Draco got a quick smile on his face, wiped away in a second - though Harry could still see his eyes smiling. "Oh, I've got to tell you about the time I disassembled the family library!"

Harry got this funny look on his face, slightly widened eyes, and a grin that said, you didn't! "You what?" he prompted.

"I was all of seven at the time! I really don't know what I was thinking, other than I was alone and it seemed like fun. I started by pulling down all the books. At seven, that took more than eight hours - all the running up and down the ladders."

"You pulled all the books out?"

"Yeah, there were thousands. It's not as big as Hogwarts, but it's still... impressive."

"I bet Hermione would drool over it." Harry said thoughtlessly, his grin fading as Draco directed a sharp glare at him.

"She'd be better off never seeing it." Harry looked sharply at Draco at that comment, thinking and then rethinking whether he really wanted to ask that question. Lucius Malfoy was a well-known pureblood supremacist, after all.

"Anyway, when I was done with that, I started in on the shelves, pulling down each and every one - and then disassembling them into the boards."

"Wow, no one said anything?"

"I think the houseelves were busy, and my parents... weren't around. The latest incarnation of Governess had sadly been let go." Draco put on a moue.

"What did you do to make that happen?"

"More like what didn't I do! Governesses were constantly leaving, saying that they couldn't stand my arrogance, my conceit, my impudence." Draco smirked.

"What did you do to leave that impression?" Harry asked, leaning close even though on a horse that sent him sidling in the opposite direction.*

"I was my charming self." Draco smirked, and then sneered, "It's not my fault if they didn't receive proper training."

"I'm not surprised." Harry said with a cheerful grin.

"I'd refuse to recite any lessons to her, and then when she'd complain, my father would test me and I'd answer perfectly. I think it was actually the smirks that sent that one off though."

"That was enough?"

"Well, it was clear that I wasn't going to help her, and she didn't know how to competently evaluate my learning without me answering questions. Not terribly creative, I must admit."

"Oh."

"Harry, you're distracting me."

"Sorry."

"It must have been midnight by the time my parents found me. I had been working since eight in the morning - so busy I forgot to eat, and the house elves too busy with cleanup to realize that one of them was supposed to have reminded me!"

"Wow, I'm surprised you weren't asleep!"

"I very nearly was... bent over a book well above my age level. When they walked in, I simply looked up and asked, "What's a grindylow?" "

Harry guffawed at the idea, and Malfoy continued, "Oh, they were so upset. But the upside of it was, I got a new wand!"

Harry paled, thinking of what Uncle Vernon or, worse, Aunt Petunia would do if they had found him acting so carelessly with their stuff. "They... they didn't punish you?"

"Oh, that was part of the punishment!" Malfoy cackled, "A full month where I couldn't leave my room except to go to the bathroom - at least that was my parents idea." He quieted down, and said with a sneer, "Fails to show sufficient remorse." His expression cleared, and he said with a smirk, "That's what my godfather said, and, to be fair, he's always liked books more than my parents. He was the one that made certain I got a wand. One that I was forced to stare at - without even books for company - for a solid month." Draco frowned, "It was discipline, pure and simple, sitting there and thinking of everything that I could do with a wand, and yet not even allowed to touch it." Draco said with a thin smile. "They had Dobby watching me, you know? I couldn't even twitch towards the wand without him coughing."

"I know the feeling." Harry said, and if Draco thought he said it a bit too fervently, he didn't comment - directly, "What, the Boy Who Lived got punished?"

"Yeah." Harry said shortly, "A lot" he said, and he kicked his horse forward into a trot. Draco spent a few seconds looking after him, wondering how that managed to strike such a nerve. Probably had something to do with his unwillingness to discuss how he had lived as a child. Some of what he was discussing from Hogwarts would be enough to drive an interested adult completely gray.

*horses move away from weight.