When Malfoy had approached Harry at the beginning of their Eighth Year wanting to turn the truce the two had shared while working together for the Order during previous years into an actual friendship, Harry was more than a little concerned about Malfoy's mental health. They'd spent a lot of time together since their sixth year when Malfoy had come, along with Professor Snape, to Harry and Dumbledore for help. Harry knew that ultimately the work the two of them had done together had been more than a little instrumental in the destruction of Voldemort the year previous. He understood the truce, and could even admit that Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins weren't half bad when you weren't the target of their teasing. Malfoy wanting to be friends was something that Harry was having more than a little trouble understanding.

That brought Harry to where he was currently, sitting in a rather empty compartment on the train (Ron and Hermione were back to Prefect duties) with Malfoy sitting across from him, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and watching Harry expectantly. He'd finished his rather long winded rant about how the two of them should take the truce further and actually be friends at least four minutes ago, and he now appeared to simply be watching Harry and waiting for his reaction.

Harry wasn't exactly sure what to say, since he didn't really know what to make of the situation. Malfoy could be sincere…or he might be setting up one hell of an elaborate joke. Though, in all honesty, he'd learned that Malfoy tended to be open and sincere first, and only if that failed was he likely to attempt to destroy you. It was something about the other boy that had taken Harry more than a year of constant exposure to a friendly Malfoy to figure out, and he likely wouldn't have at all if Parkinson hadn't let slip that Harry's rejection of the other boy's friendship in their first year had gotten to Malfoy more than he had wanted to admit.

He shook his head, looking the blond boy over curiously before voicing the only thought he could likely say without severely offending him. "But why?"

The head of light hair tilted to the side slowly, and the storm grey eyes searched Harry's face curiously. Harry couldn't honestly tell if the boy found what he was looking for or not, because a second later he had turned to the window and was watching the vast green and blue of the world outside pass them by.

He finally spoke, startling Harry minutely, "The better question, Potter dear, is 'why not'. We have spent a great deal of our time together the last two years. We know each other the same way friends would, by now. Does it not make sense to have one more friend, someone who is uninterested in your fame and sees you not as the 'Boy-Who-Lived', but rather just as you actually are?"

"Careful Malfoy, that was dangerously close to making sense. I meant more on the lines of why would you want to? What are you expecting out of a friendship with me?" Harry asked uncertainly. It didn't come up often, mostly because Harry had other friends looking out for him, but occasionally someone tried to befriend him because of who he was and what they thought he could do for them.

His former nemesis rolled his eyes, "Honestly Potter, it wounds me so to think that you would believe such a thing of me!" Harry didn't, not really, but he wasn't about to tell the blond git that. "I wish to gain nothing but the pleasure of your company, you great oaf. It would seem that I may have actually grown accustomed to your presence in my life and find that you provide a sort of entertainment only a Gryffindor with your particular sense of humor can provide."

"And that," Harry said, "sounded vaguely close to a compliment. Are you feeling alright, Malfoy? You haven't fallen and hit your head recently, have you?"

Malfoy snorted, "You're impossible Potter. Is it really so impossible to believe that I would want to be your friend? And I'm not completely incapable of giving a compliment, you know."

He'd always sort of doubted that last bit, but in the last few months of the war had been surprised to find that Malfoy actually could give out compliments. It was just that his standards tended to be so high that he wasn't often surprised enough, or pleased enough, by something someone had done to give out compliments. Harry strongly suspected he'd learned that from Professor Snape. As for being his friend…well, maybe that was left over from eight years ago when Malfoy had asked for a very similar thing. The difference was that neither of them were children anymore. They were men who had lived through a war, had seen death, and had fought for their lives as well as the lives of others. If they could do all of that without killing each other…

With a shrug and a sigh, Harry told him, "Well, alright, I guess. I suspect you'd just badger me until I gave into your weird idea anyways."

There was a rather disturbing gleam in Malfoy's eyes now that Harry thought would make the Headmaster rather proud. "You do know me well after all, Harry." It took him a moment to place the tone of voice that Malfoy was using, but he finally pegged it as pleased with a hint of smugness shoved in as well. Harry strongly suspected that he was going to regret going along with Malfoy on this, or at the very least end up in more than one thoroughly horrid situation. Being friends with Malfoy was probably going to be his grand and terrifying adventure during his last year at Hogwarts. And here he'd actually been hoping for a quiet and calm last year at the school.