raised. The pureblood name and status was engrained into him from the moment of birth. Being a pureblood is so much more than blood. It's a status you live with. Your name is not just your last name, it is a way of life. Being a pureblood is not something I would have chosen to be born into. The social advantages are nice but the lack of everything it takes to uphold the name is not. My father firmly believes in the pureblood life and every teaching his father taught him. He loves my mother deeply. I can tell. The way he looks at her, it is as if she is the most delicate thing in the world." He paused for a moment to smile. Harry smiled at the wistful tone.
"He has never shown me the same love." Harry frowned. His dislike for Lucius growing. "I know he loves me as much as a pureblood can love his heir. He just does not show it though. He wants the best for me. Well more like demands it. So he pushes hard. He thrusts his beliefs down my throat till I can recite them by heart. He has always wanted me to be just like him. To think like him. To act like him. To be him. Because one day I will take over as Lord of the Malfoy estate. It is the job of the heir. The pressure of the Malfoy name has always been hanging over my head. I wanted to please him. I wanted to make him proud. I wanted the approval of him. I thought that if I could give him what he wanted then maybe just once he could show me the love I always wanted."
Harry felt a surge of pity towards Malfoy. "I never got to do anything that I wanted. Not once. Never. I always had to do things his way. Do the things he wanted. I was told as a kid it didn't matter what I wanted in life. Only the Malfoy way mattered. I did not have a childhood. Other kids got to be a child. They got to play or have friends or to just be a kid. I had lessons day in and day out. Lessons on the wizarding world and lessons on how to be the best Malfoy I could be. I hated it." Draco said with anger in his voice.
Harry was surprised. He knew exactly what pressure felt like. Sure, their pressures were vastly different. But the struggle to live up to the pressures of the world is something he could empathize with. Harry reached out and gave a small pat of reassurance on his knee.
Draco looked over with raised eye brows. The touch surprised him. It was a welcoming touch. He smiled slightly at Harry.
"You know from the moment I could talk I knew of you, Harry." Harry looked up confused. "I imagine the whole world did. Your name was whispered everywhere. Even in my household. Your name to my father was more like a curse word. He did not hate you. He feared you in a way." Harry's eyes widened. Lucius feared him? "The Dark Lord was a powerful wizard and a mere baby took him out. It was unheard of. He knew that you would turn into a powerful wizard yourself one day. He was not angry that The Dark Lord was gone. He had long ago regretted ever joining him." Draco was interrupted.
"He did?" Harry asked surprised. He thought back over all the times he has encountered Lucius and couldn't find one instance where it looked like he didn't want to be there. Lucius was the epitome of a deatheater. Hearing this was a little confusing and hard to believe. Draco nodded. "Oh yes. The Dark Lord was deranged. A mad man. Obsessed with power. He didn't care what he had to do to take it. Regret is not a thing that a deatheater can have though. You don't get to say 'oops I changed my mind, sorry don't kill me.' Can you imagine how forgiving The Dark Lord would have been?" Harry chuckled at the sarcasm in his voice. He was right though. You don't get to say no. If Lucius really had changed his mind the only options he had were to speak out and be killed or to do nothing and continue with Voldemort's plans.
"It didn't matter that he wanted out. You don't do that unless you value your life. So he stayed in anyways. He was ashamed. Not that he would ever admit that, but he was too much of a coward to leave. Then you happened, a mere baby stopped The Dark Lord. A baby could stop him but he couldn't even muster up the courage to leave. So every time your name was brought up in a conversation or in the paper, he would get angry. Not at you, but at himself. From an early age, I admired you, Harry." Draco smiled at the dumbstruck expression on Harry's face. The surprise was almost worth this whole conversation.
"I did. Anyone who could force that kind of reaction from my father must truly be something. I couldn't admit that to my father. He would have taken that badly. So I admired you quietly and told no one. I read anything and everything about you. It was my own way of a rebellion against my father. He could dictate my life. He could force me how to act and how to behave, but he could not take away my thoughts of you. I was disappointed at the lack of information about you. The books knew nothing, they were seriously lacking. They only had a small amount of information about your parents. When I realized that your mom was a Muggleborn I laughed for hours." Harry glared. Was Malfoy mocking him? Or his mother?
"Stop your glaring Harry. It was nothing bad. It was just that for my whole life I had heard how superior purebloods were over everyone else. How much stronger and better we are. It was the same nonsense The Dark Lord believed in. Yet a baby who was a half-blood, took down the strongest dark wizard in history. The irony of the whole thing sent me to a fit of giggles. My mother thought I had lost it." Draco stopped to smile at the memory. Harry saw the humor and chuckled. Draco grinned at him.
Harry thought a smiling Malfoy was way better than a sneering one. The smile made his face change drastically. It was... nice.
"I knew right then, that there was absolutely no stock to the shite my father was preaching. I knew that purebloods were no better than anyone else. I took a step back and thought over everything he taught me and realized that I wanted to be nothing like him. I didn't want his way of life. I didn't want to be the next Malfoy, but there was nothing I could do. Unless I wanted to be disowned. My father was never hateful towards me, but if I had spoken my mind then, I knew he could be. He would have done anything to stomp those thoughts out of my head. No Malfoy has ever gone against the teachings before. I was stuck and utterly miserable." Draco paused to sigh sadly.
Harry's heart clenched at the sadness in his voice. He was so surprised to find out that Malfoy was nothing like what he had always thought. It was as if everything he thought he knew about him was an illusion. He realized he never knew anything about him to begin with. He saw what Malfoy wanted him to see. Harry was beginning to want to know now.
"There was nothing I could do about it. So I just pretended. I pretended to be the Malfoy that my father wanted. It was difficult but I managed it. Then when I met you, I realized that you were the boy I had been talking to in the robe shop. I was mad that the first impression you had of me was my father's way of thinking. I was pissed at myself. So I tried to change that. I did the one thing I knew my father would hate but it was the one thing I wanted more than anything. To be your friend." Harry's heart clenched. He turned down that friendship. He felt slightly guilty. Only slightly though, Malfoy had been the utter prat.
"I was so nervous when I held out my hand to you. When Weasley laughed at my name, I lost it. I could have just insulted his name back. I didn't have to go after his family, but I did. You turned down my friendship and it hurt more than I care to admit. I was mad at myself. Not at you. I had acted the prat and I knew it. I thought about apologizing, but I had seen the anger in your eyes. I couldn't reach out and get denied again. Once was enough. I don't think my pride could have risked it." Harry reached over and squeezed his shoulder.
"If you had apologized I would have forgiven you. I know it." He told him with a small smile. Malfoy responded with his own smile, albeit sad smile.
"That is nice to know. Now I wish I had plucked up the courage to do so, but I was not put in Gryffindor for a reason. No courage." Draco said with a smirk. "I knew that we could not be friends after the way I treated Weasley. So I did the only thing I could to keep you in my life. As a rival and an enemy. I hated to act like that. It made me feel so much like my father. I hated the things I said to you. I was so bitter. Specially towards Weasley and Granger. They got to be your friends while I did not. I was jealous and petty. I was also eleven. Not that that is an excuse, but I was a child who definitely acted like one. My father was so happy to hear that you were my new rival. It disgusted me. I didn't want to do anything he wanted. I had half a mind to end the rivalry then and there, but I selfishly kept it. Because it was the only way I was going to ever get to talk to you. So I continued it, even though each word I spoke against you hurt me on the inside. Because it was proof of how we could never be friends." Harry was so shocked. He didn't know what to think or what to say.
"I never knew." He said quietly. "That was the point, Harry." Draco said lifting an eyebrow and he smirked slightly. Harry rolled his eyes at the expression.
"Even though I pretended to hate you, even though I said dreadful things to you, I never stopped believing in you." Harry's face heated up slightly at his words. "Even though you were not aware of it, I have always been in your corner. Always silently cheering you forward. Wishing the best for you. I was disappointed that I still knew hardly anything about you. At first I admired you and wanted to know more about you because you were my own personal rebellion against my father. But it quickly stopped being that. Your own personal charm and strong beliefs and courageous ways pulled me in. I wanted to know you not because of my father. Not because of you were the boy-who-lived, but because of who you are. I wanted to know about the real you. What makes you tick? What makes you smile? What angers you? Your favorite food? Favorite color? Favorite pastime? Everything. I wanted to know so much about you. I wanted to be your friend so bad."
Harry's heart started beating faster at his words. What was this? This is the first emotion he was able to feel that was positive in so long. He couldn't recognize it. Had he been in the dark for so long that he could no longer identify emotions?
It surprised him how much Malfoy cared. No one had ever cared like that before. Ron and Hermione were his friends but they never wanted to know the things that made him tick. There were times that Ron and Hermione only saw him as the boy who lived. Sure, they were there for him through thick and thin but they also knew what he had to do. They knew that he was the one who had to take down Voldemort, so sometimes it was hard for them to see him as just Harry. He wanted to be treated like an average teenager. It was comforting to know that someone saw him as that. For some reason, he liked that it was Malfoy who thought of him like that. This confused him but he decided he just didn't care.
"It was difficult to continue to pretend to hate you. There were plenty of times where I disliked you though. Once away from you, I found myself talking about you. At first it was just complaints to keep up the charade, but occasionally I would slip up and my friends caught on. Blaise and Pansy were my first friends. Their families forced beliefs on them as well. They were told how to act and how to behave too. They were not exactly like me. They still held some of the pureblood beliefs. I never confided in them on that. They were my only friends. Crabbe and Goyle were not my friends. They stuck around because of my father. They shadowed me around in public, but in my own personal time, I spent that with Blaise and Pansy. They quickly realized that my hatred of you was pretend. I just told them that it was my way of rebelling against my dad. They bought into it at first. I felt uncomfortable telling them the truth. With them by my side, I was no longer miserable, but I still wanted to be your friend. It got easier to know that we would never be friends. It still sucked, but I was able to slowly get over it. Insulting you never got easier. Only harder with each encounter." Harry felt a little overwhelmed. This was a lot to take in.
"I am a coward, Harry." Draco said with disgust in his voice. Harry furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. That is quite the admission. "When my father told me The Dark Lord was back, I was scared. For him. For my family. For you. I was so scared that he would come after you, and he did. I wanted to go against my father and tell him not to go back to him, but I knew it would get me nowhere. You don't turn your back on the Dark Lord. I knew if he tried he would have been killed. I wanted so badly to do something, but I was a coward. I did nothing. I was so proud of you when I heard what happened in the graveyard. I was stunned that you fought against him and won. I had been worried you wouldn't make it. Then when the whole world was mocking you for saying he came back, I wanted to stand up for you. I wanted to admit that you were right, but I am a coward. I did nothing. I watched you suffer in silence. I watched as the world who once loved you began to doubt you. I watched as the ministry turned their backs on you. I watched you go through pain at the hands of the people you almost lost your life for. I wanted to do something. Say something. I hated myself for being so weak. I hated myself for being a coward." Harry reached over and grabbed onto his wrist in a comforting grip.
Draco was grateful for the touch. Telling Harry all of this stuff about him was hard. He felt vulnerable and out in the open.
Harry was once again stunned. He couldn't speak if he wanted to. To hear Malfoy praise him. Hearing him say he was proud of him felt better than any praise he had ever been given. He couldn't understand it for the life of him, but he liked it.
"After the fight at the Ministry I was so pissed at my father. You could have died. I hated that he was one of the people who you fought against. I hated that he could have been the one to kill you if it had gotten that bad. I wanted to leave and never come back, but I knew that wasn't an option. I heard about Black and knew that you were crushed. I could see the sadness in your face. I could see the pain lingering. I hated Bellatrix the moment I saw her. Not just because of what she did to you. There was pure evil radiating off of her. She was just as mad as The Dark Lord. She was barmy. Then after I found out what she did to Black, I hated her even more. It was awful living with her day in and day out. She was a nightmare. Plain and simple. Then my father was forced to bring me to The Dark Lord and become a deatheater. I could see it in his face that he didn't want to. This was not the life he wanted for me, I had always known that. But he was so far gone already. He couldn't stop it. I knew if I fled like I wanted to, that The Dark Lord would take his anger out on my family. I couldn't let that happen. So I did it. I became the one thing I swore I would never do. I became a bloody deatheater. I hated myself. I had long given up hope that we would ever become friends, but this sealed that belief. Harry Potter would never willingly befriend a deatheater."
There was a sense of pure sadness in his voice. The sadness pierced Harry's heart. No one should have to have gone through that. No one should have been forced into being a deatheater like that. Bloody awful. His own father. Hatred towards Lucius sprang up rather quickly. He was a little shocked at how angry he was on behalf of Draco. Why does he care so much? Why is what happened to Draco affecting him so much? He could no longer call him Malfoy, even in his head. Draco was bearing his soul here. That deserved a first name basis.
"Then I was given the order to kill Dumbledore. I knew that it was a punishment for my father. The Dark Lord was angry at the failure at the Ministry. He himself could never kill Dumbledore. How in the world could a sixteen year old do that? I knew it was a suicide mission. I knew that I was going to die trying or die from failure. It was my way of punishing myself for being such a bloody coward. If I had just spoken up to my father all those years ago, then maybe none of this would have happened. If I had become your friend, then maybe you would have helped me. Maybe I could have changed, but it was too late for all of that. So I took the order knowing I could never successfully pull it off." Harry reached out and gripped Draco's hand tightly.