Peeling

Draco woke with the sun penetrating his eyes - it was extremely disconcerting, not just because of the throbbing brightness behind his lids, but because he had forgotten to close the blinds before going to sleep the night before. He felt exposed, even if the windows were charmed so that nobody could see into them.

Then a flashing image, a split-second grey silhouette stretching across the window and covering him, and his racing heart calmed its trembling palpitations.

How pathetic, he chastised himself and thoroughly brushed all images of yesterday afternoon out of his brain. To further distract himself he performed all necessary morning ablutions, even getting his hair perfect down to the most minute of strands, before he opened his door and looked out into the blotchy, shadowy corridor which provided little comfort to the nerves he constantly felt.

With a quick trickling of understanding he realized that most of the house was still asleep - none of the usual racket was sounding downstairs. He decided that he preferred it this way; the inhabitants were quiet so that the house's natural, eerie song could sound through, a quiet melody of creaks. The only human harmonies were of the slow breath of sleep and a few distant sounds coming from... Draco's sharp senses pinpointed it - from the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley must have been preparing breakfast again before the morning wake-up shout.

His feet crossed the house with more ease this morning, subconsciously using the map of the house he had in his head for all its faults - he could remember each creak in the floorboards, where each room was located (of which he had seen) and where each door and window was. He could probably memorize each crack in the ancient walls if he had felt the need. This talent he did not attribute entirely to the wolf's keen senses - he was much the same with Malfoy Manor, where he had often played isolated hide and seek in as a child.

This is why he surprised Mrs. Weasley again as she turned to grab the peeler.

"Ah, Draco! Good morning!" She said in her cheerful tones and Draco graced her with a small smile, which was only partly feigned.

"Good morning." He replied, his eye already straying to the pots and pans that reminded him so much of concocting potions in Snape's dungeon. With a painful wrench in his stomach he thought about Hogwarts - would he even be allowed back? He found Mrs. Weasley still to be watching him, so made it pass over him and away.

Mrs. Weasley merely smiled at him, though it wasn't with the scorn that someone like Draco's father would have shown for a moment of weakness like that. "Would you like to peel the vegetables for me? It's for dinner tonight - I like to get peeling and chopping out of the way."

Draco blinked. Peeling? He slowly took the proffered peeler and examined it. Mrs. Weasley laughed.

"It's just a peeler. Here, I'll show you how to do it." She summoned another from the draw that opened itself and picked up a carrot. As Draco watched he realized it was rather how he peeled things in Potions with his peeling knife - this is easy!

There was something satisfying about peeling the vegetables that he had never before felt - a simple, raw pleasure that he assumed one could only get out of such menial tasks, which was why he had never experienced it in his old life. Soon he had ploughed through the pile of carrots and moved onto potatoes and then parsnips. Then he chopped everything up with meticulous precision, including all the things that could not be peeled.

He stood back and admired the work. Then he felt a stab of annoyance that soon, by dinnertime, all his efforts would be wasted on hungry stomachs. Perhaps this was why Mrs. Weasley did this every day, for a satisfaction that lasted mere hours.

"Great job," Mrs. Weasley commented casually as she looked them over, "right, now we're going to lay out everything for breakfast!"

Draco was most surprised to feel no resentment that she was including him in things - he felt, well, included. It was nice, he admitted to himself, even if it was house-elf work.

***

Harry sighed languidly as he descended the stairs for breakfast, making a loud creak with every footfall. Today, Sunday, was a rest day as it had always meant to be. Mrs. Weasley never gave them anything to do, so he could dedicate his day to playing chess and exploding snap with Ron and the twins, reading... possibly the book he had impulsively borrowed from Draco who had impulsively let him.

Unless Hermione roped him in to trying to knit for her elf hats again (he had attempted it once after a copious amount of nagging - he had ended up wasting a lot of her wool in the end when he had tangled it all in the needles. Even Hermione said that knitting without magic was rather difficult.)

This time he was one of the first in for breakfast - the only others there were Mrs. Weasley, who he could have betted galleons on for being present, Lupin, and less predictably Draco. For a second he took in the sight of the boy adjusting a knife every so slightly to the right before he sat down, as if this were a meal for his family's pure blood friends, not a group of people he often professed to hate.

Then he sat down as not to bring too much attention to himself. Malfoy shot him a look anyway, one of frank disapproval that he was used to. He didn't understand why he was receiving it on this particular occasion, though.

Mrs. Weasley let out an errant chuckle. "You're not in the right place."

He looked around his part of the table, non-nonplussed. Then he caught sight of the name next to his upturned glass. Ronald Weasley. He could have laughed himself, imagining the look on Ron's face when he read that, full name and everything. Ron hated his full name. Then he got up with a mumbled apology, carrying a bemused smile with him as he found the right place, quite far away from Ron's. It was strange - usually he sat next to Ron, though today he had been feeling a tad anxious about it - he and Ron hadn't spoken last night after Harry had been avoiding him.

He risked a curious glance at Malfoy, who was sitting nearly opposite him - had he done this? It certainly wasn't what Mrs. Weasley usually did, and the handwriting was that of elegant calligraphy - it screamed Malfoy. Also, the places seemed like Malfoy's machinations - Hermione and Ron were sat together, along with the twins and Ginny, the people who Malfoy liked least.

Up this end were the adults, who Harry surmised Malfoy found less troublesome - Malfoy was flanked by Mrs. Weasley, who had taken an odd shine to him and vice versa, and then Remus, who was still, always, at Grimmauld place nowadays. Harry himself was the anomaly of the situation, unless Malfoy was being surprisingly considerate and seating him away from people he had fallen out with. Was Malfoy even capable of such small kindnesses?

Malfoy caught his gaze and hastily looked away like Harry burned his eyes. Though it wasn't a blaze of disgust, it was - something else. Harry blinked and looked at his empty plate instead. This was getting more and more surreal.

"Good morning, Harry," Lupin addressed him with a smile, "did you sleep well?"

Ron and Hermione entered the room and things weren't normal with them either. Hermione gave him a lingering look of sadness, her eyebrows beginning to knit together, which made Harry's stomach shift uncomfortably with guilt. Ron didn't look at him at all, simply sat down in the nearest available chair, which Harry noted as the place belonging to Ginny.

A small cough sounded, causing all heads in the room to swing towards Malfoy, even Lupin's (Mrs. Weasley was in the kitchen.) He raised an eyebrow at Ron.

"That's not your place, Weasley." He lifted his pale, aristocratic head and fixed his target with an even more trenchant stare, grey eyes icing over.

The reaction to this comment was painfully predictable and Harry grimaced in wait.

"What the hell are you saying, Malfoy?" Ron glared at him, "Am I too lowly even to sit at the table anymore? Is that what you're trying to say?"

Lupin jumped in just before Hermione or Draco could. "That isn't what he means - we all have places today. You'll find that yours is one to the right from where you are now." He fixed Ron with a placating smile that seemed to quell his anger. Draco watched smugly as Ron shifted places - his ambiguous comment had worked and he hadn't received any trouble for it. Harry could have scoffed at his earlier thoughts - Malfoy didn't have a kind bone in his skinny little body!

Ron scowled again at his full name in such ostentatious writing, but said nothing more. Hermione warily slid into the seat next to his, still looking occasionally at Harry who was conveniently looking away, watching Lupin reading the Daily Prophet. The cover held images that now Harry knew well - the terrifyingly insane ones of the more recently escaped Death Eaters, Bellatrix acting as centrefold. Obviously the Prophet was having a slow news day for once. Or perhaps they were saving the more grisly snippets of war news to the inner pages.

He found his eyes again being drawn to Malfoy, who was also eyeing the newspaper with an expression Harry had never seen on him wear before - apprehension. He seemed genuinely nervous about something to do with the Death Eaters, which at first struck Harry as strange - he was the son of one after all. Then he brought himself back to reality: Draco was living in Number. 12 with the Order now, so he must have upset the Death Eaters somehow. Or his father had. Either way, it was logical that he feared them now if he was hanging around with people Voldemort considered to be deadly enemies.

He wished he could discuss it with Hermione, for her logical explanations that always sorted things out, but that was too risky an option. He would have to keep his burning curiosity to himself for now, because he didn't feel like asking Malfoy again.

As Ginny and the twins flooded in, pausing only to find their seats, and Mrs. Weasley instructed them to dig in did Harry stop thinking about it. He found the sight of food even more appetising than it had the night before, with a smile that extended right to his heart and stomach in a warm glow that lit the cold caverns of his insides. Each bite seemed to fill him, not just physically, and it was intensely gratifying.

Sirius still occupied a void inside him, one that would never ever close completely, but day-by-day he admitted that it was becoming more bearable. Day-by-day.

***

After breakfast had been eaten, Draco silently pronounced it a success - even if the group had been much more quiet than usual, he accepted it as due to morning sluggishness and enjoyed it whilst it lasted. There really was nothing like the restrained breakfasts at Malfoy Manor with mother and father, but this would have to do for now.

In any case, this household seemed to have its own charm buried deep, deep down that Draco decided to accept the existence of - it mostly resided in the talents of Mrs. Weasley, who strived to turn a nightmare house into a home. She had an air of authority that begrudgingly reminded him of his own, far more beautiful mother, but she also possessed a warm kindness that he had always secretly craved from his mother, but which he had never really received as a child.

He had always seen the looks she gave him, ones of fervent love that she had to hold back, but it always hurt that she held it back just because his father had instructed her to. Would one embrace really have been too much of a risk? He carefully contained the unreasonable childhood resentment that began to try and escape from the place he had long ago locked it up - he had been far too emotional of late as it was. Her last look at him, at the beast he was now, would be enough, would be the last look he would probably ever get from her until his dying day.

The beast protested, feel what you want to feel, but he gave it an internal yank at the scruff to quieten it down.

If there's one rule you learn whilst living in my body, it's that no irrational feelings can reside here. They're too perilous.

He looked up when somebody else entered the room - Professor Snape. Draco just about stopped himself from leaping up and running to his side. Snape fixed him with a look that Draco couldn't read, but said nothing. Behind him there seemed to be other people who emerged to be the tall serious man, the one who looked like a Basset hound, the clumsy Tonks girl who tripped on the way in, someone who looked like another Weasley but far more stylish than the other brothers, a blonde witch next to him, two more witches and a wizard that he did not recognize and Dumbledore, a tall presence behind all of them who also looked at Draco with a soft smile. Draco looked away, not knowing how to react.

Lupin smiled at them all on their entry and approached the Tonks girl with an obvious shyness that would have made Draco scoff, if he hadn't been otherwise occupied. Mrs. Weasley gave all the younger occupants of the room a contrasting stare that clearly showed she was about to dole out orders.

"Come on, the Order's having a meeting, clear out." She said to Potter, Granger and assorted Weasley children. She turned to Draco, "I'm sorry, but that means you too - you're too young to join the order as it is." Draco shrugged and left with one last look at his Godfather, who he hoped would be staying for a while after this pesky meeting.

He was left in the hall with all the other under age people, most of which gave him a sour look now Mrs. Weasley wasn't about. Draco felt a little bit vulnerable - he was outnumbered.

"Come on," said the main Weasel with a narrow-eyed glare at Draco, "let's go to me and Harry's room." He and the other redheads bounded off with ease, Granger behind them shortly after with one last look at Potter. Potter however, stayed where he was despite Ron's look back at him. Looks could say more than words, Draco observed.

Potter was looking at him now and he stared back, not willing to look away and show any weakness. Potter shifted and blinked, opened his mouth to say something. Draco searched through his head for possible retorts.

"Um - do you want that book back yet?" He asked, catching Draco off guard - why was he continuing to be so civil, even when his friends weren't?

"N-no, it's fine," Draco said as if on auto-cue, "Keep it until you've finished it. I have other books to read." Embarrassingly, he sounded as breathless as a first year girl with a crush. He did not have a crush! The wolf growled in amusement and he wished he could kick it, hard.

Harry smiled at him, smiled in that stupid way he did, and Draco's heart lurched strangely. "Thanks. Well, I guess I'll - I'll see you later." He bounded up the stairs with as much grace as a pack of gold-hungry Nifflers.

Draco experienced the strange sensation that someone was slowly peeling back his skin and spreading a viscous potion there, one that made the skin on his face and neck heat up unbearably in a flush. He couldn't decide whether it was, paired with his racing heart, a pleasant sensation or not.

He almost felt as if he was looking forward to the full moon then - after that he could rein in his ridiculous feelings and eradicate them, for they could not continue to exist.

A/N: Let's just call this a reflection chapter a.k.a complete filler chapter :) I just couldn't think of plot for this one! Though this one is personally inspired - I too feel a sense of fulfilment when peeling carrots.

A huge thanks to Merthurtilidie (Nyes, I plan to put Ron to future use...), xo i love emmett xo, Imperial Mint (an interesting point, I may put it to further use but I can be a bit scatterbrained with remembering to put in ideas...), Pinkbismuth (I'll try to update again soon! XD), F4LL3N-1NT0-0BL1V10N (no, thank YOU! :D), miss quirky bookworm (Harry's persistent as a... erm... persistent Hippogriff XD) and jewle69 (here's an update for you! I think it was quite quick... :D) Whoo, I love your comments! :)

Next time on PW: Hang on, let me think of something first! :P