Title: Realizations and Realignments
Author: shattered
Rating: G
Summery: The moment Draco started to fall in love with Harry.
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter I wouldn't be poor.
AN: If any of those reading are writers then you know how good it feels to a get reviews, reviews make my day.
Realizations and RealignmentsHave you ever know someone, or at least thought that you knew them, so well that you could predict any and all of their actions and reactions before they even did them? I did, or well… I thought that I did.
Harry Potter, yes, the Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived,, savior of the wizarding world, him. I hated him for snubbing my offer of friendship for a Weasley, hated him for his apparent ignorance of all the things that I had ever deemed important. I have no illusions of myself, I was an arrogant git, albeit a pretty one. Loathed how he was fawned over, how he never seemed to get in as much trouble as he should have.
But even I knew that there was something weird about him when by third year with all the excruciatingly painful things he had been through he hadn't cried or even whimpered. Pain tolerance to that degree isn't natural. When Harry's on the ground his movements have a sort of efficiency no wasted movements for aesthetics, he had a conservative grace. In the air though he was fluid grace, liquid movement, it's hard to concentrate on catching a tiny gold ball when you're staring at the other seeker, admiring his grace. And I admit it I admired Potter even as I hated him.
But then it happened, I saw something in Potter that I never thought I would, and to this day I still don't know what it was. I guess that I actually saw Harry Potter for the first time that night, not the hero, not the mask, just Harry. And I started to fall, even if I didn't know it then.
It was about eleven fifteen on Halloween of our fifth year. He was leaning out from the battlements between Gryffindor and Slytherin towers, yes the two are adjacent, go figure. Potter was alone and the wind was making his cloak billow out behind him. He'd gotten contacts sometime during summer and his eyes glowed as did his skin. His raven black hair melted into the darkness around him, I could only tell where it was because of the light that escaped the towers high-lighting it. He looked like a tragic hero, you know the type that you read about.
Then he turned toward me, and he didn't look like a hero anymore. I took me a little while to figure out what exactly it was that he looked like. And honestly I didn't like seeing him like that, lost little boy and beaten puppy all at the same time. He frightened me in that moment in a way no ever had before or has since, and I'm an Unspeakable so that's saying quite a bit. The Boy-who-lived was sad, let the sky fall. He had to change state and fast or it'd have broken me in every way someone can be broken.
"Contemplating suicide, Potter? Or simply watching over your domain?"
"I was thinking, Malfoy." His head swung back to the great blackness that lay past the battlements.
"Amazingly productive." This earned me a look then a shake of his head.
"It's not supposed to be productive, Draco."
His use of my given name slowed down my response. "Then what is it supposed to be, Harry?"
"Whatever you need it to be. For me, in this moment it's comforting."
"Why? How?"
"Because…" He seemed to be having trouble putting it into words, "I'm thinking about my parents, what it could have been like if they had survived, if Voldemort had never attacked them, if Wormtail hadn't betrayed them." I'd always thought that Potter would be afraid to say You-know-who's name, but I was apparently wrong, in underestimating him.
"It doesn't do dwell on dreams, Potter." I gave back to him. He laughed, I would later be told that that was what Dumbledore told him when he found the Mirror of Erised.
"I don't dwell, Malfoy, I contemplate. And I limit even that to at most five times a year."
"Such restraint you show, Potter."
"Thanks, Malfoy. You haven't realized how humorous this situation is, haven't you?" He even had the gall to chuckle.
"What do you mean?"
"Here we are, two of Hogwarts greatest, most volatile rivals ever, standing on the battlements between our dorms at midnight of Holloween."
"So?"
"But really the damning thing is that we're both prefects we're supposed to punish people we find outside at this time of night."
"I won't tell if you don't."
"Deal. Goodnight, Malfoy." And as he walked away I saw his walk shift from average teen to born leader within five paces. I didn't respond until he was about twenty two away from me.
"Goodnight, Harry Potter." I almost whispered the words into the wind but I saw him stop, stiffen, and then relax before continuing on his way. He stopped when he got to the doorway into Gryffindor pulled out the key said the password and opened the door. He stood standing in the doorway for almost half a minute, then as he turned away I heard his voice clear as could be right next to my ear.
"Sometimes, Draco, we need forget about who we are and think about what we could have been, and what we can still be. Try it, Malfoy, I think you'll find it enlightening."
AN: Spur of the moment, hope you enjoyed, review please.