Draco smirked, an expression Harry was surprised to see on his face... Had it only been two days? It seemed like longer... "Well, I didn't tell you because we didn't exactly get along."

And Harry, through all his voluminous, billowing rage, had to laugh at that. And, as he guffawed, he had to ask himself, What had he been thinking? How the hell was Malfoy, of all people, supposed to know why no one mentioned it? As Harry controlled his laughter, finally, he said, "Well, there is that, I suppose. What d'ya know?" And Harry Potter tried to put as little of his curiosity into it, and as much indifference as he could.

Naturally, Draco Malfoy caught it, even distracted by wondering on the out-of-character laughter it really wasn't that funny, was it? "Buckets. Your godfather - Sirius Black, is my mother's cousin. She grew up knowing him, but that's not who I learned what he was like from. She remembers him as a carefree, wild child - irrepressible, really. She says he always seemed out of place in the Black Household, where children were supposed to be seen and not heard."

Harry was hanging on every word, sensing the subtle flow of Malfoy's thoughts. Yet, even as he knew that something was off (there was more to the tale), Harry couldn't help but picture a child like that... A bit like Ron, a bit like the twins, mischief seeping out of every pore. A flash of a thought - what had Malfoy been like as a kid? Before this, Harry thought, he would have said spoiled rotten, and perhaps that was still the truth. But who really sees themselves like that, he wondered?

"As you might imagine, Sirius was always in trouble. And then he went to Hogwarts, and everything got a whole lot worse." Malfoy threaded his fingers together, and then unthreaded them. "Sirius got sorted into Gryffindor, which would have been bad enough. His entire family was Slytherin, you know. Imagine if Ron Weasley had gotten sorted into Slytherin?"

Harry's face threatened an irrepressible smile, at Ron-who-hated-Slytherins winding up in that house, by hook or by crook. Shaking his head, he thought of all the Weasley's faces, every one etched in shock... and nervousness, and just a touch of disquieted disbelief. Molly's hushed question of, "did we raise him wrong?" said with just a touch of frazzled nerves.

"Oh." Harry said, eloquent as usual. Beneath his fingers, the big black dog twitched with repressed energy - the need for fun, for anything that wasn't serious - or Sirius, for that matter. He just wanted to relax... and protect these boys. But, even as a dog, he knew some things needed to be said, even if he really, really didn't want anyone to hear them.

"He got along with Potter, you know. They were troublemakers, both, and shameless flirts to boot."

"Not that you have much room to talk about that last one, Malfoy." Potter said oddly lightheartedly.

"I'm a Malfoy, Potter, all the girls come to me." Draco Malfoy drawled haughtily. At Potter's smirk, Draco said, softer, "even if I don't want them to."

There were murky oceans of meaning in that phrase, and Harry Potter caught himself just staring at Malfoy. The moment passed in an eternity, and the story continued.

"Potter and Black were assholes, pure and simple. If you ever, even once, wonder why Slytherins think Gryffindors are self-righteous and smug, you'd only have to look at them to understand."

With green eyes tightly focused, Harry Potter was still, and silent, and listening. It was a pose that the black dog knew well.

"They didn't make friends like Hufflepuffs do... truth be told, I'm not sure many could stand them. Pettigrew was friends with them, but he was worse than Longbottom - a shivering little rat of a human being. Maybe he liked their "friendship" as it got him a bit of protection. They had one other friend, too, but he was... somehow unfit to be at Hogwarts."

"Muggleborn?"

"No, definitely not that. Something... worse, I think. I've never been able to figure it out, really. He's the latest Dark Arts teacher, you know?"

"No, I hadn't... he knew my father well?" Harry's voice shook with nameless emotion. "He didn't say a thing..."

"Maybe he thought you'd say something first?" Draco ventured uneasily, "once you're back at hogwarts..."

Harry's hands shook as he pushed his glasses up his nose again, "Yeah... maybe Hermione will know what's wrong with him..." If anything, Potter mentally commented. Draco Malfoy might have been mistaken...

"Your father and his three friends used to pick on Slytherins. Well, that's not quite true. One in particular - my godfather." Draco added the last part quieter, knowing it wasn't quite a breech of confidentiality to tell Potter something everyone knew.

"When my father went to Hogwarts, he was at the top of everything... But if you want to know why I grabbed Neville's Rememberall." Draco looked away briefly, still speaking, as he looked into the dog's deep brown eyes. "I wasn't going to be at the bottom, for anything. It's always easier to stand on someone else, than to climb yourself." Draco's silver voice was tinged with regret.

"My father..." Harry ground out, his voice gravel, "was a bully. That's what you're telling me, isn't it?" His green eyes blazed with a fire full hot enough to be Godric's own. Malfoy turned away from it before speaking softly, "Yeah."

"All anyone ever told me was how popular he was, how he was a Quiddich star... Why didn't they just tell me?" Potter reflected that he well knew what it was like to be bullied, and no matter what his father had done for him personally, this was also James Potter - and, Harry felt suddenly, he didn't particularly like the man.

"Bad manners to speak ill of the dead... figured someone else mentioned it... or maybe you just weren't listening." Malfoy said quietly, knowing that each of those were the truth, "Of course, there's always blatant favoritism. That might have been Dumbledore's reasoning." he said suddenly - deftly conjuring a distraction precisely when it was needed.

"I think it's time I went to bed." Potter ground out, his voice heavy with unvoiced thoughts.

[a/n: This totally wasn't supposed to happen! Oh, well, conversations and characters lead where they will. Read and Review, or the puppy gets it!]