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Chapter 13: I always say, aisu-kuriimu.

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Most people have matching ideas of what comfort is. A room filled with warm colours and soft pillows; the hypnotising sound of the clock accompanied by the crackle and discrete glow of a fire; a warm beverage in one's hand while snow falls outside.

The living room in the Malfoy manor had it all. And still none of its occupants were comfortable.

Narcissa sometimes wondered why she went through all the trouble of being an exemplary member of respected society. Why she tried to please an 'unpleasable ' mother-in-law, why she tried to teach consideration to her son, why she had spent almost an hour that morning making forced small talk with the Durlseys, and why she was still trying to loosen up the two boys to each other.

It was all useless, right? She thought wearily. But of course, she only needed to remember what kind of life she had lived, what choices she had made in the past, to also remember that she deserved much less than she had. And above all, she wanted the very best for her son. Watching him grow up to repeat his father's and her mistakes was her worst nightmare. It would only lead to lifelong misery. Her sole wish was, like every mother in the world should, for her child to live a long and happy life, starting with his childhood.

To achieve this, she wanted to grant him his dearest wishes, while giving him all the experience and tools he would need later on. She found that, though he had friends at school who sometimes came over to play, he still felt very lonely. Oftentimes she had worried that the reason behind it might be he hadn't received enough love and attention during the first years of his life. She was more than willing to give him all her heart and mind, but that was no longer enough. Draco needed a friend, a real friend, a best friend.

Until now, she had not noticed him being interested in a closer relationship with any of his mates (though one girl seemed to be particularly interested in him). That had changed when the younger dark-haired boy had come along.

Narcissa hadn't noticed it until two days previously. Draco had treated Harry as nothing more than a very unwelcome guest. Even their long nightly talk over Christmas hadn't even ended in a friendly farewell the next morning. But then, gradually, he'd started complaining about Harry's absence rather than his presence. He hadn't said it outright of course; he could not admit he wished the company of a younger boy who was so obviously 'beneath' him. (A behaviour that he'd inherited both from his father and Severa Snape.) Nonetheless, he had said enough for her to guess why he was in such a bad mood. And when she had offered to go over and invite that same boy for the weekend, Draco had resisted noticeably less than was natural for him; a sign that should be interpreted as "in fact, I do want him to come over".

Narcissa knew Lucius Malfoy and her cousin Severa well, and recognized a lot of them in her son. She knew how to read him. Unfortunately, the boy clad in a circus-tent couldn't. It was clear he was being misled by Draco's cold countenance. It wasn't helping that grey-eyes had been rather direct in confronting Harry about his lies. His curiosity had taken the best of him, and his feeling of superiority was misleading him to believe that he could demand anything he wanted.

Grey-eyes' pride had been swiftly and efficiently stomped on when his mother had strongly berated him. And that was when the silence had settled over the room, leaving the fire and clock to continue their duet.

"Harry."

The raven quickly wiped the chocolate-milk moustache and looked up at the graceful woman. His eyes followed her white braid down from her neck, over her shoulder, all the way to her waist. It flowed so beautifully, he mused. But what he liked the most was the colour. It was the softest-looking hair he'd ever seen.

"Why didn't you tell me you live with your uncle and aunt? Was any part of the story you told me on the way to the emergency room true?"

"Yes!" Harry hastily answered. "I fought with my cousin and fell from the stairs when he threw his toy at me."

That was good, Narcissa thought. At least, there had been no bad intentions behind the injury. That was something less to worry about.

"What about your parents? Or your sick grandmother?"

"I…I don't have a grandmother." He slumped back onto himself, disappointed he could not give a more pleasing answer this time. "And my parents are dead." It was the first time he spoke the words 'parents' and 'dead' in the same sentence. They didn't fit in his mouth. They didn't flow correctly from his tongue. He drank the last of his warm chocolate milk.

"I'm very sorry to hear that, Harry." Mrs. Malfoy said sympathetically. She glanced at Draco, but knew better than to expect the same from him. Kind words; she knew he could think them, feel them. When would he be able to utter them?

"It's fine."

The two blondes in the room looked up, a little stunned. The words Harry had spoken were innocent enough, but the tone had been alarmingly forceful. A strength hid inside the frail boy that none would have guessed was there.

At once Narcissa's sharp senses understood the topic was closed. The boy was not open for a talk about his late parents, and she had no desire to nose around inside his heart and mind. She was, after all, not his mother and he was not her responsibility. If he asked for help, she would without a doubt grant it to him, but if he wished to stand his own, she would not stand in the way of that.

Besides, she was exhausted. She'd had a lot of stress at work, had gotten another phone call from Lucius from prison for New Years, asking for his son again, and Draco had tested her patience to its limits. She observed the atmosphere in the room for another few silent minutes and concluded that no one was about to kill or be killed, so she left to the kitchen and came back with two bowls, two spoons and two pints of ice cream.

"Listen boys, I'm in desperate need of a bath and a long nap. Here's your lunch." She instructed as she deposited the whole on the salon table. "Draco, don't be greedy and leave some of the strawberry for your friend. Don't eat all of it or you'll get sick. Put what's left back in the freezer before it melts." She thought for a moment, "Don't let strangers in while I'm asleep, don't pick up the phone, don't fight. If you go outside, stay in the back garden."

She wondered what else she could say, then she shrugged to herself and left the boys to their own devices for now. Draco knew the rules perfectly. She could only hope he followed them. She was counting on Harry to maybe…keep him in check? Be his conscience? She wasn't sure what kind of balance could be worked out between them. It would be a delicate one if ever there came one. But she had to admit it was not up to her anymore. A parent can only do so much in guiding a child. If Draco really wanted Harry as a playmate, he'd have to swallow some of his pride and make it happen. It was a lesson she had learned much too late, to her greatest regret.

"The ice cream is melting." The raven dared venture a whole ten silent minutes after Mrs. Malfoy had left. He hadn't dared say anything else, and Draco just stared off into empty space. Even though he'd been pleasantly surprised by how little Mrs. Malfoy had cared about his big lie, he was starting to regret having accepted to come.

"I know." Draco retorted mockingly, then got up and started scooping strawberry and chocolate ice cream into the two bowls. He took one for himself and settled back onto the couch, leaving the two cartons of ice on the table.

"Err," Harry fidgeted. "Shouldn't we…put the ice cream back?"

"You want to do it? Fine!" Draco snapped and threw a spoonful of pink frozen cream into his mouth.

The raven got up uncertainly, piled the two boxes onto each other and picked them up. He stood there, like a blithering idiot, not knowing what to do with them. "Where?" He simply said.

Grey eyes fastened onto him, took in his stance, the large sweater slipping off one shoulder. The blonde greatly enjoyed this particular moment. There he had the younger boy in a pinch, in his power, uncertain and uncomfortable, ready to do his bidding, following his instructions. A blank salte maybe? He could make him his puppy, maybe?

Harry waited, his hands becoming colder, condensation dripping from his wrists. Suddenly, words came out of Draco's mouth, words that puzzled him, intrigued and fascinated him; an intricate jumble that seemed to be composed only of consonants. Harry stared at the smug look on the blonde's face. He had not understood a thing. He was sure solely of the fact that this time, it had not been French. And remembering that Draco had said Miss Snape had taught him French and Russian, it had to have been the latter one.

Draco stood up, feeling more empowered by the second. And at the same time, he was waiting. He wasn't sure…what for…

Again, consonants, strange sounds that seemed impossible to pronounce to green-eyes' ears, flowed from the taller one's lips. It's definitely not French. He was absolutely certain now. And it sounded quite like the Russian names Miss Snape had mentioned from time to time in their literature classes.

The grey eyes were fierce, calculating, scrutinizing. The green ones were frustrated, unsure, thinking furiously of some way to reclaim some dignity.

"Oh, just give it to me." Draco snapped as he stood and snatched the boxes from the raven's hands. He turned and walked to the door, but before he could reach it…

A stranger sound still. A throaty hissing. A threatening music.

Right there, right then, the raven had retaliated in one of the most ingenious ways possible. Draco could speak foreign languages? He would do one better. He invented one on the spot. Thinking of music, of his longing to be familiar with the exotic sound and cadence of another world's words, he'd simply made his tongue and lips move and spit out the emotions he was feeling.

Well, he had to admit, he wasn't entirely inventing it. James Potter had once, just for fun, introduced him to the multiple books containing J.R.R. Tolkien's world, one of the masterpieces of fantasy. The contents were still too dark and serious for a five-year-old (Harry's age at the time), but he'd talked about the different characters, worlds, thoughts and morals, and of course the elaborate lineages and languages. Harry had learned some words, and had soon understood how to create new sounds, ones that didn't exist in the native language. He'd found that the animal kingdom was full of resources.

The sounds he'd made with his mouth, based on sounds he'd heard in nature, sounds the baby owl had made at night in his bed, came out in distinct syllables, and he felt every meaning behind them. They had been filled to the brim with his frustration and rebellion, his unhappiness at Draco's smug intelligence.

Maybe even more incredibly, it was that heavily loaded sense of the sound that had made grey-eyes understand. Even though he'd never heard the sounds in his life, he knew what Harry had said. He knew, and the feeling of expectation in his stomach dissipated. He was no longer waiting.

Unbelieveable! That was Narcissa's first thought when she'd awoken from her slumber and come downstairs. Un-bloody -believable! (She allowed herself to curse in her thoughts.) Her son, Draco Malfoy, partly raised by Severa Snape, with the genes of Lucius Malfoy, and the character of a lion crossed with a mule…had obeyed her. The salon table had been cleared, the ice cream wasn't melting onto the carpet, the two boys were still inside, safe, nothing was broken, no one was hurt, no noise had woken her, all was clean, perfect, as she'd left it.

Had she been too sceptical? Was there hope for Draco, oh mighty Draco Malfoy to grow up a sensible human being?

Narcissa went back up the stairs to her son's room, but stayed outside with her ear stuck to the door. She had to know how things were going.

"What's Hogwarts?" She heard Harry's higher voice ask. It sounded less timid, less reserved than earlier.

"I won't tell you." She recognized her son's stubborn voice and raised her eyes towards heaven. God help this foolish boy.

"Fine." Harry's voice said with surprising nonchalance. "Then I won't tell you who Dumbledore is."

Narcissa had no idea who, or what they were talking about. But she didn't need to know. They weren't strangling each other, that was the important thing. Besides, she had to start on cooking dinner: lots of vegetables to make up for the extremely unhealthy lunch she'd left them with. So she unstuck her ear from the door and shuffled down the hall with a yawn. What would she prepare for dinner tonight?


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For you who might be curious, aisu-kuriimu (in the title of this chapter) is 'ice cream' in Japanese (アイスクリーム) It's a katakana word that simply spells out the English word phonetically, in the alphabet used to write foreign words with. (words which are not of Japanese origin)