As the world around him was slowly crumbling, Draco missed the feeling of warmth that embodied him when he woke up on Harry's shoulder. The rest of the weekend had been wonderful. Another storm had rolled in, so they spent their time until they needed to return to Hogwarts in their pyjamas, Draco finally feeling comfortable enough to lounge around Harry. Half of his long limbs were hanging off of the couch, but Harry still thought he looked regal, and teased him for it. Until Draco pushed him off the couch, accidentally of course.

Everything took a turn when Draco followed through and wrote that essay for muggle studies. Somehow, someone had gotten a hold of it, and soon copies of it were being distributed like fiendfyre. Of course, Draco would find out about it at breakfast, with Harry nowhere in sight. The muffin in his hand quickly dropped to the floor as he recognized his own handwriting being circulated, and snickers and stares were directed towards him.

Face burning, he glared at his professor, who cowered in fear.

"I-," she began.

"I'm dropping your foolish course," Draco spat through gritted teeth, turning on his heel and silencing the room with a look that would make both his father and Snape proud.

"Malfoy?," Harry asked, almost running into him outside of the portrait.

"Don't," Draco spat, elbowing his way inside, immediately locking himself up in his room, and cursing himself for feeling like he could open up like that without repercussions.

Harry knew the only place to get answers was the Great Hall. Steeling himself, shoulders set back, he walked into one of the last places he wanted to be. Wordlessly, Hermione slid him the copy of the parchment Draco had submitted.

"The Muggle Experience, by Draco Malfoy.

As someone who has always been fully immersed in pureblood culture and has rarely left the wizarding world, I wasn't sure what to expect when I received the offer to 'spend a weekend living like muggles.' I have always prided myself on hard work, but after a wrestling match with a fitted sheet on the first night, I found myself very humbled. I understand how pretentious this makes me sound, but we had house elves, so I never had to worry about cooking, cleaning, laundry, or even shopping for groceries. I hadn't given any thought to how people without access to house elves or magic would have to do all of these tasks themselves.

The highlight of my weekend, perhaps the highlight of the past few years, was taking my first trip to the cinema. As someone who's past few years can be easily classified under the horror genre, I was skeptical at first by the suggestion of watching a horror film as my first exposure to this part of the muggle world. Of course, I hid behind sarcasm and snarky remarks about snacks to hide my discomfort, and off we went. It's a nice tradition that the muggles have, watching new films together in the same room as strangers and sharing their reactions.

Who would have known that I would be finding comfort in a movie called 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'? Freddy Krueger is a force to be reckoned with, as seen throughout his franchise, but as someone who lived with a psychopath in both their home and in their head, I was reminded that things can always be worse by the things pictured in the film. When all else fails, we have the luxury of dreamless sleep to keep our own personal horrors from seeping into our dreams. Others are not so lucky.

Freddy invades the dreams of children, making their parents pay for their crimes against him by killing and torturing their children. He becomes more powerful as word of his name and his actions spread, feeding off of the fear of those weaker than him. Adults are too afraid to speak of him and his actions, and I couldn't help but to make connections to my own experiences with t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶a̶r̶k̶ ̶L̶o̶r̶d̶ Voldemort living in my own home.

This weekend has opened my eyes to just how close minded I have been, and how much time I've wasted focusing on the wrong things, and the wrong people. I found myself fully invested in the film to the point where I watched three of them in the span of two days, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest in the same company soon.

I had resigned myself to a quiet, isolated life because I know that no one owes me anything. In keeping my head down, I have accidentally made waves and attracted the attention of the one person I had come to terms with never speaking to again. It's unlikely, but we have such an innate understanding of each other that it genuinely scares me some days at just how similar we are. It's not him against me anymore, it's us together trying to figure this new world out.

It is days like these where I'm glad that I'm wrong, and I have someone to show me that we are not born good or evil, we are given choices to make. We cannot help that we are victims of our circumstances, but we can control whether we play the victim or we choose to change.

I choose to change."

Harry felt like he had just violated Draco by reading his essay. It had gotten personal, and he knew that Draco had trouble being vulnerable with anyone. He had tried to prove to his professor that he was putting the effort into this class and taking it seriously by opening up, and he was betrayed.

The anger was very apparent on Harry's face, and he didn't even flinch as the professor's glass shattered directly in front of her. Quickly making two plates before he blew anything up, Harry hurried back upstairs to see Draco.

Knocking on Draco's door, Harry waited to be let in.

"I don't want to see you right now," Draco called, hugging his pillow tighter.

"Fine."

Draco heard some shuffling, and then his door slowly opened to reveal two floating plates of food. He couldn't help it, he laughed, because Potter was absolutely ridiculous.

"What are you doing, Potter?!," Draco asked in exasperation.

"Not being seen by you," Harry replied cheekily, setting Draco's plate down on his nightstand. 

"What if I was naked?"

"Oh I'm not that lucky, don't worry."

Draco sputtered, cursed, and threw his pillow near where he knew Harry was standing.

"Hey, I could've dropped my breakfast!," Harry protested, peeking his head out of the cloak.

"I hate you. You're absolutely infuriating."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Malfoy," Harry teased, bringing his breakfast under the cloak with him.

"Get out from under there!"

"I thought you didn't want to see me?"

"Harry James Potter so help me-"

"Okay, okay. No more jokes. Hi," Harry said, sitting on the chair in the corner.

"Come here."

"You need to figure out what you want from me," he huffed, sitting down next to Draco on the bed.

"You don't listen to what I want anyway."

"If you actually didn't want me in here, I wouldn't be here."

"Potter, your magic is even more powerful when it's emotionally charged. You'd get in here anyway because for some reason you're worried about me."

"It may be hard for you to believe, but I actually like spending time with you, Malfoy."

"I assume you already know what I think," Draco said bitterly, stabbing his piece of toast with his fork. "I'm sorry that everyone else will too."

"I only care what a select few people think about me. The rest of the school isn't on my list. I don't recall my name ever being directly mentioned in your essay either."

"It's obvious. Focusing on the wrong people? It's not him against me anymore? A toddler could figure it out. The way that I wrote it, it sounds like- it just... it doesn't matter," Draco interrupted himself.

"If it's upsetting you Malfoy, it does matter. It matters to me. If it makes you feel any better, her glass mysteriously exploded in her face, covering her with hot tea. I have absolutely no idea who would do something like that," Harry said in fake concern, eating a piece of bacon.

"Some fool with good intentions and a horrendous way of showing them."

"Sounds like my kind of guy," Harry replied with a grin.

They ate their breakfast in silence, with an ever present frown on Draco's face.

"Shut up and let me speak," Draco demanded, eyes seemingly burning into Harry's soul.

At Harry's nod, Draco continued, looking across the room.

"You understand me in a way that I don't even understand myself, and it terrifies me. You know what it's like to have him living in your head, poking around and invading your thoughts and memories, manipulating your present and future until you can't tell fiction from reality.

You've been so nice to me, after our initial few spats, but I'm not stupid enough to think that those are over. Fighting is just a part of who we are, but it's more playful now. You allowed me into your home, took the time to teach me things that you yourself had to learn to survive, bringing up past traumas that you've tried to shove away I'm sure.

We're together in this fucking mess, and I don't know how to be together with anyone in any capacity. Those close to me either get hurt, or I push them away before they get the chance to, because if I can just save one person... then my misery is worth it."

"You saved me," Harry began, placing his hand on top of Draco's. "After that first week, I was going to drop out and hole myself away. I, of course, am never one to resist a challenge, and you've been the biggest challenge in my life since you walked into it. I had to figure out what was going on with you. If I'm being honest, I selfishly thought that if I could save you, maybe I could save myself.

We do have a choice, or at least it seems that way. Sometimes we're given two godsawful choices and we have to pick what we think is the better of the two. Kill Dumbledore or your mother will be killed. Let Voldemort kill you because a piece of him lives inside you. You have a choice to come back. You can stay in the quiet, see your family again and finally get some peace, or you can lose your family all over again and save the world, being left to your own misery, because no one understands. And they don't want to.

My parents were killed and I became a hero. I went from a hero to public enemy number one because even after all I had done for the world, they didn't want to believe that I was telling the truth. Then suddenly, I'm a hero again? That isn't how it works. I've killed someone, and I have to live with that, because I value the life of others over my own. I don't know how to live without a 'greater' purpose, because this is what I've been trained for.

'Harry do the cooking.' 'Boy do the washing up!' 'This dinner better be perfect or you won't eat for weeks.' 'And you?,' my uncle asked. 'I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise, and pretending that I don't exist.'

And when you tell the one person you think you can trust the most? He tells you not to tell anyone else, to stay there, and you think maybe this is how you deserve to be treated. I still find myself thinking that some days. Under all of this, I'm the boy with the hand-me-down clothes at least two sizes too big."

"That's why you keep them," Draco said quietly.

"I need to incinerate them all, but a small part of me can't. It feels like I'm killing another part of myself, and I don't have many left.

I'm not saying this to take away from your trauma. I won't let you share something like that when I know it makes you uncomfortable, without sharing something back. I need you to know that you can trust me."

"Potter, if I ever had any doubts, I would have died in the fiendfyre. I just... I like spending time with you and I hope that we can do things together more often. Salazar Slytherin I think I'm going to throw up."

"Is that okay?," Harry asked, placing a tentative hand on Draco's shoulder.

Draco tensed up, before exhaling and nodding. Harry carefully slid an arm around Draco's shoulders, having him lean onto Harry for support.

"We just have to believe that it will all be okay, and one day, I have faith that it will be Draco."