Don't Answer Me

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville were on their way down to Hagrid's to take care of the hippogriffs, each meeting their respective partners at the hut. The closer they got, the quieter each became as they thought about trying to take care of dangerous magical creatures while working with a Slytherin partner. Harry was also thinking about meeting with Draco later that evening after quidditch practice to work on the DADA project. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. There was so much going on right now and he felt out of control.

He felt better about the situation with Draco after his conversation with Dumbledore though. His thoughts weren't as jumbled, and he felt like it had at least helped him to sort some things out.

Since the conversation with the aging wizard, Harry had been thinking a great deal about Draco Malfoy. What he knew about the blonde was that his father was missing, and the months out of his father's sphere of influence had done him a world of good. Draco was thinking for himself and not accepting the things his father had taught him. He was spending less time with his friends, and more time alone, although that bothered Harry for some reason. And Draco seemed to be genuinely sorry for some of the things he had done in the past. So where did that leave them?

That's the question Harry had been dwelling on. He didn't know where that left them. He just couldn't think of Draco as the bad guy anymore, and part of him was starting to feel sorry for the blonde because he was alone most of the time.

Maybe they could straighten some things out that night when they met about their project.

***

Draco was flanked by Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson, and it was almost like the old days as they walked down to Hagrid's hut, except that Draco wasn't really doing anything more than walking with the other three Slytherins. He smiled at all the right times, and managed to laugh at anything that he deemed appropriate, which wasn't much. Fortunately the other three were too wrapped up in their own laughter to notice that Draco wasn't playing along.

The four Gryffindor students were already in the hippogriff pen when the Slytherins got there, and Draco sighed at the look of contempt on every other persons face. He turned to his housemates. "Let's just get this done and over with. Try not to make a big deal out of it, OK?"

Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other, then at Draco, and nodded. Pansy pushed between the three young men and walked over to Hermione. "Come on, Granger, let's just get this done. I have better things to do with my time than spend it with you."

"Likewise," Hermione said curtly.

They paired off, everyone silent and scowling, except for Draco and Harry, who were just silent. Draco watched as his housemates bowed to the hippogriffs they were taking care of, making sure they didn't do anything stupid, then he bowed to the one he had greeted two days previous, and the creature immediately bowed back and allowed Draco to ruffle the short, white feathers on its head. With his back turned to his housemates, Draco smiled freely.

Harry noted that Draco was very handsome when he smiled, then mentally slapped himself for that thought. 'But it is nice to see him smile freely for a change, and at something that isn't a dig at one of my friends.'

Draco was getting ready to get some water for their hippogriff when he heard a slight scuffle behind him, and quiet but tense voices. He turned to see Neville and Crabbe facing each other, their wands drawn. Crabbe looked mad.

Neville looked even angrier.

Draco walked slowly over to the two young men. Crabbe was breathing heavily, and in an effort to calm him down, Draco laid a hand on his housemate's shoulder.

"Crabbe, put the wand down. No big deal, remember."

Draco noted at that point that there was an overtone of something else to his friend. He looked up at Crabbe, and that's when he saw it.

Fear.

Turning to Neville, who had Harry to his right side by this time, he saw why Crabbe was afraid. Neville Longbottom's face was an angry calm, the likes of which he had only seen a few times, worn on the face of Professor Snape, Albus Dumbledore, and a few Death Eaters. Not only was Neville angry, he was big. Bigger than Crabbe, and that was saying something. He knew that Longbottom had grown over the past few months, but he could see that in the six weeks they'd been back at Hogwarts, Neville had grown another three inches.

He made an imposing figure, and he wasn't backing down.

Harry was talking softly to his friend, trying to sooth the anger, and Draco turned back to Crabbe. "Vincent, please, put the wand down. No incidents today. Whatever happened, forget it." Draco never used either of his friends first names unless it was serious, and Crabbe looked at the shorter blonde standing next to him, and nodded.

"Alright." The wand went down. "But I'm not forgetting this, Malfoy. You keep standing up for people in the other houses, when you should be helping your own housemates."

"Crabbe, I AM standing up for you. I'm trying to keep you from getting expelled."

***

"Neville, c'mon, put the wand down. This isn't helping. Crabbe's already got his down, see?"

Neville was still staring coolly at Crabbe. "He made a crack about my mum and dad."

"And Draco's dealing with it."

"Draco?" Neville looked at Harry and cocked an eyebrow.

'Damn! I did it again!' "Yes, Draco, that's his name." Harry took another deep breath. "C'mon, Neville, I don't want you to get in trouble because he baited you."

Harry could tell that Neville was debating his next move, and with a sigh, he put his wand down. Neville turned his back on everyone and walked to the hippogriff he and Crabbe had been taking care of and resumed his work. Harry watched as Crabbe followed, and the two worked tensely and hurriedly, all their effort put in to finishing their task and getting out of there. Ron and Hermione turned back to their work as well. Pansy and Goyle, who had been talking in low whispers, joined their partners once more, and all were silent, working as quickly as Neville and Crabbe were. Harry made sure that everyone was working together before joining Malfoy.

"So what was that all about?" the blonde asked Harry when Harry returned to his work. Draco and Harry didn't look at each other, but concentrated on their own tasks.

"Do you really want to talk about this now?" Harry asked. There was weariness in his voice.

"Not really, but it seems that we might be the only level headed ones here, so it might be a good idea to talk about it sometime."

Harry thought about that for a moment, finding he agreed with Malfoy. He swallowed, then cast a sidelong glance at Draco. "Neville says that Crabbe made a crack about his mum and dad."

Draco stopped what he was doing, but still didn't look up at Harry. "What kind of crack?"

"He didn't say, but for Neville to have gotten that upset it must have been really bad."

"How do you know that Crabbe started it?"

Harry looked up then and hissed, "Have you ever known Neville Longbottom to start ANY trouble in his entire life?"

"True."

They went about feeding the hippogriff in silence, but after a few minutes, Harry turned to Draco again. "So what do we do about this?"

It was then that Draco looked up and in to Harry's eyes. "I'll talk to them on the way back," he said. He turned and looked around at his friends and Harry's as well. "Maybe you should do the same thing."

***

"But he STARTED it, Harry!"

Harry nodded. "I know, Neville, but I don't want you getting in to trouble. You're a good guy, mate, and he's not worth it. None of them are."

"So what are we s'posed to do then?" Ron asked. "Just take their crap and let them get away with bullying us?"

Hermione sighed. "No, Ron, we don't have to take their crap, but we don't have to stoop to their level either."

"And as far as I know, Draco's going to talk to them and convince them to leave us alone."

"There you go calling him Draco again!" Ron said with force.

Harry winced. "Yeah, ok, it's probably going to happen more and more. He's my DADA partner, and the more I learn about him, the harder it is to call him Malfoy. Malfoy is a boy I hate."

"But you don't hate this git? You like him?"

"No, I don't hate him, but I'm not sure I like him either. You've seen the things he's done so far this term, and I've talked to Dumbledore about it, and I'm just not convinced that I need to hate Draco Malfoy anymore."

"You TRUST him?" Neville asked, his eyes wide.

Harry laughed. "Trust him? No way. Not yet. That's going to take a while, and maybe not at all. But he is different, you saw yourself the way he defended Luna the other day."

"So what are we supposed to do, be nice to them all?" Ron made a face at that thought.

"Nice? No. Civil, yes. We have to get through these projects and we have to do well. "

Hermione spoke up. "And remember, the DADA project is about finding out about your enemy, not making friends with them. I'm sure that's what they WANT us to do, but the important thing is to find out about them, and maybe they'll let something important slip."

The four of them reached the castle and Neville said goodbye, walking towards Gryffindor tower. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stopped in the courtyard and continued in softer voices.

"Harry, are you sure about this? Malfoy isn't your friend, and I know, I know, he seems to have changed, but you can't undo fifteen years of evil in one semester."

"Ron, you don't have to be his friend, you don't have to be nice to him, you don't even have to talk to him. But please, be civil. This could be a good thing, and he might even learn to trust me if we all work together. Maybe I can find out things about Voldemort," Ron winced at the name, "that will help us."

Hermione kept silent, and Ron shrugged. "Ok, Harry, I'll be civil to him." Ron's stomach rumbled loudly. "Right after dinner. I'll be civil to Malfoy right after dinner."

Ron walked away, and Hermione shook her head. "What?" Harry asked. Hermione had been unusually silent.

"I don't want to see you get hurt," she replied quietly.

Harry was confused. "Hurt? Why would I get hurt?"

Hermione shrugged. "You tell me."

***

At eight o'clock that evening, Harry entered the library and looked around for Draco. He found him all the way in the back in a deserted corner of the library. He set his books and parchment down, and sat with a thud in the hard wooden chair.

"Were you trying to not be found?" he asked Draco.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I was trying to find a spot where we wouldn't be interrupted." He flipped through some parchment until he found what he was looking for, then looked up at Harry. "Did you finish this section?"

Harry flipped through his own stack of parchment. "Yeah, but I'm not happy with it."

"Why not? I gave you all the information you ever needed to know about my childhood, and all you had to do was put it into a short essay!"

Harry glared at Draco. "I didn't say I didn't do it, dammit, I said I wasn't happy with it."

"Oh here, let me see what you wrote about me." He grabbed Harry's parchment and read the short essay, but stopped when he got to the last paragraph, reading it a second time to make sure he was reading it correctly.

'All in all, Draco Malfoy wants me to believe that he is the same person he was last term; mean, spiteful, and rude to me and my friends. However, it strikes me that something about Draco has changed this year. Though he and I have been enemies since we came to Hogwarts, I can no longer call him a true enemy, for I have seen the changes he's made in his life. But I can not really call him a friend.'

Harry knew what Draco was reading, and he kept his head down and tried to appear uninterested. He heard Draco lay the parchment down, then his quill, and the Slytherin spoke softly.

"What do you mean I've changed? I'm still the same Malfoy I was last year."

"You stopped a fight from happening today between Neville and one of your own housemates!"

Draco shrugged. "I didn't want to see Crabbe get expelled. It has nothing to do with Longbottom. Besides, have you seen that kid lately, he's gotten huge! He probably could have beaten the shit out of Crabbe."

"You're not hanging around with Crabbe and Goyle as much this year."

"They bore me." Draco sniffed imperiously.

Harry tried one more time. "I saw the incident with Zachary and Luna. So did Ron and Neville."

Draco looked at his hands and was quiet for a minute. "Again, Potter, just trying to keep my housemates from getting expelled."

"Last year you would have been the one attacking Luna Lovegood in the hall."

Draco turned on Harry. "Don't you think I know that?" he hissed.

"Then how can you say you haven't changed?"

"Because if someone else says it, I can ignore it, and go about just being me and doing what I think is OK. If I say it, it becomes true!"

"And what's the problem with admitting you've changed and that the standards you held six months ago aren't the same ones you have now?" Harry asked, starting to get frustrated.

"If I say that, then who am I? I'm a Slytherin and a Malfoy dammit! I have a certain reputation to uphold, and I suddenly find myself not wanting to uphold that reputation or even caring. I find that I don't think that muggle born wizards and witches are mudbloods, and that I don't want to be a Death Eater and take the Dark Mark when I'm seventeen. I'm feeling sorry for all the things I've done to hurt people and would like to take it all back. I don't want to be like my father anymore, and that frightens me. That's something that I can't take back." Suddenly Draco's eyes got wide, and then he rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. "I can't believe I just told you all that."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I won't put any of it in my essay," Harry tried to joke, but it fell flat. Draco sent him a scalding look.

"If you say any of that to the wrong people, it could mean my death, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't you think you're being a bit melodramatic?"

"You tell me," Draco said haughtily. "You're the one who's had the melodramatic life, why don't you tell me if I'm being melodramatic about it. What say I send an owl to find my father right now with a note attached. 'Dear Father,' it says, 'I've decided that I no longer want to be like you. I don't want to be a Death Eater, I don't want to take the Dark Mark, and I don't want to serve Lord Voldemort for the rest of my life.'" Draco paused to take a breath. "Oh and let's not forget to add, 'By the way father, I'm gay.' That will please him to no end, don't you think?" He stared at Harry.

Harry coughed. "No, I guess that's not a message I'd owl to your father any time soon." He looked away from Draco's gaze. "You're gay?"

Draco cleared his throat. "Not that it's any of your business, Potter, but yes. I am."

"Does - does anyone else know?"

The blonde narrowed his eyes. "A few people. It's not common knowledge, but Crabbe and Goyle know. They've threatened me appropriately, and we have an understanding."

"An understanding," Harry commented dryly.

"Yes. I agree not to hit on them, and they agree never to bring THAT idea up ever again, because they are NOT my type. Bloody stupid is what they are, thinking I might EVER hit on either of them." Draco looked in to Harry's eyes. "Why do you care all of a sudden about my sexual preferences?"

"You brought it up, not me." Harry lowered his voice. "I won't say anything about that. But you have changed, and other people are noticing."

"Let them notice then! I just don't want to talk to anyone about it. It's bad enough that I'm actually rethinking my life without other people commenting on it."

"You act like it's a bad thing that you're changing your mind."

Draco shuffled a few pieces of parchment. "Can we get back to this project please?"

They worked in silence for a few minutes, trading papers when needed. Harry thought about what they'd just said to each other, and before he could think about it, he was speaking again.

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

Draco didn't look up. "If you must." Harry didn't speak again for a long time, and Draco finally looked up at the Gryffindor. "Well?" he asked impatiently.

"Can we call a truce?"

"A ... truce?"

"Yeah. I've just been thinking about some of the things you've said and done this term, and I can't hate you anymore. I know we might never be friends, but we don't have to be enemies."

"The Boy Wonder wants to call a truce with his archenemy? What will the world do?" Draco asked sarcastically.

"Fine, be a bastard about this, Malfoy." Harry got up to leave, but as he turned around he felt a hand on his arm.

"Harry, wait."

'He called me Harry?' "Harry?" Harry paused and waited for Draco to speak again.

"When I'm being serious about something I call people by their given names, and since I know you are being serious with me, I'll do likewise." He sighed. "You don't hate me anymore, really?" He released Harry's arm and sat down. Harry sat down across from him.

"No. And I've tried, believe me."

Draco laughed. "You've tried to hate me and couldn't. That's sad. But for what it's worth, and it's probably very little, I don't hate you anymore either." He held out his hand. "Truce then."

Harry took the extended hand and shook it. "Truce then. Evil blonde bastard," Harry joked with a smile.

Draco laughed. "Whatever, scarhead. Now let's get back to work."

***

It was ten o'clock before the pair left the library, and as Draco made his way down to the dungeon, he replayed the words Harry had spoken over and over again. 'I want to call a truce... I can't hate you anymore... You're changing... I want to call a truce..." On and on it went until he passed Professor Snape's office door, which was slightly open, and light poured into the hallway from the opening. He turned back and knocked lightly on the door.

"ENTER!"

Draco stuck his head inside the door. "Professor, do you have a few minutes?"

Snape turned to look at the sixth year, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentler, almost kind. Draco Malfoy WAS one of his favorite students. "Certainly, Mister Malfoy, please come in." Draco entered. "Please have a seat. I'll finish this draught up and be with you in a moment." Snape finished the potion he was working on and sat down in his chair opposite Draco. "So what can I do for you?"

"I just needed someone to talk to about a couple of things." He stopped, unsure of how to continue, then blurted out, "Last year, it would have been me attacking Luna Lovegood in the hall."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting way to start out a conversation."

"You know it's the truth."

"Yes, I do." The professor leaned in and folded his hands on his desk. "It has not escaped my attention that you're not quite the same young man who left here last June. I've been told by some of your housemates about the two times you've stopped a violent attack, and my official response has been that we do not tolerate violence of any sort at Hogwarts, and that it's a good thing someone thought to stop their actions."

'Two times? Crabbe and Goyle must not have told them about the incident down at the hippogriff pen earlier.' "Your official response? What's your unofficial response to them then?"

"There isn't one - for them anyway. I've been waiting to give you that."

"Why?"

"Because you're the one who needs to hear it, not them."

Draco waited. "And?"

Snape's eyes bored into his, and the greasy haired potions master chose his words carefully. "Draco, a word of advice. Be careful. I see your path changing, and while I think it's admirable that you want to do the right thing, just be careful. Your father may not take a liking to the man you've become."

"And are you going to send an owl to find him, telling him that his only son is a traitor to the cause?" Draco asked coolly.

"That's not my place."

"So you expect me to do that."

Snape got up and turned his back on his student. "All I expect of you, Draco, is to do your best in my class." He was silent, and Draco, deciding that the conversation must be over, got up and headed for the door.

"Thank you, Sir."

As he started to leave, he heard Snape speak again. "One more thing, Mister Malfoy."

Draco stuck his head inside. "Yes, sir?"

Snape didn't take his eyes off the potion he was mixing, and his voice was soft. "We Slytherins may have a different code of honor than the rest of the wizarding world, but we are still honorable. We are shrewd and cunning, and we might use less than noble means to achieve our goals, but we are just as loyal as any Hufflepuff, just as intelligent as any Ravenclaw, and just as courageous as any Gryffindor." Snape looked up when he said the word 'Gryffindor'.

Draco nodded. "Thank you, professor, for your time. Good night."

***

The next day at lunch, Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat at their table in the Great Hall, and Harry was telling his friends about his meeting with Draco the previous night.

"So anyway, we called a truce."

Ron put his hand over his mouth to keep from spitting out his pumpkin juice. He swallowed roughly, sputtering. "A truce? Are you mad?"

"Oh, Ron, come off it," Hermione said. "Like Harry said yesterday, this could be a good thing."

"So what does this truce involve, anyway?"

"Well, we don't hate each other anymore. That's really it. Beyond that and your guess is as good as mine."

"Ok, so here's the really important question then. Do you think he's attractive?" Ron asked, grinning at Harry.

Hermione swatted his arm, and he yelped. "Ron, shut it. That's none of our business!"

"Yeah, but look at him blush, Hermione! I think someone's got a crush on Draco Malfoy." Ron said rather loudly. A small group of girls looked down at the three of them.

"Would you shut it please?" Harry hissed. "I don't need the whole school knowing I'm gay, and then thinking on top of it that I'm desperate to shag Draco Malfoy!" He leaned in. "Yes, I think he's attractive, but I don't think of him THAT way."

"Besides, he isn't gay. So you don't have to worry about it," Ron added. Harry looked at his plate of food and pretended to be really interested in his ham. "Right, Harry?" Harry continued to push his food around and ignore Ron.

Hermione and Ron looked at each other, then back at Harry. "He's gay, isn't he?!" Ron was loud again.

Harry punched his best friend's arm. "Shut up, Ron!"

Hermione repeated the question, but softly, leaning in so only the boys could hear her. "Harry, is he gay?"

He nodded. "But please, don't say anything. I told him I wouldn't tell. Apparently only a few people know, and he doesn't want it getting back to Lucius."

"Can't say I blame him. Who knows what that man would do. He's a right bastard." Ron looked at his watch. "We better get going, or we're going to be late for class." He kissed Hermione and stood up. "See you later. You coming, Harry?"

"Yeah. Bye, Hermione."

"Bye, Harry, Bye, Ron. Behave, you two!"

"What could she possibly mean by that?" Ron asked innocently. "We're incredibly well behaved and excellent students!'

At that moment, Ginny passed them in the hall. "That's right, Ron, you two are the best students at Hogwarts. And Percy is a great quidditch player." She tossed that last bit over her shoulder, and walked away laughing.