Disclaimer: Anything that you recognise from the books is not mine. Pity though, because if I owned Draco Malfoy, he wouldn't be playing second fiddle to Potter all the time.
Dubious Honour
Sunlight reached its fingers into the Transfiguration classroom.
Minutes later, the classroom filled with students as well, sixth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins.
Chatter added to the sunlight and bodies that already occupied the room.
More noise.
Chairs scraped. Quills scratched.
And then-
"I told you to sit somewhere else!!"
The noise stops, the silence ringing in its wake. Students turn to stare at the one who screamed. The sunlight freezes in the corners of the room.
"Look," Blaise said, feeling increasingly uncomfortable at the stares of the other students upon him and the other boy, "there's nowhere else to sit-"
"Do I look like I care, Zabini? I don't give a damn where you sit, as long as it's not near me."
"What did I do?"
"I want to be left alone!"
Silence.
Blaise walked over to Crabbe and Goyle and conjured up a chair. He sat, scowling, and a while later, the noise started again.
From the far side of the classroom, Harry Potter watched the boy who sat alone.
Draco Malfoy had been like that for the whole week, snapping at both Slytherins and non-Slytherins alike.
And for the past week, the whole world had been celebrating a historic event in the Wizarding world.
Voldemort was finally gone.
But the most curious thing was that the Dark Lord had not fallen by the hand of The Boy Who Lived.
No, it had been someone else, but no one knew who it was.
The Ministry of Magic had only come to know of the Dark Lord's fall when a Seer informed them of his premonitions, and by the time they had reached the scene where it had taken place, the future that the Seer had seen had already become the past.
Voldemort was already destroyed, never to return, and the hero whom they wanted to honour was not there.
Draco had been away from Hogwarts when the news came; his father had taken him out of school due to a "family emergency"; but he had arrived back at Hogwarts the next day to find a school very different from the one that he had left.
Classes had been cancelled for the day to celebrate the news, and a few members of the other three houses were starting to mingle with the Slytherins.
Joy abounded almost everywhere; the only exceptions were the handful of those whose parents had been Death Eaters and were now condemned to Azkaban for their evil deeds.
Harry had thought that Draco was probably in an ill mood because his father was very likely one of those locked away in Azkaban as well.
At least, he had thought that this was the reason, until he heard more news.
Lucius Malfoy wasn't in Azkaban.
He was dead.
And the news travelled; it flitted from mouth to ear during lessons and in the hallways and corridors, it was passed from one student to another over the sumptuous plates of food during breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it hovered in the air, ever-present as a topic for conversation and discussion.
By the end of that same day, there were ten different stories to explain how Draco's father had finally meant his end.
And then, Harry decided that Draco was just upset over his father's death.
And as he watched the angry boy force his attention to the book before him, he couldn't help but wonder.
'Who ever knew Malfoy was capable of love, even for his parents?'
***
Transfiguration was over; the bell was ringing for lunch.
"I'll meet you down in the Great Hall," Harry told Ron and Hermione.
The classroom emptied, and he made his way over to Malfoy's desk, where he was still packing away his books, taking his time…almost as if he was waiting for everyone to leave.
"Sorry about your father, Malfoy," Harry said.
Draco stopped packing.
Silence.
"What's there to be sorry about?" he spat. "All of you hated him, didn't you? Don't lie. None of you are sorry."
Silence.
Harry sighed and turned towards the door to leave.
A soft, silky whisper that sounded like a scream in the quiet stopped him in his tracks.
"How does it feel to be a murderer, Potter?"
He turned back.
"What?"
"You murdered your parents, you know." Draco still had his back towards him. "Everyone says that they 'sacrificed themselves' for you, but you have to stop believing that excuse, Potter. You're old enough; take the blame. If it weren't for you, they'd still be alive."
"What're you trying to prove, Malfoy?" Harry hissed.
Draco barked out a harsh laugh as he turned to face Harry.
"'The Boy Who Lived'. Makes you feel so special, doesn't it? You're the special one who lived while everyone else died. Well, look at it this way, Potter. You should've died, you know that, but you lived. You're the one living survivor, and everyone else is gone. When you want someone who will understand what you went through, there won't be anyone. All because you lived, and they died.
"That's another thing, Potter. Do you know what it means to be The Boy Who Lived? It means that someone else died in your stead, so that you could live in the first place. It means that for you to be special, there had to be others who died, others who cried and mourned for them, others who had to be hurt. It means that your whole life, your simple existence, is rooted in all that pain."
Harry's eyes narrowed as Draco walked towards him, and stopped, two desks away.
"Aren't I right, Potter?"
"Why're you telling me all this?"
"Know what we have in common, Potter?" Draco asked calmly, ignoring Harry's question. "I murdered my parents too."
Silence.
Harry couldn't decide exactly what Draco meant. Did he mean that he'd literally killed his parents, or could he possibly mean…
"You killed your own parents, Malfoy?"
"Yes."
"What did you-"
"All my fault, really. I told my mother that I didn't want to be a Death Eater. Don't know what got into me, really. I told her that I didn't want one person having that much control over my life, and I didn't want the kind of sleepless nights that my father had sometimes when he came back from Muggle raids.
"I didn't want a life like that. I didn't want…"
Silence.
"What happened?" Harry asked as he took two steps towards the other boy.
"I renounced Voldemort at my initiation to the Inner Circle. I refused to be a Death Eater. He didn't take rejection very well, of course…
"He was going to kill me, you know."
And then Harry understood.
'I murdered my parents too.'
"You mean your parents saved you," Harry stated.
"They shouldn't have."
Silence.
***
"No. I said 'no'!" Draco's voice rose to a hoarse, - angry? desperate? - scream.
"I was well aware that one's teenage years are frequently one of rebellion, young Malfoy," the sharp, cutting voice of the newly-revived Voldemort snapped. "However…I'd thought that you had enough wit to know that that should never apply to me."
A pause.
"Evidently, I assumed wrongly."
A wand emerged from the folds of the dark robes.
Vaguely, it crossed Draco's mind that it took about two seconds to say the Killing Curse.
Two seconds was all that was left of his life.
He didn't know that so much could happen in two seconds either.
The wand rose, pointed at him-
A figure forming the Circle of Death Eaters darted forward-
He felt his mother's familiar embrace-
"I love you, Draco" whispered in his ear-
Green light-
His mother was dead at his feet.
All was silent for two seconds.
Then he felt the other Death Eaters beginning to close in on him.
One wrapped his burly hand around his upper arm-
And "Avada Kedavra" flew through the air again.
The Death Eater who had a hold of him, released his grip and dropped dead, another body at his feet.
"Perhaps your foolishness runs in the family, young Malfoy," Voldemort hissed, now enraged. "Lucius, you all of all people should know that I do not take treason lightly-"
His head turned to stare at where he thought his father was; he couldn't see very well in this dim light…
But he was rather confused…
His father? Tried to protect him?
But he had thought that his father didn't care-
"Draco! Don't stand there; run!"
He had thought that his father didn't-
"Run! They won't let you live!"
He had thought-
"Want to save your son, do you?" Voldemort sneered. "I'll deal with you later; I want you to watch him die first."
Two voices said the Killing Curse at the same time.
Green light shot towards Voldemort from his father's wand…
And another sliver of green light arced towards Draco from Voldemort's wand.
Draco stumbled backwards and fell, instinctively (and futilely) raising his hands to protect himself.
And everyone present witnessed what it must have been like, on the night that Harry Potter had lived.
The green light reached Draco-
And suddenly veered away sharply.
Almost as if it couldn't stand to touch him.
Lucius' Killing Curse had already weakened Voldemort by now and the Death Eaters watched, transfixed, as the Curse reflected off the boy and back onto the Dark Lord.
For the second time in sixteen years.
But this time, Voldemort did not live.
The cloak shrouding the Dark Lord fell to the ground, smoking with the stench of sulphurous vapours. The Death Eaters, except for Lucius, screamed and fled, clutching their left arms.
Draco could smell burning flesh.
He crawled over to his father, now lying on the ground, and pushed back the sleeve of the cloak. The Dark Mark was there, bright red like a fire's embers, burning, eating its way into the flesh.
He turned away from the sight.
"Father?" Draco shook the man's shoulder. "Father…?"
Dead.
One of the Death Eaters had driven a blade into his father's chest. A final act of vengeance for betraying their Lord.
And suddenly…Draco was alone.
Here he was, kneeling by his father's body in a dimly lit forest clearing…his mother's corpse was not far off…and also nearby, the remains of another Death Eater and Voldemort.
Another Boy Who Lived.
But this time, one who immediately wished that he hadn't.
***
Draco sank into the nearest chair, the look in eyes alternating between sadness and anger.
Harry quietly moved closer.
"So…you're the one who the finished Voldemort."
"And you think I care?"
"No. Actually, I guess I am the only person who can understand you right now." Harry pulled up a chair for himself near Draco's.
"Unfortunately," Draco muttered.
"Don't be an-"
"Shut up."
Silence.
"I know that you don't really care that you killed Voldemort. I know that all you want is your parents back."
Draco said nothing.
"Look, I understand. Honestly. I've felt the same way for the past six years, I think."
Long silence.
"I thought they didn't care."
"Huh?" Harry blinked, not making any immediate sense of what Draco had said.
"I thought my parents didn't care about me. They never really had time for me, so I…assumed that I didn't…quite…fit into their idea of a lifestyle."
"Oh. I guess…it turns out that they did love you."
"I know, and that's the part where I really hate myself."
"I'm…not understanding you."
"You hardly knew your parents, Potter. And when your parents died, they probably believed that despite how young you were, you loved them. It doesn't matter; you were too young to say it then.
"I had sixteen years to say it, Potter, and I never did, simply because I believed that they didn't love me. It never occurred to me that perhaps…they weren't too sure of whether I loved them either. My parents died without ever knowing that I loved them."
"So you're telling me that you regret never saying 'I love you' to your parents in your entire life?"
Draco looked thoughtful.
"Yeah. I suppose that is what I'm trying to say."
"Maybe they did know, Malfoy. Your mother wouldn't have died for someone whom she didn't think loved her. Did you ever think of that?"
"No."
"Perhaps you should."
Silence.
"Potter?"
"Yeah?"
"How do you stand it? Being the Boy Who Lived, I mean."
Harry shrugged.
"I don't. I don't think about it much, really.
"When I do think about it though… I just feel that there're a lot of people who lost the ones that they loved when Voldemort was still in power. It doesn't count for much, but I sort of console myself with the fact that at least the deaths of my parents made a difference.
"Your parents' deaths made a difference too, Malfoy. They…sort of finished what mine started."
Draco smiled wryly, still not looking at Harry.
"I suppose they did make 'a difference'. Is that what you've been telling yourself all these years?"
A short pause.
"Something like that."
Yet another period of silence.
Harry was starting to realise that these were the kinds of silences that happen between people who've never really known each other.
"Being the Boy Who Lived suddenly isn't so glamorous, is it?" Harry chuckled softly.
Draco said nothing.
"I'm always here, you know."
Draco looked up, finally meeting his (ex?) arch-nemesis's eyes.
"What?"
"As much as you might dislike the idea, the two of us actually have a quite a lot in common now." Harry paused, his eyes squinting a little behind his glasses as he stared at Draco. Then he grinned.
"And I'm not the only one in this school with a 'stupid scar' now."
Draco scowled as he realised that Harry had spotted his own souvenir from facing Voldemort, and clapped a hand over the side of his neck.
Harry chuckled at Draco's reaction.
"Come on, let me have a look."
"Just because we have certain things in common does not make us instant best friends, Potter," Draco spat.
Harry ignored Draco's glare as he prised the other boy's fingers off, and found himself looking at a short, jagged line of raised flesh on the right side of Draco's neck. The line swelled to form a small knob at one end, and tapered to a point at the other end.
"It looks like a snake," Harry pronounced.
"I know." Draco shook Harry's hand off.
Silence.
"Like I said, I'm here if you want someone to talk to."
"Why're you being so nice?"
"Maybe because I just found out today that you could be nice if you tried."
Silence.
"We didn't really start off well," Draco stated.
"No. We didn't."
A hand entered Draco's field of vision.
He stared at the proffered hand, then at Harry himself.
Harry simply smiled back at him.
"I'm Harry Potter."
A pause.
"Draco Malfoy," he answered as he accepted the handshake.
And faint smiles graced both their features.
End