Chapter Three

Draco Malfoy was hungry. He hadn't been eating very well over the last couple of months, too worried about what was going to happen to him to think about food. Stuck in that little cell with nothing else to distract him, he'd been forced to deal with all the trauma and fear of the last few years, reliving the same events over and over again in his head until he didn't think he could go on living. He might not have been in Azkaban surrounded by Dementors (not that there were Dementors in Azkaban nowadays – the new Minister had seen to that) but in his case Dementors weren't necessary. Left in the solitude of his cell, his mind had done just what the Dementors might have, tormenting him with the memories of his worst moments and everything he regretted.

His worst fear was being condemned to a life's imprisonment in Azkaban. The conditions might be considerably better than they had been before, but he didn't think he could face the years locked up and alone with nothing but the memories for company. He'd go insane – he knew he would – and that was a terrifying thought.

Not that he'd expected anything else. He was a Death Eater – the tattoo on his arm proved it – and the fact that he hadn't actually killed anyone himself didn't change that. He'd let Death Eaters into Hogwarts, too, and attempted to murder Dumbledore, even if he hadn't been able to go through with it in the end. He deserved Azkaban, and there was no reason why the Ministry (now composed mainly of Order of the Phoenix and DA members) would choose to do anything different with him.

When he'd been told that he was being placed under house arrest at Potter's home, he'd first thought it was some cruel joke. What possible reason could Potter have for allowing his former enemy to stay with him? Why not just leave him to rot in prison? House arrest seemed far too lenient a punishment for a former Death Eater.

As he pondered on it further, he'd decided that perhaps this was Potter's opportunity for revenge. After all, Draco would be trapped in Potter's house, a prisoner, wandless, and entirely at his mercy. When Kingsley Shacklebolt had informed Draco of his punishment, he'd been careful to stress that, should Potter at any time decide that he no longer wanted Draco in his home, he could have the punishment reconsidered, and Draco would probably be sent to Azkaban. What better opportunity for Potter to bully and humiliate him, just as he himself had done to others in the past?

Draco had decided to behave perfectly. He'd accept anything Potter said or did to him – after all, it would probably be no more than he deserved – and just hope he wouldn't get sent to Azkaban. It would hurt his pride considerably, but it wasn't like he had much of that left anyway, and if it was the price he had to pay for freedom than it was worth it.

And then Potter had arrived, and he'd been perfectly polite. Rather than the taunts and insults Draco had been prepared for, he'd been absolutely civil. Now, sitting in his room, Draco was forced to consider a different possibility. Potter didn't want revenge. He didn't care about all the pathetic things Draco had done in the past. Draco was simply so pathetic he was below even being considered an enemy by the great war hero Harry Potter. He shouldn't have been surprised, but somehow this was more humiliating than any amount of bullying. He wasn't even worth the two seconds that it would take Potter to insult him. And if he wasn't worth that then he'd sunk even lower than he'd thought.

So now he was hungry. Reluctant to call for the house elf (he still thought of them as inferior, but was sure Potter wouldn't appreciate him mistreating his house elf), he decided to head downstairs in search of the kitchen. He was vaguely aware that Potter had pointed it out earlier, but hadn't been entirely paying attention at the time. This was a pretty enormous house, and Potter had placed him in a room at the very top of it, probably to keep him out of the way.

He was fairly accustomed to enormous houses, however, having spent a great deal of his childhood in them. And besides, no building could seem truly enormous or confusing once you'd encountered Hogwarts. He navigated the long corridors and flights of stairs with ease, eventually coming to a stop outside a room he was fairly positive was the kitchen.

The reason he stopped was that there was already someone inside. This was rather odd as he'd been careful to wait until he was positive Potter and Granger had left before even considering coming downstairs. It could have been a house elf, of course, but it didn't sound like a house elf. It sounded like a person.

That was when he remembered Potter's comments about the muggle cousin who was staying here. He hadn't paid much attention at the time – other than to grimace inwardly at having to share a house with a muggle, and then to stop and remind himself that he was lucky to be here at all – but it now occurred to him that this was something he ought to be concerned about. Potter had described his cousin as someone not to pick a fight with. In the past, Draco had only faced people like that when armed with either Crabbe and Goyle or a wand. Now he had neither, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to enter that kitchen.

In the end, his hunger won the battle with his fear, and he cautiously pushed the door open. The person inside was most certainly not someone to pick a fight with. He looked slightly peaky – in the manner of someone who had lost a lot of weight recently – but he had some very impressive muscles bulging under his t-shirt.

Right now he was looking at Draco rather threateningly.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, "Because this is my cousin's house, and if you're breaking in–"

"I'm not," Draco said quickly, instinctively taking a step backwards, "I'm not breaking in. I'm … staying here for a while." Harry's cousin pondered that for a moment. He struck Draco as the sort of person who thought things through rather slowly. Not stupid exactly – or not in the way Crabbe and Goyle had been – but not a quick thinker either.

"Hermione did say something about how somebody else would be staying here," he recalled, "Are you a friend of Harry?" Draco almost laughed at that, but stopped himself. He wasn't sure how close Harry and his cousin were yet, and didn't want to get on his wrong side by revealing that he and Harry had hated each other.

"Not exactly a friend, no," he replied, and fortunately Harry's cousin didn't press for more information. Instead, he stuck out his hand.

"I'm Dudley Dursley," he said cheerfully, "Harry's cousin."

Draco took the hand and shook it.

"Draco," he said, "Draco Malfoy."

It was a relief, but also a little odd, to meet someone who didn't react in the slightest to the name Malfoy. For most of his childhood people had reacted with veneration and respect to the name, and sometimes – in the case of families such as the Weasleys – with enmity. More recently, people had mainly reacted to the name, or even to seeing him, with disgust and hatred.

Dudley simply continued to grin; unaware of who he was talking to. It was a strange experience, but it was surprisingly liberating. There were no expectations placed on him to behave like the rich, pureblood heir that he was, nor was he bound by the mistakes he had made in the past. With this oblivious, accepting muggle, he could be anyone he wanted to be. He could start again.

This led him to wondering whether he wanted to start again. Why should he care what this muggle thought of him? Why would he want to be friends with a muggle of all people? Had he really sunk so low?

The answer, of course, was yes. Nobody in the Wizarding World would associate with him now, not after everything that had happened, and yet here was Dudley offering him his unconditional friendship. This was his opportunity to experience real, genuine friendship for the first time. Perhaps his father wouldn't approve, but when had listening to his father ever got him anywhere in the past?

And besides, he wanted to stay on Potter's good side as much as possible, and try to make life bearable for himself for however long he'd be staying here. Befriending Dudley could only help with that. Surely Potter would be inclined to be kinder to a friend of his cousin? Even if that friend wasn't exactly his favourite person.

While Draco was coming to this conclusion, Dudley had returned to what he had been doing when Draco had come in, which appeared to involve chopping up lots of vegetables with a large and very sharp knife.

"I'm making some soup," Dudley explained, "Would you like some?" Draco's stomach answered rather noisily before he could open his mouth, and Dudley laughed. Draco laughed too, a little awkwardly, reminding himself that it was okay for friends to laugh at each other, and that he mustn't get defensive about it.

"I'll take that as a yes," Dudley said with a grin, and continued with his cooking. Draco watched in fascination, blushing a little when Dudley caught him staring.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, "It's just that I've never seen someone cooking the muggle way before. Mostly our cooking at home was done by house elves, and at Hogwarts the food just appears on the tables. And even when people cook for themselves in the Wizarding World, they usually just use charms and spells and stuff. I've never seen anyone doing it all by hand before."

It occurred to him as he finished that he'd just used a lot of Wizarding World terms, and that he didn't actually know how much of this Dudley would understand. He wasn't used to talking to muggles. As it happened, however, Dudley seemed fairly unfazed. Obviously he knew a fair amount about the Wizarding World, even if he wasn't a part of it himself.

"It's funny," Dudley mused, "I only actually learnt to cook myself while staying with wizards. Up until then it was always my mum who did it, and very often she made Harry help her. I only ever set foot in the kitchen to get snacks out of the fridge. But then last year we had to go into hiding because Harry thought we might be in danger from Voldemort."

Draco flinched violently at the sound of the name that brought back so many awful memories. Dudley noticed and smiled ruefully.

"Sorry," he said, "I know that bothers a lot of people. Obviously we all called him You Know Who when we heard about the taboo, but once the war was over and it was safe I got back into the habit of using his name. I'll try not to, though. Sorry."

"It's okay," said Draco, "Go on with the story."

"Right. So we were in hiding from … You Know Who and his followers. My parents and I were taken to this big house where a lot of other people were also staying. A sort of safe house. There were a whole mixture of people staying there: muggleborns, muggles who'd married witches and wizards and could be in danger, various refugees, and even some purebloods who'd refused to cooperate with the Death Eaters and whose lives were at risk. Nobody there was a particular threat to You Know Who – all the proper resistance fighters were off helping the Order of the Phoenix – so I don't think the Death Eaters made very much effort to find us. We were just the odds and ends – the people who couldn't do anything useful but had to be protected. We all felt a bit useless, really, sitting around listening to reports come in but not actually doing anything to help.

"This was only later on, though. When I first arrived I knew nothing about the war or Death Eaters or You Know Who. In fact I didn't really know very much about magic at all. I knew that Harry was a wizard, and that he went to some magic school, and that somebody was trying to kill him and might kill us too. That was about it. It was pretty overwhelming, suddenly being in a house surrounded by witches and wizards. Pretty scary, too. You feel very helpless, living with a load of people who can do stuff with a single flick of their wand that you could never dream of being able to do."

He paused for a moment, reflecting, and Draco found himself recalling some of his own memories. He could certainly understand feeling helpless. Even with the ability to do magic, he'd been made to feel incredibly helpless in his own home, surrounded by people who would torture and murder without a second thought.

"I began to get used to it soon enough," Dudley said, returning to his story, "Of course it helped that they were all told to use as little magic as possible. Something about high levels of magic increasing visibility and making us easier to find. Which meant that trivial tasks like cooking and cleaning had to be done by hand. That presented a bit of a problem, of course, as witches and wizards are useless at doing anything by hand. No offence. So myself and a few others decided to teach ourselves to cook. We were pretty awful at first (there was a whole week when all we lived off was beans on toast, and there were a fair few evenings when we ate entirely burnt meals because we'd completely messed up) but we got a lot better. After all, when you're stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere with very little to do you have a lot of time to practise the things you're not so good at.

"So that's how I learnt to cook," he finished, "And I can now quite proudly say that I am a very competent cook, which always comes in handy. In fact, it's probably the most worthwhile thing I've achieved in my life."

They were silent for a few minutes, but it was a companionable silence rather than an awkward one. Dudley continued with his chopping and peeling and general cooking and Draco watched him, reflecting on the things he'd just heard. It was odd to think of how the Wizarding World must seem from a muggle's perspective. Probably even stranger than the muggle world seemed to him.

He got the feeling that there were parts of the story Dudley was leaving out, things he was choosing not to include. He didn't question it, though, nor did he begrudge him the right to his privacy. After all, he had plenty of secrets of his own – things he didn't think he'd ever want his new friend to know.

Perhaps he really could start again with Dudley. Leave his past behind him and, just for a little while, pretend that he wasn't the pure-blooded former Death Eater who'd once claimed to despise muggles. Just for a little while be simply an ordinary guy making friends with another ordinary guy.

Perhaps.