Chapter 2 of Friends In Unexpected Places

WIP

Enjoy guys ;)

2/?

Draco sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, knowing that static had probably already done enough damage to his hair to fix it. His lower lip hung in a pout. Draco loved his hair; it was most definitely his pride and joy, aside from everything else about him, of course. He smirked as his own self-confidence.

Draco's fixation on himself was broken by the low moan that rolled in Harry's throat. "Yum," Draco murmured out loud, staring openly at the boy shifting in his sleep. He shook his head angrily. "I mean scum. Yeah, scum! Cause that's all he is." Draco glared at Harry who was apparently still out cold and sprawled across the floor. He gently touched his sore cheek, a heavy reminder of his mistakes the night before. His intentions, last night, had been to scare the pants off of Harry, but he had never planned on going through with it. Harry just…got under his skin, bothered him, and the last comment he made was just too much.

"I'm too rash." Draco said, shaking his head at himself. "Pathetic!"

It was now morning, as both Dudley and Draco found it incredibly convenient that Potter had passed out on them, giving them an escape route from dealing with their situation. After all, it was best to shrug off just one night.

Draco sighed again, wishing the bloke would just wake up already, seeing as it was nearly 10 o'clock in the morning already and most likely Draco's father would be arriving soon.

Harry groaned again, yet this time his eyes began to flutter open. 'Perfect,' Draco thought with sarcasm. He immediately lay down next to Harry, on his stomach, watching intently at Harry's awakening. He made another indistinguishable sound, and suddenly Draco could see Harry's eyes. He never noticed how incredibly green they were before, the dark night and only a faint light from the TV prevented that. They were positively enchanting. He resisted the urge to pull on one of Harry's curliest hairs, which was currently spread out over Harry's forehead.

"Malfoy?" Harry whispered, not fully awake yet. Draco applauded Potter's ability to recognize him in his state of dishevelment.

"Yeah, it's me." Draco's fingers casually curled themselves unto Harry's left arm.
                "What are you doing…on the floor?" Harry asked, bringing himself to a sitting position, letting Draco's hand fall off. Draco scowled, but loosened it up quickly.

"Nothing." He said, stretching lazily, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, the first smile that didn't seem intimidating on him. Yet at the same time it seemed unnatural.

                "I don't think it's nothing." Harry said, a small, mysterious smile forming on his own face.

                "I happen to have just woken up, thank you very much." Draco teased Harry, poking him in the abdomen with his index finger. Harry giggled, and shrieked as Draco poked him again, in his sides.

                "So ticklish, Potter." Draco said, highly amused. Harry found himself grinning with earnest, the first one since he could remember. It slowly faded as he remembered just whom he was with, and just what had happened the night before.

"Where's Dudley?" He asked, not smiling any longer.

"Getting you some ice." Draco said, confused at Harry's mood change. He slowly rolled from his stomach to his back, positioning himself closer to Harry, their arms making full-on contact. Draco bent his head to the right, looking at Harry.

"What's the matter Potter, a late night rough and tumble have you all moody in the morning?" He asked, jokingly.

"Shut up!" Harry yelled, countering Draco's remark. Harry looked deep into Draco's eyes, seemingly to look past them, into them. Apparently, he had touched a nerve.

"What do you know about me anyway? You just met me didn't you? The first few hours we spend together you spend trying to pummel me. Just shut your mouth okay?" Harry rolled over on his side, facing away from Draco. The fist of Draco's arm curled tightly, his knuckles clenched and ready to fight.

                "You don't exactly know everything about me either, Potter." Draco growled and stood up so vigorously, Harry nearly rolled away from the force of it. Harry scoffed and watched out of the corner of his eyes, Draco walk out the door.

                "You don't know anything…" Harry grumbled to himself, his eyes scrunching in invisible pain, hating the feeling of being so alone.

The moment Draco walked into the kitchen he found Dudley stuffing bacon into his mouth with shiny, round, greasy fingers.

"I thought you were getting ice." He said dully, and somehow, he wasn't surprised that Dudley was eating instead of helping his cousin.

Dudley tried to respond to this comment but couldn't for the shear amount of food in his mouth was preventing that.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Draco started to say, grabbing a plate from the kitchen counter. "Potter's fine." He started to put some of the still sizzling food on his plate methodically.

Dudley nodded his head, for he couldn't do much else.

 Draco put the fatty, slippery mess into his mouth, his eyes heavy and tired for staying awake most of the night. His insides already felt queasy from last night and this morning, but the bacon didn't help one bit.

"I wanna go home." He whined, feeling more and more helpless by the second.

Draco had long since left by the time Harry had gone downstairs.

"Good riddance." He said, feeling very relived. He didn't know what he would've done or said if he had seen Draco.

                "Morning." Harry said gruffly as he took a seat by Dudley, who was still working at half a plate of scrambled eggs, smothered with bright red ketchup. Right as he took a good hard look at Dudley's food, his appetite lessened, and he figured he could wait it out 'til lunchtime.

                "You missed it." Dudley managed to say between bites.

                Harry looked unfazed. "What did I miss Dudley?" Replying, nearly automatically.

"Lucious." Dudley said simply, cherry-red cheeks aflame. Harry's head snapped to attention.

"What about him?" Harry asked quickly, amazed at his own interest in the Malfoys.

"Came over 'ere." Dudley made a noise that suspiciously resembled a pig, snorting.

"Com'on Dudley, tell me what happened!" Harry nearly shouted.

"Draco…" Dudley started. "Told his dad about how grand a time he had here, and how he loves our family, including you." Dudley pointed at Harry and laughed. "Lucious was thrilled. He wants to talk to Daddy about the business tomorrow."

"That's good…I guess." Harry sighed. He knew that he was secretly hoping that Lucious and Vernon had gotten in a fight and Lucious had slugged him one. Then again Lucious seemed too elegant and classy to merely 'slug someone one.'

"It's wonderful. That means that, that afternoon I'm going over to Draco's house, so the adults can talk, you know that business." Harry nodded, waiting, anticipating, for Dudley to tell him he was going as well.

"It's grand! Their house is bloody amazing, it's huge huh? Haven't you seen it from across the street?" Harry sat in silence.

"Am I allowed to go?" He asked, hesitating.

Dudley shrugged. "If Draco wants you to go."

Harry's hopes shattered like glass on tile. Draco would never want him to go, after blowing up at him this morning, and initiating the fight the night before.

                "Then again, freak, I think he likes you." Dudley shoved the last forkful of egg into his mouth. Harry looked up from twiddling his thumbs, eyes wide in surprise.

                "Y-you do?" He asked. Harry was all but ashamed of himself, the way he was acting. "Why do you say that, D-Dudley?" His tongue had troubles forming the word around his mouth, since all he had ever called his cousin before were things like fathead and pig.

"He stayed up practically all night worrying about you. Kept going on about how you were dead." Dudley shrugged again. "I wouldn't mind if you were dead though, eh stupid? Nah, I just let him go on and on until I agreed to let him give you a blanket and such." Dudley paused and thought. "Seems like a good guy. I'm sure he'll let you come, as long as you stay out of us men's way, right?"

Harry nodded and stood up from the table, no longer having any interest in food. He was stunned from what he just heard. Draco was upset all night, just because he got hurt in their fight…

At first he was a bit touched, and felt a little remorse for being so rude to Draco this morning. But then, as the day went on he felt angrier and angrier. Draco had a very distinct, confident, and overpowering personality. What was it about Harry that turned him into a sniveling, worrying, helpless, human being? How could he just give up his appearances to pretend to care about one stupid little boy? That must mean Draco was fake. Whatever Draco was, was fake. Either he was mean, self-assured, and selfish, or he was caring, sweet, and clung to his arm. There was no way he could be both.

                Harry sat in front of the living room television, listlessly wasting away the last month of summer. He yawned. It was only two in the afternoon and he was already bored. He heard sounds coming from upstairs; no doubt Dudley was playing with his new GameStationX. Which was, of course, the newest and top brand of all the gaming systems. He scowled. If only he was born a different person, someone worth being spoiled and doted upon.

Suddenly, the telephone rang. Harry kept walking to his cupboard doors in search of something to do, knowing that it wasn't for him. The ringing ceased, and so did Dudley's GameStationX. Apparently, he hoped it was for him.

"HARRY!" Aunt Petunia screeched from in the kitchen.

Harry almost tripped on his way to the cupboard, so shocked that someone would call for him, and terribly startled by Petunia's loud shriek. One name formed in his mind. Draco.

"Coming Aunt!" Harry called and high tailed his way into the kitchen, where Petunia was holding the phone out by one hand, giving him her best suspicious glare. Before handing him the phone, she whispered to him "I do hope that you are not giving out this phone number to any of your friends," she spat. "I don't think Vernon would like it," she threatened, shaking a finger at him.

                "Hello?" Harry tried to speak without his voice wavering.

                "Oh, Hi Harry." A bright female voice spoke to him. Aunt Petunia, standing beside Harry, noticed the very peculiar look of confusion on Harry's face, which gave her even better reason to scold him more.

                "Pardon?" Harry asked. "Who is this?" He held the phone up closer to his ear, hoping he heard the voice wrong, and a smooth, silky, male voice would be talking to him in the other end, inviting him to his house.

                "I'm terribly sorry, this is Hermione Granger." Harry paused, about to tell the girl she must've dialed the wrong Harry, for he didn't know a Hermione Granger.

                "I'm from your high school. Hogwarts High School?" She asked, in an anxious tone of voice.
                "Well, yes, I go there, b-" Harry was cut off as she began speaking again.
                "Thank goodness, I was hoping I didn't dial the number wrong. I was wondering if you happened to have the summer reading list." There was a pause at the other end, waiting for a reply.

"Mhm." He mumbled, still very puzzled.

"Oh wonderful! This past summer I'm afraid the school failed to send me my summer reading list. I've only managed to get half of it from some of my friends, because they couldn't find it but I'll get the rest from you, right?"

                "But we only have to read three books from it." Harry asked.

                "Oh. Well." Hermione fumbled with her words. "I'm doing extra credit for my English teacher, he loves all my essays. I like to interpret the-" Harry cut her off with a few short words.

                "Let me go find it." He set down the phone, and was faced with an unpleasant looking Aunt Petunia.

                "Where did you leave my summer reading list?" Harry asked, as if he was asking the time of day.

                "I didn't touch it, you should know better, Harry," she said menacingly. "You know that I don't ever set foot inside that filthy broom-closet you live in-" It seemed like she was going to say more, but Harry had already pushed past her to go look for his list.

                By the time he had found it in his cluttered space, and gotten back on the phone he was afraid Hermione might have hung up. But she didn't and as Harry began rattling off the names and authors of the books she didn't have he listened to her exclaimed comments, such as "Oh! That sounds exciting!" or "I've read that one four times already…" or even "Oh, that book is only 400 pages, I'm sure it's no good."

Harry didn't think he had ever met a stranger person in his life. He knew that he, himself, would never fancy reading a 400-page book.

                "Well Harry, thank you so much and I'm quite looking forward to seeing you in school again!" Harry rolled his eyes, knowing full well that since she didn't take one whole step near him that previous years, that she probably never would.

                "We're in the same English and History classes!" She exclaimed into the phone, making Harry's ears ring. This was definitely a change of events.

                "R-really now…Well I can tell you right now I am so very excited!" He said with a false tone of enthusiasm.

                "Good-bye Harry, I can never explain how thankful I am. I don't know what I would've done without the 4 extra points on my grade! I might only get a 96!" She squealed.

                "Bye!" He yelled into the receiver slamming it down. He let out an enormously deep breath, regaining his composure.

                "That, by far, tops my weirdest phone calls ever list." Only when he had locked the cupboard door shut to his space and settled in to take a nap did he realize that he didn't even had a "Weirdest Phone Calls Ever" list.