"I haven't told you about the time I stuck mud down Pansy's sundress, have I?" Draco Malfoy said, his grin like a fish's tail slapping the water, swift and silvery.

"No..." Harry drawled.

"Oh, it was hilarious. And her mum wouldn't believe that I did it!" Draco Malfoy said, starting to laugh. Harry was reminded of how cruel he had often found the other boy to be. Nice to see that he hadn't completely lost his sense of the other boy.

"What did she believe, then?" Harry asked, knowing a straight line when he saw one.

"That Pansy had ... shat herself!" Draco Malfoy chortled with glee, "All that mud dripping out the bottom of her dress."

"I bet Pansy was in tears when her Mum took her to get cleaned up." Harry said, concealing his sadness a little.

"Of course she was!" Draco Malfoy said, grinning, "But it's the after that's the real story. Her mum was over for a party, and the party ran so long that I managed to fall asleep..." Draco trailed off, before looking at Potter again, "And the first rule of revenge is strike while they're sleeping." Draco's face contorted itself into some semblance of somberness, as he said, "When I woke up..." letting his voice trail off in the most dramatic way possible, "My hair was burning!"

Harry Potter looked wide-eyed at Draco, who had broken out in gales of wild laughter - again. "Wasn't that-scary?"

"Oh, sure, for about a second or so - then a house elf dropped water on me, and it was all fine." Draco Malfoy said with a smile. "Except Mum didn't see it that way, and fussed over my burnt ends for ages."

Harry tried not to chuckle over the alternate meaning of burnt ends, but finally gave it up as futile and started to laugh. It felt strangely freeing - and to think, over such a horrible little story... Still, no one was truly harmed, so it wasn't all that bad was it?

Harry spoke up a bit later, as they were heading towards the top of a rise, the foothills growing higher as they rode towards the edge of the moor. "Ron and I almost didn't make it to Hogwarts last year."

"What happened?" Draco asked chattily, "Was it Muggles? Figures that's what'd happen to the son of a -"

Harry cut Draco off, before the other boy said something they'd both regret, "No, it was your house elf. Decided to shut the portal, and leave us both stuck on the other side."

"With muggles?" Draco said eyeing him strangely, "Why?"

"He figured I'd be safer there." Harry said softly.

"With Muggles?" Draco repeated, his eyes wide and teeth shining.

"I did live with them for the first ten years of my life, you know." Harry Potter said reprovingly.

"I... I forget." Draco said, suddenly looking uneasy at how he had been sounding.

"We found Ron's father's automobile, and we rigged it to fly us to Hogwarts." Harry Potter said.

"What's an automobile?" Draco Malfoy asked curiously.

"A carriage that works without horses. It runs the muggle way, with electricity." Harry Potter said. "It also doesn't generally fly."

"How did this one, then?"

"Magical modifications by Mr. Weasley."

"You two got in trouble for that, didn't you?"

"Snape wanted us expelled, but..." Harry paused, and sighed, "Not really. Cost an arm and a leg, and got Mr. Weasley in trouble."

"Oi, I heard about that." Draco Malfoy said, "I just believed it was likelier that the Twins had managed a remote confundus than you'd have managed to fly across the entirety of Great Britain."

"Yeah, it makes you wonder where the Aurors were, doesn't it?" Harry said, and behind him, the dog wagged his tail.

[a/n: sorry this is so late. it's a bit longer to make up for it. ]