A/N: Ugh, can you tell I'm back to school? Hence the wait. Desole. I try.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never was mine, never will be mine. Or do you think they would believe it if I made up a claim that it was mine? Could I win in a lawsuit?

Chapter Four

The weather remained dark and sunless, clearly in anticipation of the coming wave of fluorescent lights and dusty corners known as school.

Draco's father had intended to place him in a private school, but they'd arrived in Surrey only to discover that there were none, at least in a reasonable radius. So, off to public school it was. Draco's mother was a whimpering mess over the threat to her baby's well-being. Those nasty, evil, public-school children were just raised to be horrible.

He tried to calm her down, but to no avail. He went to bed that night to the sounds of his father attempting to comfort his anguished mother.

That night he slept soundly, not worried about his new school. He had never had trouble in the social field — after all, he was aristocratically charming and inherently stunning. Besides that, he had Harry. Even if his new classmates were immune to his accidental-but-purposely-enhanced magnetism, he had Harry. So he drifted off in the soft blackness of his room, thinking only of the irrelevant.

He awoke to the sleepy dryness of yellow dusty beams on his covered legs. The clock radio at his bedside was crooning some quick, cheap, popular tune. He forced his eyes open until they would stay by themselves, and gave a shuddering, yawning stretch. Then he snorted as his eyes fell upon a pair of black pants and a soft blue buttoned shirt folded on a chair. He walked past the chair and into his own closet. The woman had wonderful taste, but it was the principle of the thing. He just couldn't wear something his mother had picked out. It simply wasn't done.

After sorting himself out and bidding his parents adieu, he picked up his bag and opened the front door, only to find Harry gracing his doorstep, his finger halfway to the doorbell. When Harry realized that the door had been opened, his face transformed into a quick but utterly sincere grin.

"Oh, hello there."

"Hello. I was just on my way over to yours."

"Ah, well, I beat you to it."

They headed down Draco's front steps in the slightly awkward manner of friends going somewhere together before they were warmed up in closeness.

"It's a good thing I found you," said Draco. "Otherwise I'd be getting a ride now, in the car with my blubbering mother."

It was a quiet male gesture of affection, and Harry returned it with a small smile.

They had gotten their schedules a week ago, to discover that they only shared one class; math. It was right before lunch.

Draco turned his eyes onto his companion and took in his appearance. His hair was, as usual, a charming disaster. He was wearing what was very probably his best pair of jeans, even though the same pair of jeans in Draco's possession would promptly be disposed of. A black t-shirt fit Harry's torso so well that Draco concluded it must have been purchased by the boy himself, and not a wide, stretched hand-me-down.

"You are lovely," commented Draco in that casually confident way that he had.

Harry grinned and did a sort of curtsey.

They continued their walking and talking about nothing, throwing in a yawn here and there in the sharp morning air.

SCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENE

The boys' shared class was also their first one. When Draco walked into the classroom, late due to losing himself after stopping off at the toilets, the only seat left was in the back corner, directly in front of Harry. Draco didn't mind this at all. He strode down the length of the room, noticing a fair few heads turning his way and a fair few whispers blossoming. But the blonde thrived in the focus of attention, and he exuded confidence and admirable aloofness as he took his seat in the cramped, abused desk near Harry. Harry watched him and Draco smirked and twitched his eyebrows up and down. They turned their faces to the front and watched as the professor got up from his desk and skulked slowly towards the front of the classroom, his long greasy hair parted in the centre of his head, forming a black curtain around his face. He sneered around at all his freshly emptied pupils and Draco thought he saw him linger slightly longer than necessary on Harry. The dark-haired boy raised his eyes to the professor's from beneath wisps of wild hair, defiant and willful.

He heard a whisper from a gaunt-looking boy with narrowed eyes a few rows away, and raucus laughter broke out around him, unabashed. The professor began speaking in drawling, dulcet tones, and even if you weren't listening, it was apparent that you really would do best to pretend. The greasy, hook-nosed character in black did not seem one to be amused by simple teenage charm. Draco was good at math. So he didn't listen. He was one of those people. You know, the ones that don't study, don't pay attention, and don't care, but still manage to always do better than you.

He looked to his right and saw that Harry, too, was not listening. But after a sharp interrogation from the professor and a red-faced shrug, it seemed that it was not because of the boy's mathematical prowess. Instead, he had placed pen on paper and forced them into an entangled dance. The wet, spurting tip of the pen in Harry's grasp prodded and slid over the smooth, white surface of his notebook, indenting to accept its zealous lover. Draco tried to see what he was writing, but the ink-stained fingers, bent elbow, and bowed head created a blockade impenetrable.

Through the glaze of his thoughtful detachment, Draco gradually became that his neighbour in desk and home was being scrutinized by many pairs of eyes. A head here, a head there, would turn to glance at the mop of unruly black hair with narrowed eyes or smirks, before a ripple of whispers around the smirk would appear, hot breath passing over curving lips, hissed air pulled into the turning gears of soft minds. Draco was set a little on edge because of this. What was the matter with them? As he got lost in staring at the latest glarer, the gaunt-faced boy who'd spoken earlier, the boy turned his gaze from Harry to Draco. Suddenly Draco found himself locked in optic combat with sunken pale blue eyes. When he refused to blink or look away, the boy broke the eye contact and looked Draco up and down with an appraising eye, before turning back toward the front. Draco found himself sneering at the boy's back when he knew he was being watched, and turning, saw Harry doing the watching, slowly breaking into a grin. When Draco gave him a look of mock defensiveness, Harry looked back down at his own desk, still stained with a smile.

SCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENEBREAKSCENE

Draco slammed his locker door shut and started violently when he found one Harry Potter standing there.

"Potter! Don't — don't stand there!"

Harry gave a lopsided grin.

"'Potter', is it? Well, anyways, I haven't seen you in just ages! How long has it been?"

"Two hours, ten minutes, and twenty-seven seconds. I've been counting."

Harry laughed.

"Seriously."

He laughed again.

"Shall we go to lunch, then?"

"We shall."

Harry had brought his lunch in a brown paper bag, and went to sit down while Draco bought his food. The tall blonde had received many feminine glances already that day, and they were clearly to continue during lunch. But as he stood in line he felt a rather more masculine nudge in his ribcage. He turned to see the boy from math class behind him. He raised his eyebrows.

"Hi there," the boy began in a false tone of winning charm. "You're new, aren't you?"

"Not particularly."

"Were you at this school last year?"

"No."

"Th-" the boy seemed utterly perplexed for a moment, before he decided that whatever was over his head must not be very important. He came back into his old manner. "I'm Leo Parker."

"Mm. Draco Malfoy. Charmed." A disdainful fake smile plastered itself onto Draco's face as he shook Leo's hand gingerly.

"Anywho, I saw you before. With Potter. You know him?"

Draco gave him a doubtful look. He hated people who said 'anywho'.

"You know him?"

"Ha. Oh, yeah. Me and him go way back."

But something in this Leo character's grin told Draco that this wasn't exactly a positive kind of way back.

A/N: Okay, I'll try not to be too slow. Hope you liked this bit!