Silence reigned and they had about ten minutes to go until the food was done.

Harry really wanted to know what on earth Malfoy had been thinking with Tristan and the bloody chair, but figured it was better to try to keep things lighthearted.
He didn't much feel like having some sort of escalation here, since returning him to the manor unconscious would make for an awkward moment with Narcissa.

Besides, maybe Harry could casually gather some insight into the nonsense that was Malfoy.

"When's the last time you were out?" He asked, casting his net wide and hoping to catch something useful.

Malfoy had been drinking his coffee and made eye contact over the rim of the mug. It said SPICE in coloured letters, each of them depicting a different Girl.
When he finished his sip he lowered his hand, not breaking eye contact.
He didn't look like he was going to answer.

"Why do you ignore harmless questions?"

"Anything can be weaponised." Malfoy slowly raised his chin as if to look down on him in preparation.

The effect was rather ruined by him holding the mug, even if it was standing on the table.

Harry grinned. "Anything?"

Malfoy nodded.

"Even your favourite colour?" Harry was interested. This was definitely some insight into his mental-ness.

"…people can be manipulated by their preferences, and subtlety and efficiency go hand in hand."

Harry was reminded of Interrogation Tactics and tried not to engage with the thought.
"Why would someone want to manipulate you?"

"The world wants me dead, someone might get creative."

"…with your favourite colour?" Harry tried to remain casual.

"…they could make me warm up to them, invest in winning my trust. A favourite colour won't do much in itself, but everything else being equal, it might sway me. Say — a hypothetical person spends a great deal of their time interacting with me, discusses 'shared interests', and begins wearing an item of clothing in that colour… and if I don't know that they know, I might not be fully aware of it, but I'll be slightly more fond than I might otherwise have been. Then they might 'up their game' and gift me something in said colour, claim they prefer it too, or mention things that are blue… "

That could have come straight from the Interrogation Tactics reader.
Harry had begun to grin and Malfoy gave him an admonishing look, so he tried to get his face back to polite interest.

Malfoy continued. "Such as the sky, bodies of water, you know. Again, it wouldn't be enough in itself, but it might just be enough to tip the balance. Besides, if they employ other interests and preferences as well, it might make me more likely to cave under the duress."

"…'cave under the duress'? Of friendliness?" Harry knew exactly what Malfoy was saying, but he wanted to know the scope of his suspicion and he wasn't sure how else to get there.

Malfoy gave a small firm nod. "…whilst laughing behind my back and struggling not to do so in my face."

"Okay, this person is a dick…" Harry sipped his tea. "And then? Are they going to kill you with blue?"

"Of course not. But there is more than one way to kill someone…" He got all wry and sardonic again. "…and I'm not talking about murder."

Harry considered that as he had another sip.

Malfoy kept his eyes on him and sipped his hideously strong coffee.

"…you get on well with Johnny though, don't you?" Harry asked, as he mentally insisted he was just making conversation.

Malfoy's face froze and something seemed to 'shut' behind his eyes. He slowly lowered the SPICE mug.

"Sorry…" Harry asked, having a sip of tea to look busy as he thought. "Is er… is he your… you know…?"

There was no response so Harry finished the question anyway. "…boyfriend?"

Malfoy silently looked at him, a shade or two paler than before.

Just when Harry decided that it was time to change the topic, the answer came. "Auror d'Errico is married, Potter."

The unceasing expressionless stare was freaking Harry out a bit.
"Oh," He said, a bit too quickly perhaps. "That's nice. So er…" He cleared his throat and realised that Malfoy's response hadn't actually been an answer.

Interesting.

"How come you trust him, then?" Harry asked. He knew Johnny had apparently been somewhat 'in Malfoy's favour' from the start, but he had no idea why.

"Why would you think that I do?" Malfoy's tone seemed casual again.

"Well, you were speaking Italian — "

"And that's the language of trust, is it?" Malfoy cut in.

"I don't know? Maybe?" Harry wasn't sure why he was getting defensive. "He put his hand on you, didn't he? And he told you to Floo him."

"A language, a Floo call and a pat on the arm is all it takes, is it?"

"I don't know, I'm asking." Harry got up to check on the casserole.

"Hm… You ask entirely too much." Malfoy said before taking another sip from the SPICE mug.

"I'm making chitchat, okay?" Harry said as he looked into the oven.

"Don't."

Harry opened the oven door and poked a knife into a casserole. "Don't?" He asked, then got the knife out. "You'd rather sit in silence?" He held the flat side against the back of his hand to test the temperature, and decided the food was hot enough so he got the oven mitts.

Malfoy watched silently as Harry got out plates, cutlery, and placed the baking dish on the table.
"…you are aware that you're a wizard?" He drawled when Harry sat back down again.

He'd taken another seat — the one across from Malfoy. Not because he wanted to antagonise, but because he usually sat there and he'd been too distracted by the smell of Molly's cooking to think straight. "Yes."
He scooted his chair forwards and looked at him again. It was weird to have Malfoy there rather than one of his friends.

…it was also weird that this counted as work.

"…why would you choose to do things by hand —" Malfoy began haughtily, but he seemed to catch himself "…when you have a wand?" He sounded tense.

"It's what I'm used to," Harry said, deciding not to get into the whole hand-situation and keeping things neutral for the time being.

"You don't er… pray before meals or anything nowadays, do you?" Harry asked, thinking of Carter, especially. There were a few of the MACUSA lot that did and it had created a few awkward situations in the break room.

He didn't actually expect that Malfoy did though — the main reason he'd mentioned it was because a change of topic was welcome.

Malfoy's twisted wry grin returned and he sat more upright, moving his fucked up left shoulder a little as if to draw attention to it.
Harry resigned to hearing something horrible.

"Thank you, Lord, for blessing me…"

The way he'd intoned it made the room feel cold.

His grin became a little wryer. "Isn't there another one…? Hm… Father, who art in heaven…" Then he scoffed and his eyes shone. "…I prefer to be influenced by what I know to affect me."

Harry had expected digs of some kind… this had been relatively… respectful.
He responded with a little noise of acknowledgement rather than with words, just to be safe, and plated up for both of them.

Malfoy had prodded the casserole on his plate with his fork and had taken a few small bites.
A bite of pepper, a bite of mince, a bite of cheese and a singular bit of pasta.

Then he'd picked out small pieces, raising them on his fork to look at them, before placing them back on the plate and prodding around some more.

Harry couldn't help watching — he was right in front of him.

"Did you prepare this?" Malfoy asked, studying a piece of pepper covered in sauce.

"No," Harry said.

Malfoy gave him an odd look. "You certainly trust whoever did."
It sounded like an accusation.

Harry looked at his own plate and back at Malfoy. "I mean — obviously."

Malfoy nodded as if in thought, then ate what was on his fork. He showed no enthusiasm but no disgust either — he looked as if he was trying to work out something theoretical.

"…do you like it?" Harry asked.

Malfoy shrugged.

"Molly Weasley cooked it," Harry felt mildly victorious, but also realised he was bracing himself.
Malfoy hadn't asked - was Harry trying to provoke him?

"Hm," Malfoy said, surveying a tiny piece of onion on the left prong of his fork. "She killed my aunt."

It sounded casual.

Harry nodded carefully.
He didn't much fancy cutlery being brandished at him, but he didn't like Malfoy's tone… even though it had been neutral.

"…she killed my godfather," Harry said into the silence, suddenly feeling tense. "Which is how I got the house."

"Yes, yes," Malfoy sounded bored. "You won."
He prodded the food some more — he'd had about half a tablespoon worth of it in total.

"Did you get on with her? With Bellatrix?" Harry asked carefully.

Malfoy shrugged his 'bad' shoulder after a few seconds. "I owe her quite a lot."

"Yeah…" Harry said, remembering the memory he'd seen.

He wanted to break something again and might have stabbed his food with more fervour than it deserved.

Was there any way he could apply Deescalation Tactics to himself?

…perhaps he could vent some of his frustration subtly if he made it ridiculous.
"Why do you like blue?" He asked with some aggression.

Malfoy cocked his head to the side. "…is that not allowed?"

"No, you can only like green." Harry said firmly, then stabbed his food again.
This situation was stupid — why couldn't he just not be angry?

"…have you gone a little mad…?" Malfoy asked, sounding a bit like his aunt.

It wasn't helping.

"Not as mad as you, I'm sure."

"It's not a contest, Potter…" Malfoy trailed off, but he seemed serious.
He'd narrowed his eyes and looked at Harry as if he was searching for something.

"What?" Harry snapped after a few seconds.

"…what would you do if you owned the world?" Malfoy asked, then raised another piece of pepper on his fork to look at it. "As some… omnipotent monarch, or a deity… how would you make it the best it can be?"

"…what?"

"Did I stutter?"

"No, but… How do you mean 'own the world'?"

Malfoy seemed a bit miffed. "I know in a sense you already do, but it's a hypothetical situation." He looked at him admonishingly. "Interpret it however you please, that's part of it."

"…part of what?"

"The question." Malfoy finally ate the piece of pepper he'd held up. It had passed some sort of test, apparently.

Harry considered it for a bit. "I guess I'd… revoke ownership?"

"…you would be able to do absolutely everything - rearrange continents, reorganise politics, solve all crises and cure all ailments, but you would politely decline?"

Harry caught himself beginning to grin but reeled it back in. "Eh… yeah. That's what I said."

"You're not going to stop all diseases and establish world peace and other such things?"

"Okay, sure." Harry nodded. "It's decided. Nobody can get sick anymore and everybody's happy."

"All right… Very noble…" Malfoy prodded his food a bit. "…but now it's overpopulated."

"I'll make it bigger."

"…are you going to inflate the planet's physical bulk so everything is further apart? Or… would you rather increase the size of everything here so it takes up a bit more space in the universe? Because if you choose the latter, it doesn't solve anything apart from that Your Holiness might no longer need glasses to see it."

Harry grinned. "I choose both. There's space for good stuff and everyone is healthy and it's literally great."

Malfoy made a face as if he'd made a good point. "…this would be a fair and just world, too?"

Harry nodded. "Obviously."

"Would there be discrimination based on colour?"

"Obviously not." Harry became a bit more guarded.

Was Malfoy a Muggle-style racist, too?

That made the situation with Tristan even more disturbing.

Malfoy nodded, apparently considering this. "…so your ideal world would be fair, just, healthy, bigger, and exempt from discrimination based on colour… and you agree that we must all strive for our ideals, don't you?" He gestured with his fork, twirled it around a bit and looked at it as he spoke.

"…yeah…"

"…then why am I not allowed to like the colour blue?" Malfoy's eyes snapped to his and he pointed a bit of mince at him, confronting him with it.

Harry laughed — incredulous, but mostly relieved. "That's where you were going with that?"

Malfoy hadn't moved but the gleam in his eyes was victorious.

"Right, okay, fine. You're allowed to like it." Harry said as if he was condoning it and Malfoy nodded curtly before taking a bite.

Harry grinned. "And you? Any specific plans with 'the world'?"
…then he realised he'd just asked a Death Eater this question, and resigned himself to hearing something horrible.

"I would dispose of those hideous American accents, for a start." Malfoy said viciously. "Every single one of them sounds as if the speaker has a deficiency of some sort, either in the jaw or in the mind."

"…this has been bothering you for a while, hasn't it?"

"You have no idea." Malfoy's nostrils flared.

"…and what will you do with it once the accents are gone?" Harry asked.

"I'd kill the whole thing with fire," Malfoy said viciously, stabbing a noodle with his fork.
He'd had about a tablespoon worth of food by now.

Harry remembered the Room of Requirement and a shudder went down his neck.
"…bit violent."

"There are Spice Girls on it, Potter. There's no saving it."

Harry snorted. "They're not a plague."

"You said they were 'all over the place' — what am I supposed to think?" He ate the noodle as if to emphasise the point.

"Yeah, as a media sensation."

"Too bad." Malfoy shrugged. "It's gone."

Harry chuckled. "Okay. So now what?"

"Hm," Malfoy sighed as he considered it, soundlessly placing his fork beside the plate.
"In the Middle Ages they believed that the Earth is where it is and that gravity exists the way it does, because there is a force of attraction in this part of the universe."
He looked as if he was squinting to read something off the cupboard.

Harry suspected he needed to catch his breath after a sentence that long.

Malfoy continued: "Matter clumped together through its pull and because its strength is consistent in all directions, the world is round."

"…I thought people in the Middle Ages thought the world was flat."

Malfoy looked at him with condescending exasperation. "That's Early Modern gossip."

"Is it?" Harry laughed. "Okay, sure."

"Perhaps the ignorant believed that, but the people with access to knowledge were quite taken with The Philosopher's ideas."

"…you want me to ask who The Philosopher is, don't you?"

Malfoy shrugged, took his SPICE mug, angled it to look into it and put it back down.
Then he looked blankly at Harry.

"Oh I'm sorry — would you like some more to drink?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"I am omnipotent, be grateful you have the opportunity to serve me." Malfoy sounded serious.

Harry laughed. "Sure, Your Holiness." He got up and took the mug. "More quadruple coffee?"

"Water." Malfoy angled his face to the side and did a little eyebrow movement.

Harry got up and took the mug to the counter, then considered whether to get him a glass.

He placed the rinsed out mug filled with water on the table.

Malfoy looked at it and then back at Harry as if he'd seen him spit in it.
"Really?" He sounded scandalised.

Harry shrugged and sat back down, pleased with himself.

"I'm a guest," Malfoy bit through gritted teeth.

"Are you actually mad about a Spice Girls mug?"

Malfoy took a quivering breath and his mouth became small. He did look genuinely angry.

"…you prefer the Union Jack one? I can rinse it out for you."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes but the rage seemed to have mellowed a little. He just seemed annoyed now.

"…didn't want to 'unduly change' something, did I?" Harry grinned. "Since all alternative things are involun— "

"I shan't speak with you anymore." Malfoy snapped.

"Oh come on," Harry said, amused, still teasing.

"This is exactly what I meant." Malfoy snapped, teeth gritted.

"I'm not using it against you," Harry said incredulously. "Can't you tell the difference between 'messing about' and an attack?"

Malfoy continued to look at him with the exact same expression. He didn't otherwise respond.

"…you don't think this is a bit…" Harry paused, wondering if this would escalate the situation.
Then he decided he wouldn't mind if it did.
"…childish?"

"It's childish to have standards?"

"No, it's childish to have something offered to you, and throwing a fit over the way it's presented." He looked at the mug and back at Malfoy. "Very bloody ungrateful, if you ask me."
Then Harry took it, poured its contents into the sink and cleared the rest of the table, too.

This was mostly residual rage — or was Malfoy carrying Residue along somehow?

Harry rinsed off the plates and stacked them.
Then he turned back to Malfoy who still glared at him, eyes wide with fury.

It was exactly how his dad had looked at Harry when he'd set Dobby free.

"I should be grateful to you?" Malfoy said it nearly voicelessly, his breathing deep and controlled.
He was livid.

Why was Harry more comfortable now?

Had he wanted a fight?

…then he realised he'd just turned his back on an armed war criminal.

Constant vigilance

What the fuck was wrong with him?

"Malfoy, it's a fucking mug, okay? Calm down."

"Grateful? Because you suddenly decided to watch me?" He seethed. "Did you think I would prefer you over a stranger?" He intoned it as if Harry was something nasty. "Because if so, you are sorely mistaken."

"You don't keep them strangers for long," Harry snapped back.

Be professional.

He took a breath.
"Have some Draught of Peace, okay?"

Malfoy took the bottle out of his pocket and threw it to the side, not breaking eye contact. It shattered against the window sill and its silver white contents dripped down uselessly.

Harry'd drawn his wand at the crash and then pointed it at him.

They stared into each other's eyes for a tense few seconds, and then Malfoy began to grin.

"…are you going to cast Incarcerous on me?"

"I might do; tie you up like the worm you are and take you back to your mum." Harry swallowed, blood boiling. "She seemed fond."

Malfoy cocked his head to the side but his expression didn't change.
"If you use that tartare spell of yours again, you might achieve your goal more efficiently," He said, eyes glittering with malice.

"What?" Harry asked, distracted from his anger.

"Cut me up, Potter. You've done it before." He bit his lip. "I do prefer silver over black…"

Harry lowered his wand, feeling sick to his stomach.
"I'm not going to do that."

"Why not? I won't tell anyone…" Malfoy put on a mocking thinking expression. "Though come to think of it… They would probably thank you for completing the Purge… and then you could clean the manor without distraction and keep my Mother company."

Harry put his wand away.
"I'm taking you back."

"Oh, there's no need for that… We're having a wonderful time, here in her childhood home…" Malfoy cocked his head to the other side.

Fuck's sake.

Harry took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, okay? I was being a dick."

Malfoy was silent for a moment, then sat more normal. Some of the malice seemed to leave him.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus," He said, before giving Harry an odd look.

Harry scoffed. "Seriously?"

Malfoy continued to look at him as if there had been no response at all.

"You told me to bite back, didn't you?" Harry asked curiously.

"Bite back — the implication is that I go first."

"…about a mug though? You get this upset about a bloody mug?"

"It's not right." Malfoy said seriously.

"This is my home, okay?" Harry said, but Malfoy stiffened at that.

"Yes yes, you won."

"No, I mean — I do things differently and this is my…" He didn't want to rub in that he owned his mum's childhood home again. " — you're with me now. So dumb shit like the receptacle you drink from is something you're just gonna have to deal with."

"Dealing, dealing…" Malfoy raised his hand as if to show his innocence, then placed it on the edge of the table.

He'd moved his stump along and looked at where his left hand would have been, had it mirrored the right.

"Coffee?" Harry asked, starting to fill the machine again, glad to have a reason to turn away.

"I'll have tea, thanks." Ginny said from the doorway.

"No; get out the way Ginny. No I like you but fuck off please." - My beta