Harry Potter didn't consider himself to be someone who was easily surprised. His life had been far too interesting for anything to really shock him anymore. However, the conversation he had just had left him downright dazed. He had been so late getting ready this morning that Hermione and Ron had left for breakfast without him (nothing got between that boy and his food), and had therefore found himself running to the Great Hall in the hopes of catching up with them. Instead, he had nearly mowed down Draco Malfoy.
Said Slytherin didn't scream or curse or call him any names, he didn't even look that mad about it. If that wasn't strange enough, the Malfoy heir's subsequent behavior was downright bizarre. He didn't try to hex Harry once, going as far as to thank him for speaking at his trial and then give Harry an admittedly beautiful new pair of glasses. Their conversation, though brief, could even be described as pleasant, an entirely new word to be associated with the ex-death eater.
He thought back to what Malfoy had said about the life debt. In truth, Harry didn't really know all that much about them, but even he knew that what had happened in the Room of Hidden Things would have served to repay that debt. He, however, had not repaid Narcissa, and he couldn't very well save her and not her son, not after what she had done for him to protect her only child. Harry liked to think that he would have spoken for his peer, even without feeling an obligation, but he could never know for sure. It was so soon after the war had ended, wounds still so fresh. He had been in a dark place then, going through the motions like a wind-up doll, funeral after funeral, speech after speech.
He doubted that the Slytherin had told anyone the full story of what had occurred in that room. Harry certainly hadn't. He preferred not to think about that night, under any circumstance. He had experienced many things during the final battle, seen friends' corpses, even cheated death, but for some reason, he had more nightmares about the fiendfyre that of Voldemort. He dreamed that he was trapped, broomless and alone, knowing that the flames would take him. The inevitability of death that had served to calm him in when he went into the forest to meet Voldemort only filled him with crippling terror in his dreams.
Harry shook his head. It would not do to fill his head with such thoughts. After the war, he had taken dreamless sleep on an almost-daily basis to escape these dreams, and it was only after Hermione had convinced him to see a mind healer that he was finally mostly rid of them. He wondered if Malfoy ever felt the phantom flames licking at his flesh. Ron and Hermione did not. Harry's mind went to the image of the boy, sprawled on the ground much more gracefully than someone who didn't choose to be there should be, his arm outstretched to Harry, silently asking for help. So much had changed since the last time he had been in the position of accepting that hand. Years had passed; a war had been fought, and so many had died. Were the two boys even the same? He thought of the Draco then, self-entitled brat, only son of a well respected family. Now he was nearly a man, his good name and fortune stripped from him by very little wrongdoing of his own. Truly his greatest crime was his birth. With a father like Lucius Malfoy, a few personality flaws are to be expected.
It was strange to think of Malfoy this way, as a person who hadn't really had it much easier than Harry over the years. Yes, he had parents and yes, his home had been beautiful, but he had had equally harsh pressures put on him from birth, telling him who and what he was. From what Harry could tell, Malfoy hadn't exactly been a model Death Eater, so reluctant was he to fulfill his task, but he took the mark anyway. He had had a role to play in the war and he could fight that no more than Harry could. And it wasn't as though Harry had been a saint in regards to all things Malfoy. He briefly wondered if he had kept the scar the Sectumsempra had left on him, but dismissed the thought. 'Of course he hadn't. Purebloods like him value appearance above all else.'
Speaking (or thinking, as it were) of appearance, what was up with the glasses thing? If anyone else had transfigured his frames, then said what Malfoy had said, he would have sworn it was a compliment, but this was Malfoy, and any compliment was lost under the weight of the incorrect assumption that Harry reveled in his fame, that given the choice, he wouldn't simply disappear into the woodwork of wizarding society, allowed to do whatever he wanted without fear of public scrutiny.
"Harry! There you are!" A familiar voice pulled Harry out of his reverie. Hermione and Ron were walking towards him, Hermione with a stack of books in her arms and Ron, a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand and a muffin in the other.
"For you, mate," Ron said, giving Harry the muffin. "I figured you'd be hungry considering you'd missed breakfast." Harry smiled at this. Ron really was the best friend a guy could ask for. Loyal to a fault, and sometimes, when you least expected it, incredibly perceptive.
"When did you get new frames, Harry?" Hermione asked. Harry grimaced at that. Hermione was always incredibly perceptive. He had wanted to have a little bit of time to process what had transpired in the hall before telling his friends what had happened. He, of course, wanted to ask for their advice on where to go from there, but he also knew how they felt about Malfoy, and who could fault them? They both had more than enough reason to hate him, as did Harry, but he saw something today: the potential for, maybe not friendship, but civility. Harry had dealt with enough violence in his life, and, if he gave in to the Minister's nagging, he would be seeing a lot more as an Auror. He wouldn't miss an opportunity for a reprieve from the fighting, and now Malfoy had given him hope for just that.
"I'll tell you guys everything later, okay? I just need to be alone for a little bit, think about some stuff." At their confused faces, Harry said the first thing that popped into his head, "You know, about that thing I told you yesterday?" Understanding flitted across both of his friends' faces. Harry felt bad for lying, but he couldn't even hope to think about the situation rationally with them there.
He didn't have a particular destination in mind, but ended up by the edge of the lake, not far from Dumbledore's tomb. He sat there thinking about all sorts of things; what really was in a name, what it meant to let bygones be bygones and about how much the world can change in 7 years, even just the world of a little boy with stormy eyes.
After a while, Harry fell asleep in the grass. He dreamt of the fiendfyre, being trapped in the Room of Hidden Things with no means of escape. He was completely alone and could only hope in vain that his friends had somehow gotten out, but he held out no such optimism for himself. He knew he would die and the thought made his blood run cold, even in the flaming inferno. He closed his eyes, accepting death, but when he opened them, instead of fire, he saw a hand. There was Draco Malfoy, astride a firebolt, coming back to save him.