Chapter 3: We're Not So Different, You and I
Draco sat at the table fuming. He'd had an awful night's sleep, he was stuck next to Potter, then Granger came and sat opposite him. And to make matters worse, Potter started talking to him! But the first sentence out of Potter's mouth instantly snapped Draco out of his anger, and replaced it with confusion. "I heard your nightmares last night, Malfoy. And saw what you did when you had them. Do you… want to talk about it?"
Draco didn't know how to respond to that, so he responded in the only way he could think of: stony silence. Then Granger chipped in "It's not just you, Malfoy. Everybody had bad dreams last night. But talking about them helps." When he still didn't answer, Potter took it upon himself to drag a response out of him. "You were curled up in a ball, with your hands over your face. That's a defensive position, trying to make yourself as small a target as possible. And you were begging for mercy, for your father to stop doing something to you. He hit you, didn't he? I know what that's like."
When Draco found his voice, his reply was scathing. "And how exactly could you possibly know that, Potter?" "Because I've experienced it too, Malfoy. Just for different reasons. My Muggle relatives hated me. I had to cook and clean for them. I wasn't allowed to eat with them. Only when I'd done all the washing up was I allowed to eat their leftovers. And there weren't many of them. When I showed any sign of magic, I was beaten. When your Hogwarts letter came, it was addressed to you, all the way down to your bedroom, right?" Draco nodded. "Well, when my first one came, it was addressed to Mr H Potter, The Cupboard Under The Stairs." "What do you mean, "first one"?" "My uncle burned it. And the next one. And the one after that. And all the ones after that. And nailed the letterbox shut, blocked up the chimney, and stopped buying eggs when a dozen letters showed up, each inside an egg. Finally, he took me, my aunt and cousin out to this shack on a rock in the middle of the sea, because he thought that a letter couldn't find me there. It took Hagrid showing up, blasting the shack door down and hand-delivering me a letter that I finally got to read it."
Potter stopped talking to eat his breakfast, but Granger picked up the conversation. "Not all Muggles are like that though, Malfoy. My parents are proud of me. The reason Harry's relatives hated him was probably because they were afraid of magic - it's easy to fear something you don't understand. And it's a small step from fear of something to hatred of it."
Their breakfast finished, Granger and Potter got up to leave. Potter paused a moment before he left and said quietly so that no-one but Draco could hear him, "Go talk to Professor Strange about your father, Malfoy. He helped me get away from my relatives, he can probably help you somehow." Draco gave a curt nod, to show he'd heard and had taken it under consideration. As Potter left, Draco's facade of apathy cracked, and he whispered, with a wobble in his voice, "Thank you, Harry."
A/N: Bam! Emotions! Apologies for the delay in updating, but writer's block is a cruel thing, especially when you need to write something which you're not good at IRL - talking about feelings.