Disclaimer: I do not own HP.

Draco watched from the bed as Harry paced nervously around the room. After thirty minutes of this, Draco wondered how Harry hadn't gotten dizzy…Salazar knew that Draco was just from watching him.

Though the two had "apologized", there was still a strain between them. Of course, after so many years of making each other's lives hell, it wasn't very surprising.

The reason why Harry was so nervous wasn't very clear to Draco…he'd only heard mumbling about Dudley, birthdays, and being bossed around more than usual…then something about cats, pictures, and stale cake.

It was a few more minutes before Harry plopped onto his bed, causing the blonde to let out a string of objections.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Harry snapped.

"You're sitting on my blanket."

"You're the one who threw it on my bed…besides you sit on it all the time."

"My butt is cute, so it doesn't matter."

Harry gave him a weird look. "Then what's mine?" he asked, instantly regretting it.

"Butt ugly," Draco said simply, as if stating a fact.

Harry glared at him, but it didn't have the hatred that would have been there during the school year. "Arrogant prat."

Draco shrugged. "What do you expect?"

Suddenly, Harry smirked. "Well, my butt can't be too ugly seeing as you've been staring at it."

"I have not!"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You expect me to believe that?"

For a moment, Draco could only glare at Harry, not knowing what to say. It wasn't long before Harry's smirk turned into a satisfied grin. "What are you smiling about?"

Harry's grin only brightened, and he shook his head. He knew that he was the only one to cause the blonde to be speechless in years, even if it had only been for a few moments. "Nothing," he said, almost in a sing-song voice.

Draco pouted for a moment before he remembered that Malfoy's did not pout and instead turned it into a scowl. "You're being an arse," he snapped, crossing his arms.

Harry just shrugged, and then started to fidget, almost on the verge of jumping up to start pacing once again.

"What's got your knickers in a knot today?"

"It's Dudley's birthday."

"So?"

Harry sighed and said, "Wait and see." The two hadn't gone downstairs yet, though they had been awake for nearly an hour. Harry was trying to put off helping with cooking Dudley's birthday "meal" (Harry saw it more as a feast, and that was Dudley's plate alone) and listening to Petunia yell out orders so that her son's special day would be perfect. He knew it was only a matter of time before she come rapping on their door to make them, or at least him, help.

As if on cue, there was a rapid knocking on the door and Petunia's voice saying, "Come on, time to help out with Duddy-kins special day!"

Harry watched as Draco's eyes widened at the thought of helping out with anything that had to do with the large boy…or maybe it was just helping out at all. Draco was raised a spoiled brat after all.

"Well, come on, Malfoy," he goaded, "Time to help out."

HPHPHPHP

Lucius bowed before the Dark Lord, his every fiber concentrating on not showing his fear, his worries. "My Lord, I'm sure that Draco is doing the best he can. After all, the years of…misunderstandings between him and Potter are bound to cause some trouble between them. It'll take a bit before the boy starts to trust him."

"We don't have time, Lucius," Voldemort hissed, his red eyes glowing bright with anger. "He has to find a way through their defenses by Potter's birthday. The spell can't be cast any other time!"

"I've explained that to him, Master. I'm sure he won't disappoint us."

"He better not. I don't want to learn that I made a mistake when I chose him as my heir. If I find that I have, you'll find that he's just as disposable as any other nuisance."

"I understand, My Lord," Lucius said, his voices a hoarse whisper.

"Good," his tone turned dismissing as he said, "See to it that your son does not fail me. I've put up with a lot from you and your family, Lucius. This is your last chance to prove yourselves worthy."

The blonde's head lowered and said, "Yes, My Lord," before apperating home to his wife, leaving behind a very angry Dark Lord to wait the arrival of another Death Eater who had disappointed him. When Severus did show a few minutes late, only to tell him that he found no new information from Dumbledore, Voldemort took his anger out on him, ensuring that the few Death Eaters who were circling them knew that he would tolerate no more failures. That the next person who disappointed him would get far worse than then a simple Cruciatus curse.

HPHPHPHP

Dumbledore sat back in his seat, his fingertip tapping his chin lightly in thought as he gazed at the young man in front of him. The bright orange hair, a Weasley trademark, was slightly tousled from his rush and his brown eyes wide with panic. The child had grown into a decent man, despite his temper and his habit of seeing only the worse of situations, as he was doing now.

"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore asked, picking out one from himself from the tin can on his desk.

"No, sir…did you hear anything I just said?"

"Of course I did, my dear boy, but I doubt it's as bad as you're making it out to be."

"That slimy git, Malfoy, has forced his way into Harry's relative's house! How can it not be bad?"

"What I'm curious about, Mr. Weasley, is how you came to learn of Mr. Malfoy's presence at the Dursley's."

Ron's face became red, which was answer enough from Dumbledore. "I thought that you and Ms. Granger agreed to wait until his birthday before going to pick him up," he said, the twinkle in his eye growing.

"I know we promised you that we wouldn't pick him up, but he never wrote to say that he was doing okay. We just went by to check on him, and if everything was alright, we were going to leave…Hermione decided that we needed to tell you about Malfoy before trying to rescue Harry, though."

Dumbledore nodded in agreement. "I'm glad she was calm enough to realize that. I say we should leave the boys alone until Harry's birthday, like we planned."

"But, sir-"

"It'll all work out for the best."

"What if Malfoy corrupts Harry? He could walk right into whatever plan You-Know-Who has!"

"Harry's smart enough to realize that Voldemort is behind this, Mr. Weasley. I doubt that he'll be tempted by Mr. Malfoy. Besides, if things work out for us, Harry may be able to save the boy from going any farther into Voldemort's clutches. We may even have a new ally."

Ron shook his head. "Sir, I don't think that we'll ever be able to call a Malfoy an ally."

Dumbledore smiled at him, but his eyes were suddenly serious. "It's that sort of thinking that'll keep our world at war. It could be that Mr. Malfoy is only doing what is expected of him, he may wish that he could choose a different path than the one that his father has carved for him, he's just too afraid try to make his own way."

HPHPHPHP

Draco stared down at the spatula in his hand, not sure what he was supposed to do with it. The pan that sat on the stove held frying bacon, the grease coming from the pieces popping and would have hit him quite a few times if he hadn't have ducked so often.

He could see Vernon and Dudley at the table not far away watching the kitchen TV and Petunia was hurrying around everywhere as she multitasked cooking, cleaning, and talking on what Harry had told him was a telephone. Harry himself was standing next to him making toast…toast! The one thing that Draco did know how to make, and the idiotic Gryffindor had got to it first!

After a few more moments of indecision, he finally snapped, "Potter! Get your ugly arse over here and help me!"

Harry glanced at him and chuckled, causing Draco to glare at him in anger. "What are you waiting for? Stop acting like I should know what the bloody hell I'm doing!"

Rolling his eyes, Harry came up behind and wrapped his arms around Draco, who stiffened. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you," he said, taking hold of the hand that held the spatula. When Draco began to pull away, Harry's arms tightened, "Stop fidgeting, Malfoy."

"I'm not fidgeting! Malfoy's never fidget…and let me go!"

"Nope," Harry replied happily.

"I don't want to learn how! When I said help, I meant that you should do it yourself and let me take all the credit," Draco snapped indignantly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, considering the way he was given almost everything he wanted, it probably should have been.

Chuckling, Harry unconsciously moved a bit closer to him, his chest touching Draco's back. "Get over yourself, Draco. It's about time you learned how to do something like a normal guy."

Grins I'm kinda happy with this chapter. I worked on it after school, pretty much nonstop, for the past two days. Even putting off my research paper for English to get it up...of course, it was because I didn't want to do the paper that decided to do this, lol. I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it. Review!