It was difficult to stay angry with Draco for long, though, considering what happened when he came to bed. Actually, first he did all the usual things, including singing those pretentious foreign songs in the shower. But then, as Draco was sliding between his sheets, he murmured, "Harry? Are you still awake over there?"
Harry debated answering, then finally called, "Yeah. Um.... did Ron ask where I was?"
"No." After a moment, Draco added, "Sorry," but Harry thought he didn't sound sorry at all about it. In fact, he sounded glad, which made Harry want to throttle him, but only until something else occurred to him.
"Draco," he ventured. "Um... maybe you don't know this, but a person can have more than one friend."
"Have you been drinking unauthorized potion or something?" Draco scathed. "Of course I know that!"
"I don't think so," Harry murmured, as politely as he could. "I mean, have you ever had a friend, let alone several at once? You said yourself that Crabbe and Goyle were just hangers-on."
He heard Draco say on a sigh, "What's your point?"
Unsure really how to get to it, Harry tapped his fingertips together as he talked. "You... well, you seem a little threatened by the fact that I have other friends. I think you believe that if I start getting along with them better, it'll leave you out or something."
"Oh, please," Draco sneered. "What do you think I am, five years old? Afraid I'll lose you to your other friends... I've never heard anything so infantile."
"Is it?" Harry questioned. "I'm sure you're well aware that my other friends would strongly prefer I have nothing to do with you."
"Well, there is that," Draco gruffly admitted.
"It doesn't help that you've spent five years calling Hermione a Mudblood and making fun of Ron's family," Harry added, biting his lip in the dark. "I'd really rather we could all get on, but I suppose that's probably asking a bit much, considering. Why don't you just try really hard to not insult them from now on out, all right? That would help."
"You didn't notice how perfectly pleasant and conciliatory I've been with Hermione?"
"Yeah, I have noticed, actually. What's up with calling her Hermione all of a sudden?"
He heard Draco rolling over to face him. "Well. Severus said--"
"Oh great, now Snape's sticking his nose into how you treat my other friends?"
"No, he's not, just listen! Severus said to call you Harry, remember? I didn't want to, but it turned out to be easier to get along, that way. So... I thought I'd try it with Hermione, that's all."
Harry thought about that for a moment. "All right, that makes sense, I guess. Except, why would you want to get along with Hermione?"
"Because I'm not stupid! If you end up in the middle of a war zone among your own ranks, it can't be good for any of us." Harry nodded, thinking that was probably true, only to hear Draco add in a small voice, "Besides... I don't want you to have to choose."
If Ron or Hermione had said that, Harry would have known it was because they were being a real friend. From Draco, he figured it meant something else. Draco was afraid he wouldn't be the one Harry would choose, that was all. And to Draco, that meant danger. He was still terrified he'd end up abandoned by the Light.
"It's good to have you on my side," Harry said by way of reassurance. "Really, it is. I think you'll make a great friend, Draco."
For some reason, that comment appeared to perturb the Slytherin boy. "You were right before," he abruptly announced. "I don't know how."
"You're doing all right."
"No, after what you said before, a friend would..." His voice fell silent.
"What?"
"Look, it's just..." Draco rolled to one side, then the other, then announced, "I don't have perfect features, all right? My lips are too thin."
The remark was so unexpected that Harry almost did a double take. "Uh, all right," he managed to reply, wondering if he was supposed to agree, or argue, or what.
"And my eyebrows are almost invisible, they're so pale," Draco lamented. "And the bridge of my nose is too long, and one of my cheekbones is a bit higher than the other--"
Now that was just too much. Harry rolled over in the dark to face Draco, grateful that Snape's Potions had repaired his eyesight so well that he could see in little light now. To Harry's surprise, Draco looked distraught, not dramatic. Like... he really didn't think he was Merlin's gift to the wizarding world. Now how could that be?
"But you're completely vain about your looks," Harry protested. "I mean, everybody knows you are! And all those showers pampering yourself, the time you spend on your hair..."
Draco huffed, the sound of it defensive. And insecure, though of course the other boy would never admit to that in words. Actually, Harry was surprised how much Draco had admitted to. He thought his lips were too thin? Why on earth had he suddenly come out with that? Surely not just because Harry felt bad about his scar! Then again, Harry had sniped about Draco's "perfect features" during that same conversation, and here was Draco trying to prove he wasn't so perfect-looking after all.
Except, he was. "You could be a model, all right? You've got no worries."
"Model?"
"Muggle thing. It means.... um, you've got the kinds of looks the rest of us envy."
"Oh, sure," Draco scathed.
"I bet you've had loads of girlfriends."
"Ha. I certainly don't have girls wandering down here to say they love me."
"I don't either!"
"Only two in as many months," Draco retorted.
"They didn't mean it like that!"
"Don't be coy, Potter. You could have any girl you wanted just by snapping your fingers, and you know it."
"You think I want some girl that likes me because I'm the effing Boy-Who-Lived?"
"Ancient history," Draco mocked. "You're Tri-Wizard champion, that's what you are."
"Only because Crouch cheated to get me through the tasks."
"Hmm, I know... Death Eater gossip... but on the other hand, everybody else was cheating, too."
"Not Cedric."
"Hmm," Draco said again. "Anyway, you're barmy if you think the boy-hero mystique is all you've got. Even girls in Slytherin go on about you. Girls whose parents are Death Eaters, whose parents would kill them for so much as thinking about any sort of... liaison with Harry Potter, and they ooh and aah and giggle and basically just make the rest of us want to sick up! You should hear them!"
Harry thought he'd actually like to, not that he could. So he settled for the next best thing, which was clearing his throat and asking, "Um... well, what do they say, exactly?"
Draco gave a low laugh. "What don't they say? Listen, I'm not going to lie in bed and list all your good points, because that would be just too weird. But it's all about how you look, Harry. Ye gods, I sometimes think that's why some of us in Slytherin started hating you even worse these last couple of years. We were just so sick and tired of listening to them call you handsome Harry," he finished on a sneering note.
Harry laughed too, self-consciously. "Well... I think the girls in Gryffindor really disapprove of you. You know, Draco Malfoy, Death-Eater-to-be, Slytherin, mean, heartless, cruel--"
"I get the point," Draco sourly interrupted.
"No, I meant, they think all that, all right, but even so... um, I hear them talking too. About you. Er... same sort of stuff you said the Slytherin girls said about me."
He could practically hear Draco perking up. "Oh, really. What do they say?"
"You didn't really tell me what the girls in Slytherin said," Harry pointed out, feeling a bit Slytherin himself as the words emerged.
"Well, let's trade. You tell me one thing, and I'll do the same. You go first, since the trade was my brilliant idea."