The Strongest of Us All

July 23, 2002

Now, what's that idiotic Muggle phrase you use to tell a story? Oh right... 'Once upon a time'. Let's try this again...

Once upon a time there was a land filled with magic. This land was really the same land as the non-magic one; you simply had to look for the magic to be there. The non-magic world did not even care that everything they knew was in danger. The evil wizard, Voldemort, was the reason for this. Voldemort's power was so great that all those who dared stand against him were crushed. All those but one.

This is his story, even though I tell it for him. Not the whole story, not every little bit of the story, but still the story of Harry Potter; man, wizard, friend, and Boy Who Lived. Hero. He hated that title. He hated how they placed it upon him. The Weasleys and Grangers and Dumbledores of the world were the real heroes. Not Potters. Not boys who lived through horrific events they couldn't even remember.

My name is Draco Malfoy, and contrary to popular opinion, I do not hate Harry Potter. In truth I might be the only one who ever really knew him.

September 1, 2001

Seventh year had started like any other really. Father had dropped me off at Platform 9 ¾ with one of his many assistants to help me with my luggage. Huh, to keep an eye on me most likely. Please. I'm not 11 anymore. I know how your mind works. I know what you do on all those weekends and late nights. My father's not exactly into legal activities. Being a Death Eater might have something to do with it.

School itself was something to look forward to though. I may disrespect and backtalk a lot to my teachers, but I actually liked school. *Shudder* I cannot believe I even thought that. Makes me sound like that Granger girl. You know she still managed to beat me this year for top marks? In everything but Potions and DADA. Well, actually Potter beat us both out in that class, but it's still felt good to beat Granger. Stupid girl. Heard Krum finally broke it off. Going out with the Fleur chit, according to the Daily Prophet.

I took a quick look at my reflection in the Hogwarts Express. Not because I'm vain! Honestly, I just had to check the effects of a certain... spell. Well, at any rate, everything looked fine. Time to get on the train.

I strode quickly down the corridors, looking for my favorite pastimes - The Weasel, the Mudblood, and Potter, our resident golden boy. Don't know why it's such fun to taunt them. It's certainly much better than being ignored. I made one quick stop though, a side trip to return a Potions book to the Ravenclaw I'd borrowed it from. She nodded at me, I nodded back. I was sure to insult her if the chance ever came up, but if she needed a favor she'd know whom to ask,

What? Surprised I hadn't just stolen it outright? I annoy a person, that's what I do. It's not like I don't know the difference between right and wrong and all that. I just happen to know that there happen to be shades in between. And I don't like to be lectured on it.

I don't remember a time in my life when my name wasn't met with some sort of reaction. The very word 'Malfoy' seemed to set people off. When I was introduced they would look at me with fear, anger, or a calm, calculated stare. I never was sure which was worse.

My whole life I was told the Malfoys were evil. Death Eaters all of them. I heard things, even when I was little. The Malfoys bought their way into the Ministry. The Malfoys use Dark Magic. The Malfoys are You-Know-Who's biggest supporters. The Malfoys hate Mudbloods. Halfbloods. The Malfoys marry for money. Are Evil. Dark. Can't trust them as far as you can spit. And wouldn't you know that the little one, Draco, looks exactly like his father? Can't expect much. Blood will tell you know. Blood will tell.

Little pitchers have big ears, isn't that the saying? They talked about me like I, a Malfoy, was stupid. All these strings came attached to that stupid name. A name that wasn't even my choice. But I kept it. Worse, I used it. I said it like it was something to be proud of. I'm a Malfoy. My family may be more evil than good, more dark than light, and we had more money than we had sin, but we had class damn it. I'd have pride in my name even if no one else did.

I never realized until later that Harry would often go through the same thing I did.

Oh look, it's the Potter boy. He defeated Voldemort once you know that? That's where he got the scar. Lived through the Avada Kedavra curse, even though he was just a baby! But they say he's off his rocker. Sees things, feels things through that scar. Lightning bolt it is. Peculiar. And what about that Triwizard Tournament? Carried Cedric Diggory's body out of the maze. Who's to say he didn't do it himself? I heard Voldemort has picked him to be his successor. After all, he is a Parseltongue and all.

The capacity for people's stupidity continues to amuse me. My own was so large it wasn't really a laughing matter.

I'd peeked into nearly every compartment before rolling my eyes at my own idiocy. Of course. Potter and Co. must be in the last one. The Boy Who Lived must have his privacy after all. Swiftly walking past the candy cart I made my way to the end of the train.

"Harry!" I heard Weasley gasp. "What the hell...? Ahh, nostalgia. It's been a long time since I'd heard the Weasel swear. Especially not at me.

"Why do you let them do that to you?" Granger asked quietly. "There are agencies and people for just that thing! Why don't you just end it?"

And that's when I rounded the corner, fully prepared to make the trio's lives a little less charmed when I saw Potter's face.

What was left of it.

First, I'd just like to make it clear that I am no stranger to violence. My father has a tendency to backhand my mother, the house elves, me, or whoever else annoys him and is within his reach. Split lips and bruised cheeks were as much a part of my childhood as dinners and walks through the forest near my house. It was probably as much a part of me as my hair or my skin. If I woke up one day and it wasn't there anymore I'd be strangely disturbed.

And secondly, that never in my life had I received anything as bad as what Potter was sporting right now.

Two black eyes, puffed lips, and sickly yellow bruises from his jaw to his temples. Probably even more elsewhere. There was something wrong with his left arm too. I could tell, the way he was holding it. I know that this-hurts-but-I-gotta-look-casual pose. I had that down pat by the time I was five. I got the feeling this wasn't the first time Potter had used it either. Granger and Weasley probably couldn't tell. But I knew. God, did I know.

I know what it's like to wake up with blood in your mouth because you bit through your tongue from the pain. I know what it's like to want to scream every time someone tapped your shoulder but you didn't because then you'd have to make up some bullshit story about a bad tumble in Quidditch practice. I know what it's like getting the sideways glances, laughing them off with how clumsy you could be, or how you never noticed that side table in the upstairs hallway, and wow were those stairs hard!

Telling anyone was never an option. You don't go up to the Ministry of Magic and tell them yes, your father is Death Eater, yes, he works here at the ministry, yes, he slaps you around. And you wanna know why? Because that clerk would be gone in the five seconds it took my father the whip out his wand and yell Avada Kedavra or use a memory charm or pay him off. And it would just start all over again.

So you learn not to annoy them. You learn to watch what you say, where you step, what you do. Or you learn to be very, very quick. Maybe both. You learn to wear long sleeves in the summer and scarves in the winter. And wizarding robes are truly a godsend when your trying to hide something a Concealment Charm can't.

But Potter can't use magic over the summer. Potter's Muggle family won't let him wear wizarding robes and barely give him clothes as it is. And you wanna know why? Because where else would Harry go? To a foster home? An orphanage? Right. This is his last year. He can tough it out and go wherever the hell he wants after this. Which is more than I can say.

"Hermione," Potter mumbles. "A run in with Uncle Vernon. I'm fine, I --"

Weasley turns around, hearing my footsteps, enraged and embarrassed that I would see Potter like this. At his weakest. The perfect time for an evil thing like me to strike. "Malfoy!"

But it's too late. I already have my wand out, no doubt to hex them all into oblivion and make their humiliation worse. But I don't.

"Plysis Totalus," I said smoothly, with an outward calm that I don't feel. I think Granger gets it before Weasley does, because she grabs the hand that has reached for his wand and turns back to look at Potter.

It worked, luckily. If it hadn't I would have been hard pressed to explain that I was trying to help him.

But Potter's face began to knit itself back together. You couldn't tell at first, until his lips started to go back to their original size and then the bruises disappeared, followed by the black eyes. And he's not holding his arm so strangely. Consider it my good deed for the year. But I did get a laugh out of it. Everyone's favorite Gryffindors are now looking at me with an expression I've only seen before on fish. And my laughter dies. How do I explain myself? Maybe, just this once, with the truth?

"Err..." I clear my throat. "I just... I just know, what it feels like," I say lamely, even to my own ears. Great way to start of the year Draco. Help the people who hate you the most.

But it wasn't so lame apparently. And now they're looking at me in a way I never thought they would. Granger, with pity, Weasley with a grudging respect I never even imagined he could muster, and Potter with a sort-of thoughtful expression. Shit. I should think these things through before I do them. I do hate well. I'm not good with other, mushier feelings. Shit.

"If you want, there are other healing spells. I could teach you," I explain. "If you want."

Let the record show that I, Draco Malfoy, was, of my own volition, nice.

It's not easy to be nice. Nice equals open to attack and rejection. I speak for legions when I say rejection sucks. I still remember (though I doubt anyone else does) the first time I spoke to Potter.

"I can help you there." And then I stuck out my hand. I wanted to be friends with this boy; the one they said was so powerful and famous. Not just for that reason though. They said he was brave and good. I didn't have many good or brave things in my life. Maybe just this once.

But my stupid mouth had gotten me in trouble again. Harry glanced just once at the flustered Weasley and made his decision. He stepped back, pointedly and coolly ignoring my hand.

Well. That hurt. But it wasn't the first time someone had passed me by. They all did really.

"It's certainly useful enough," Potter finally said.

"Oh, but I've read about them!" Granger interrupted, her bushy hair whirling about as she looked from Potter to me. "Aren't healing potions easier to use?"

I smirked and rolled my eyes. "You've read about everything Granger. But I supposed that depends. You don't usually have a cauldron and potion ingredients just lying around." I looked away then, caught up in memories. "At least not where you can reach them."

I missed the look they exchanged then. I'd see it pass from between them many times in the coming months. The look that asked whether I could be trusted or whether this was another setup for a prank. Truth be told, I wasn't sure myself. Idiot! Had my brain got to rot over just one summer?

"Well," I drawled, eager to leave, "I best go find Crabbe and Goyle, else they might have problems getting off the train." Even Weasley grinned at that, despite his best effort not too. As much as I loved my house we did seem to end up with some real idiots. I slipped my wand back into my pocket, and turned around to go. It was better this way. Getting that close to Potter was dangerous, in more ways than one.

"Malfoy."

I turned around, ready for some parting remark about how I hadn't fooled them. I was surprised.

"We'll see you around then?"

Very surprised.

"Yeah. Be seeing you."

That was the first meeting where all of us walked away not hating the other. It wouldn't be the last either, which I never did quite understand.

By admitting, though in not so many words, that my father was indeed the bastard he appeared to be, the Gryffindor trio began to see me in a new light. One that made me seem actually like (gasp) a real person. It was the beginning of a strange but mostly happy time in my life.

It wasn't perfect, not nearly so, and there were lots of times I'd slip into Slytherin mode and say something I regretted the moment it left my mouth. For the most part it wasn't a big deal, but it made me realize how much I truly wanted to be friends with them all when we were back on uneasy footing.

My departure from Slytherin was taken with a grain of salt. There were some decent people in my house, but the majority of them were backstabbers and untrustworthy. Just like I'd been. None of them, with the exception of Pansy Parkinson, were really sad to see me hanging out with the Gryffindors. Over time I began to sit at their table, hang out in their common room. At first I was stared at, laughed at, insulted. Food was thrown at me. But it died down once they realized the Slytherins were treating me like shit too. After awhile they figured out that this was no joke. This was the real thing.

There were times we'd meet in the library, Hermione and I working on Arithmancy while Harry and Ron laughed over their ridiculous Divination homework. Often times we would all think of horrible things to happen that month, trying to outdo each other with over-the-top disasters. Those times were the best times.

I can't remember the exact moment I started calling them by their first names. I first realized it after the Quidditch match against Gryffindor. Harry made a truly spectacular grab for the Snitch, one even I couldn't hold against him. That good, honestly. I remember going up to him, smacking him on the back and telling him something like, "Honestly Harry, you should have to fly on a school broom or something. Give me a chance!" And he smiled back. Which was when things started to get a bit more complicated.

"Draco?"

"Yeah."

Harry shuffled his feet back and forth along the floor. "Do you ever think about doing something...about him? To him."

I knew what he was talking about of course. Couldn't be anything else, now could it? "Like revenge?"

He nodded.

"All the time," I replied honestly. "But what can I do?" We fell into a bit of a despaired silence for a moment. It was just the two of us, since Hermione had rushed off to the library and Ron had volunteered to go with her. And about bloody time too. The stupid git had been mooning over her forever.

"But hey," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. "Really, all you need to do is defeat Voldemort, so use that Boy Who Lived magic will you?"

Harry gave a short, desperate laugh. "Boy Who Lived. Please. I don't even know what the hell that's all about." He leaned back, shaggy black hair falling into his moody eyes. "The only reason I even lived was because of my mother. Because of her. Not me. It had nothing to do with me damn it! It never did! And now everyone thinks I can be their hero?" he raged. "Why? Because of something I didn't even do? Because I'm a good all-magical boy? Quidditch seeker, good marks, not to mention the whole Triwizard mess."

"Not to mention moody, dark, and handsome," I added. Nothing good every came out of these moods. Best to snap him out of it while I still could. Draco, Gryffindor court jester. "You're a walking poster child for a hero."

That stopped him. "Handsome?"

Oops. Best watch myself. "Of course. Though next to me you pale in comparison," I drawled, rolling my eyes.

He blushed, but managed to shoot back a decent reply. "Of course, since you, Draco Malfoy are such a paragon of human perfection."

I smirked. "I know. But such beauty does not come without a price. Women and men mob me everywhere I go. I sleep in a different room each night to prevent them from seducing me. I have to have constant vigilance in order to..." And my rather magnificent speech got me nothing but a pillow in the face.

"Such ingratitude," I mumbled. "One thinks you would be awed by my very presence."

Finally, a laugh. "Oh I'm in awe all right. I'm in awe of how you manage to live with such a huge ego."

Ok, so maybe it was a bit perverted, but I really couldn't help myself. "Oh," I purred. "So you've noticed my...ego."

Harry gawked.

And I really couldn't help it. I just laughed and laughed. "Oh my God! You should have seen the look on your face! Priceless. Fucking priceless." And I waited for him to start laughing.

But he didn't.

He just looked at me, sort of pained and yet resolute. I didn't know that I'd stopped laughing until all I could hear was our breathing.

"Harry?"

He looked uncomfortable. Not an I-really-need-to-use-the-loo uncomfortable but an I-have-something-I-really-don't-want-to-say uncomfortable. The kind of uncomfortable you should avoid at all times.

"I just...were friends, right?"

Really bad start to a conversation. Really. "Yeah."

"It's something I've all ready told Hermione and Ron. I told them a while ago actually. The beginning of the term." He twisted the ends of his robe sleeves nervously. "And it's something...I think you should know."

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. "You have six months to live?" He blinked.

"No, I -"

"You have an arranged marriage to Millicent Bulstrode?"

The corner of his mouth began to creep upward. "No."

"You have to be Snape's personal slave for a year?"

"Good God no!"

I sighed mockingly. "Well really Mr. Potter. Then you're surely exaggerating. It can't be that bad." I paused for effect. "Unless you're trying to tell me my father is having an affair with Dumbledore and is divorcing my mother so they can elope and spend the rest of their lives off the coast of France in extravagant luxury," I said somberly, all in one breath. Truly, I'm gifted.

Finally. A smile. Seriously, the things I do to keep him from jumping off the Astronomy Tower!

"Well I admit it's not that, though I may have reoccurring nightmares from all those images you just implanted."

"That's what I'm here for. If I can't ruin your dreams for you, who can?"

I said something wrong in that last sentence. He gets that weird look again. I sigh. "What's the problem Harry?"

"I'm gay."

Whoa. Totally, totally, TOTALLY not what I was expecting. That's probably the only time in my life I've ever looked shocked (A good Malfoy never shows his true feelings, don't ya know). I guess Harry must have taken it the wrong way because -

"It's all right... If you don't want to hang around me anymore. Or as much or whatever. I know it might be kind of weird," he added bitterly.

I searched for the right words. The right way to say this.

"I admit, I was sort of... shocked," I said carefully. "There was that whole Cho Chang thing." Harry looks so miserable. He thinks I hate him or something. Christ I'm just gonna say it.

"Butit'sreallyokbecauseI'mgaytoo."

I had always considered it a great failing of mine that I preferred men to women. If my father ever knew I would no doubt have been disowned. No, scratch that. Beaten within an inch of my life and disowned. That sounds about right. It didn't matter that the rest of the Wizarding World would not care. In fact it's the Muggle world where such discrimination is usually rampant. I guess that had rubbed off on Harry. And for some reason, on my father too.

When I found myself attracted to Harry that's not what horrified me. Being gay was not the reason I felt sickened. The reason I felt sickened was because no good could come of what I felt.

Everyone knew Harry had a crush on Cho Chang from third to fifth year. They even hooked up for a while. So for all reasons and purposes he was straight. I didn't even stand a chance. And even if he wasn't, if I actually got that chance, what then? When my father found out and as aforementioned disowned me and nearly killed me, I would have no doubt he would hand Harry over to Voldemort for a little Death Eater fun. Even if I was just friends with Harry he would know. Somehow he would know, because for some reason he always knew. And though there would be no beating and near killing on my part, Harry would still be in trouble. I'm like goddamn belladonna. Stay the fuck away for your own good.

It would have been easy. Just to make one little sarcastic remark and have Weasley at my throat again. Just to call Granger Mudblood one more time. Just one crack about being the Death Eater I supposedly was. And it would have been over.

But I didn't. Maybe it was because some part of me wanted my father to know. Maybe because I wanted to be near Harry. Be his friend. Be more than his friend. I knew I shouldn't have him so I wanted him. I never saw it as more than that until it was too late.