Changes

"Thanks for agreeing to meet me." Draco said as he and Harry followed the waitress to their allotted table.

"Can I get you something to drink?" she asked poising with a pen and paper.

"I'll have diet Pepsi," Draco told her.

"Er…I'll have the regular stuff," Harry said. His green eyes swept over the establishment. "The Hard Rock Café? I wouldn't have expected you to like such a muggle restaurant."

"Always fancied it, I like some of the muggle bands as well," his companion said nonchalantly."

"Really? Like who?" Harry said, picking up the menu.

"I like rock music – I mean there aren't that many wizarding bands really." The blond teen cast his eyes over the menu. "Hmm interesting choices they have here."

"I thought you hated muggles." Harry almost laughed out loud at the image that drifted into his mind of his former antagonist head banging to Metallica.

Draco wrinkled his nose. "I didn't know any better did I and anyway I don't mind the music. Know what you're having Harry?"

"Not a clue! Harry turned over the pages on the menu. He was starving, having had a light lunch of a sandwich and fruit. A sudden thought occurred to him. "Does your father know you were meeting me?"

"Father doesn't take too much of an interest in what I'm doing these days to be honest with you." Draco pulled his chair closer to the table, his grey eyes staring intently at his dining partner. "In fact…he's not really showing interest in very much unless it sits in the bottom of a whisky glass."

The pretty dark haired waitress arrived bearing a small, round tray with tall glasses full of dark fizzy drinks on it. She placed the glasses in front of them with a smile and whisked the tray away. The badge on her uniform informed them her name was Helena.

"Only so much bloody pumpkin juice and butter beer you can drink isn't there" Draco said, taking a sip of his drink and lowering his eyes back to the menu.

"Yeah," Harry replied softly. "Though I like pumpkin juice." He picked up his own glass, thoughtfully. He had noticed the absence of the older Malfoy at the Ministry of Magic, but wasn't sure exactly why the man hadn't returned to work. "Is Lucius coming back to the Ministry soon?"

Draco shot him a look. "I doubt it, I think he's had some kind of…psychotic breakdown. He hardly speaks to us. He just sits drinking and then throws the bloody glass at the wall. I think it's hard for him to realise that everything he'd been brought up to follow, to believe in – was wrong. I think he's in denial about everything."

Harry nodded slowly, his eyes darted around rapidly. "I'm sorry that he's not doing well Draco, maybe he needs to talk to somebody – a mind healer perhaps."

Draco raised his brows and snorted. "Well good luck to the person who wants to suggest that to him!"

"Was just an idea." Harry said, taking a long sip of his Pepsi. "I kind of thought that after the trial, you could all – ya know – make a fresh start."

Draco shrugged. "That's quite magnanimous of you Harry, but people don't forget – and they don't forgive that easily either. I know I was a git when I was in school but when you've been brought up to behave in a certain way, it's easy to fall into that role. I was a complete arsehole to you and it went on far too long but the way we saw it, the Dark Lord was bound to win and we wanted to be on the winning side. It was like a drug, the promise of all that power. By the time I realised I was in too deep, it was much too late. He threatened my family if I didn't do what he said. I didn't want to kill the old man. It was all a bloody mess by then!"

"Yeah," Harry breathed, "but he's gone now and your dad helped us catch some of the other death eaters."

"He's paranoid that if they ever get out of Azkaban they'll come straight for us – he's probably right as well."

"Perhaps – but they are pretty heavily guarded and they have a copy of the Marauders map so even as animagi they couldn't get past the guards now."

Draco frowned. "They have a copy of what?"

Harry explained as Draco shook his head in disbelief. "Good thing Snape never caught you with that."

"Er – he did once, but it just insulted him when he tried to read it." Harry said.

Draco sat back, folding his arms. "Pfft if he'd caught any of us Slytherins with anything like that, he would have skinned us alive and used the remains for his potions ingredients!"

"Really? I thought he didn't punish his precious snakes."

"Huh?" Draco scoffed. "He was the strictest house master in the whole school Potter. He would never have punished us in front of any other houses because of the way we were treated already but believe me if any of us crossed him, we knew about it! We were a closed unit. We never discussed Slytherin business in front of any other house! Tell me, why do you think Slytherins were very rarely caught breaking curfew?"

Harry only had a moment to ponder this revelation when a voice he had never expected to hear again interrupted their conversation, "Harry – Harry it is you isn't it!"

He glanced up at the stocky young man in front of him who was wearing an eyebrow piercing and a Limp Bizkit t-shirt. Oh No! Dudley!

His eyes grew wide in shock as his cousin lumbered up to him. "Alright Harry, how's it goin?"

"Er…OK!" Harry was at a loss for words. It was almost two years since he had last seen his cousin as the whole family had left Private Drive for a safe house just before Harry's 17th birthday.

"Manda." Dudley yelled. A pretty dark haired girl with a vivid pink steak in her fringe, panda eyes and a lip ring wandered over and her gaze alighted on Harry. "This is my cousin Harry who used to live with us."

"Oh!" Her blue eyes grew big and questioning. She switched her gaze between Dudley and Harry. "The one who was in the army?"

Harry tried to stifle a smirk. "Er…army, yeah!" Draco blinked and his mouth fell open. He gave a quizzical glance at the large boy who had joined them, then his grey eyes shot back to meet Harry's green ones.

"I don't really like all that fighting. You must see a lot of dead people," Manda exclaimed, "I wouldn't like that, I couldn't shoot anybody!"

"Well, a lot of the time, you are just at barracks waiting for instructions." It was the first thing Harry could think of. Draco finally began to catch on.

"Well there was Dumbldedore's Army," he began.

"Is that in Ireland?"

Harry bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. "No, it's in um, France."

"Oh, OK, Anyway it's nice to meet you, I'd better go and order, c'mon D."

Dudley grinned. "Gorgeous ain't she. Well, see ya Harry." He turned to leave but then paused and shuffled his feet awkwardly. "It was good to see you and um I'm sorry for you know, everything. I know it wasn't right the way mum and dad treated you." He mumbled. "I know it wasn't right them making you sleep in that cupboard for years when I had a 2nd bedroom and not feeding you properly. I think you've done all right though. I mean – you look pretty well and all that and well I know that you had to do all that magic stuff to protect the rest of us right. Mum and dad didn't think of that. I hope there's no hard feelings." He patted Harry's arm. "Well, I'd better get back to Manda. See ya." He turned and went off to find his companion, leaving Harry speechless. He glanced at Draco who was staring after Dudley with an unreadable expression. Harry squirmed and cast his eyes to the floor, his cheeks flaming. He wanted a hole in the ground to just swallow him up.

"Is that who you lived with?" Draco asked softly.

Harry didn't meet his gaze. "Yeah. Look Dudley doesn't know what he's saying…" He turned back to the menu. "Are you ready to order yet?"

The other boy just gazed at him, ignoring Harry's attempt to deflect the subject. "You had more in common with Slytherin House than you realised!"

"What?" Harry glanced up sharply?"

"Well do you think the children of Death Eaters were all treated with kid gloves Potter?"

"I never thought about it." Harry confessed. "You weren't…?"

Draco shook his head. "Father never physically laid a hand on me…used a few smacking charms though when I was younger, probably deserved it though."

"My aunt and uncle didn't beat me…but they weren't kind. They didn't want me there, I guess they never asked for me to be left with them."

"Yeah, all the same, starving you? Locking you in a bloody cupboard, I thought muggles had laws against that kind of thing." Harry shrugged. "Did Dumbledore know? I can't imagine he would allow his golden boy to be abused."

Harry was surprised to see the depth of concern reflected in his companion's face. "Don't call me that! I had to stay with my family because of the protection from the blood wards," he said quietly.

"Doesn't sound much like protection," Draco said. "I'm surprised you weren't tempted to hex them, it must have been frustrating not being able to do magic with a family like that!"

"Well…" Harry proceeded to tell Draco about the time he accidentally made the glass disappear in the reptile house at the zoo and Dudley fell into the snake tank."

Draco gasped. "Hey if it had swallowed your cousin, it wouldn't have needed to eat again for ages."

Harry smirked. "If it had eaten Uncle Vernon, it wouldn't have needed to eat for a year."

Draco laughed out loud at this, gaining quite a few disapproving glances from the next table. It was quite a novelty for Harry to have Draco laughing with him, rather than at him.

Elena appeared with her pen and paper, poised to take their order. Harry ordered a burger with all the trimmings and Draco ordered steak. "So why did you want to meet me? Harry enquired after the waitress had left.

"I dunno, I guess – I needed to get things off my chest. I'm not proud of the way I acted at school and when I have kids, they won't be brought up the way I was."

"Well," said Harry, "Any kids of mine definitely won't be brought up the way I was!" A stray thought entered his mind. Kids, he'd never thought of that before. He wondered idly, what kids of his and Ginny's would look like. Perhaps they would have red hair and green eyes – just like his mum.

"Yeah, I don't blame you."

Later as Harry and Draco were leaving the restaurant, Dudley and Manda waved and shouted, "See ya!" They went to a muggle pub and had a couple of beers. It was a pleasant evening and they parted on good terms but made no arrangement to meet again. They had at least managed to move on from their past quarrels and he felt a sense of closure. As he hurried back home, Harry reflected on the strangeness of the day. He didn't know which was weirder – the fact that he was in a restaurant with Draco, who had confided in him about his father's drinking or the fact that Dudley apologised to him. He had no idea that by the end of the following day, even more revelations were to come to light.

He arrived back at home and had barely removed his jacket when he heard a tapping sound. He padded over to the window and lifted the catch to allow entrance to an impatient tawny owl who hooted at him furiously, before dropping a small packet in his cupped palms.

He fed the owl a titbit and examined the package to see who it was from. There was no identification on the outside of the envelope so after casting his wand to check for dark spells and hexes – and finding none, he tore at the wrapping. It contained a small vial with a shimmery, silver-blue substance in it and a note that said, "Something I took from you – I respectfully request that you never disclose the contents to anyone. There was also a muggle CD with the words 'listen to track 6' written on a piece of paper tucked inside the front cover. There was no name and address on the packet but Harry knew who it was from – Alexander.