disclaimer: not mine


warning: slash. H/D








~~ Tangent.


His love is a tangent from a long-known history that he could never explain.


It would have been all wrong. There was just no way to explain it, no way to make it make even the remotest amount of sense. In the wizarding world, there was always the strange equilibrium, the sensation that even the most absurd, surreal things all secretly made sense. Magic was real and could be studied. No occurrence in the physical world was really something beyond grasp. It was just a matter of talent.


Love isn't a talent. It's not something he could even be certain about the presence of. It seemed to come and go and flare into annoyance and frustration and worse. And sometimes he thought it was just hatred, and his mind was playing tricks on him yet again.


Something ineffable, something more mysterious than any magic known to man had happened to him in his sixth year. He didn't wake up one day and realize his needs had multiplied. There was air, water, food, shelter. And then there was Draco Malfoy.


He didn't wonder why Malfoy looked under the weather lately, and he didn't suddenly realize that the other boy's hips were strangely slim and alluring, and that well-shaped bottom looked rather illegally good in tight-fitting trousers. He had no new insight into Malfoy's character, and he was rather sure he didn't want one. Life was as before, and yet it wasn't. It wasn't anything simple like a moment that made everything clear, or a look that spoke of hidden desire. And yet it wasn't very complicated.


They were just moments where he'd let down his guard, and stepped away from his past, from his ego and his prejudices and his inhibitions, perhaps. It wasn't much, but it accumulated over the years.


Malfoy was always obvious about his attention. It was clear what he thought of him, and that he thought it often. He saw the way Malfoy would stare, that lip curling, those eyes boring into his skull as if he wanted to carve it and place it like a trophy on the Slytherin mantle.


He didn't look. He didn't think. Consciousness recoiled against most thoughts about the most unpleasant, impossible git he knew. Malfoy would've faded away if those silvery eyes didn't insist on dancing in front of his own, challenging him, trying to get a reaction. He got so used to it, sometimes he would seek it out thoughtlessly, just making sure everything was just as he'd left it.


It was really a fuzzy line between half-conscious glances and the dreams. The dreams, where he'd see flashes and hints and glimmers of light on something bright and smooth. Metallic. He'd wake up with that metallic taste in his mouth, but it was sweet, not like blood.


It was merely the glint of silver that caught his eye, and he wasn't aware of its source, not really. He was still sleepy, the dreams lining the inside of his eyelids, his fingers moving sluggishly as his mind, tearing off a piece of bread and stuffing it absently into his mouth. He couldn't have recalled what he'd been thinking even two minutes later. He forgot even this for a long time. He had caught a flash of silver, and before he knew it, before he had remembered and put a name to the color, his breath caught in his throat, and he felt a strange, electric shiver run up and down his arms. It was almost unpleasant, and his robes felt suddenly crackly with static electricity.


One moment he was absently smiling at nothing in particular, thinking how beautiful that shade of grey was, how deep and mesmerizing it was, how much he was seeing silver sparkles even if he turned his eyes back to his plate. And then reality intervened, and the disgust and bile rose up in his throat, making him want to cough, unable to dislodge some strange lump now lodged there. He hated him, and he always had. He rubbed at his eyes, thinking vaguely that something must've been stuck in them. Several hours later, he would forget the morning, and the dreams that had been hovering thickly around his head. He never did remember the dreams.


This moment touched another, and yet another, and soon they made a history of sorts, one that underlay and twisted through the usual sort, that he would actually think to remember. It would've been strange to somehow unearth it, to judge it in the cold light of reality. What could one say about vague, mostly amorphous feelings, a pulling more subtle and contradictory than the tides?


It wasn't that they were friends first, or lovers first. It was that they looked first, and saw each other, just standing there, on the lakeshore. They said nothing.


There was nothing to say. The air seemed thick with things impossible to utter, jangly and loud and horribly out of place somehow. If they could've, they would've pretended they didn't know each other, and it wouldn't have been very difficult, because neither of them would truthfully claim to. But they couldn't ignore who they knew each other to be, so all they could do was avoid looking directly at one another, and keep silent.
+ + +



Harry was surprised when he realized, much later, that his fingers were stiff from having been balled into fists for quite some time, and his legs equally stiff from holding his weight so unmovingly. At the time, all he noticed was the fog obscuring his vision, and the increasing chill in the air. He'd shivered, wrapping his cloak tighter around his body, and made a small noise of disappointment when the moisture in the atmosphere became too heavy to ignore.


Malfoy seemed to be gazing fixedly at the storm clouds hung low over the horizon, and trying to sneeze inconspicuously into his hand. Some large, echoing part of Harry's mind felt strangely empty and clear, like it wanted the rain and the silence without the rest of him being aware of it. He found it easy to remain still, thinking of nothing in particular.


"Looks like it's going to rain," he said, on a sigh.


"Yeah." Malfoy looked at the stones beneath his feet, his fingers clenching and unclenching. There was a pregnant pause. "I suppose this is our cue."


Harry looked at him askance, remembering Hermione's enthusiastiasm for the recent Drama Club production of "As You Like It". Another case of learning way more about something than he'd ever wanted to know.


"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," he quoted, almost unwillingly.


"They all have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts," Draco said softly, his voice smooth and even, with none of the usual sneering lilt. Harry blinked, the water starting to run down his cheeks, but Malfoy was still Malfoy, and the world seemed pretty much the same as ever. No one had sprouted horns or tails, even though now both of them were spouting Shakespeare. In the rain. Harry chuckled.


"You surprise me, Malfoy," he said, after a pause during which he tried and failed to imagine Malfoy on stage, saying this to a roomful that would include a number of smirking Slytherins.


"Indeed," said Draco. and somehow, there was no longer any doubt as to who he was, even if he -did- sound a bit too much like Snape for Harry's comfort. He was spared the necessity of coming up with some sort of passable reply, because Draco was gone, quite suddenly, almost between one clap of approaching thunder and another. Harry blinked in confusion once again, then shook his head, now drippy with rain, and set off for his common room, which was warm and noisy and quite possibly in another world altogether.


Ginny ran up to him as soon as he'd passed through the portrait, exclaiming something like, "Wow, Harry, you're soaking! "


"Indeed," said Harry, quite without irony. It was amazing how easy it was to gloss things over until they became impossibly, perfectly smooth. There were some parts of Harry's mind that were slick and shiny and impregnable, especially to himself. He wasn't exactly forgetting. He was just choosing to not remember.
+ + +



Time passed strangely. Nothing seemed to change-- always danger, always up to him to prevent, always another match to win, another homework deadline to meet, always another crisis. Always another insult to ignore, another flare-up of temper to submerge, another look to glance away from. When there wasn't, the days just blended together, and he simply didn't notice them. He supposed he was happy, those times.


It was a day like any other day, and he had gone back towards the Quidditch pitch, thinking he'd forgotten something, though he could never remember what he'd forgotten, afterwards. There was a fine mist in the air, and the sun streaked dimly through the heavy, grey clouds. He felt shrouded in something warm and soft and lulling, and it was telling him to let go, to let himself be absorbed, contained and swaddled in the security of simple contentment. He didn't need to move. He didn't need to think.


Someone was moving through the clouds, writing complex hieroglyphs in the misty air, weaving thread after thread through the silver sky. Their features were unknowable, and he didn't really need to know. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew who it was. No one else flew like that, with that sort of effortless, yet completely controlled grace. His long practice at following his every move made it instinct to spot him. And yet he didn't want to, so he barely acknowledged that there was something eerie and familiar about the lone, dark figure swooping and gliding and making crazy loops in the air. He was smiling that strange, alien-feeling smile again, and he couldn't stop himself. He had a moment or two, maybe three, before his conscious mind rebelled and he stalked off, glaring at no one, cursing the unnaturally agile figure streaking above him.


For those three moments, his heart soared right along with him. he didn't really tell himself it was beautiful, didn't allow himself to want more clarity, more detail, more depth of vision. For a moment, who it was didn't detract but rather embellished the appeal of the image he was presented with. It was almost delicious somehow, so unexpected and yet not really. Was it, really? Everything he felt has always seemed to have a source, a connection to his former emotions, which allowed him to adjust easier, to believe that he was still the same person even though all sorts of insanely different things happen between one month and the next-- between one -week- and the next.


And yet he could find no source for this, though he didn't look for one. He locked it away, determined to walk away and not turn back, determined to look forward to beating him the next time he was so smugly swooping through the sky, as if he were lord and master of the air. He knew he wanted to beat him, and it was still just that simple.
+ + +



"Maybe you just don't know anything about me, -Potter-," he'd said, leaning casually against the Quidditch broom shed. "I know things about you even -you- don't know, and you-- you're just stumbling around, waiting for the Dark Lord to pluck you away in your sleep," he'd continued, sneering. Then. Now, he just looked back at him, eyes clear and seeming wider than usual in the early morning light, lending a strange soft glow to the sharp edges of his face.


He could find nothing to say, looking back. He had been used to feeling angry, indignant, irritated, frustrated, tired. Right now, there was a vague sense of confusion, of a strange, distant puzzlement. Also of peace, something he hasn't experienced for so long he wasn't even certain he felt it now. And yet, there it was, sweeping through his limbs like a slow-moving, silvery liquid, like some enchanted water.


A smile played upon Draco's lips, and still he said nothing. They stood, even after the initial startlement of inadvertently meeting each other so early in the morning had passed. The day hadn't quite arrived, the night hadn't quite departed. Nothing seemed quite like itself, instead appearing to be tainted with the residue of its shadow, its very opposite. He didn't feel like Harry Potter, facing Draco Malfoy, his sworn nemesis, a Slytherin, a petty, mean-spirited git who made his every day less worth living.


"The sky is the precise color of the potion to summon faery spirits. They say that means someone had true dreams this night," Draco said softly, for all the world sounding like he was talking to himself, no longer looking at him.


Harry's mouth dropped open slightly with startlement. Draco went on, obliviously. "They say true faeries don't exist, not really, because no dream is ever really true," Draco said.


"Do you believe in them?" Harry said, without even realizing he spoke until he had.


"Dreams are never true. Waking or sleeping. That potion is only a curiousity, one of the many that have never been proven to work or not, one way or the other. It was in an appendix in the most complete book of summoning magic published this century," Draco said, staring intently into the sky, which was now streaking with wide pink and gold ribbons, which quite ruined the former ethereal effect. The smile still ghosted on his lips. Harry still felt spellbound, not quite awake or asleep, on the edge of something.


"You're wrong," Harry said, without rancor. "I have true dreams all the time. People die, and get tortured, and driven mad. I wish I didn't see it, and it seems impossible sometimes, like seeing the darkness should be wrong, I shouldn't...."


Draco stared straight at him again. His eyes had turned dark, murky and silver, with spreading shadows. Harry thought they looked like knives could fall inside them, and melt and bend and disappear. They looked like they contained true dreams within them. What was he saying? "What am I saying?" he said, before he could stop himself.


The silvery whisps of hair drifted across Draco's ear, moved out of their perfect arrangement by the cool March wind. Harry wasn't thinking of brushing it away. He wasn't thinking, though his fingers twitched against his side. "I don't know, Potter. I don't know." He paused, and Harry thought he wasn't going to say anything else, but he was wrong. "Do you ever have any other true dreams? Do you ever see an end to the bloodshed?" He sounded curious, almost child-like. His eyes seemed clear and almost translucent once again.


"Sometimes... sometimes I think there is a place I can escape to. I'm not myself in those dreams, but they seem true. Maybe that's how you can summon them. Maybe if you forgot who you are, and what you're afraid of. But I don't know." He couldn't believe he was saying that. He didn't really think that. He had never thought that.


He didn't really remember, even though he could feel it, could feel the whispers of those dreams scratching at the edges of recollection, leaving marks, like dents on smooth, gleaming silver. He knew, without knowing. It's a luminous darkness, full of the bright sharp edges of things deeply and secretly felt, the things inside them that would haunt until death. Their bared, pale bellies, their glittering, flashing teeth. Their delicate eyelids, closed over flickering eyes, moving restlessly, seeking comfort that is never coming. Their hatred, filling them and sinking low, hot and burning like liquid, scalding inside their stomach, nothing they could contain. There was never any comfort or resolution. Only tossing and turning, looking for that heat filling the hollow in the sheets that was never there. Only following a trail, breathing the scent of unknown completion, the shape of which always eluded them.


"I never...." Harry trailed off.


"Never what," Draco said, almost inaudible, his breath misting slightly as he exhaled.


"I...." I never touch you, Harry thought, and felt the burning at the top of his cheeks. Why did he think that, out of nowhere? "Never remember."


"Oh." Draco said, just as softly. "Yeah. I never remember the truth. That's a good thing, of course," Draco said, and something about the way he said it seemed like he was throwing his usual self on casually, like a cloak. Harry shivered, suddenly feeling the wind.


"You think?" Harry said, quite serious, his eyes opening a bit wider. It was light now.


"No," Draco said, and walked away briskly. Harry stood there for a long time, wondering about everything and nothing all at once. He couldn't have explained it, but he thought he should try to remember those things that seemed to keep passing right by, faint and lingering like dreams. He could see the dark grey shape that was the boy he'd just talked to, ever receding into the distance, and he didn't really know why his eyes followed him. But follow they did, long after there was nothing left to see.
+ + +



They never really talked, he realized. He didn't really know what he'd say, and he had always been quite certain he didn't have the slightest inclination to find out. Malfoy had airy mist in his head-- deadly mist, that would suffocate him were he ever to breathe it in. It was pure poison. It ran in his veins, pureblood silver just like he always claimed. No matter what happened, to doubt that Malfoy was never true was to invite some sort of calamity. Of course, that led to the conclusion that even when he lied and cheated, he wasn't being true. He was merely the sum of his actions, and none of those actions could possibly reflect a human being with a heart and a conscience. Therefore, there was nothing to find out.


Harry's curiosity was really a ridiculously contrary thing. It could lay dormant for years and years, leaving him fully comfortable with his convictions, and content with his conclusions. And then he'd notice something-- some small thing, seemingly unrelated to anything, a complete fluke of existence. It was like picking up a scent. His mind followed this tangent, like a silver thread luring him to some hidden doorway into certain peril. The peril didn't matter, but finding out that thing that was eluding him-- now that he was aware it was-- that was paramount.


So it was really not surprising that he convinced Hermione that Snape had given him an extra project to do during one of his detentions, and he needed her help. He half-way convinced himself, even. There was a potion, he was certain of it. There was a potion for everything. Surely there was a potion that gave you true dreams. Even if it wasn't guarranteed, it was a chance worth taking. And yes, the Somna Veritas potion did exist, and while it was advanced and predictably difficult to make, it was within even his abilities. Especially if Hermione told him exactly what to do.


There was even a variation where you could focus the potion to a single person, if you had a hair or a nail clipping from them. It seemed almost -too- easy.


"Are you sure?" she said, looking deeply into his eyes, searching for something. She suspected something, of course.


"No." He exhaled, and told himself it was natural to be nervous about strange potions.


"Then why?"


"I don't know anymore. Maybe-- maybe I'm missing something. I don't know."


"Well, it's not really dangerous, I guess.... Except...." Hermione seemed almost embarrassed. Like it was her fault the potion had side-effects. He sighed.


"Except?" Harry had the sudden, irresistible urge to bite on a thumb. He resisted. He was good at resisting, it seemed.


"Well, since it's a true dream, there's always the danger of getting lost. Of never waking up. After all, what is the difference, then. If dreams are real, then what is so different about reality?" She tucked a stray brown curl behind one ear, still not quite looking at him. "I tried to come up with a variant that somehow wore off and pulled you back after a few hours, but... I just... it needs more experimentation, I think."


"But the assignment...."


"Yeah, I know. I don't know why Snape would make you test it. I know he wouldn't put you in danger, but this is just hard to explain."


"Hmmm. I suppose he's still a sadistic bastard, even if he -is- one of the good guys," Harry said with a smile. He was certain about Snape, strange as that was to him. He may still not like him, but he knew where he stood with the surly professor.


Hermione smiled back, the concerned frown not quite leaving the lines around her eyes. "I suppose there's nothing to be done for it but trust you're clever enough to know sleeping from waking," she said ruefully.


"I suppose," he agreed. "Yes."
+ + +



A breath ghosting over a shining pale forehead.


"None of this makes any sense."


"You are who you are, and--"


"I don't want--"


"You can't just-- stop--"


"I don't -want- to stop."


"Then what?"


A pause, as fingers linger in hollows, smooth gently over curves.


"I dreamed once, that I saw you crying...."


"I never--"


"I know. But I dreamed it, and I woke up, and realized that it's not so much that you weren't supposed to cry that shocked me, but that I wasn't supposed to see it."


"You still can't see--"


"I know I can't. I wouldn't be here if I thought you cried, or you were lonely. Because everyone cries, and everyone's lonely." A finger, lingering on soft, slightly parted lips, moving gently across. An indrawn breath. "In the midst of things dying, and fading, and things never quite begun, you will find hope in the one place you'd forgotten to look, he said."


"Dumbledore?"


"No. Snape."


"I've forgotten many places, I'm sure."


"Just go with it." A tongue, sweeping across a cheek, heading towards a warm wet cavity to the south.


"It's just-- you were there.... Mmm...."


"Now?"


"I feel nothing."


Soft laughter, seeming genuinely amused.


"What?"


"Oh, Potter, you're so obvious. It's almost endearing, in a sickening sort of way."


Harry woke up feeling indignant, and not knowing what that meant at all.
+ + +



Harry didn't know what he was supposed to understand. He felt always just a few seconds behind the times, and those were the crucial few seconds, somehow. It wasn't that he doubted himself, but rather that he trusted his sense of incompleteness. He didn't have anything if he didn't have his convictions. That's why this creeping sense that he was missing something, that he knew something he didn't know he knew-- he couldn't have explained it. He wouldn't have believed it if someone else told him they were experiencing it. And yet, every time he looked at Draco, he thought he remembered something. Almost. But there was nothing to remember.


He didn't even know he began avoiding him until Ron reacted to Draco's presence without Harry even noting there was anyone there, walking behind them. Ron poked him in the ribs and started to growl, sounding for all the world like a barely-leashed dog. A dog with flaming fur and a strangely high-pitched growl. Harry couldn't not pay attention, and couldn't help noticing the direction the growling was being directed at.


Malfoy.


Harry blinked.


He looked just the same as always. Or did he?


He was sneering. His hair still seemed shiny and smooth, like some sort of silver helmet. His eyes still glinted maliciously. Or was that amusedly? Harry looked away. It didn't matter.


If Ron growled, it meant it was merely a matter of time before Malfoy hissed, snake-like. If he did, would Harry understand him? He didn't want to find out. He turned to walk away, but Ron grabbed his forearm roughly, and he was the one hissing.


"Harry! What are you--"


"Let go, Ron, he's not worth it."


"Not... worth it...." Ron sputtered. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? You do recognize Malfoy, right? I mean-- he's left us alone more this year, but still. Malfoy is Malfoy. We can't let him--"


We can't let him what, Harry thought. What does it matter what he does, anyway. He's just stupid and vain and there. Or rather, not there. The less there, the better. And if he wasn't going to go away, Harry wasn't above pretending he had. He tried to communicate all this to Ron with a look. Ron's eyes narrowed, and Harry was glad he didn't put a concerned hand to his forehead. He was fine, really. Everything was fine. Why was Ron looking at him like that? Why was Malfoy still there?


"Go away," Harry said, not looking at the still-sneering boy. He couldn't quite see him anyway, Ron was blocking the view. He stared at Ron's bright hair. Red was a good color. A Gryffindor color. Silver wasn't really a sane color for anyone's hair to be. It just wasn't. It was all wrong.


Malfoy laughed. "This -is- a public corridor, Potter," he drawled. "Or do you really think you own the school after all? Because you don't. I do." He seemed to laugh. Chuckle. Make a sound of mirth, which Harry decided to ignore because it couldn't possibly be mirth. Humor was for people much less distasteful.


Harry closed his eyes. If he kept them closed long enough, maybe Malfoy would have never existed. It was worth a shot. Then Harry would've never thought about him, or known his name, or tried to forget about him, either. It would be very simple indeed.


Red streaked with gold at the back of his eyelids. Harry wasn't comforted, exactly, but it was nice to know he wasn't seeing silver lightning instead. Not that he would, under any circumstances, it was just reassuring not to.


Had they really talked about the sky, and silver and dreams? Impossible, surely. This, this was Malfoy, and that was a dream. Harry had begun to put too much stock in dreams, ever since he realized that if he didn't pay attention, people might die. Of course, they m ight have died already. There was really no way of telling.


"I'm tired of this," he said softly, pitched low so that Malfoy wouldn't hear. Ron's lips curled downward, and he looked different. Not like himself, for a moment anyway. Harry was sorry he was doing this to him, but he really didn't know how to stop. Perhaps if he went away....


"All right, Harry," Ron said, just as softly, turned away from Malfoy. He wound an arm around Harry's shoulder, and led him away, not sparing any more attention for Malfoy.


"Hope you two have a good time in bed!" Malfoy called after them.


Harry's shoulders stiffened, and he was a breath away from jerking around and tackling Malfoy to the ground. He was tired, but he had a feeling that his hands around Malfoy's neck would invigorate him.


This time it was Ron's strength alone that kept him from losing it. The arm around him tightened, and Harry walked on, because Ron did. They could just walk away from this. Nothing was stopping them. "Thanks," Harry muttered.


"You're right anyway," Ron said, gruffly.


Harry was glad, though really, he had no idea what he was right -about-.
+ + +



Draco always told himself he knew what he was doing. He had it all figured out, and planned out, and if he failed, he just tried again. And really, he never failed. They were just minor setbacks, nothing that merited the kind of treatment he'd had at his father's hands due to his unfortunate slowness in showing his indisputable superiority. It didn't even need to be proven, really. No matter what, he was better. He was just born that way. No one could take that away from him. No one.


Something had changed, though, and even he couldn't deny it. Most of the time, he still couldn't stand the very thought of Potter. After all, wasn't he the source of everything wrong with his life? The whole school was obsessed with him, and conspired to help him no doubt. It was just him, Draco, and the Slytherins loyal to him, with the help of Professor Snape, against the whole bloody school. No wonder they were having a hard time.


But there was just... something, lately. Something was off.


Hating Potter, plotting against Potter, despising Potter, thinking up ways to make Potter fail, ignoring Potter, annoying Potter... those were always in the background, somewhere. And that was perfectly acceptable. Potter was always bloody -there-, wasn't he? How could he forget about him? That was one of the things he despised, in fact.


This was why he noticed it.


It wasn't really very obvious. Just a minor, very minute length of time during which Draco caught himself wondering why Potter was seeming so listless lately. Preoccupied. He wondered if the idiot was getting enough sleep in between all his heroics and glory-chasing. He seemed... wan.


Draco paused, remembering his mother's admonitions to him when he was little about drinking the herbal tea she'd brewed herself, because he was too wan and pale, apparently. His mother used to be good at potions, back at school, apparently. He wouldn't have believed it, except the potions always made him wake up with the inexplicable urge to run, as far and as fast as he could. He never left the gardens around the Manor, of course, but there was still a lot of ground to cover for a seven year old. Just because he was a Malfoy didn't mean his cheeks had to be devoid of color, according to her. And they certainly weren't, after he'd run circles around the house, and then up the winding stairs to breakfast, where his mother greeted him with a small smile. He knew his father wasn't meant to know about the "tea", and it was supposed to be just his natural youthful energy getting the better of him.


It was disconcerting, to say the least, to catch yourself thinking of your mother while looking straight at the back of Potter's messy head. Even moreso, to catch yourself smiling as Potter bumped into the bench and fell awkwardly onto the table, his elbow hitting his empty plate and sending it clattering and shattering against the floor. Draco could see Potter's ears burning even though he couldn't see his face, and the little Weasley was certainly putting on a show of horrified contrition while her mangy brother laughed merrily at his supposed best friend. Pansy was elbowing him in the side lightly, laughing loudly and pointing, and finally, Draco remembered he was supposed to be taking advantage of this.


And it wasn't like he didn't feel like it. He was just-- distracted, that's all. He just missed his mum. He never got to see her anymore, not since she'd left for her extended vacation with her elderly aunt in France somewhere. Sometimes he even felt a little weird insulting Potter's lack of living family, these days. Which was ridiculous, because his mother was alive. That was all that mattered, anyway. He was sixteen, and he was a man now, and he didn't need something stupid and childish like a mother.


Looking at the back of Potter's head, Draco realized with dismay that he may have made a mistake in insisting his father not transfer him to Durmstrang. He needed to be somewhere more conducive to being a Malfoy. Not that it was becoming difficult. He just didn't want to even look at Potter's stupid face anymore, or think about his stupid daily habits, or have to wonder if he himself was quite right in the head, because....


He couldn't pretend that one day didn't happen. Even though nothing happened. That wasn't true. What happened was that he'd forgotten all his hard work for a moment of peace and reflection, which was just laughable because neither of those were even concepts he was familiar with. And now here he was. Trapped.


He couldn't avoid Potter, because that's just not what he did. It would be very suspicious indeed. He certainly couldn't -talk- to Potter so carelessly, not ever again. He didn't know if he could insult Potter without feeling decidedly self-mocking for some reason. He couldn't go back to the old tactics without exposing himself to ridicule, somehow, he just knew it. He certainly couldn't let himself keep falling into this insiduously easy... -chatting- they've been doing. Malfoys didn't let down their guard, not ever. Draco may as well willingly let Potter lay memory charms on him. No.


If he couldn't go forward, and he couldn't go back, then....


Draco blinked. It was brilliant. It was simple. It was wonderfully Slytherin.


He had to use this to his advantage. He would be more Malfoy than ever. Didn't his father continuously stress the importance of politics and achieving the trust of your enemies?


Draco began to smile, slowly, realizing this was really almost -too- easy. All he had to do was succeed at what he'd failed at initially, what still haunted him in ways he didn't often acknowledge. He would make it known to his housemates as a simple change of strategy, merely a new means to the same end.


All he had to do to finally defeat him was attain the friendship of Harry Potter. Whether or not he was willing, this time.
~~~~