Usual Disclaimer: Not Mine. Wish it were. This world and its wonderful inhabitants belong to J.K. Rowling. Only the plot belongs to me.
A/N: Just quickly uploading this so a quick thanks to those few who reviewed. Again - WARNING - SLASH IN LATER CHAPS. Just giving you lots of warning in advance although the way this story is shapin up it will take me a while to get there. Anyway enjoy and plz plz plz R&R.
'Cute' Harry thought watching Draco investigate everything in the kitchen. 'Very cute, he's fascinated with everything muggle' Harry turned back to buttering the stack of bread he had left on the counter.
"Shit!" Harry spun round again to see Draco stick his fingers in his mouth. As soon as Harry had averted his attention from him he had touched the heated plate of the cooker. Harry could hear his uncle grumble from the sitting room at Draco's loud profanity as he rushed over to Draco, wrenched his hand from his mouth, and shoved it under the jet of cold water streaming from the tap.
"Thanks." He mumbled.
"No problem." Harry resisted the urge to laugh out loud, but only just managed.
Once Harry had piled a plate high with bacon sandwiches, having managed to prevent any more Draco orientated disasters for the length of time it took to make them, they trooped upstairs again.
"Yum." Draco commented through a mouthful of bacon.
"It's no Hogwarts feast but things taste better when you cook them yourself."
Draco smirked at this; "you'd make a good housewife."
"And you'd make a lousy one." Harry retaliated. "Touching the cooker! Honestly!"
"Hey! It hurt!" Draco scowled.
"No shit Sherlock."
"Sherlock?"
"Never mind, muggle humour is lost on you."
As the night progressed, Harry was surprised at how well they were getting on. Apart from the odd good-humoured insult, there was no real enmity between them. Neither of them felt pressured to hate each other as there were no rivalling Slytherins and Gryffindors on either side, jeering them on. Neither gave a second thought to the fact that they were able to open up and talk freely to one another as they realised they had more in common than they wanted to admit. It seemed natural and comfortable and both chose to ignore the dramatic change from their previously volatile relationship, to their newfound, open friendship where they stayed up all night swapping stories.
Harry told Draco about his rotten childhood with the Dursley's and getting punished for everything that went wrong in the household. He told him about his nearly being sorted into Slytherin, about the third task, the portkey, Cedric, and Moody/Crouch, about the chamber of secrets, and about what really happens when a Dementor gets too close.
Draco opened up too and he let his feelings show for once. He had never had anyone to talk to before and Harry was willing to listen so he responded to what Harry told him about growing up with the Dursley's by telling him about life with Lucius Malfoy as a father. He talked about Lucius' beatings when he was young to beat the Malfoy 'family values' into him. Values which, according to Lucius, should come naturally to any 'real' Malfoy. This made Draco an unfit son as he did not take on his role naturally and he was therefore punished for his questioning nature. Harry was horrified when Draco talked about what Lucius done to him when he was nine years old.
Draco as a child had an obsession with dragons after learning the meaning of his name. His room was filled from floor to ceiling in anything and everything dragon he could lay his hands on; pictures, ornaments, stuffed toys, bed sets, curtains, wallpaper, stickers and so on. One day, when Draco had refused to perform an unforgivable on a small sparrow when commanded to by Lucius, he was punished to the extreme. Lucius deemed Draco's 'insolence' worthy of his favourite unforgivable - Cruciatus. Only this time, he didn't stop there. He informed Draco that it was time to discard his silly childhood obsession. Draco protested, and this prompted Lucius to take Draco on a trip into the dense woods outside their manor where he left Draco in the care of one of the inhabitants of the forest. One of the nastier, fire-breathing inhabitants - a Romanian Longhorn dragon. Draco had run around frantically for two days, not knowing in which direction to run due to the confusing spell Lucius had placed on the trees, before Lucius lifted the confusing spell and sent a houself to retrieve Draco. When Draco returned, his father merely eyed him with disdain and told him to wait in his room for his mother to dress his wounds. When he reached his room, it was decorated white, the walls, the curtains, the bed linen, everything. His dragon stuff was gone, Lucius had had it burnt. His mother was silent while she took care of the bruises and grazes on his face, arms, legs and chest as well as the severe 3rd degree burn covering his back.
When Draco had finished this story, Harry was lost for words. Draco had had as bad a childhood, if not worse, than Harry's. It struck Harry for the first time, that Draco was not the son of a Deatheater by choice, he had no choice about the circumstances he'd grown up in and yet Harry had always judged him by his background.
"I shouldn't have told you that." Draco said looking down at the floor from the bed where he was lying propped up on his elbow.
"It's okay. Not many people know what I told you tonight." Harry looked up at him from the floor. "What's said in this room stays in this room, deal?"
"Deal." Draco looked up. "What happened at the ministry last year?" He asked, referring to Sirius' death in the Department of Mysteries.
"I don't... I'm not ready..." Harry's voice wavered, the question was sudden and he still felt unable to talk about this subject.
"It's okay; you don't have to tell me anything. I know he was your godfather."
"I know, you know. It all came out in the papers remember? It's kind of ironic; he wasn't freed until after he died."
"No, I mean I knew all along, I'm sorry for your loss." Draco's eyes flickered with emotion before they went back to their cold grey mask. Harry was surprised at the sincerity of Draco's words and could not find the words to reply and simply nodded. Both boys felt the tension in the air and Draco tried to break it.
"You know, you're not so bad. " He reverted back to his signature smirk. "You'd have made a good Slytherin."
"I'm honoured." Harry said with exaggerated mock gratitude. "You're not so bad yourself, although you are pretty dim." Harry laughed at Draco's cooker incident once again.
"Hey."
"For such a muggle-hater you have such a fascination with everything to do with them."
"Do not!"
"Do so."
"Well I can't help it. Father wouldn't let me take muggle studies."
Harry laughed again and Draco threw his pillow at him.
"What is this?" Harry grinned and threw back the pillow. "A girly sleepover?"
"A what?" Draco's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Muggles are beyond you aren't they?"
"Of course." He agreed, then added. "And I object profusely to living with them."
"And I object to sleeping on the floor but I'm not complaining." Harry flicked the light out with his wand and turned over. "G'night Draco."
"Night Potter." Came the reply and Harry shook his head, he was still incapable of using first name terms.
