This was a challenge I found on and I couldn't resist putting my own twist on it. I'll probably do a sequel sometime, when I don't have so many stories clamoring for my attention.
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Harry kicked a chip of stone back and forth between his feet as he walked down the echoingly silent hall. The only sounds were his own breathing and the clatter of the stone as it bounced over the roughly finished floor, which was just how he wanted it. No sounds meant nobody to distract him from his thoughts.
Which was good, because his thoughts were confusing him enough as it was without the continual interruptions he'd gotten since he'd confessed the recent direction of his thoughts to his friends. Not that it was something bad. Indeed, he rather thought it was a subject any orphaned boy would ponder often.
His father. The problem was that nobody really seemed to want to talk about his father with him. Sure, he could go to Moony and Padfoot if he wanted stories about the pranks they had gotten into, or the headmaster for how he acted as a man with a family and an order member, but when he asked things like what sort of magic his father had favored, or just general habits, he was told of James' dedication as a student, how he somehow managed to excel in his studies even with his rambunctiousness. But what did he study? The subject was always subtly changed away from this, usually with an exchanged glance if he was with more than one person at a time. And getting Moony and Padfoot apart long enough to have a serious discussion was a hopeless task. Though, whenever this happened, Sirius had a pained look on his face, as though he didn't want to hide whatever it was from Harry' which actually had been his biggest clue something was being hidden in the first place. Everyone else seemed to accept it as best. Even Snape never hinted he knew anything besides the vitrol he'd spewed so often.
He stopped, sinking down to sit crouched against the wall. The question was, what were they hiding? Obviously, with the exception of Snape, they were hiding something they thought would hurt him. He knew nothing else would silence his godfather, short of an obliviate. And though he hated Harry with a passion, Snape would follow Dumbledore's orders until this war was over, as the person he hated most was Voldemort, though if he'd confided the reason to anyone, they hadn't informed Harry. He sometimes thought that was why he was so spiteful to Harry, because he didn't dare let it show before the dark lord. His eyes fell closed and he leaned back to rest his head on the wall, sliding the rest of the way to the floor at the same time, hands dangling wearily, his arms resting on the spread knees.
He had no idea how much time passed –he could, and had, fall asleep in that position fairly easily, especially if he was in a corner- but slowly he became aware of someone in front of him. He opened his eyes, and was unsurprised to be confronted by seemingly bottomless pools of mercury, though how Draco had gotten that close to him without disturbing him, Harry didn't know. Yet there he was, sitting on his heels, Harry's fingers just missing the fabric of his shirt.
"Am I getting predictable?" he asked before Draco –he found it impossible to call him Malfoy unless he was angry anymore- could say anything. Draco smirked.
"A bit. I overheard Weasley saying something about you going off to kick a rock, so I knew you'd end up here eventually." Harry frowned.
"Things like that could get me killed if the wrong person knew," he said softly, and Draco stiffened.
"I thought you'd decided to trust me,' he said tightly. Harry casually backhanded him in the stomach. He had become comfortable enough around Draco that he didn't bother to control most of his impulses around the blond anymore, unless they had an audience. Ron and Hermione would be shocked though. He usually wasn't a very tactile person and almost never violent, unless he was worked into a temper, which was rare. His relatives had certainly trained him out of emotional responses.
"I didn't mean you, idiot! But if you figured that out just from observation, so could your compatriots." He smiled slightly at the way Draco relaxed at his first words, then stiffened again at the last. Slowly, the blond relaxed again, and reached up to grasp Harry's limp hand.
"That is true, but now you know to be cautious." He glanced around. "Though personally, I can't see why you'd be attracted to this dusty old place anyway."
"Then why is it, whenever I come up here, I find you?" Harry teased gently. He loved sparring with the blond; with his masks off he was so unpredictable. Harry never knew what outrageous thing he'd say next, just to make Harry laugh. Draco raised a supercilious eyebrow.
"I come up here only because it's the only place I can find you alone, and I daren't let people know we're friends," he sneered, and Harry laughed at his smugness.
"I wish we could just tell everyone," Harry said wistfully after a moment. Draco looked sad as he turned to curl up against Harry's chest.
"You know I can't. If father found out, he'd either kill me, or try to use me against you." Harry leaned his head against Draco's, eyes falling closed again.
"I know. It's just frustrating. Now that I have friends, I don't like having to hide any of them." Draco wrapped his arms around Harry's waist, snuggling his head against his collarbone. Having been deprived of gentle touch since his parents' deaths, Harry found it very comforting from people he trusted. It ws just a pity, Draco reflected, that there were so few people he trusted. He didn't seem to have anybody but himself, Weasley, Granger, and Sirius, and Draco of course. Draco had met Sirius and liked him, but he didn't care for the other two except as mild sources of amusement when he was bored.
Detention with Snape was never pleasant, but detention when he was still smarting from one Death Eater meeting and looking forwards to another one soon was excruciating.
"What do you really have against my father?" he yelled suddenly, out of patience with the man. "It can't just be that he bullied you, because you never go on about Sirius and I know he was worse!" To his surprise, his outburst was not met with more diatribe, but a thoughtful look.
"You truly wish to know why I hated your father?" Harry nodded earnestly. "He was the only real rival I ever had, and he always seemed to win."
"My father what?"
"Your father wasn't really the saint everyone pretends he was. He was a very skilled wizard of the dark arts." He looked pensively down to the papers he was grading. "In school, all the teachers preferred him to me. Lily and Lupin were the top students, but everyone loved precious Potter. Even Slughorn favored him, though I was clearly the better brewer. Bet he regrets that now," he said snidely.
"But then why do you hate me? Because I remind you of your rival?" Snape just looked at him for a long moment.
"Oh, you innocent, innocent child." Harry looked confused. "It's not just that you remind me of him, you remind me of what he won." At Harry's blank look, he growled. "Your mother chose him over me, even though she was my best friend since we met, and she hated him until the middle of sixth year." He looked into Harry's pensive face. "Yes, Potter, that scene was no one time thing. She made herself my protector, though I really didn't need it."
"And then she left you," Harry whispered.
"Yes. I demanded she choose him or me, thinking she'd choose me and things would go back to the way they were before, but she choose him, and we never spoke again."
"Professor, why are you telling me this?" Harry asked in a hushed, almost reverent version of his normal speaking voice.
"I'm telling you this because it's the anniversary of out last conversation and I am drunk. And if you ever tell anyone that, I will hex you into next week, give you a year's detention, and take a hundred points." Harry smiled slightly at the grandiose punishments.
"I won't sir. Everyone deserves the chance to drown their memories, even snarly professors stuck overseeing detentions."
"Thank you, Potter," Snape said haughtily. Harry was sure it was the first time in his life he has ever strung those three words together, and he was drunk and being sarcastic.
"I got mad at Siri about that, you know. Nobody deserves to be treated that way. Mum was right about that," Harry said as he slipped from the room. He hurried to the tower, walking right past his friends in his hurry to get to bed.
"Tomorrow, please," he begged when they followed him. "I don't want to think about it tonight. I just want to sleep."
"Are you ok, Harry?" Hermione asked worriedly. Harry nodded.
"Fine. Be even better in the morning," he said as he collapsed on his bed. Hermione sighed as she closed the drapes around the bed.
"Goodnight Harry."
"'Night mate." A snore was their only answer.
"Wait, he said what?!" Ron exclaimed loudly, not noticing the blond walking up behind him. Harry, from his seat against the tree, did, but he didn't care if Draco heard.
"He said that my father was a dark wizard, and his rival," Harry repeated in a freaked-out voice.
"So your father practiced the dark arts," Draco drawled, making Ron and Hermione jump. "Join the club." Harry stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. Draco smirked.
"Thank you, Draco," Harry said after a few moments. "I needed that." Draco's smirk widened, and he nodded.
"You practice dark arts too!" Ron accused.
"Your point?" Draco asked indifferently. "It's not practicing that makes you evil, it's how you use it." He turned and walked away before Ron could reply. Nobody noticed Harry's thoughtful look.
"Sir?" Harry asked as he approached Snape's desk. There had been a slightly uneasy truce between them since Snape's drunken revelations, and they were almost getting along since he had gotten that in the open.
"What is it boy?" Snape said dismissively, not bothering to look up from the essay he was grading. "Shouldn't you be running off to your next class with all the other little monsters?"
"I had a question, sir," Harry said hesitantly.
"Well, spit it out and quit wasting my time!" Snape snapped.
"I was wondering… ifyou'dteachme. Sir."
"Speak distinctly, Potter. I don't have the time to sort out your mutterings."
"Would you- would you teach me?"
"I attempt to teach you every time you step into my classroom," Snape said repressively.
"No, sir, I meant would you… teach me Dark Arts?" Snape carefully set his quill down, and looked up at him.
"Repeat that. I must have misheard you."
"Would you teach me dark arts? Sir?"
"Why would you wish this?"
"Well, I know I can't defeat him with what I'm learning now, and I looked through some books and I think it'll help, but I know I can't learn it on my own. I'd need someone who understands to help me. And Draco said it's now you use it that matters." Snape picked up his quill again, deliberately ignoring the youth on the other side of his desk.
"I'll think about it," he said finally. Harry grinned and bowed slightly before leaving the room.