When Two Worlds Collide

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Chapter One: Small Details

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"I don't really know where to start... okay, first off - I'm from another world."

"Right."

"No, really!"

Good lord, had Potter finally cracked? "Then," he suggested with exaggerated patience, "why don't you go back to your world."

Potter looked frustrated. "I can't! The bottle containing the potion I have to drink to get back broke, and since only the one who initiated the switch can switch back that means I have to create another potion! And I need your help for that, because the recipe is in your private collection."

Draco stiffened. "How do you know about that?"

"Because - oh, hell. Look, let me just talk, okay?"

"Fine. You say you come from another world. What kind of world is it?"

Harry ignored the patronising tone Draco used. "A world in which it all changed when I met you - sorry, the other Draco - in Madame Malkin's. You - I mean, Draco was being fitted, and I just came in, and he asked if I was going to Hogwarts..."

"Hullo, Hogwarts too?"

"Yes," he replied.

Confident silver eyes looked over carelessly, then returned for a more thorough examination, causing Harry to bite his lip, wanting to fidget but remembering in time that he was being fitted. Then the boy said abruptly, "My name's Draco Malfoy."

Harry blinked. "Um, pleased to meet you?"

A slow, small smile did wonders for that pale face, and Harry suddenly felt much better. "Likewise. You may call me Draco. And you are...?"

Harry hesitated. What if saying his name would make the boy treat him like the others did? He didn't want to lose a friend before even making one. Then he decided he was being silly, and said, "Harry Potter. Call me Harry."

Something flickered in those eyes and the smile faltered, before becoming hard, fake. "Harry Potter..." he murmured. "So I have the... pleasure... of addressing the Boy Who Lived..."

"Please don't do that," Harry blurted.

"Do what?"

"Smile like that. Act like that. I mean, you could pretend I wasn't Harry Potter, and just Harry, if it would make you treat me normal." As the words left his mouth, he blushed, wishing he could take them back. He sounded too desperate.

But Draco didn't seem put-off. He stared at Harry, barely concealed wonder in his eyes. Then he shook himself out of his thoughts and the smile softened imperceptibly. "Alright then, 'just Harry'."

Harry smiled back in relief.

"You were raised among Muggles, weren't you?"

"Muggles? Oh, um, yes."

Draco shook his head. "A pity. Such a powerful pureblood like you, wasting away amongst them. But if you like, I can teach you all about our kind. I don't suppose you know anything about our world?"

"Um, no."

"Do you even know what's Quidditch?"

Harry shifted uneasily and promptly got a reprimand from Madame Malkin. "No?" he ventured, feeling horribly ignorant.

"Goodness. You were certainly deprived. Quidditch is only the best sport, or rather the only sport worth playing. I've played since young, and it would be a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house. I don't suppose you know about the Hogwarts houses, do you?"

"I didn't even know about Hogwarts until I received my letter," Harry said apologetically.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Figures. That's why I say they shouldn't let anyone other than Purebloods in, though you're an exception, I guess, having no choice in the matter. It's just not the same; they've never been brought up to know our ways. The houses - I say, look at that man!"

Harry turned, and saw Hagrid in the front window, waving and holding two large ice-creams. He smiled and nodded back, glad to know something Draco didn't; and said, "That's Hagrid. He works at Hogwarts. The gamekeeper. He brought me here."

"Oh," was Draco's only reply. Harry turned to look at him, and from the half-sneer on his lips he guessed that the pale boy had something to add but refrained from it. "I've heard of him. Is he your... friend?"

"Yes," answered Harry, puzzled and slightly hurt at Draco's tone.

"I see you have a lot to learn about our world, Harry. Like about the different... races... we have."

"Races?"

"For the lack of a better word. There are wizards and witches, and then there are other types like werewolves, banshees, centaurs... giants."

Harry was about to protest the derision in his voice when he said 'giants', but Madame Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear." Reluctantly, he got off the stool, and raised his eyes to look at Draco. "I'll see you at Hogwarts, then? And maybe you can teach me about the wizarding world?" he asked.

He was rewarded with a proper smile, not the half ones, the fake ones he had gotten previously. "On the train, then, Harry," Draco confirmed with his delicious drawl.

And as Harry left, he couldn't help but beam at nothing in particular when he heard one of the witches in the shop say, "My gracious, Mr Malfoy, I don't think I've ever seen you smile so beautifully before."

"That sounds very... me, and yet, not me," Draco muttered. He could almost imagine the scene, could understand what the Draco in Potter's story thought and felt and why. Why he had announced his name, why he had smiled, why the smile had changed, why he had refrained from insulting the giant. He understood, and it scared him that Potter had such an insight to his character, his thoughts... his childhood dreams.

Is this really a trick? he wondered, then got angry with himself. It was ridiculous to think that way. Of course it was.

He saw Potter smile, and cursed himself for that moment of weakness, immediately schooling his face back to its blank state even as Potter said, "It is you, actually. Technically you're the same person, just in different circumstances. So, you believe me yet?"

Harry watched as Draco went back to defensive mode again, his face half-shadowed in the fading light of the day as he leaned on the opposite wall, refusing to sit like Harry had advised him to do. "You asked about our meeting on the train. Tell me about that."

Harry sighed, but decided to humour the Slytherin. "Okay. The train. Um, I couldn't figure out how to get onto the platform, but luckily I met the Weasleys - "

"The Weasleys!"

"Yes, the Weasleys. Oh, right - you still hate them don't you?"

"Yes," Draco hissed vehemently.

"Okay, okay! I suppose that makes sense, since you and I are enemies here. In my world Draco has made friends with Ron and Hermione, but it took a long time, I can tell you that."

That definitely didn't sound like him. Draco wondered if he should tell Potter that his two peons were lying just round the bend in the hallway. He decided he would just keep quiet - who cared about Weasley and Granger anyway? He motioned for Potter to go on.

"So, anyway, I sat with Ron on the train, and he was explaining Quidditch to me when you showed up..."

Harry looked up at the sound of the door sliding open, and grinned to see who was there. "Draco!" he exclaimed. "I was wondering where you were. Um, who're they?"

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," Draco said dismissively. "Look, Harry, would you - "

"Draco Malfoy? Harry, you know him?"

Draco's gaze honed in on Ron, who was red with indignation and gaping with shock. "Yes, he knows me. I don't need to ask your name, you must be a Weasley. Red hair, freckles, tattered clothing - the trademark of your family. My father told me you breed like rabbits."

"Say that again," Ron challenged, shooting to his feet, fists balled.

Harry leapt up and gently pushed Ron back into his seat. "Whoa, calm down," he laughed nervously. Turning to Draco, who was sneering at Ron, he said reproachfully, "That wasn't nice."

Draco opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. "Fine," he muttered. Leaning in close to Harry, he whispered, "But only for you." Then he straightened, smirking as Harry turned red, and nodded brusquely at Ron. "Weasley," he acknowledged, a world of scorn in his voice, and Harry comforted himself with the thought that at least it wasn't an insult. Ron, however, only glowered.

"If you would excuse us for a second." So saying, Draco pulled Harry out of the compartment and shut the door. Ordering Crabbe and Goyle to stand guard, he dragged Harry a little way down the narrow corridor.

"Harry," he said in a low voice, "The Weasleys and my family have been enemies for generations. That Weasley in there will probably badmouth me once you get back, so I'm telling you now, don't believe anything he says."

Harry shrugged helplessly. "But the Weasley family were pretty nice, when I met them."

"Didn't you notice at least I made an effort to be civilised but he didn't even try? They might seem nice," Draco said darkly, "but people like them are going to be the downfall of the wizarding community."

"Why - "

"Harry!"

They looked back. Ron was trying to get past Crabbe and Goyle, only just woken up from his shocked stupor. Harry called back, "Just wait, Ron!" and turned back to Draco.

"I'd hate to lose you as a friend to his lies," Draco said, a trace of panic in his voice, "so don't believe him." He swallowed, then forced out, "Please, Harry." And then he was gone, as suddenly as he came, Crabbe and Goyle lumbering after him.

And so Harry barely listened as Ron told him about how evil the Malfoys and the Slytherins were, and sat dazedly throughout the encounter with Hermione, and when they were in the Great Hall and the Sorting Hat yelled out 'Slytherin!' he anxiously searched for Draco's face at the Slytherin table and found a small smile on it. And he smiled back, and looked apologetically at the gaping Weasleys, and went to sit next to Draco, feeling apprehensive after all the things he had heard about the house. But it all melted away when Draco leaned in and whispered, "Welcome to Slytherin."

"You do realize that he was so anxious to be your friend only because he had been given... specific instructions, and the promise of dire consequences if he failed?" Draco's voice was hard, his arms crossed over his chest. "He played you well. Just like I would have, if given the chance."

He expected Potter to get mad, or ask what he was talking about, but all the other teen did was laugh. "Well, yes, I know, but that was only at first - "

"How did you do it, Potter?"

Harry blinked at the interruption and the cold, hard look on Draco's face. "Do what? Draco, do you still mean to say you don't believe me? "

"It's 'Malfoy', and how did you do it?" he repeated. "A very elaborate hoax, I admit. But for all its complications it's still so stupidly fake, just like you are, Potter."

"Hey, look here - "

"Well, well, here's a sight."

Harry scrambled to his feet as Draco looked up, both startled as Professor Snape loomed in the darkness, arms folded in his cloak.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to dinner, Malfoy?" he asked, ignoring Harry, who quickly muttered a soft spell while his attention was turned; an Illusion charm on his badge to make it Gryffindor's, an spell Draco had taught him long ago; just like he had taught him to remember small details like this, since small details were what defined a person - or gave their acts away.

"Yes, I was, but then Potter and his team accosted me, and Weasley attacked me. I hexed him purely in self-defence, but then Potter tried to hex me too, so I ducked and his spell knocked Granger unconscious instead. We had a duel and ended up here, and I think he's a little out of his mind right now," Draco lied smoothly, eyes darting to Harry, and seeing with quite a bit of surprise the prominent Gryffindor badge on his robes. Nothing about his person gave away his surprise, however.

Snape now turned to sneer at Harry. "Twenty points from Gryffindor for fighting, Potter. Come, Malfoy, let's go and see to Weasley and Granger."

He swept off, leaving Harry gaping after him. He turned to Draco, indignant, about to say something when Draco beat him to it. "Finally realized that the Dark side stronger after all?" he said coldly. "Sorry, but it's no use trying to suck up to me and pretend to be my friend now. You could have at least made your story more believable. Another world? Pathetic, Potter, I can't believe you can sink so low and don't bother me with your idiocy again."

Harry regained his wits when Draco was about to round the bend in the corridor, and, angry and fed up with this Draco's stubbornness, yelled after him, "If it's all a hoax then how do I know you so well?"

Draco froze, back to him. Then he said, very softly, very dangerously, "You don't." And then he was gone from view, robes swishing around the corner.

Harry sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets, trudging after the two of them, feeling inexplicably tired and down at the way Draco had turned out in this world - so hurtful, so terribly sad. Draco clearly felt the truth of his story, yet insisted on denying it. He must have been scared - but of what? He must have not wanted to get hurt, to get rejected again. Perhaps it was Lucius' influence. Who knew what the manipulative sadistic cruel heartless bastard was doing to him here?

Harry knew what he had to do. What Draco would do.

Draco, he thought, I hope you have better luck than I have. You've always been more pigheaded, anyway, so you should have an easier time with my other self. Hopefully when I switch back they'll understand each other better. After all, if we've found happiness together, why can't they?

And, oh, I'm missing you so much already.

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"That's really, really blatant favouritism, that is," Harry muttered to himself as he trudged down the stairs. "I don't recall Snape ever being that bad. Well, maybe he does terrify Neville, but still..."

He found himself in front of the doors of the Great Hall before he knew it; his feet had taken him there while he was busy mumbling to himself. Sighing, he pushed open the doors and went in, still lost in thought, as he headed towards his table.

It was only when the hall went silent that he blinked and looked up.

"What?" he asked the hall at large, unnerved at the way everyone was staring, but hiding his uneasiness behind an expression that said clearly he had every right to be doing what he was doing, even though he didn't know exactly what he was doing, and they had no right to question him. It was a very useful look, and he had learned from an expert, so it usually cowed anyone he used it on.

It didn't work this time, though, so he repeated, growing annoyed, "What?"

"Potter, I know that you rely on your lapdogs to do your every bidding, but surely you aren't blind, even if you do have the brains of a two year old?"

Harry turned to stare at Draco, sitting on a specially placed regal-looking chair at the end of the Slytherin table like a king reigning over his subjects, looking at him with a sneer on his lips but an unreadable look in his eyes. He looked around again, at all the faces gaping at him, and then realized what was wrong.

Inwardly he cringed; he was so used to walking to the Slytherin table that his feet had taken him there on autopilot. See, this is what Draco means by 'small details'! a voice in his head scolded. Though this isn't exactly very small... He quickly thought of an excuse. Walking right up to Draco, quiet voice nevertheless sounding through the entire hall, he said, "I'm here for one reason only, and that is to say this: you hurt Ron and Hermione, badly, and for that, you'd better watch your back. Your cronies can't be there all the time. And when they're not, I'll will be."

"I don't need them to protect me, Potter, against someone as pathetic as you," Draco smirked, but something flickered in his eyes - relief?

He's relieved that I'm back to normal, Harry realized, and almost laughed. Well then...

"Oh, really? Then which of us is responsible for defeating who?" he asked loudly for the hall to hear, and then, his body angled just so that no one but Draco could see his face, he winked and murmured, "Draco."

It was worth the risk of being labelled 'deranged' to see Draco's features twist in a mix of annoyance, disbelief, confusion and anger.

He strolled to the Gryffindor table, leaving Draco to regain his composure behind him, forcing himself to ignore Dumbledore's piercing stare. As talk started up again, and he neared the Gryffindor table, he panicked - where did the other Harry usually sit?

He swept the table with a glance, and noticed somewhere in the middle of the table, Seamus, Dean to his right, poke Neville to his left and make an obvious 'move' gesture. The cheerful boy looked up and grinned at Harry, beckoning, and thankfully, Harry slid in between him and Neville.

"You showed him, Harry!" Seamus said excitedly. "He couldn't even make a comeback when you mentioned your duel; boy, was he humiliated then!"

Harry was on the verge of asking "What duel?" before he snapped his jaw shut. He was supposed to be the Harry they knew, and that meant he couldn't ask stupid questions like that. Even if he had been speaking about the whole defeating Voldemort thing, and not some duel he didn't even know he had had with Draco.

So he settled for saying, "Yeah, he was."

"Heh, you should have reminded him that you can do so much he can't, like defeat a powerful Dark wizard and speak Parseltongue. I bet he's jealous that he can't speak Parseltonge, he's just the type to want to - I mean, he's slithery like a snake, what?" he sniggered.

"Uh, yeah." They know I can speak Parseltongue?

"Wait, being reminded of the duel must have reminded him of the Parseltongue thing, so you got him twice! Hah, the git - "

"Seamus."

"What, Dean?"

"Have you forgotten about Ron and Hermione?"

Seamus' eyes widened, and he turned from Dean to Harry. "Oh, sorry, I forget! Dean's right, what's wrong? What happened?"

Harry couldn't suppress a grin; though he didn't know them that well back in his world, from what he did know of them, these two hadn't changed a bit. Are they together here, too? he wondered.

Recalling what Hermione had said, he replied, "Malfoy and Ron had a fight, and he hexed Ron. Hermione was taking care of Ron as I faced off with Malfoy, then we started duelling and Stupefy hit her. Then while there was a standoff, Snape came and stopped us, and we brought Ron and Hermione to the hospital wing. They're having dinner there as Pomfrey checks them, and they'll be back later if there are no after-effects. I stayed to talk with them for a while before I got too hungry."

Seamus grimaced. "Not again... Malfoy spun some story to make it seem like your fault, didn't he?"

It seemed fights were very common - and in public, too - between him and Draco. "Yeah, he made it seem like it was Ron's and my fault, but we woke Hermione up and she told us the entire thing up till the point she was hit. Snape took twenty points off me, though, and none for Malfoy, but thank goodness didn't give me detention."

"The slimy biased git," Seamus muttered.

Harry nodded and, in case he let anything else slip, quickly said, "Forget it, let's eat." Seamus was more than happy to comply, and dug into his food. Dean leaned forward, gave Harry an encouraging and apologetic smile, and then started on his dinner. So they were together; Harry recognized that smile as the one Dean always used when he felt embarrassed by his boyfriend.

He looked around him. Things looked different from this angle, on the other side of the Great Hall where he usually sat, and yet it was so alike. It was just a normal dinner in Hogwarts, except... Draco was so far away. He stared at the Slytherin table for a while, wishing he were back with his housemates, before realising there were two pairs of eyes watching him. The first he ignored, since that was always the best thing to do when Dumbledore got suspicious, but the second...

He glanced to his right, and saw Ginny Weasley turn bright red and duck her head, pretending to be fascinated by her chicken. He winced. Oh no, she was in love with him here, too... nobody should have to turn down the same person twice, he mused. Maybe he would do some discreet matchmaking; in his world, Ginny was now very happy with Colin Creevey (Draco's brilliant idea), and he liked it that way.

Sighing inaudibly, he began eating. He didn't taste the food, though; he was too busy agonizing over what to do. How would he get Draco to trust him? Wait, scratch that, he needed Draco to start believing him in the first place. Hmm... maybe he should just grab Draco and snog him senseless; he was sure that this Draco had to feel something for the Harry he was supposed to be, right? Fine line between hate and love and all that. So if he could just make this Draco come to his senses by giving him irrefutable proof...

Draco pulled back from the kiss, eyes dazed and half-lidded, lips a fetching red. "Damn, Harry," he breathed, "Why did you wait so long to do this? We could have been together so long ago, if only you'd shown me that my hate was actually misdirected love."

Harry tenderly kissed him again. "I'm not your Harry, but if you'd help me get back to my world, you can have him back, and - "

"No!" Draco cried. "You can't bring him back! He hates me. You can't possibly give me a taste of what could have been and then send the other Harry back to hate me! I won't let you go - "

"Harry! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, stop thumping my back, Seamus, I'm fine," Harry croaked, reaching for his goblet of juice and gulping it down once the other boy had stopped trying to cave his back in.

"Geez, don't just suddenly start choking like that!" Seamus huffed. "You scared the hell out of all of us!"

Harry gave his audience a weak grin. "I'll try not to do it again," he promised.

Okay, no way am I trying that, Harry groaned in his mind as everyone else went back to their food. My subconsciousness is right. Can't just suddenly spring it on poor Draco... I have to work up to it slowly, convince him bit by bit... get him to start accepting my friendship first before letting the other Harry come back and finish the job... but how? With solid proof first, that's how, something he can't deny... something that only Draco and I know, and no one else...

By the time dinner had ended, Harry had a plan.

Okay, so it wasn't a very good or a very well thought out plan, but hey, Draco was the brains in the relationship here; he'd never had to complete a task so daunting as this one all by himself. No, don't start thinking like that. Remember what Draco said: confidence. Must have confidence.

So. By the time dinner had ended, Harry had a Plan.

Right.

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