Chapter 8

Three weeks passed and Draco's status in Slytherin didn't improve. Zabini acted like he was air and made a point of not looking at him when they passed each other in the hallways. He ate his meals with Tracy Davis and Millicent Bulstrode when Pansy sat with them, or with Theodore Nott when she didn't. But he had never really liked Pansy's friends and he had a hard time keeping up a conversation with Nott, so after a while he just spent most of his time on his own. He became a regular in the library, since he didn't feel comfortable in the common room or his dorm. He had written two more letters to his mother but he hadn't sent them.

And then they had Potions with the Gryffindors on the Thursday before a Hogsmeade weekend. Professor Slughorn was going over the instructions when Draco noticed Potter staring at him again. He had caught him at it a couple of times since they had run into each other in the owlery, and this time, Draco gave in. When Slughorn told them to get started, Draco waited and went to pick up his ingredients at the same time as Potter. He told himself he wasn't accepting Potter's help – that he was simply too Slytherin to reject an opportunity like this just to spare his pride. But there was also some part of him that found it disproportionally appealing to perceive this as an opportunity to get Potter to finally take back his rejection of Draco's ancient offer of friendship – even to the extent that he didn't care about admitting to himself that he hadn't let it go entirely.

He leaned over the table and reached for the flowers of henbane that had been laid out.

"So, Potter," he whispered and felt the other boy jerk next to him. "Is that peace offering still standing?"

"Thought you didn't need my help," mumbled Potter without looking at him.

Draco replaced his flower with another, less crumpled one.

"I thought we might talk about it."

Potter moved a few inches to the left, picking up a handful of acorns.

"Sure."

"The Hog's Head on Saturday at 3, then?"

Potter nodded almost imperceptibly, picked up his elderberry-leaf and returned to his seat. Draco stayed by the table, he was more careful about picking his ingredients than Potter anyway. When he returned to his cauldron he cast a quick glance towards Potter's table to see if he was spilling everything to Granger and Weasley already, and he was relieved to see that he seemed to be keeping his mouth shut. He wondered if he would show up. It might have been Potter's idea, but Draco was the only one who had anything to gain from an alliance.

ø

When Saturday came, the weather was cold and grey and windy. Ron and Hermione wanted to stay back at the castle, so Harry had joined Dean, Seamus, Ginny and Parvati for their trip to Hogsmeade. They walked around the village for a while looking at windows and Harry was too distracted to keep up with the conversation. He was wondering how to get away from the others and also seriously considering blowing the whole thing with Malfoy off. He had been agonizing over it since the night before, telling himself it was stupid and ridiculous, but he couldn't make himself not go either. He had no idea what Malfoy could want them to talk about for long enough that they needed to meet in a pub outside of school, but he had to admit that he was curious. Malfoy was different this year. Despite what Harry had said to him in the owlery, he did think he had changed, though he only noticed it in glimpses. He knew Hermione was right, that he was worrying too much about him, so if nothing else, this was a chance to get some things cleared up. And he was spared having to come up with an excuse to leave the others: Around half past two it started drizzling, and they decided to go get butterbeer.

"I don't care where, as long as it's warm and dry," said Ginny.

"The Hog's Head?" suggested Parvati. "For the nostalgia, you know. And the beer is cheap."

Harry winced – he opened his mouth to protest but suddenly couldn't think of a single good reason why they shouldn't go there.

"It's too far," said Seamus. "The Three Broomsticks is right down here. We can visit Aberforth some other day, yeah?"

"I'm with Seamus," said Dean.

Harry's stomach unfurled from the tight knot it had so quickly been crumpled into.

"I uh… I need to go back and get some new quills, actually," he said.

"You should have said so! We walked right past the bookstore earlier," said Parvati.

"Yeah, I forgot. You can just go on ahead, I'll join you later."

"Alright, we'll save you a seat."

"Thanks."

He turned to walk back up the street they had come and unwound his scarf as he went. He turned to check the others had disappeared behind him, then wrapped the scarf around his face. So far there had been enough for the Prophet to write about that he didn't have to worry too much about gossip about him, but he would still prefer to avoid even the risk of a Skeeter-like article with a headline involving "the snake and the lion" or some other ridiculous thing like that.

ø

When he reached the pub the soft drizzle had turned into heavy rain. Harry ducked inside and slammed the door behind him. He tried to shake the rain out of his robes and unwrapped the scarf from his head, which had kept his hair mostly dry. The pub was almost empty and of course Malfoy wasn't there. Harry could hear the rain hammering down on the roof and ricocheting from the windows when caught by a particularly strong gust of wind – trying to get back to the others at The Three Broomsticks would be ridiculous. He would just have to stay until the rain stopped and hope that Malfoy had only gotten cold feet or regretted his invitation and not bothered to tell Harry, and that this wasn't some stupid trick meant to get him in trouble, like the things he had pulled when they were younger. Feeling both irritated and immensely stupid, Harry went up to the counter to order a butterbeer.

"Potter!" called a voice from behind him.

Harry started and turned around, ready to explain away his presence at the pub, and saw the blond Slytherin sitting by a table in a corner of the room where he hadn't been visible from the door. Harry hesitated for a second by the counter before he walked over and pulled out a chair. Malfoy smirked at him. Both his hair and his clothes were dry and he looked as pristine as ever.

"I see you got caught in the rain."

"This isn't a very good place to meet if you wanted to be discreet," said Harry quietly.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yeah. When Dumbledore's Army was established we met here and we were overheard. People hide their faces, so we don't know who's listening."

"We'll be fine," said Malfoy with a shrug. "It doesn't matter if we're overheard. What we want to avoid is people from school finding out about this meeting, as that would be rather embarrassing for both of us, wouldn't it? And in that respect this place is a much better option than The Three Broomsticks."

"There has to be other pubs in Hogsmeade than this and The Three Broomsticks."

"Well, this is also the only place where we can buy firewhisky. He doesn't care that we're in school," said Malfoy, gesturing towards Aberforth, who was in the middle of pouring a greenish liquid into the glasses of two figures at the bar wearing identical, broad rimmed hats with black veils hanging down from them.

"Of course, as a Malfoy I used to be able to buy whatever I wanted anywhere, but that isn't the case anymore..."

"Right," said Harry and cast another glance around the inn.

Apart from the veiled figures the only other person in there was a crumpled, dustcoloured man in the corner with at least ten greasy glasses in front of him.

"Look, you don't have to worry, this is the most discreet table in here. Unless people actually come over they won't hear us and we can't be seen either," said Malfoy. "We used to come here last year when we needed to get away from snitches, and the barkeep gave us this table – and don't look so surprised, Potter. Slytherins had things to hide from the Carrows too."

"Sure. Fine," he said and decided not to mention that apart from giving the Slytherin students a private place to talk, Aberforth had also been smuggling food for the DA through his inn. Or that he was Dumbledore's brother, which Malfoy didn't seem to be aware of either.

Harry watched as the old man filled two more glasses at the counter and then headed over to his and Malfoy's corner with them.

"Firewhisky, was it?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you," said Malfoy and the glasses were set down in front of them.

Aberforth gave Harry a quick glance before walking over to check if the crumpled man was still conscious.

"Don't worry about him either," said Malfoy. "He won't talk, he knows people come here for privacy."

"Did you order this?"

"What, the whisky? I figured we needed something stronger than butterbeer."

"I can pay for my own drinks."

"Of course you can, I'm just being polite. Cheers."

Malfoy raised his glass and Harry mimicked him half-heartedly. He figured it was safe to drink when he had seen Aberforth pour it, but it smelled stronger than the stuff he had had before and so he only dared a small sip. The taste was awful. As soon as the liquid entered his mouth it felt like his taste buds were being wrenched apart, and he swallowed so quickly he had to suppress a cough. At least when he was done choking on it, the whisky did leave a pleasant burning sensation spreading down his throat.

"So you're not used to strong alcohol?" asked Malfoy bemused.

He was still smirking at Harry.

"I haven't had that many opportunities to drink."

"No? I heard the Gryffindors try to get drunk on Hogsmeade trips as soon as they're old enough to go."

"I never thought of it."

Malfoy was drinking his whisky with much more practice and grace than Harry. He seemed perfectly relaxed, almost like he was enjoying himself, and Harry was wondering when they would get to the point. His expression was impossible to read.

"Maybe you missed out. It does sound very much like something they would do, don't you agree? To demonstrate their bravery."

"There is a difference between being brave and breaking rules for the fun of it," said Harry.

"Yet judging from the students who are actually in your house, the sorting hat doesn't seem to care very much about that distinction, does it?"

"I don't know."

"You ought to, you're like a mascot to them – the heir of…"

"Cut it out, Malfoy."

Malfoy stopped talking and lowered the glass, which he had just raised to his lips.

"What?"

"The smalltalk, just cut it out and get to the point."

He raised an eyebrow – the movement was so perfect Harry suspected he might have practiced it in front of a mirror.

"You're not in a hurry, are you? The weather is terrible, so I don't think we're going anywhere for a while."

As if to underline his words, the wind hammered another loud round of raindrops against the windows. Harry was trying to think of something to say that wasn't a string of curses, but trying to have a civil conversation with Malfoy was quite possibly the most frustrating thing he had ever done. He had agreed to meet him only because the invitation had seemed like a big concession on Malfoy's part and he thought he ought to be cooperative in return, at least to some extent. And then, Malfoy had been an arsehole when they talked in the owlery, but he had also seemed honest.

Harry felt lost after the war. He felt lost between Ron and Hermione, he felt lost at Hogwarts and lost in the wizardring world. And something about that talk with Malfoy, or fight or whatever it was, had felt like – not a solution, but it felt like direction. It had seemed important.

Now, however, every sentence that crept over his lips was sleek and glossy and Harry had no idea what their conversation was even about or why they were sitting there, drinking firewhisky together as if they were friends.

"Get to the point," he repeated. "Or I'm leaving."

"It seems just a tiny bit arrogant of you that you consider your company to be of such great importance that depriving me of it constitutes as a threat-"

"You asked me to meet you here," said Harry, interrupting him. "You said you wanted to discuss a truce, so let's do that."

Malfoy set his glass down gently – he was about halfway through it. Harry had still only had a sip of his.

"Alright," he said, his voice taking on a more business-like tone that still managed to be no less sleek or silky than before. "The last time we talked, you mentioned that you thought things had changed, and you suggested a truce. Or, you said something that could be interpreted as a peace offering, but I assume you would have corrected me by now if I was reading too much into it. So I thought we ought to meet and discuss what exactly this truce consists of."

"I don't see what there is to discuss. You swear that you aren't plotting anything that will hurt me or my friends or Hogwarts or anyone else, and I will stop trying to figure out if you are. You stop antagonizing my friends and we don't have to fight every time we see each other and we can stop hating each other for no reason and just pretend the other person doesn't exist."

Malfoy was wearing a mildly condescending smile.

"Well, that is exactly what we have to discuss. Those are all your terms of what a truce would entail – what I have in mind could be something entirely different."

"What do you have in mind?" said Harry grudgingly.

Malfoy shrugged.

"I agree with most of what you said."

He cleared his throat demonstratively and recited: "I swear that I am not plotting anything that will hurt you, your friends or anyone else. So you can stop stalking me now."

"Fine. What about the rest?"

"I don't think I have ever antagonized your friends."

Harry stared at him.

"Are you serious?" he said. "You have been bothering everyone for years! You insult Ron's family all the time and you wrote that stupid song about him when he became Gryffindor keeper-"

"Weasley has insulted my family just as often as I have insulted his, that's just mutual dislike. And the song was a tactical thing, I knew it would mess him up and I wanted my team to win."

There would be no truce. Harry was going to kick Malfoy's teeth in.

"I didn't come here to hear you make excuses for yourself," he said.

"Oh, come on, Potter, you know it wasn't all me," Malfoy drawled.

Harry pushed back his chair and stood up.

"Potter – hey, wait!"

Harry looked back at him. Malfoy looked urgent but also like he was regretting calling out so loudly.

"I'm sorry," he said grudgingly. "I'm sorry, alright? I know, I've been a shit to Weasley."

"What about Hermione?" said Harry.

"What about her?"

"You have been calling her a mudblood every chance you got for the last seven years."

"I've already stopped using that word."

Harry frowned.

"What do you mean you've stopped using it?"

"Exactly that. It used to remind people of my pure blood, noble birth and powerful family."

Harry scoffed, Malfoy continued unperturbed:

"But now it's associated with the fact that my father was a Death Eater, which I want them to forget about as soon as possible. So I don't use it anymore."

"You were a Death Eater too."

Malfoy shot him a look.

"I want them to forget about that too."

"So you'll stop bothering my friends?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes.

"Yes," he said. "I've left you all alone this year, haven't I?"

Harry pulled his chair out and sat back down.

"Ask the other Slytherins to stay away from them too."

Malfoy looked exasperated.

"I thought you had caught on to the fact that I am no longer in a position where I can order my friends around," he said.

The sleekness had faded from his voice. Harry hesitated.

"You said you had a fight with them."

"Which means they are not my friends anymore."

He said it very matter-of-factly.

"How does that work?"

He had a hard time believing that Malfoy's friends would abandon him after a fight if they had stuck with him until this point. And though Harry had noticed Malfoy's exclusion from his usual pack of Slytherins, the otherwise alert system of gossip within Hogwarts hadn't picked up on it, which meant the fight, whatever it had been about, couldn't have been too dramatic.

"Oh, I suppose Gryffindor is on the same page as Hufflepuff with this whole sentiment of "loyalty is a virtue and I will stand by my friends through everything until I die in an unnecessary but very admirable and self-sacrificing way"," he said, "but Slytherin has always been more about allies than friends."

He sounded proud of this. Harry had a hard time seeing the advantage to having allies if they were willing to abandon without hesitation over something like a fight.

"That's cold," he said.

"It's practical."

"I don't see the point of making friends that way."

"That's because you and I have very different approaches to the purpose of making friends and going to school. My house mates are heirs to the houses of Zabini, Greengrass, Nott, Parkinson and Bulstrode, and since I am the heir to the house of Malfoy, I can't just base my friendships on whether or not I like these people, since later in life they will have to be my political allies or they will be my rivals. We all do better if we don't fight each other, and it's easier to be allies than friends. Did you honestly think it was a coincidence that every single major pureblood family has its oldest child in our year?"

"What, they time when they have their kids?"

"Of course. The Selwyns messed up, but I'm sure they're thrilled that Matthew is in our year now. No family would want their heir to be the one who was left out when the rest of Britain's most powerful witches and wizards meet with their old friends from school. The Malfoy family used to be the most powerful of the pureblood houses, we practically ran Britain. So they all knew they couldn't afford not to be friends with me."

"But now they've all decided to dump you?" said Harry.

"They think it's too risky to associate with me. And by shunning my family for our association with you-know-who they make themselves look better and less like they were all quietly supporting him as well. Why do you think I'm even here in the first place? I wouldn't need you if I still had them."

Something clicked into place and Harry knew that Malfoy had said too much. The meeting made sense; the small talk and the firewhisky made sense.

"That's what this is," he said. "You want me to… absolve you from being a Death Eater or something."

Malfoy's smile was bitter and reluctant. He emptied his glass of whisky.

"You might have noticed that you are the only one so far who has made any demands as to what our truce is going to mean," he said.

"So what do you want me to do? Publicly declare that I was wrong all along and Draco Malfoy is actually a really nice bloke?"

"No, of course not. Everybody knows you hate me, they would assume it was blackmail. I want us to stop hating each other for no reason, just as you suggested."

"Fine with me."

"But I don't think we can achieve that by ignoring each other."

"I don't see why not."

"Because you can't just decide to stop hating someone. That's not how people work – if we simply pretended like the other person didn't exist our image of each other wouldn't change, as there wouldn't be another one to take its place."

"Yeah? What's your idea, then?"

"Drink the whisky, Potter, I promise it will make all of this more bearable. And remember, this is not a condition. I am still going to keep the promises I made you earlier, but I also propose that we get to know each other. You don't have to publicly declare anything about me, though of course if an incident does occur where we have to interact in front of others I hope you will be civil with me. It won't be public, but it's also not going to be a secret."

"No," he said flatly.

"Drink your whisky."

"Why, did you put something in it?"

"No, I just bought it for you. You said it yourself that you didn't know me and that lots of things have changed. Well, I can't say I know you very well either."

"We're not going to be friends."

"Why not?" said Malfoy, sounding almost earnest

And even though there ought to be thousands of possible answers to that question, Harry hesitated. The problem was that by meeting here and by their previous agreements, most of the reasons for their enmity had been suspended. His first answer would have been "because we hate each other," but they were only having this conversation in the first place because the reasonability of that hatred had been called into question. He could have listed some of the terrible things Malfoy had done over the years, but in many of those instances they had been equally awful to each other, and even when they hadn't, a war had happened since then. Harry wasn't sure he had actually meant to suggest a truce when he said that things had changed, but the war did seem to have created a chasm between the "before" and "after", and he wasn't sure where those two worlds overlapped and where they didn't.

"We just aren't," he said.

Malfoy shrugged and looked away.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay," repeated Harry.

And then there was silence. The rain wasn't hammering as hard against the roof as before, but it was still pouring down out there. Harry took a gulp of whisky and tried not to grimace at the taste. Malfoy was swirling the remaining contents around in his own glass.

"We can be allies," said Harry quietly.

Malfoy looked up and Harry shrugged.

"We can do it the Slytherin way."

A tight smile crossed Malfoy's lips.

"Whatever pleases you, Potter. I never thought you had much interest in doing anything the Slytherin way."

"The hat offered me Slytherin."

He didn't know why he said it. Ever since his first day at Hogwarts, he had been trying to sever all his ties to Slytherin. They had become secrets and things to be ashamed of. He had hated that house because he hated Malfoy, and because everything that tied Harry to Slytherin had also tied him to Voldemort.

Malfoy scoffed.

"What do you mean it offered you Slytherin? The hat doesn't give suggestions, it just places you in the house that best fits your abilities."

Harry thought he was feeling a slight buzz from the alcohol. Malfoy seemed more relaxed as well, but he wasn't sure if it was because of the whisky or because Harry had conceded to the agreement.

"No, there is a voice that speaks inside your head," he said, though calling it a voice didn't seem exactly right – when he tried to recall his sorting he remembered how the words had appeared in his mind without bothering to pass through his ears first. "It kept saying I would do well in Slytherin, but Ron had already told me that it was the evil house, so I kept thinking that I didn't want to go there and instead it put me in Gryffindor."

"It didn't speak to me."

Harry shrugged.

"There wasn't a lot of doubt about which house you belonged to, was there?"

"I suppose not. But it doesn't really make sense if you can just choose a house. What is the point of sorting at all if you could just pick the place you want to go?"

"Maybe it just does that for people who fit into more than one house."

"Did it tell Granger to go to Ravenclaw?" asked Malfoy.

"I don't know, actually. I never asked her."

"That's interesting. Maybe it's broken, I mean after Longbottom you're probably the least Slytherin student in all of Hogwarts."

"Actually, I think you're the only one who has ever said that."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and you're also the only person I know who doesn't think it's a compliment."

Malfoy smirked.

"Think you would have done well in Slytherin, Potter?"

He shrugged.

"Don't know. The hat said I would. It's kind of hard to imagine.

"Dumbledore might have intervened and moved you to a more a appropriately heroic house if you hadn't insisted on going there yourself."

"And if not, Snape would have kicked me out. There probably would have been more "Harry Potter is the dark lord reborn"-theories that weren't in The Quibbler if I had been in your house."

"Maybe not. I know lots of people who could have advised you on how to handle the media better."

"What, you think Slytherins could have made it look good in second year when the Chamber was opened and everyone found out I was a parselmouth?"

"The parseltongue might have been hard to get around, but a good interview could have framed it better… And seriously, even when I was 10 I could handle public attention better than you did during the triwizard tournament."

"Even if they hadn't had to practically ask your father's approval on everything they published?" asked Harry.

He was less annoyed by the insult than he thought he would have been, but there seemed to be surprisingly little spite in the statement.

"Yes," said Malfoy. "Even then. I could give you a lesson some time. It looks like you won't stop being a media darling just because you-know-who is gone."

"You can say his name."

Harry saw Malfoy's fingers brush over his left arm. He didn't seem aware of the movement himself.

"I don't like to," he said.

They fell quiet again.

ø

"It's stopped raining," said Malfoy.

Harry looked out the windows.

"Right. It has."

"If everything is settled, then I suggest we get back to the castle. Do you want to leave first?"

"Sure."

He stood.

"So I guess I'll se you around," he said.

"I guess you will. See you, Potter."

Harry nodded, then left the pub and made his way back up to the castle under the looming, grey skies that promised more rain to come. As he crossed over the grounds from the gates to the main entrance, he decided that the meeting, in retrospect, hadn't been all that terrible.