Draco meets Harry. Draco isn't sure what to think about all this crazy shit.

Draco Malfoy had left his family manor the 1st of September having certain expectations of what his first year at Hogwarts would look like.

He'd start off my attempting to befriend James Potter II. Being the friend of The-Boy-Who-Lived could only beneficial in the long run for Draco. Then he'd get sorted into Slytherin where he would befriend all his peers and make connections. When at class he'd excel and be the best, surpassing all the other students not only from his own House, but from the other Houses as well. Come Quidditch season he'd cheer faithfully for the Slytherin team and hopefully make connections with some of the players to ensure a spot on the team by the next year. And then, finally, at the end of year Slytherin would win the House Cup for the 7th time in a row and Draco would go back to his family feeling proud.

His plans had started to derail as soon as he met James Potter II on the Hogwarts Express. First off it took Harry Potter to point out that he was even there for Draco to notice him. Then he refused to meet Draco's eyes or hand, apparently preferring to simply blend in with the furniture.

The younger Potter twin seemed to find this normal and not highly alarming like Draco did, which just served to further bewilder Draco and make him question what was happening at the Potter house. Draco excused himself from the weird situation as quickly as he could and decided that maybe defeating the Dark Lord had done The-Boy-Who-Lived some brain damage and it was better to not associate himself with the celebrity. No wonder really that Draco had been unable to find any interview of the boy in any of the magical newspapers that his father usually bought.

Next Harry Potter was sorted into Slytherin in the Sorting Ceremony, his sorting happening almost as swiftly as Draco's, which was completely unfair. All of Draco's family had been in Slytherin and here this boy was, with a Mudblood for a mother and a blood-traitor for a father practically flying to Slytherin.

The fact that his twin, the legendary Boy-Who-Lived was sorted into Gryffindor caused mayor rumours to be spread around, taking away even further from the attention that Draco was supposed to be receiving. It left him heavily disgruntled upon arriving that night at his new dorm room. To remedy this Draco proceeded to write to his father, telling him everything that had happened that day.

The next morning Potter was humming cheerfully to himself as he ate his breakfast, making everybody that bought into the evil-twin/good-twin story extremely nervous. Draco ignored him in favour of reading the letter his father had sent him.

Like Draco suspected he would, Lucius Malfoy encouraged him to befriend Harry Potter and keep a close ear to the rumour mill. This didn't exactly comfort Draco, who for some reason just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something weird going on with the younger Potter twin. Maybe it was the glasses? After all, how many wizards wore glasses nowadays, what with all the potions invented specifically to remedy this?

Then their first class took place, which they happened to share with Gryffindor and Draco discovered he had two mayor contenders to his rightful place as the best of his year. First was the Mudblood, Granger, which was right down a disgrace and second-

Well. Draco found it difficult to explain.

Harry Potter simply waltzed through the class exercises like he was born doing them. The teachers adored him instantly and each time Potter smiled at any of them they'd all just fall further in love with him. Draco felt like accusing him of cheating, but since he still had plans to befriend him he instead approached him after classes and asked if they could do their homework together with the hopes of cracking Potter's secret.

"Oh! But I've already done all my homework", Potter had said with his insufferable smile locked in place.

"How? We had a several inch long essay for Charms!"

Potter simply shrugged, "I thought about it during lunch and quickly penned it down. It's very easy really."

Draco turned around and stomped away, pointedly not mentioning that he'd barely been able to follow along with the theoretical concept of the class and that he knew for a fact that several students were going to ask the teacher to go over the subject once again later on.

Potter was doing so well that soon half the school was talking about it, comparing him nonstop with his poor twin brother, who barely said a word to anybody and would often seek his younger twin's company when they had free hours. The whole school seemed to share Draco's acute disappointment over The-Boy-Who-Lived, who was so shy to the point of it being painful to witness.

Then came the mayor scandal. The gossipers of Hogwarts were kept bust overtime with what happened next. Harry Potter was suddenly the worst student in all of his classes. Where before it had all been 'yes Professor, no problem Professor, here is my perfect replication of the spell on my very first try Professor', now it was all 'I don't know Professor, I don't understand Professor, I can't do the spell at all Professor'. It made everybody confused. It made Draco confused, which was unacceptable.

Draco wrote his father.

His father advised that he kept a close eye on the situation. Also, he should raise his performance above that Mudblood girl already.

Draco gritted his teeth and studied extra hard that weekend.

This continued for another week and then suddenly Potter was doing better again. But only better, not the same as before. He now also struggled to perform the spells like the rest of the class and could actually be seen doing his homework at the common room.

"What happened Potter, you used to be the best", asked Blaise Zabini one day, after he lost a bet and was forced to go ask Potter or risk paying Draco twenty chocolate frogs.

"I was cheating", said Potter in a blank voice, not noticing the entire common room angling closer to listen in and then look at him in bewilderment.

"Uh, no you weren't, nobody can fake being that perfect", said Blaise looking as confused as Draco felt.

"I was cheating", repeated Potter, "I'm serving detention with Professor Snape for the rest of the foreseeable future because of it."

Blaise blinked a couple times and turned to look at Draco and the group of other Slytherin first year boys and shrugged as if to say 'what now?'

Draco shrugged back and decided to ask Severus next time he saw him.

"Is it true that Potter was cheating?", asked Draco as he panted, roughly five minutes after the exchange in the common room.

"Draco at least knock on the door before you barge into my office", chastised Severus from where he sat grading homework at his desk.

"Sorry, sorry", Draco quickly apologized as he closed the door behind him, "But is it true? He's got to be lying. Nobody can fake being that good at something."

"Mr. Potter was indeed cheating. I've talked to him extensively about this and he will seize it immediately."

It was only Draco's entire life's teachings in etiquette that stopped him from crying bullshit.

"But you can't fake that!", Draco said instead.

"I can assure you that Mr. Potter was faking it", said Severus, not even once looking up from his grading, "Now, if you don't have anything else to do besides gossiping, I suggest you go back to you peers and proceed gossiping further with them."

Draco huffed, recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, "Fine, but nobody is going to buy it."

Except that the vast majority of Hogwarts' population totally did. The teachers changed the way they were treating Potter immediately, keeping more of a close eye to him and only very reluctantly giving him House Points. Also, Granger very angrily berated him in one of their joint classes for being a cheat.

This didn't faze Potter much. In fact, nothing about the whole scandal seemed to really bother him at all. Nothing ever seemed to bother him.

"He's such a weirdo", commented Pansy one day. Draco couldn't disagree and mostly moped at the fact that he probably would never find a way to make any sort of connection with either of the Potter twins.

"Can I do my homework with you?"

Draco snapped his head up so fast that it was a wonder he didn't hurt himself, but he didn't even mind. There, right in front of him was the boy that troubling him since the beginning of the school year – and he was asking to do his homework with Draco!

"Sure!", he quickly said and watched Potter unpack his things carefully from his bag, looking like some neurotic with the way he set his ink bottle down with both hands and adjusted it till he was satisfied with the way it was situated.

It was the very first time Draco had ever seen him do this and he was sure he would have remembered seeing him do this before. It was too weird.

"Oookaaayyy", said Pansy as she eyed Potter warily while he straightened out his parchment.

Draco couldn't have said it better himself.

"We need to stop his new habit", said Pansy as she eyed Potter conversing with the Granger Mudblood in the middle of the hallway, as if they were friends or something. As if she had gone through all the same trouble Draco had to befriend Harry.

In the last month Draco had learned a lot about Harry Potter. The first thing he learned was that Harry was extremely disconnected to what was happening around him and the few times he noticed something he didn't seem to care much for it. He'd barely even blink if somebody told him he was going to be the next Dark Lord, yet Draco suspected that there was something to it since it always made his left eye twitch without fail.

Second was that Potter loved his twin, no matter how pathetic this twin seemed to be. And James Potter II had officially reached a whole new level of pathetic on their very first flying lesson. Harry had gotten his broom to listen him on his third try, but Draco had seen his distant gaze why he was supposedly 'trying' and was about to ask him if he was actually trying – Draco had figured this part out rather quickly, Harry spent ages simply pretending to not understanding things and did a bad job of hiding it – when the elder Potter twin lost all control over his broom and got swept into the air. Then he lost his grip on the broom, fell several meters and crashed hard enough to break his arm. Harry had instantly raced to his twin's side and went with Madame Hooch to take him to the infirmary, where they both stayed for the better part of the day, Harry not leaving his twin even once.

Some sort of breach in the twins' relationship seemed to get fixed that day and Draco observed the elder Potter twin walk around looking a little less hunched in when he was with the few housemates that dared to associate themselves with such a failure of a Wizard. Maybe his defeat of the Dark Lord burned out his magical core?

Third and perhaps most importantly Draco had learned that Harry was faking his class performance. He had also never cheated. Draco could tell this and so could all their fellow housemates. Hell, even Crabbe and Goyle were a bit suspicious about it and that was saying a lot about how terrible a liar Harry was sometimes. Draco had sat for hours during their homework sessions, watching Harry write down his essays at snail pace, sometimes slowing himself down further by erasing and redoing parts all while looking bored out of his mind.

Draco was very confused about this, but had soon deduced that he wasn't going to get a straight answer from Harry anytime soon, so he mainly concentrated on befriending him. Which wasn't easy either. Harry had seemed to be extremely bored by whatever Draco had to say most of the time and only seldomly would he join in on the conversation out of his own free will.

But Draco was nothing if not stubborn and after a whole month of hard work of constantly including Harry in the conversation, inviting him to play games with the group and pestering him relentlessly at any and all times when he thought he could get away with it Harry was finally communicating with him out of his own free will. He'd even deliver commentary on Draco writing to his father almost daily – he was laughing at Draco, which was highly insulting, but Draco still counted it as a win.

And now he was chatting with a filthy Mudblood, who hadn't even put in a fraction of the effort Draco had. Maybe he should send her a letter laced with Bubotuber Pus.

"They're coming over", hissed Pansy, her eyes narrowed into slits as she eyed the Mudblood.

"Hey, this is Hermione", Harry introduced her and she had the gal to wave at them in greeting, "She says she knows the answer of question number four."

"We have a book for this", said Theo, also eying the Mudblood with disdain.

Harry made a confused face, "But isn't it customary to ask other students help when stuck on a question?"

Merlin, it was one of his stupid effort to 'fit in' again.

"We asked you", said Draco, his tone dry as the desert.

"Yeah, but I don't know the answer."

"I saw you write it down and then hastily erase it when Theo asked you!", said Pansy, perhaps a little louder than was called for in the library, but Draco had to agree with her, even if he knew this line of conversation was going to go nowhere fast.

"Uh, it was the wrong answer. I don't know the answer. I'm terrible at Transfiguration", Harry lied, not very convincingly, might Draco add.

Even the Mudblood was giving Harry a sidelong look now.

Harry gave an obviously fake cough, "Okay, Hermione can sit here and she'll help us. She's very nice", he added, looking unsure of what was appropriate to say.

The Mudblood gave Harry a weak smile and sat down at his side, which had previously been occupied by Draco.

That bitch.

"Let me see your book", she said and Pansy passed her the book before Draco could hit her with it.

At the end she actually helped them a lot. And she seemed to get Harry talking often and let Draco and the others participate in the conversation often.

Maybe Draco would call off the Bubotuber Pus laced letter. For now.

The Halloween festivities were just as grandiose as Draco's father had told him they would be. Draco had spent the entire day talking about the balls his father would usually throw at the Manor for the date and how Hogwarts almost measured up to it.

Granger and Harry told him about their habits in the Muggle world of going trick or treating. Why Harry would know anything from the Muggle world confused Draco a little, but he supposed it was probably because of his mother.

He was also subjected to hours upon hours of complaints directed to Weasley, who had apparently insulted Granger gravelly. Harry just nodded along with whatever Granger had to say so Draco followed his example and by the end of their afternoon study session they all left for their respective House tables and enjoyed the feast without any mayor hiccups, that is until-

"TROLL! TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!"

"Ooh, is this something that happens every year?", asked Harry as they were all ushered out of the Great Hall.

"No, Potter, it is not", said their exhausted prefect, Gemma Farley. Draco knew how she felt. Harry would sometimes ask the weirdest questions about the weirdest things.

"So it's a special for this year only?"

"No Potter, this is very real."

Harry blinked at her, his left eye twitched, he turned to Draco, "Is that sarcasm?"

"Merlin", he heard Farley whisper in exasperation.

"Nope", answered Draco.

Harry looked even more confused now, "So if this is real, where's the police? The Magical-the Aurors, yes, where are those?"

"That's actually a good question", mused Farley.

Harry was silent for a while as they marched down to their House, "Is the Troll going to kill all the teachers?"

"Merlin", Farley didn't even bother to whisper this time.

"No Potter, it'll take something stronger than a Troll to kill Snape", answered Adrian Pucey.

"Oh that's great", Harry smiled, "I'll send him a get well card to the infirmary later."

"Potter, nobody is going to get hurt!", hissed Farley.

"Then why are they evacuating us at all?!", exclaimed Harry.

"Merlin give me strength", said Farley, her hands covering her face.

"Because Dumbledore said so", explained Pucey, looking like he regretted joining this conversation.

"Is Dumbledore scared of Trolls then?", asked Harry.

"Yeah, sure, why the fuck not", muttered Farley.

"Then why didn't you say so from the beginning? It must be hard on him, being as old as he is, to have a crippling phobia like that."

"Uh-huh."

Draco was furrowing his brows, "Harry I don't think-"

"Shut up Malfoy", Farley snapped.

Later that night Draco had trouble sleeping after all the excitement. It was already past midnight when he got up and started to gather some parchment to write to his father.

"Draco go to sleep", Theo mumbled into his pillow.

"Can't sleep", he answered and settled into the room desk.

"Then turn off your stupid wand at least", said Blaise.

"Can't, I'm writing a letter."

There was a collective groan in the dorm.

"No Vol, I'm not telling him that", slurred Harry, evidently still the only person asleep, "Fuck that, I'm not doing that either. You're no boss of me."

"Merlin, did he have start talking in his sleep right this moment?", groaned Theo and threw his pillow over his head.

"I don't wanna know what you did when you were a kid", Harry continued to slur.

Draco sighed and tried to focus on his letter.

"I'm not murdering anybody", Harry slurred and changed the side he was lying on.

"Well that's nice to know Harry", snarked Blaise.

Crabbe and Goyle snickered at this, Theo groaned from underneath his pillow and Draco absentmindedly played with his quill feather as he thought about his letter.

Abruptly Harry sat up and slurred, "I'm not answering you, you're a dick", and proceeded to stand up.

Blaise, Goyle and Crabbe sat up as well, probably expecting to watch Harry stumble his way around in his sleep.

Draco wasn't looked but when he heard them gasping a turned around and dropped his quill as he saw Harry wave at stuff lying on the floor and sent them floating into the air. He repeated this until he was inside their joined bathroom. The other boys in the dorm room all stood up and followed him, dodging floating shoes, socks and an errant pair of pants before they all peeked into the bathroom. It wasn't much different. Soaps, shampoos and towels were lazily floating about the room and bumping into each other gently.

"What the fuck", whispered Theo, as he too peeked into the bathroom.

They heard the sound of a toilet flushing and all hastily retreated into the bedroom proper, allowing a clear path for a clearly still sleeping Harry to get back to his bed. Fortunately his bed was the closest to the bathroom, so it wasn't much trouble.

"You're such a dramaqueen", slurred Harry as he settled into his bed. They all waited in bated breath for a few seconds until Harry settled down and eventually fell back to sleep properly.

"What the FUCK", hissed Blaise in a whisper.

"Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin", was all Theo seemed to be able to say.

"Wow", said Goyle.

"Wow", echoed Crabbe.

"We need to tell Professor Snape about this", said Draco after a moment of internal panic.

The next morning, after barely sleeping anything at all, they all ran to Professor Snape's office.

"What", the man hissed as soon as he opened his door after they all almost knocked it off its hinges.

"Harry is a freak", offered Goyle.

"Mr. Goyle that is uncalled-"

"Its true though!", Interrupted Draco, "We all saw him get up in the middle of the night, he was talking in his sleep and never even realized we were there to see him and he was-he was levitating stuff", Draco said, nerviously wringing his hands.

"As far as he walked stuff would just start to levitate and move out of his and then when he went back to sleep proper it all just slowly got back to where it was", fretted Blaise, "It's the freakiest stuff I've seen in my whole life!"

Severus closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Merlin, that boy", he muttered and then a stronger tone, "Get in here, quick. Maybe we can resolve this before you have to leave for classes. BINKY!"

A house elf popped into the room.

"Yous call for Binky?", it squeaked.

"Go tell Gemma Farley she needs to bring Harry Potter to my office immediately."

The house elf popped away and Severus motioned at them to take a seat as they waited.

"Sir, excuse me for asking, but would it be wise to alert Potter we know about this?", fretted Theo after a moment.

Severus didn't answer him and wouldn't meet Draco's gaze either.

"Wait a minute, you knew all along!", accused Draco.

"Of course I did", huffed Severus.

There was a knocking at the office door and Severus immediately allowed Harry in while they all gaped at him.

"Thank you Miss Farley, you are dismissed", said Severus as he angled the door to cover the fact that any of them were in the office with him.

Harry blinked at them when he saw them, "What's going on?"

"You, Mr. Potter, got up in the middle of the night and decided to give your dorm mates a bit of a show while you were still asleep", sneered Severus, obviously not happy with the current situation.

"Oh", said Harry as he looked at them with wide eyes and then back at Severus, "Oops."

Severus gave a deep sigh of frustration.

"Are you even a Wizard?", asked Theo, "Cause I've never seen anybody capable of that. Hell, I bet not even Dumbledore is capable of that."

"I bet not even the Dark Lord was capable of that", muttered Blaise.

"He wasn't? That's a shame", said Harry nonchalantly and then added, "You know I don't want to be the next Dark Lord, right? It sounds way too boring with way too little rewards."

Draco observed how Harry's left eye was twitching and wondered if this was a tell he was lying, but remembered that it mostly happened at random intervals throughout the day. Sometimes when Harry wasn't talking to anybody.

"Yes, Mr. Potter is most definitely a Wizard Mr. Nott and no, nobody here thinks you're going to become the next Dark Lord", at that last part he gave them all a withering glare, daring any of them to say anything to the contrary.

"Nah, he likes Hermione too much. He won't even call her a Mudblood. Can't see him killing her", Goyle said and Crabbe nodded along.

"Yeah", Crabbe added and then said, "I'm hungry."

"That's a rude word", said Harry, but he was grinning.

"Nobody is leaving until we can all agree that it is in Mr. Potter's best interests that nobody outside of this group knows about his talents with wandless magic", said Severus and gave them the same withering glare as before.

"Oh, like nobody is supposed to know my Dad likes to collect illegal lucky charms?", asked Crabbe.

Severus held his head in his hands and answered with a slightly muffled voice, "Yes Mr. Crabbe, that is exactly what I mean."

"Oh, okay, we can keep a secret", Crabbe smiled, "Can we go eat now?"

Severus gave the rest of them a withering stare.

"I mean, what's another secret", said Blaise.

"I suppose", grumbled Theo, "But Potter owes me", he turned to Harry, "You're not going to lie and say you don't understand the homework again! I don't care if you want to fake it to all the teachers, don't fake it to us!"

"Yes!", Draco piped up, "No more lying about the homework! You are doing a terrible job of it anyways. It's a disgrace."

Severus gave Harry an unimpressed look, "What did I say about this?"

"Oh come on! I've been trying", Harry whined.

"That's extra classes for you. Now you'll come four times a week instead of three, at least until Christmas."

Harry sighed despondently, "Yes Sir."

Severus nodded, "Good. Are we all in agreement? Yes? Now go and don't be late for classes."

Crabbe and Goyle practically ran for it, while Draco, Theo and Blaise followed at a more sedate pace with Harry.

"I'm sorry I lied to you", Harry said.

"Well, can't say I'm happy about it, but it does explain a lot", said Blaise and Draco and Theo nodded in agreement.

"You're not going to tell your father, are you?", asked Harry, looking at Draco.

Draco shrugged, "I guess you've been telling me not to tell him every single detail of my life, but-", and now Draco had his finger in Harry's face, "You don't lie to me ever again! Friends don't lie to each other."

Harry smiled one of his dazzlingly bright smiles at Draco, "No they don't", he agreed.

Draco couldn't help but smile back, feeling like despite all, he'd still accomplished his goal.