When Draco rolls out of bed on his first day back at Hogwarts, he is greeted with a migraine and an unpleasant aroma.

He quickly downs a potion he brought with him and goes into the bathroom to tidy up, feeling marginally better afterwards.

As Draco heads up to the great hall, he hears the usual babble about Harry Potter.
It's gotten worse this year, since he is now the boy-wonder who defeated the dark lord.
He sighs, taking his seat.

Draco doesn't mind the talk as much as he used to. He actually thought that Harry loved the attention, thrived, on it. Now it's obvious that that is far from the truth.

Flashback

"Oh, good for nothing Potter, with his good for nothing friends," Draco mutters sourly as he pushes his food around his plate.

"What is it Now, Draco?!" Pansy asks exasperatedly.

"Yeah, mate, what'd they do? Look at you wrong? Did Golden-Boy not respond to all your love notes?" Blaise rolls his eyes.

Draco gives him a death glare and goes back to muttering at his mashed potatoes before looking up at the Gryffindor table.
He immediately notices the absence of all three members of the "Golden Trio.

He spins around in his seat, nearly knocking over Pansy in his attempt to locate the three heads in the packed great hall.

He feels a tap on his left shoulder and snaps his head to look at the person beside him.

"Looking for someone, Malfoy?" Weasley asks.

Draco turns his gaze to Harry. He looks uncomfortable. Their eyes meet briefly and Draco wonders who will be the first to get a black one this year.

He just barely remembers to shake his head and give a snarky reply in response to Ron as he's preoccupied with ignoring the sudden burst of stamina.

Present time commences

Draco sighs into his breakfast of cereal when he sees Potter approaching him. He's without his sidekicks. Draco swallows his bite of food and clears his throat just as Harry arrives at the Slytherin table.

"Um, Malfoy," he starts, "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

Draco glances at Pansy and Blaise in question and they both give him disinterested shrugs. He nods. Harry shakes his head and gestures to the door of the great hall.

Draco sighs again, thinking about how much energy it must take to be so annoying, and grabs an apple to go.

Once they're safely away from the ears of the rest of the students and out of the hall, Harry begins to speak.

"What are you playing at, Malfoy?"

Draco rolls his eyes.

"You've never said a pleasant- scratch that, you've never said a single non-obnoxious and spiteful word to me or any of my friends since first year started, and you expect us to believe you want peace and quiet?! More importantly, you expect us to give it to you?"

Draco sighs and can't help the chuckle that escapes his lips.

"Look... Potter," he struggles with his words, "Last year wasn't exactly fun and games for any of us. My father, that bastard, is currently in Azkaban, and I would like to finally get a normal year before I become a full-blown ministry wizard."

Harry looks at him thoughtfully, hands in his pockets, with his tongue pressed to the inside of his bottom lip, before nodding.

"Alright, then. I suppose I'll speak to you later."

Harry starts walking away before turning around to look at Draco again, but before he can say anything, his annoying little friends come along and sweep him off to whatever class he has first.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . . . . . . . . . . . .

The next few weeks pass by in slow motion. All of Draco's classes are dull and he wishes for any sort of entertainment. So when the idea to sneak out of the dormitories past curfew just for the sake of it occurs to him, he decides against his better judgement—not that he has much of one anyway—and makes his plan.

Once the common room has cleared completely, Draco opens the door and walks up the stairway, out of the dungeons of Hogwarts. As he's going down the halls, he's careful to make as little noise as possible. Things are going smoothly until he turns a corner and bumps into what seems to be- well, nothing?

He hears heavy breathing in front of him and is immediately put on edge.

"Who's there?" He calls out quietly, just in case a prefect is lurking the halls nearby.

Slowly, the floor in front of him changes to reveal half—then all—of the ruffled form of Harry Potter.

Harry shuffles his hands around, trying to locate his glasses, then finds them, stands, and offers Draco a hand up.

He stares at it for a moment.

"I don't bite ya' know," he mutters jokingly.

Draco glares at him.

"Much," he adds, grinning down.

Draco sighs, grabbing Harry's hand and using it for leverage.

"Now that wasn't so bad was it?" he asks.

Draco rolls his eyes and dusts off his trousers.

"You're quite the Chatty Kathy. After all these years and I don't remember one quiet moment," Harry quips.

"My mother always said 'If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'."

He laughs at that.

"What are you doing out this late, Malfoy,"

"In it for the thrill, you?"

Harry scoffs, pauses, and then says, "I'll show you, actually."

"No, no. I'm on my way back to the Slytherin common rooms now." It's a lie, but he isn't about to play nice with Potter.

"Come on. You know you want to," Harry coaxes, extending his hand.

Draco bites his lip, thinking for a moment before going against all his greater instincts for a second time that night, and agreeing.

Harry drags Draco after him to a hallway he's never seen before, somewhere near the Hufflepuff common room, he's pretty sure.

"Alright, now this.. is pretty cool." Harry has a small smile playing at his lips.

Draco raises his eyebrows, because they're just standing in front of a painting.

Harry continues staring at him, obviously expecting Draco to do something, but he doesn't know what.

Harry gestures at the painting, but Draco's still confused, and getting more irritated every second.

They're just staring at the wall in silence for nearly a minute before he finally snaps.

"Right, well, this has truly been fun, but I'm feeling quite knackered so I'll be heading off to bed."

"Hold on now." Harry rolls his eyes. "You have to tickle the pear."

Has he gone mad? What's he talking about?

Harry makes an attempt to spell it out. "You. Have. To. Tickle. The. Pear."

By Merlin, Draco thinks he may actually be going bloody insane.

Harry chuckles.

"I'm going to grab your hand now."

Draco jumps back in surprise, but Harry's already grabbed it and is guiding it to one of the paintings that is of—oh, would you look at that, a pear.

The pear lets out a soft, child-like giggle and then opens a door.

Behind it is what looks like the kitchen, though Draco's never seen one quite like it before.

Harry drops his hand and goes to speak quietly to one of about a dozen house elves. After a few minutes of Draco taking in everything around him—the giant hob, the eggs being magically scrambled next to hundreds of pieces of toast, house elves working with more spirit than he could've imagined—Harry comes back over, arms loaded up with food.

"I figured I'd grab a few late night snacks," he says as the house elves usher them out of the kitchens, food stacked high.

Harry leads the way through the castle and stops suddenly, almost making Draco bump into him.

"Where do you want to take all of this?" he asks.

Seeing as there are obviously many secrets Draco doesn't know about Hogwarts, he lets him decide. Long as it's not the Room of Requirement.

He has some bad memories there. Maybe they both do.

Harry decides to take it to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, seeing as they're already breaking about a dozen rules and one more couldn't hurt.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a while before Harry speaks.

"Why?" he asks.

Draco looks over at him, not really sure what he means, not really sure if he wants to answer.

He looks down, picking at the grass. "Why what, Potter?"

Harry takes a long, deep breath and lies back, looking up at the sky.

"Why did you do all the stuff you did? I'm not talking about the... me situation," he adds quickly shifting eyes vision Draco's way, "I mean, why did you join Voldemort." Draco flinches and Harry grimaces in apology. "And uh... why did you agree to kill Dumbledore? Why did you do any of it? I used to think you maybe believed all of it, but now..." Harry trails off.

Silence.

"You don't have to answer you know," he reassures.

Draco almost doesn't. It seems like it would be so, so much easier, but the words come pouring out.

"When I started at Hogwarts..." He pauses, not sure if it's for dramatic effect or because he doesn't want Harry to hear how nervous he is. "I wanted to be better. Better than all of the blasted wizards that came before me. And when the time arrived for me to join the death eaters, I was the most frightened I've ever been." He doesn't even realize how much he's shaking.

"I didn't think I had a choice. But you always have a choice. I knew what would happen to my mother if I didn't help The Dark... V-Vo- Voldemort." His voice is clear and crisp, though he still trimmers at the name being said aloud. It was trained into him so young, a habit hard to break.

"When he asked me to kill Dumbledore, I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to do something that... that would be so easy for someone like my father to do. So I told my godfather, Professor Snape."

His voice is shaking, which might be why Potter sits up and grabs onto his arm, rubbing it soothingly. It reminds him of his mum.

"So you see, Potter, it's not that I didn't have a choice, it's just that my choices weren't any good."

                            ~△⃒⃘~

After our heart-to-heart on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, he and Potter start talking occasionally.

As Draco passes by the Gryffindors table, he sees him looking terribly bored during his conversation with the Granger and the two Weasley's. Draco swaggers towards him, and they make eye contact, which causes Harry to throw him a half- smile.

The Weaselette glares at Draco and asks in that annoying, snotty voice of hers, "What do you want, Malfoy?"

He sneers and turns his attention to her left.

"Potter. You.. wanted to see me?" He raises an eyebrow slightly to imply that he's only trying to get Harry out of his obviously god-awful conversation. Draco's not sure if the eyebrow manages to get the whole message across, but he's never been great at raising both.

"Why would he want to see you?"

The Weasel has this snarl etching his face, making him look rather rude. It might be fair considering that Draco was "rather rude" to him the bulk of their lives.

Potter only grins and says, "Erm yeah. Meet me in the corridor?"

Draco nods and starts walking before Harry calls him back for a second time.

"Oh, and Malfoy?" He waits. "You can call me Harry, now."

Draco scoffs and begins to walk away, throwing a, "Thanks for the offer, Potter, but I don't believe we're on first name basis just yet," over his shoulder.

He walks straight to class, not remembering that Harry may actually want to speak to him.

Heyy.
So what did ya think?
I actually made this chapter kinda long compared to the others... but I think I may start making them more this length.
Also, do you want a nice Ginny? And a Nice Ron? Let me know who your OTP in the HP world (besides Drarry duh) is and I may just add them to the fic. *yay*
That's all
-Later bugs 👨🏻‍💻🍝😉

*** Chapters after this weren't edited into third person ***