CHAPTER 7: ANGER ENDS THE WAR
Despite the physical nature of their duel neither Harry nor Draco had been seriously injured in their fight. Draco had blacked out due to blood loss, blood which had been replaced using his mother's blood and some magical leeches. By two o'clock, the blond was awake and active, although not after having been warned off playing in that afternoon's mini Quidditch tournament. Harry himself had only escaped with a few scratches and far more bruises, but nothing serious. But that didn't mean that Harry had escaped unscathed, just the damage, if it could be called that, was internal. His whole attitude towards Draco Malfoy had been turned upside in the half a minute just before unconsciousness had claimed the Slytherin. Now he could now longer hate his supposed archrival, and if anything wanted to be friends with him, and for this reason he was feeling very nervous. The butterflies in his stomach indicated his belief that the chances of Malfoy accepting his proposals were remote, even if the blond's mother would be trying to get her son to agree to the offer of friendship. His nerves only increased when he looked over to see Draco talking to his mother, his emotionless mask failing to hide his depression. Suddenly, the two Malfoys stopped talking, and Draco looked over towards Harry and their eyes met, Malfoy's stormy grey orbs were filled with anger and hatred, which only increased when the blond's feelings weren't reciprocated. Just as Harry had predicted, Malfoy now hated him more than ever. Standing up without breaking the gaze, Harry walked over to the Slytherin.
"You can keep your pity, Potter," Malfoy sneered masking his hatred for Harry, "I am a Slytherin, not a weak little Hufflepuff."
"Good," Harry snapped, even though he had expected Malfoy to say that, he was still annoyed by the tone. His face remained expressionless though, "I'm not offering my pity, just a truce and some understanding of how your father treats you."
"Understanding," Malfoy exclaimed, his sneer increasing, "Understanding is pity and I thought I said I don't want your pity."
"They are not the same," Harry declared, trying to subdue his annoyance at the other boy's attitude, "I understand the way your father treats you, as the wizarding world does the same to me." Malfoy scoffed at this, making Harry even more annoyed, "It's not easy being the Boy-Who-Lived you know, everyone expects me to be perfect and when I'm not they hate me for it because my mistakes are splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet. How would you like your weaknesses to be known to the whole of the wizarding world? And then there's the risk of being killed by Lord Voldemort when I make a mistake. How would you cope with being top of Lord Voldemort's hit list? With the darkest dark lord in 100 years on your tail? I suppose you think my life is glamorous don't you? I'm famous, popular, powerful and talented at Quidditch. What more could I want? Well how about a family that actually loves me, and doesn't think of me as a freak," He failed to see the offended glare of his relatives and Sirius sent as a consequence of that comment. Even if he had seen them he wouldn't have cared he had long since lost control of his anger and was beginning to rant, "How about not being gawped at like a freakish sideshow. That's all I am to everybody: a freak. To the muggles I'm a freak because I'm a wizard, and to the wizards I'm a freak because I've got some stupid scar, given to me by my mother when she saved my life, a stupid scar, which everyone judges me by. I'm just perfect Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the boy who is going to save everyone from the evil Lord Voldemort. No one sees the screwed up orphan boy who can't even stand up to his own relatives and is lucky to be alive because of all the stupid reckless things he has done. By rights I should have died five times over by now, but I got lucky instead, my mother died to save me, Dumbledore's pet phoenix healed me using its tears, the convicted murderer I stupidly pursued happened to be innocent and Voldemort and I happen to share the same wand core. One day my luck is going to run out and I'll die because of my damn recklessness. Any you know how everyone will react? They'll hate me because I failed to kill their stupid Dark Lord for them. You Know what? I don't care about their dark lord. He kill them all for all I care, it's all they deserve for putting their faith in a fifteen year old boy who just wants to live a normal life."
Harry had got angrier and angrier as the rant had gone on; waves of resentment had been formulated into words. The pent up frustration within him had exploded into verbal rage, it was surprising and fortunate for Draco that Harry had performed no accidental magic during his speech, considering he angry he was. The hard edge to his tone and the bitterness that was clearly evident in his voice had shocked and stunned the observing family and friends, many of them feeling guilty for the way they had treated the Boy-Who-Lived and for ignoring the fact that underneath the scar and the easy-going façade there was just your average teenage boy who only wanted to lead a normal life.
Draco Malfoy, despite the lack of change in his expression, had not been immune to the forcefulness of the rant. Whilst he was not sharing the collective guilt, the revelations had shaken Malfoy, especially the one that Harry Potter hated, above all, being the Boy-Who-Lived. Potter had always played the role of the Gryffindor hero to perfection, and to find out that he wasn't the self-sacrificing Gryffindor that he made himself out to be was a shock to the system. Although he would never ever admit this to anyone, not even Mother, his archenemy, now, intrigued him. He was desperate to hear more. Then of course there was the fact that it was only fair that Potter reveal his dark secrets. After all, he had done the same at the end of their duel, and the fact that Potter was doing the same made him feel a lot better. Interrupting the Gryffindor while he was taking breath he took the opportunity to comment on the revelations, "I don't care how fucked up your life is Potter, I am not going to pity you." he growled.
"Good," Harry yelled, "Because I don't want to be pitied, I just want to kill the creature that killed my parents and then get on with my life. My mother died to save my life and I intend to repay her the compliment by actually living," Malfoy sniffed at this. Harry guessed that he thought the raven-haired boy hadn't been going about the best way to achieve this, a thought that Harry entirely agreed with, "Even if I haven't exactly tried to do so in the past.
"Then there's that bastard Voldemort," he continued, spitting the dark lord's name in disgust and pure undiluted hatred, "I am going to kill that bastard, not because of the danger he poses to the wizarding world, not because of the threat he poses to my friends and family, but because of the pain he has caused me." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, but it retained it's harder than diamond edge, and the power it expressed. Overall it was a tone, which made many people feel vaguely sorry for the dark lord if Harry's intentions ever became reality, "When I finish with him he will curse the day he ever considered crossing Harry Potter. I will kill him, the slowest, most painful death imaginable. A death by the end of which he will he grovelling at my feet, begging for mercy just as his spineless followers beg before him," There was no hatred in his voce as he talked about the death eaters, only contempt, as if the dark lord's followers were beneath him. Carrying on, he broke out into a truly evil grin, while making the next comment. It was a grin that made several onlookers doubt Harry's sanity, "And I will laugh as he lies dying, writhing in pain. I will laugh as I get my revenge on the creature that has made my life a misery, and if anyone tries to stop me then I will not be responsible for the consequences." The gathered picnickers watched in stunned silence as Harry made his threats, this was the last thing they expected from the Boy-Who-Lived, and many were shocked and horrified to hear such dark words coming from the mouth of Harry Potter.
Chief among the minority who were not horrified by the Gryffindor's words was Draco Malfoy, who understood the concept of revenge and all it entailed very well, after all he'd been trying to get his revenge on Potter for the past four years, ever since he had rejected him in favour of Weasel on the Hogwarts Express. But hearing Harry Potter talking about acting out of such a Slytherin concept as revenge was disturbing, but then that last speech had been the speech of a true Slytherin, no Gryffindor would ever of dream of saying such things, let alone performing them. Draco was thoroughly confused at the turn of events, and wanted to know more, if Potter continued to act like a Slytherin then it would be his interests to befriend his enemy, even such a friendship brought down his father's wrath. He decided to test how serious Potter's comments actually were, "Idle threats," he said dismissively.
Harry looked the Slytherin straight in the eye and smirked, "That was no idle threat Malfoy," he sneered harshly in his previous tone, "That was a promise." Draco knew immediately that every single word that his enemy had said had been serious, and quite frankly that knowledge scared him. Yet it thrilled him too, and not just because being friends with the Boy-Who-Lived would be useful, Potter was right both of the were under a lot of pressure to be perfect and to find someone who at least partially understood that being a Malfoy was not an entirely glamorous.
"You sound like a Slytherin," Draco commented hoping that Potter would take the compliment as an insult.
Harry merely shrugged his shoulders, "Coming from you I'll take that as a compliment. Besides, the sorting hat wanted to sort me into Slytherin, but you put me off the idea." A somewhat offended Draco raised an eyebrow at this, but inside the idea that the sorting hat had wanted Potter to be a Slytherin had shocked him, until now he had seen no indication that Potter was nothing other than the perfect Gryffindor, "Well you were acting like an arrogant spoilt brat, and you did insult Ron, who was my first friend. It wasn't just you though, Hagrid taught me all his lies and prejudices about how all Slytherins were all evil dark wizards. Lies instilled by that manipulative bastard Dumbledore," Harry said the headmaster's name with a fierce sneer that once again shocked Draco Malfoy, "He even sent me to live with muggles so as to keep uncorrupted and free from the influence of other wizards, so that when I got to Hogwarts he could turn me into his perfect little Gryffindor tool. Not anymore, I'm not innocent now, not after Cedric and Vernon, and if that means I have to start acting like a Slytherin, then so be it."
Draco Malfoy was both thoroughly confused and in a state of shock. In Draco's universe three things were constant: Purebloods were superior to Mudblood's and Muggles, Slytherin was the best and Harry Potter was the perfect Gryffindor. To find that one of these three was wrong had shaken Draco to the core, not that he was suddenly going to become a muggle-loving Gryffindor, if anything the idea that Slytherin was the best had been reinforced by Potter's comments, after all if Potter, a Gryffindor, thought that Slytherin was the best house then it had to be true. Of course this logic ignored the fact that Harry Potter hadn't actually said that Slytherin was the best, but to Draco's mind he had certainly implied it.
There was a moment's pause before Harry spoke again to offer the agreed truce, "We agreed on a truce before the duel," he said with a grin holding out his hand, "But I want more. I want us to be friends. We should have become friends four years ago, I want to correct the mistake I made on the Express during our first year."
There was a pause before Draco replied, he had expected the offer of friendship and had originally planned to reject it out of hand, but now he wasn't so sure. He liked the new Potter, but he still could not let go of the past humiliations and the old Potter. Maybe in time he could be friends with Harry Potter, but not yet, he had to sort out his thoughts and clear up unfinished business, "Truce Potter," he said, taking the offered hand in a firm handshake. The raven-haired boy looked disappointed, "I'm not ready to be friends with you yet, but, keep your offer open. I may change my mind over time"
Harry smiled, "I will." It was just as well he couldn't see the face of Remus Lupin, or the smile would have quickly disappeared. The werewolf looked absolutely furious.
Some of you may think I've made Harry a little too dark in this chapter, especially with the whole laughing-at-Voldemort-writhing-in-pain thing, but I just wanted to show Harry's dark side and what makes Slytherin! Harry a Slytherin, rather than a Gryffindor, in this Fic, especially considering Harry's reaction to Draco's show of weakness in the previous chapter, showed his Gryffindor side. Thank You to all those who reviewed Chapter six. The reviews were much appreciated. You might want to check out my latest story Snake Healer: The Malfoy Muggle Lover, in which Lucius Malfoy turns out to be Harry's Father.