Suddenly, Harry wanted to the rest of the story out of the way. "So what happened after you got my wand for me?"
"I... uh, tried to Apparate to the road outside of Hogsmeade," Draco muttered, clenching his teeth, another wave of color washing into his pale cheeks.
"Tried?" Harry questioned.
"Look, I was pretty weak from being blasted, and not really able to concentrate," Draco defended himself, speaking quickly. "I do know how, all right? But that night... I, er, splinched myself getting away. Lost a hand. Thankfully, not the one clutching your wand, but still..." He shivered slightly. "Not an experience I recommend. Anyway, I made my way back to Hogwarts on foot, and threw myself on the headmaster's mercy. Of course, I had to stand there half the night before he arrived, and then, of course, he would have Aurors with him."
"They'd been trying to break through Voldemort's anti-Apparation spells so they could get me out."
"Yeah, but they wouldn't tell me anything," Draco complained. "Not that I can really blame them, considering who I am and how many years I'd spent sort of flaunting my anti-Harry Potter attitude--"
"Sort of flaunting?" Harry mocked.
"All right, spewing it," Draco corrected, waving a hand as though to say that was ancient history as far as he was concerned. "The point is, I was frantic! The last I'd seen, you were dripping blood from about a thousand places and blind as well, and that's not even counting what the fire at your feet might have done. I just wanted to know that you were alive somewhere, but Dumbledore wouldn't tell me a thing. He took your wand, and then watched as the Aurors questioned me up one side and down the other. Hours and hours of it, and all the time me sitting there missing a hand! A couple of times he left me alone with the Aurors... and they got a tad rough--"
"How rough?"
Draco's expression turned bitter. "Let's just say there's a reason why Severus doesn't like Aurors any too well. Some of them aren't exactly shining examples of the Light, especially when they're questioning known or suspected Death Eaters." He shook his head at the look on Harry's face. "Don't panic. They backed off when the headmaster returned, and besides, it wasn't anything compared to what the Dark Lord did to you. It didn't even compare to the wizard's beatings my father would dole out to me."
Wizard's beatings? Harry didn't like the sound of that, but figured he could ask Snape about it later. "You weren't arrested?"
"I'd hadn't done anything to be arrested for, though the Aurors seemed to think just attending a meeting ought to do it," Draco grimaced. "Dumbledore kept reminding them that I'd handed in your wand, which was strongly to my credit, though I know perfectly well that at the time, he still had his doubts about me. At any rate, about noon the next day Dumbledore finally told them to charge me or leave, so they left." Just thinking about the Aurors made Draco look a bit as though he'd just finished sucking on a lemon.
Harry couldn't help but ask the question that sprang immediately to mind. "Why were you saying just a few days later that you wanted to be an Auror?"
Draco shrugged. "It's the best chance I'll have, isn't it? The Death Eaters want me dead. I'd rather be on the offensive than work a normal job wondering when they're going to show up to attack me. Or you, or Severus."
Harry supposed that made sense. "So the Aurors left," he prompted, phrasing it a bit like a question.
"Right. Dumbledore told me that Hogwarts could protect me from my father, but only if I did everything he asked. I had to stay confined in this little room beneath his office, and if I set one foot outside it, woe betide me. Those were his exact words. He got my hand back for me, though, just after I started my little self-imposed incarceration, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Madame Pomfrey came along and reattached it. And then I had nothing to do but sit there wondering if you'd survived. Dumbledore still wouldn't tell me a thing."
With a wave of his wand, the Slytherin boy conjured a glass of water, then quaffed the whole thing without taking a breath. "After a few days, Severus and the headmaster showed up to announce that I could stay at Hogwarts if I let them verify my story using truth serum. Technically illegal, but..." Draco shrugged as though to say it was just as well Snape could make his own and dispense it as needed. "After I answered all their questions, Severus told me you'd lived, but that for the moment, you were still blind. When he gave me back your wand and said I should be the one to return it to you, I was pretty well horrified."
Harry's eyebrows drew together. "You were afraid to see me that way?"
"Not that. It was the wand, Harry. Proof positive I'd been in that clearing on Samhain!" Draco exclaimed. "I might as well have just announced, Say Potter, I'm so trustworthy that I was this close to taking the Dark Mark." He blew his breath out through his nostrils. "I could hardly believe it when you didn't put it all together. How did you think I'd gotten your wand?"
"I guess I just figured you'd gone home for the weekend and nicked it from your father's study," Harry murmured. "Either that, or he'd visited you here. I didn't know he had it with him on Samhain."
Draco nodded, his eyes like storm clouds. "About Samhain, Harry. I feel ill that I couldn't do anything to help you."
"Not even Snape could help me until that Portkey woke up, Draco," Harry assured the other boy. "I have to say, though... it's not a shining character reference that you went to that meeting expecting to enjoy seeing me suffer."
"But I didn't enjoy it," Draco objected, as if that made up for everything. "And I wouldn't have expected to if I'd known how gross and awful it was going to be."
"Got it," Harry returned, his voice level.
"You're going to hold it against me, I can tell," Draco sighed. "Not the fact that I was there, but that I went there with such a vicious attitude."
"I don't know if hold it against you is the right way to put it." Harry pursed his lips. "I don't like it, and you can hardly expect me to, but I'm trying to be mature enough to look more at what's happened since." Closing his eyes, Harry did his best to recreate all that. It was more difficult than he would have thought. Even with Truthful Dreams to help him, the memory of Samhain was just so potent... and just two months ago, Draco had wanted him to suffer that way. How could they possibly move past that?
But Draco did put himself at risk to steal your wand, his conscience reminded him. And ever since, he's been trying to help and protect you as best he can. He figured out the reciprocal magic so that Dudley could safely come to Hogwarts to ward you. He tutored you in every subject and spent hours and hours trying to get your magic working, and in his free time, wrote endless letters to students in Slytherin, all in aid of you. He saved your life when Darswaithe would have delivered you back to Lucius.
And as if all that wasn't enough, he pushed down his own jealousy and sense of rejection when it came to the whole adoption thing. He could have told the casewitch something to stop her from signing on, but instead he went along with what you needed even when it was something actually hurtful to him...
"Harry?" Draco prompted.
Harry tilted his head a little as he opened his eyes to look at Draco. It seemed so strange, looking at him now. They'd been enemies for so many years. And now... they weren't exactly friends, but they were Housemates, as Snape had said. And whatever the past, Draco had proven himself worthy of trust.