Reaching down, Harry extended a hand to help Draco up.
The Slytherin boy must have thought their dispute was over, for he took Harry's hand without hesitation and let himself be helped. Harry held firm to that hand even after Draco had gained his feet. "You were there," he said again, doing his best not to let the simple statement emerge as an accusation.
He might as well not have bothered. "I wasn't!" Draco shouted, clearly defensive.
"Then how do I know your father calls you Dragon?"
When Draco started to protest even that, Harry squeezed the boy's fingers hard to make him stop. "Enough with the lies, Draco. I saw the truth. I know! Are you trying to make me angry?"
Draco went frighteningly still. "Angrier, you mean."
"Is that why you never told me?"
Giving up on the pretense, Draco simply groaned, his gaze seeking the ground.
At that, Harry let his hand go. "You should have explained."
"What good would that have done? You didn't trust me as it was."
"And after I did?"
"Well, I couldn't tell you then, could I?" Draco cried, flinging his hands upward, his gray eyes turbulent. "I didn't want things to go back to the awful way they'd been before!"
Harry sighed. "But Draco, the reason things were that way was because I couldn't trust you, not when your sudden conversion to the Light just didn't make any sense."
Draco's brow furrowed. "And now it does?"
"No, not really," Harry admitted. "But I think now that maybe it can. Why don't you explain? The whole truth, this time."
"I was at that meeting to take the Dark Mark," Draco murmured, a low flush creeping up to stain his face. Shame? Harry wasn't sure.
"Did you know I was going to be... er, sacrificed?"
Draco nodded. "My father told me. I wasn't supposed to take the Mark until I was a little older, but my father liked the symmetry of me joining the Dark Lord on the night he finally did away with you. One era displacing another, something like that. Anyway, I--"
Looking away, Draco swallowed back whatever he'd been going to say.
"The whole truth," Harry reminded him.
Another nod, that one stark with determination. "All right. You have to understand, back then all I really knew about you was that you were this snotty little whelp who kept messing up the Dark Lord's grand plans, not to mention constantly showing me up at school. I figured you deserved what you got, and I was looking forward to seeing you get it."
No lack of honesty there, Harry thought. He smiled a little bit as though to reassure the other boy that he knew things between them had been different. "So what changed your mind?"
"This is going to take a while," Draco informed him. "And like you said yesterday, it's wicked cold. Why don't we do something about that?" With that, he was transfiguring his cloak into a thick, soft duvet for them to sit on.
"Why not just Accio a blanket?"
"Snape might get curious and follow it out." Draco shrugged.
Harry nodded in agreement, though it seemed to him that without a cloak, Draco was going to get awfully cold. He should have known that the Slytherin boy had a plan for that. "Draw your wand," Draco went on. "Delimit an area for us and then cast a weather charm."
If I can, Harry thought, then chided himself for being so defeatist, as Draco would put it. He'd controlled and channeled his so-called wild magic just the day before, though that had been more instinct than intent. All the same, maybe he could access some sort of power through his wand now...
Or maybe, he couldn't. Harry repressed a sigh, and tried not to get too discouraged.
Draco pursed his lips, either in sympathy or impatience--Harry couldn't tell--and performed the charm himself.
Sitting down on the blanket, Harry shrugged off his own cloak and basked in the warm air that now surrounded him. "Nice," he complimented the other boy.
Draco gave him a look that seemed to say, Of course. I am a wizard...
"Now, you were telling me how much you were looking forward to seeing me tortured and killed," Harry reminded the other boy, seeing no reason to sugar-coat the truth. "What changed your mind?"
"You did," Draco said, dropping down to the blanket himself and gazing morosely past the shimmering curtain of magic that surrounded them. "I thought it would be so glamorous, you know? The hero of wizardry brought low. But that's just it: you weren't brought low, and no matter what the Dark Lord did, he couldn't bring you low. He simply didn't have the power." The Slytherin boy turned to look into the green eyes steadily assessing him. "You were so fucking brave it was ridiculous. You stood there and called him Tom to his face. You stood up to him. Sweet Merlin, you had the guts to tell him to fuck off!"
Harry mulled that over for a bit. "I'm surprised you don't just sneer Gryffindor about that. I mean, why would it impress you? It probably just means I'm brave to the point of idiocy."
Draco abruptly covered his eyes and bowed his head, his whole body shaking. Was he crying? Harry couldn't be sure, not until the boy spoke. "Because my father was there beside you, Harry, but he was on his knees!" Draco sucked in a harsh breath. "It was awful! He was groveling, calling that arsehole my Lord, acting just as though he were some kind of slave! And there you were, right alongside, steadfastly refusing to degrade yourself! The pair of you... I knew what I was seeing, Harry. It was impossible to miss! Weakness and strength... and since you were the strong one, I knew then and there that I'd been on the wrong side, all along." Draco's other hand came up to rub his eyes.
Harry wished he could transfigure something into a handkerchief, since Draco at that moment didn't seem coherent enough to realize he needed one. The best Harry could do was reach out and pat the other boy's knee.
Draco flinched away, and raised a tear-streaked face. Then, as if realizing just how much he was revealing, he muttered a spell to dry the tears away. It didn't disguise the redness in his eyes, though.
"So... you changed sides to fight against your father because you were ashamed of him?" Harry hazarded, but not to rub it in. He was just trying to understand.
"No! Well, maybe partly, I guess," Draco immediately revised his instinctive denial. "But that wasn't the main thing, Harry. I swear it wasn't. I know you think I'm shallow, but even I'm not as petty as all that."
Harry folded his cloak across his bent legs, but not for warmth. It was more that his hands had begun aching again, and he thought the feel of the brushed wool might soothe them. "There's more to you than I used to realize," he slowly said. "Or maybe, there's more to you than there used to be. But you're not in Lucius' shadow now, Draco. So what was the main thing that made you change sides?"
"You didn't even have any magic," Draco stressed, waving his hands randomly as though it was hard for him to find the words he needed. "Or not any that you knew of, at any rate. You didn't have a single hope of getting out of there alive. I know now that you were counting on Severus to do something, but that must have looked pretty unlikely at the time. You were helpless, but still strong enough not to bend one inch. And then there was my father, abasing himself, practically begging to lick that arsehole's boots, and getting Cruciatus for his troubles! I could hardly believe my eyes, Harry. It was like the world had been turned completely upside down! I mean, I'd been taught all my life that pure-bloods were superior in every way. But I could hardly miss the contrast, could I? You were superior to Lucius Malfoy. A boy with a Muggleborn mother! But even reduced to a squib, you were the only one there with pride and courage! All the Death Eaters had was submission and fear. I.... I swear, Harry, I think I blacked out for a second. And then I looked again, and it was still true, and I remember thinking, Oh, shite. I can't possibly take the Dark Mark after this.... crap, it was like I went there living one life and came out of it living another!"