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If Harry tried to say that their training was a walk in the park that afternoon, he’d be lying but it was strangely far more tolerable than it had been the past several days. Malfoy still got irritated with Harry for his impulsiveness and Harry still felt like he was chomping at the bit trying to drag Malfoy along with him but they at least communicated more.
They were both lying on the floor trying to catch their breath from the last simulation when Higgins came in.
“I see the Nexus orb is doing its job,” she said.
“We passed?” Herry asked hopefully.
“No,” she and Malfoy said simultaneously.
She smiled at Malfoy, even as Harry rolled his eyes at him and stuck out his tongue.
“What, are you 5, Potter?”
Higgins spoke up before Harry could say anything, “So, your physical response and emergency response indicators were both up by 3%, which was a great improvement. But the indicators that really showed that your orb was working was your personality response. That was up 11%, good work you two. Obviously, it’s helped the two of you to talk with one another more.”
Harry nodded and glanced at Malfoy, “Yeah, I think it is helping.”
“That’s only because it hasn’t started asking the hard questions that you’ll resent it for later,” Malfoy said, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if he was teasing or serious.
“Well, I think the progress you’ve made is brilliant.”
“Thanks,” Harry said with a grin.
As they walked out of the room Malfoy stretched his arm across his chest, his breath hitching slightly.
“Alright?” Harry asked.
“Fine,” he said briskly as he exhaled. “Old shoulder injury that’s never managed to heal up properly. My body takes a beating as your partner, even when we’re not in the field apparently.”
“Wanker,” Harry replied, knocking his shoulder into Malfoy’s good one.
As they stumbled into their office laughing and shoving at one another, they were met by the sight of Ron and Hermione staring dumbstruck at the two of them. “Ron! Hermione! Hey,” Harry said, pleased to see them.
“Hi Harry,” Hermione replied, an odd expression on her face before she turned to Malfoy and nodded in greeting, “Draco.”
“Hello,” he replied carefully.
They stood in awkward silence for a moment as Ron gawked at the two of them and Hermione looked between the two of them calculatingly with a look Harry was not entirely fond of.
“Well,” Hermione said after the strain apparently became too much for her to bear. “We just thought we’d stop by and see if you’d like to grab lunch with us.”
“Yeah,” Harry replied immediately, like he always did when they invited him to a meal. “Oh, err,” he turned to Malfoy, “Did you want to come too or...”
“No,” Malfoy said quickly, then he cleared his throat, “No, thank you. I have some leftovers from last night and loads of paperwork to do. I will be fine here.”
“Are you sure?” Harry asked uncertainly, suddenly feeling like he was somehow bailing on the other man.
“Quite sure,” Malfoy replied as he moved toward his desk and busied himself with some files.
“Do you want me to stay-”
“For Circe’s sake, Potter. Get out of here. Go to lunch,” Malfoy snapped.
“Yeah, alright.” He glanced over at Ron and Hermione; Ron was standing there looking at him like he’d grown an extra head but Hermione just looked curiously at him. The curiosity seemed much worse.
They made their way to the cafeteria and thankfully Hermione started talking about one of the projects they were working on developing for St. Mungos. Unfortunately, this only lasted until they’d gone through the line to get their meals and sat down; then Hermione cast a muffliato and Ron immediately opened his mouth.
“What just happened?”
“Sorry?” Harry asked, feigning innocence and stabbing into his food.
“I think what Ron is trying to ask is if you and Malfoy have decided to be friends?” Hermione clarified.
“No, I mean what the bloody hell is going on,” Ron said. “Are you under an imperius curse?”
“Ron, I can throw off an imperius curse, remember?” he replied, rolling his eyes like Ron was being dramatic even though he would have said the exact same thing a week ago.
“Calm down, Ronald,” Hermione said briskly as she took a sip of her tea. “Let him speak.” Then she looked at him expectantly and waited.
“Well,” Harry said, “We’re not friends, exactly, but we don’t exactly hate each other anymore either.”
“How?” Ron asked, his brow furrowed. “This is Malfoy we are talking about.”
“Well he’s not the same as he was at school,” Harry said with a shrug as he stuffed his sandwich in his mouth hoping to avoid having to say any more about it.
“Really?” Ron asked skeptically.
“Yeah,” Harry said through a mouthful of food. “Spending over a week in someone’s presence really forces you to get to know them a bit.”
“Huh,” Ron said, staring off into space for a long moment.
“We’re just surprised,” Hermione said quickly. “We thought it would be unbearable for you.”
“It was in the beginning,” Harry replied. “But eventually I realized I was still imagining him as the stupid prat we knew at school but he’s not that person any more than I am who I was at school.”
“But the pureblood, elitism shite he was always spouting?” Ron asked.
“Yeah, haven’t heard a single word out of his mouth about any of that," he replied honestly.
“Huh,” Ron said again before shrugging and shoving a crisp in his mouth. “Who would’ve thought it?”
“Right?” Harry replied, glad that Ron and Hermione seemed to be settling into the idea that Malfoy wasn’t awful more quickly than he had.
“Well, it’s not really surprising when you think about it,” Hermione said.
“How so?” Harry asked as Ron said, “What do you mean, not surprising?”
“Well, he sort of rebelled against Pureblood culture, didn’t he?”
“Hermione,” Harry said, “You're using the 'we all know what's going on here voice' when in fact you are the only one who knows what's going on here. Tell us what you know that we obviously don’t.”
Ron nodded in agreement.
“Well, it was all over the papers and Millie Bulstrode couldn’t stop gossiping about it at work. It was quite the scandal.”
“What was?” he asked, barely tamping down on the desire to snap in an effort to get her to talk faster. He never read the Prophet and he didn’t have any coworkers or friends who were in the same social circle, she knew all of this.
“He was supposed to marry Astoria Greengrass, you remember?” Harry didn’t but he didn’t say so. “His parents had set it up, it was supposed to help the Malfoy name, he was supposed to go into politics or something. But after a few weeks, he called the whole thing off, said it was a sham and neither he nor Astoria deserved to live a lie.”
“Wow,” Harry said.
“His parents didn’t take it well, from what I understand. His father demanded he marry some pureblood girl and start a family but he refused and his father disowned him. It was quite a public spectacle, I’m told. Draco apparently opted to shout abuses at his father on the sidewalk in Diagon alley outside of a restaurant. The direct quote, if I’m remembering correctly,” and Harry had no doubt she was, “was that ‘all of their antiquated pureblood traditions could go straight back to hell from whence they’d come.’”
“Blimey,” Ron said with a low whistle.
Harry didn’t quite know what to say. After a moment he decided on, “You couldn’t have told me this before I made a complete arse of myself and basically called him a bigoted prick who was exactly the same as he was in school?”
Hermione shrugged, “I’m sorry. I’d just assumed you’d heard. He works in the same department that you do and it truly was in all of the papers. They hounded him for weeks to get quotes from him and he always said things about how terrible the whole system was and that it was a load of codswallop. Some people thought it was just a publicity stunt to get him into good graces in the ministry, I just assumed that’s what you thought too.”
“Yeah, but his parents disowned him,” Harry said. “Even if it was a publicity stunt, that sort of consequence doesn’t seem worth it.”
Hermione nodded, “I agree, but how was I to know that you didn’t know?”
Harry shrugged, suddenly feeling like even more of a heel. “I feel like a jerk.”
“But you couldn’t have known, mate,” Ron said conciliatorily. “And it seemed like the two of you are getting along fine now so he must not be too mad at you.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “He’s been pretty kind, actually.” He snorted, “He thinks I have a deathwish and hate my job-”
Hermione and Ron gave each other one of those pointed shared looks that Harry hated.
“Which I don’t,” he said, glaring at them. “But honestly, it’s been nice having a partner who calls me out and doesn’t treat me like I’m made of glass and always right.”
Hermione nodded but Ron said, “I mean, I hear you, mate but Malfoy? Really?”
“I know,” he said with a helpless little shrug. “He drives me a little batty but I think this might actually work.”
They moved on to a different topic of conversation, Hermione telling them more about her work. Before long, Harry found himself saying goodbye and heading back to his office and feeling just the tiniest bit nervous.
Malfoy was sitting at his desk, filling in paperwork, when Harry came back in and he looked calm enough but Harry couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about. “Hey,” he said.
The other man glanced up at him, “Hi,” he said before going back to work. No other words were forthcoming but Harry couldn’t help standing there and waiting for him to say something else.
“Did you need something?” Malfoy asked.
“Are you mad?”
“Mad?” Malfoy asked. “No, why would I be mad?”
“I don’t know.”
Malfoy went back to writing again but when Harry didn’t move he dropped his quill and rubbed his hands over his face, “What, Potter?”
“What are you thinking?”
“That you’re an irritating prat.”
Huffing Harry asked, “What were you thinking before I came back in?”
“That I could barely remember the details of the case I’m writing up and I really ought to have gotten to it before now,” he said blandly.
“Malfoy,” Harry growled warningly.
“Just leave it.”
“No,” he said, stubbornly crossing his arms across his chest.
“Fine,” Malfoy exploded and now he did sound angry. “I was wondering if Granger and Weasley were going to bring you back to your senses and make you hate me again. I was wondering how much ground we were going to have to recover. I was wondering if there is any way this bloody partnership will ever work. Happy?” he spat.
“Oh,” Harry replied.
“Oh? That’s all you’ve got to say?” He threw down the paper he’d been holding and stood up. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Malfoy,” Harry said, holding out his hands trying to placate him.
“Don’t,” Malfoy replied and Harry didn’t think that was quite fair because how could Malfoy know what he was going to say when Harry didn’t know himself? “This is not easy for me, Potter, whatever you may think. It is bloody hard living with someone who has every reason in the world to hate you, to never forgive you, and to be right for both of those things.”
“Malfoy,” Harry started again.
“I said dont.”
“Draco,” Harry said, not entirely sure why he was using Malfoy’s given name, but Malfoy froze so it was probably the right call. “Listen to me. I do not hate you. Ron and Hermione didn’t want to tell me that I was being an idiot, they just wondered how everything was going. I told them things are going well.”
“You did?” he asked disbelievingly.
“Well, yeah,” Harry replied. “Things are going well, aren’t they?”
“Well, I thought so.”
“Right, then why are you worried?”
“I’m not worried,” Malfoy sneered.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Because you’re unpredictable!” he burst out. “Because it is exhausting living with someone and waiting for them to remember that they have good reasons to dislike you.”
“You have good reasons to dislike me, too,” Harry replied softly.
“No, I don’t. You literally saved the world. You are so noble and good that you came to my hearing and testified on my behalf even though I did all of those horrible things.”
“I literally cast a spell at you that could have killed you.”
“Because I was trying to crucio you,” he said. Then he added, ”I am the representation of everything you fought against.”
“You’re not,” he said firmly. “Malfoy, you were just a kid. You were right when you said you had no choice and you were right when you said it was easy for me to make the right choices. It was hard sometimes, I guess, but for every person you had pushing you to do horrible things I had someone pushing me to do good things.” Harry swallowed and took a step toward him, “I do not regret testifying at your trial, or at Narcissa’s. The war never would have been won if it weren’t for the two of you.”
“But there never would have been a war to begin with if it weren’t for people like me.”
“Do you believe those things? Do you believe in any of the things that Voldemort stood for?”
“When I was younger-”
“Right now,” Harry interrupted. “Do you believe any of those things? At this moment, do you believe even a word that that madman said?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“What is?”
Harry held out his hand, “Let’s start this all again, yeah?”
“What?”
“Hi,” he said after a deep breath. “I’m Harry Potter.”
“This is ridiculous.”
Harry just stood there, hand outstretched, waiting. He got the terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that Malfoy wasn’t going to take his hand.
But after a moment he took Harry’s hand and shook it, “Draco,” he said. “Draco Malfoy.”
Harry kept his hand gripped tightly in his own, “We were both just kids, Draco. Stupid kids. Let’s move on.”
Malfoy nodded once.
Harry beamed at him, “Great. I look forward to working with you.”
Well, two months in and already I am already feeling invisible beyond my pregnancy. It's the first and sometimes only thing people ask about when they talk to me.
I am practicing ways to shift the conversation to other topics. "Let me tell you about this hobby of mine" or "I'm working on something cool at my job." Sometimes topic shifts are super blunt, and honestly? I think other people sometimes need that. They're excited for me, I get it, but sometimes a blunt and obvious shift in the conversation is the politest way I can to remind them that I am more than a pregnant person. And sometimes I just don't want to talk about it any more.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
