Chapter Text
Harry would have thought that sharing a room with Draco Malfoy would be a nightmare, but it is nothing like that. The other boy is quiet and keeps his things neat – and never complains about the fact that Harry doesn’t. He doesn’t bother Harry with anything other than normal questions, like asking if he had done his Transfiguration work or if he has a spare quill to lend.
Their room is nice, with two four poster beds, two tables and a couch with two places that face their fireplace. They take turns, that are silently arranged, when going on the couch, however.
It is mid-October when Draco raises his eyes from his parchment and asks Harry, with a very serious voice.
“Do you like being famous, Potter?” He says. Harry takes a while trying to figure out if that had really happened or if it was just his imagination, but as Malfoy raises an eyebrow he realizes that he’d better answer.
“Er,” He answers. “Not really. I don’t mind when people praise me on Quidditch because that’s something that I really work hard on and love, but when it comes to defeating Voldemort I feel very uncomfortable. I didn’t do it alone and I didn’t do anything that someone else couldn’t have done. I just happened to be lucky, if you want to call that luck, on being the first person that Voldemort failed to kill.”
Malfoy studies Harry with his very grey eyes, he keeps catching his lower lip with his teeth and then releasing it slowly, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
“I loved when I got at least half of the attention that you had. I really wanted to be admired, and praised, feared and loved.” He says, though he seemed to be saying that more to himself than to Harry, “I feel that that was very foolish.”
“Yeah, nowadays you seem like you’d rather disappear than have the attention of another human being.” Harry blurts out without thinking, and Malfoy’s eyes are scared when he looks away.
Harry had been watching him, trying to understand him in the last month. He doesn’t know why, but there is something odd about a Malfoy that doesn’t like to boost out his own name and how wonderful he and his family are all the time. Harry realizes that when Malfoy stopped talking, somehow his actions grew louder and he seemed different somehow. Like he had never been that bad.
They don’t speak again during that day, Harry reasons that he had scared Malfoy off by almost admitting that he had been watching him. In the next day, Harry decides it was his turn to ask a question and that was what he does when Draco is reading a book on the couch and Harry is finishing his Charms work.
“Do you ever think of how would the perfect day be?” He asks.
At first, Malfoy doesn’t answer, but his breath grows quicker and Harry can’t hear the frenetic page-turning anymore.
“It would be quiet,” Malfoy answers at last. “And there would be nothing to be regretted. There would be smiles, real smiles, those ones that people give each other because they want to, and not because they have to.”
Harry takes a while to answer back, but he knows that Malfoy is also hanging on to the silence he left. He has to answer how would his perfect day be, but he thought that Malfoy had already answered that for him.
“Mine would be like that too,” He sighs. “Except that it would involve just a tiny bit of Quidditch.”
Malfoy laughs and his laugh takes the whole room, it’s full and real but it only lasts a few seconds, because then he goes back to his book. Harry smiles to himself and they keep living on that ideal quietness.
Just before they are ready to sleep, Malfoy turns around and asks, his expression serious.
“Now that you have died and he is gone and cannot kill you anymore, how do you think you will die?”
“I always thought he’d be the one to kill me.” Harry answers. “But now I don’t know.”
“I thought he’d be the one to kill me too.” Malfoy drops his head, “I was just afraid that I wasn’t important enough to have him killing me by his own hands.”
With that grim note, Malfoy tucks himself on his bed and falls asleep. It takes a few hours before Harry can stop listening to Malfoy’s voice on his head and finally sleeps.
Malfoy is overall a very quiet person. But sometimes, Harry notices, he sings to himself. He starts off just humming a few songs, but then it develops and he is singing songs with full lyrics. He has a nice voice, Malfoy, a little lower than Harry would have thought, but it is nice to listen to. Always on key, Malfoy sings a few songs that Harry recognizes, a few tunes from the Weird Sisters that reminded him of Ginny at first – but then they didn’t. Malfoy makes those song his own. Harry even starts singing along after a while, and Malfoy looks puzzled at him. Harry shrugs, Malfoy shrugs back and they start singing together, their voices blending nicely as if they had always been meant to.
“Pick someone in the world to have dinner with.” Harry asks one day, realizing that he was missing their weird question time.
“Probably the lead singer for the Weird Sisters,” He answers. “I really want to know what he meant with Magic Cannot Lie.” Harry smiles, “You?”
“I’d pick you.” Harry answers without a second thought, and Draco widens his eyes and looks away. He does that a lot, looking away – and Harry grunts. He didn’t realize what that could mean, he thinks that maybe Draco is thinking that Harry asked him on a date, but it wasn’t that. If he could choose anyone in the world to spend time with, he would choose Draco. He doesn’t know why.
A week passes without Malfoy saying a word to Harry, and Harry tries to be nice with little things – like picking up his quill before he asks for it, or bringing him some toast when he misses breakfast. Malfoy only nods at first, but after a few days, he starts thanking him properly.
It is Saturday night and they are both buried in books, the N.E.W.T. year is really exhausting. Harry keeps trying to find something to say, but his head feels empty and he always runs out of words when he stares at that silver-blonde head.
“There is this very complicated potion that lets you have the body of a 30 year old until you’re 90, and then you probably die...” Harry suddenly hears Malfoy’s voice saying. “And then there’s another one that lets you have the mind of a 30 year old. You cannot take both. Which one you take?”
“Which one you take?” Harry asks back.
“The first one, obviously.” Malfoy answers and he almost smirks. “I would like to keep my body young, fresh and beautiful as it is, thank you very much.”
Harry laughs at Malfoy’s answer, because it really is so like him, and laughs at his almost smirk, and laughs at the fact that they are both seventeen and it’s a Saturday night – and they are both studying in their room, trying to find something to say. Malfoy just stares at him, confused.
“I’d choose the body too,” Harry says. “It’s more fitting for running or flying.”
“You plan to be running when you’re 90 years old?”
“You know how I am, I always manage to get into trouble.” Draco raises his eyebrow and Harry sees the ghost of a smile lying on his lips.
Harry realizes that he and Malfoy have three things in common. First of all, they eat the crust of the bread before eating the whole bread, but Malfoy prefers strawberry jelly when Harry’s favourite one is blueberry. Malfoy is also better at Charms than Transfiguration, Harry notices how he goes through all his Transfiguration work at least twice but finishes his Charms papers quickly and doesn’t take a second glance at them. He likes the second The Weird Sister’s record better than the others, like Harry. His favourite song is the one that Harry used to like the least, though, but from hearing it with Malfoy’s voice so many times, Harry starts to like it a lot.
“Potter,” Malfoy says one day when it’s snowing. “I’m bored. It’s your turn to ask a question.”
“I was thinking how different my life would have been if I had been raised differently.” Harry says. “Do you think about that sometimes?”
“Maybe if I had been taught not to hate, this would have happened a long time ago.” Malfoy answers with a sad voice, gesturing that with “this” he meant the two of them. Harry nods.
“Tell me, Potter, what are you most grateful for?” Malfoy asks after a while.
“I think that I’m grateful for finding a home.”
“Me too.” Malfoy answers, and Harry doesn’t know what he is talking about, but decides not to ask.
It’s December and Malfoy is pacing the room. He goes to one side to the other, looking down, looking up, muttering something non-stop. After a while, it starts getting on Harry’s nerve and he asks Malfoy what the hell he is doing.
“I didn’t know you were here.” Malfoy says shyly.
“Well, this is my room.” Harry answers sarcastically.
“I guess you’d be somewhere else, with your friends.”
“What are you talking about? I’m always here.” Harry rolls his eyes. None of his friends came back to Hogwarts – well, Hermione did but she did it last year. “Answer my question, Malfoy.”
“I’m practising” Malfoy sighs unhappily.
“For?” Harry is impatient.
“Talking to my parents through the Floo.” Malfoy looks to his feet, “It’s just something that I do.”
Harry doesn’t say anything, but follows Malfoy’s gaze. He suddenly realizes that Malfoy is wearing bright blue socks with yellow stripes, and they call out even more attention because Malfoy is wearing all black. Like he always does.
“Cool socks.” Harry says.
“I like them.” Malfoy answers. “I have always liked colourful socks.”
“Why just socks?”
“When I was five, my father took me to clothe-shopping. He said he’d buy me some grown up robes and of course I was all excited, until we got there and he said that, from that day on, I’d only wear black. All day, every day. Like he did. So of course I got all upset and I complained to my mother.” He pauses and smiles to himself, “And she said that I could choose some really colourful socks if I wanted to, because my father would never see them and then he wouldn’t be bothered with that.”
Harry’s smile matches Malfoy’s when he raises his eyes, and Harry starts telling him about when Aunt Petunia made him wear a bright orange overall. It’s far too late at night when they go to bed, the Floo call forgotten, after swapping many stories, competing to see who had the most miserable childhood. Harry often wins, but he doesn’t have to thank his own parents to his misery when Malfoy does. So, in the end, it is really a tie.
Malfoy wakes Harry up in the middle of the night.
“Potter.” He hisses, “Potter!”
“What?” Harry answers half-asleep.
“I dreamed that I could turn invisible whenever I wanted to.” He grins.
“Is that your dream power or something?” Harry replies grumpily. “Because it’s really lame.”
Malfoy looks hurt.
“Sorry Potter, if it’s not everyone who can have a stupid Invisibility Cloak.” He says coldly and turns around on his bed. As Harry’s brain awakens, he jumps off the bed without thinking twice.
“Do you want to try it?” He says.
“Try what?” Malfoy sneers from his bed.
“The Invisibility Cloak.” Harry replies and he watches as Malfoy’s back twitches and flexes under his pyjama’s shirt. He then shakes his head, he wasn’t supposed to be noticing something like that.
“Would you really let me try your Invisibility Cloak?” Malfoy turns his head. His eyes look like hurricanes.
“Yes” Harry answers.
“Alone?” Malfoy asks and Harry catches his breath – he wasn’t expecting that.
“Yes,” He gulps when Malfoy eyebrows are rising. “I trust you.”
“Well, Potter.” Malfoy gets up at once. “That wasn’t your best idea but I won’t let you go back now.” He smirks and Harry goes over his trunk, unfolding the Invisibility Cloak that he hasn’t worn for so long. Malfoy grabs it with his eyes shining and he goes towards the door, he isn’t going to try the Cloak here, Harry notices.
“Potter?” He says after opening the door. “What is your dream power?”
“I used to want to be a metamorphomagus,” Harry remembers. “So people won’t recognize me sometimes.”
Malfoy narrows his eyes and leaves before saying another word, and Harry forgot to tell him that the Cloak belonged to his father and Malfoy better take care of it, but he realizes that he doesn’t have to. Of course he will.