Thinking back, Harry decided that was probably true. "Say, have you ever noticed how he sometimes crosses his arms in a certain way when he's angry? You know, with the fingers of one hand tapping on the opposite forearm?"
"Yeah, it means he's impatient to get back to his potions," Draco chortled. "Half the time he's so impatient he only gives you a half-hearted reprimand. Did you know he holds his breath a little bit when he's figuring out if he should yell at you?"
Harry grinned, blandly imitating Snape's intonations to announce, "He doesn't yell, he lectures."
"He yells his lectures, you mean."
That had Harry chuckling so hard his sides started to hurt. "What about when he says I do believe?" he gasped out. "It sounds so Victorian! And... oh, God, I've been meaning to ask. What are we going to do about his hair? I mean, I used to sort of like the fact that he was all greasy, back when I hated him. You know, one more thing to hate him for. But now it's just... well... embarrassing, having my father go off to teach his classes looking like that!"
"Well, you've been in his bedroom before," Draco choked out. "Make up some excuse to go in there again and use the bathroom--"
"Been in there, too," Harry smugly announced. "Slytherin legend's right. It is pretty fabulous."
Through the dark he could just barely make out Draco sticking out his tongue.
"So find what he uses to wash his hair," the Slytherin boy suggested. "Try to get a sample, and I'll see if I can't... ah, improve the formulation a bit."
"Make it actually work, you mean," Harry drawled. "I don't understand. He's a Potions Master, for crying out loud! He ought to have the best shampoo in the whole world!"
Draco snorted. "But he doesn't care what people think, remember?"
"Not even us?"
"Well, he'd never admit it," Draco drolled. "After all, we are his idiot children."
Harry couldn't help but laugh even harder at that, but it only got worse when the door was abruptly flung open and Snape stood there, a glowing wand illuminating his glowering face as he bit out, "I told you both to go to sleep! What are you up to in here?"
"We weren't trying to disturb you, Severus. Harry, I thought you cast a silencing charm?"
"I did cast one!" Harry sat up more, wondering just how long Snape had been listening. Oh God, had he heard them talking about shampoo? He could feel his face burning. "Did it not work at all?"
"I don't know! Were you two talking or just laughing like crazed hyenas?"
"Uh... both," Harry admitted.
"It blocked your voices but not your levity," Snape growled. "What incantation did you use?"
Harry frowned. "Hmm. Well, I've found a whole bunch of ways to cast silencing charms. I think that time I told the door to not let out what we said."
"What you said."
"All right, so it needs work!"
"I do believe it does."
Harry couldn't help it. He started laughing again, and it wasn't long before Draco was joining in.
"Idiot children," Snape pronounced, shaking his head.
Of course that just made the situation worse. Harry practically howled with laughter. Draco started hyperventilating.
"Breathe, you idiot child!" Harry gasped out as soon as he could draw breath.
Draco managed to calm down, but he was still panting as though he'd just finished a Quidditch match.
"When I say to go to sleep I expect to be obeyed," Snape began in a hard tone.
"But we did obey you," Harry broke in. "You said to go to bed. Draco, have you been out of your bed at all since we came in?"
"I do believe I haven't."
"Stop it!" Harry gasped.
"Go to sleep now," Snape thundered, then whirled on a heel and stormed out, his midnight blue night robe billowing almost as majestically as his teaching robes did. Harry wondered how he managed that with toweling cloth.
He and Draco didn't go to sleep right away. They talked a while longer, though not about anything in particular. Harry had always wondered what it would be like to have a brother. Now, he knew. It was having someone you could depend on and whom you could be silly with. Someone who could see you at your absolute worst and not think worse of you.
It was a little sad to be leaving the dungeons just when he'd come to appreciate what a good brother Draco could be. He felt like he was losing Draco, though he knew that wasn't really the case at all. He would visit plenty.
It was on that thought that Harry fell asleep and began to dream. Images tumbled through his head too fast to catalog. Forest. House with a thatched roof, an owl sitting on a perch outside. Lucius Malfoy striding past him, his long-legged gait taking him to the house. Harry flinched, needles pricking him all over, but Lucius didn't even know he was there. A woman and a man answering the door. French accents. Conversation. Something about the Dark Lord...
Then the dream began spinning, whirling him straight out of France and into another place, one he recognized straight away. The Gryffindor common room, but his housemates couldn't see him any more than Lucius Malfoy had been able to back in that forest.
"Thrown from the Owlery," someone was saying in a tone that suggested the phrase had been repeated several times before.
"I always thought if something like that happened, they'd go for one of us. A Gryffindor. Not one of their own..."
"Yeah, but remember that day in Potions?" Parvati shook her head. "It was pretty clear something like this would happen eventually. The threat was made right there in the open, right in front of the professor, for Merlin's sake!"
A hushed voice murmured, "I heard the funeral has to be closed-casket since the body's just.... a mess."
"Slytherins are a mess dead or alive," came the hard reply.
Harry turned away, only to see Hermione and Ron sitting close together on the sofa that faced the fireplace.
"This is just awful," Hermione was saying, a frown creasing her face.
Ron made a noise reminiscent of a grunt. "You can't convince me you're upset about a dead Slytherin!"
"I'm upset about Harry!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Yeah, well at least now we don't have to worry about him being around sodding Malfoy all the time," Ron scoffed.
"Ron, you know what Harry's like! He's going to blame himself for this. He'll tell himself he should have stopped Malfoy from leaving Snape's rooms! Never mind that without magic he'd have no hope..."
Ron got a strange look on his face when Hermione mentioned Harry having no magic, but he right away covered it up with a fresh surge of anger. "It's not Harry's fault Malfoy took himself up to the Owlery! And what was Draco Malfoy doing up there, anyway? That's what I'd like to know! My guess is he went up there to betray Harry! And something went wrong!"
"That's beside the point." Hermione said, standing. "Come on, we have to go see Harry, see if we can help."
Ron rose to his feet and caught Hermione's hand in his own. "Yeah, let's go. But don't get your hopes up, all right?"
Hermione visibly swallowed. "You're right. It didn't make much sense to me, but Harry was really getting along with Malfoy. I don't think anything we can say or do is going to cheer him..."
Scowling, Ron agreed, "Yeah. But that's not what I meant. It's just... I'm not even sure we can get in any longer. After this, I bet Snape's put up a ton of extra wards."