De Amitia

A/N: This fic was inspired during a lecture on the French philosopher La Rochefoucauld, and while ideally I probably should have been paying attention to the lecture, I wasn't about to pass up a plot bunny... ;) Besides, who needs a degree when they can have fanfiction? The maxim which Draco refers to is quoted in the author's notes at the end. I'd like to stress that Draco's opinions on friendship do not necessarily coincide with my own, nor is his interpretation of La Rochefoucauld's writings one I would encourage you to think of as correct. In addition, my thanks go to Alicia for the beta. ^_^

De Amitia

Draco raised his head as the door to his cell clattered open. He was surprised, in so far as he had the energy to be surprised at anything any more. Azkaban might lack its Dementors, but there was still something energy-sapping about that timeless, dulled existence, not to mention the meagre rations. He didn't receive many visitors, or at least he hadn't in the few months he'd been there. But now the war was over, or so he'd heard. Perhaps the Aurors would come to start interrogating him again.

When his weary eyes settled upon his visitor he blinked slowly. Harry Potter. Here. He blinked again, not entirely convinced by the evidence of his senses. Then he tried to rally his meagre supplies of energy. He wasn't going to let Potter gloat. Or at least he'd have enough energy to reply when he did.

He stood carefully and watched his visitor warily as the cell door clanged shut once again. Draco didn't have his wand, of course. He noticed that Potter hadn't drawn his, and wondered why his old adversary wouldn't be on his guard, even if he was without his own. There was a time when they couldn't catch sight of one another in the corridors of the school without wands flicking instantly into their hands, almost a Pavlovian response. Draco wasn't entirely sure what would have changed that.

"Malfoy..." Potter began, but tailed off awkwardly. He didn't seem sure what he was intending to say, and Draco certainly had no idea what his old rival was there for, but given no other cues he aired the only possibility he could conceive of. He tried to find the strength to sneer.

"Here to gloat?"

"What? No!" Potter seemed shocked, in that moral way of his. "I wanted... I don't know, to apologise, or something. Tell you that it'll be okay. That I'll be trying to get you out." It was Draco's turn to be shocked, though in a rather more understated way, the only outward sign the narrowing of his eyes, the frown that creased his forehead.

"I don't understand," he said slowly, acutely aware that this simple sentence could more or less sum up his whole attitude towards Potter, as long as he had known him. It was just the way he reacted to this lack of comprehension that had been changing.

Draco had had a lot of time to think- if this place gave you anything, it did give you that. It might take away everything else, but it gave that one small consolation. And he supposed that if you ended up in there, you probably had a lot to think about. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about Potter. About why he couldn't understand him. Draco had always been taught about logic, and gain and profit; that anything he did should be for his own gain, to bring himself pleasure, to bring himself power. This had always made sense. His life was ruled by this principle. Weak people, foolish people, thought that love, friendship, virtue, those things they prized so highly, were free from self-interest. A ridiculous notion. Spend any amount of time closely watching human interaction, and it was apparent that everyone had their own selfish motives. Love was the worst. It was the one they got the sappiest about, and yet it was the one most obviously tainted by the stain of their own desires, the human drive towards selfishness. You loved someone because they brought you pleasure, simply. Logic didn't necessarily mean there was no room for emotions, just that your own were the only ones that mattered. Marriage, the supposed epitome of a loving relationship, was more often than not about power or wealth, or convenience... And then they all acted as if you were insane for thinking of your own interests, when actually that drive for survival was what had brought wizardkind this far, when actually you were the ones who were reasonable enough to admit to it, and regulate all your actions by it.

All of this was eminently sensible, and Draco had for much of his life never questioned its correctness. But Potter had always nagged at him, because Potter was all superfluity and needlessness, doing things which were not at all to his benefit, and frequently to his detriment. Even among those who believed in 'selflessness'- and the very term showed how impossible the concept was, because how could you exist without a self?- this was, Draco had noted, very rare. Certainly the startling frequency with which Potter flaunted the basic laws of self-interest was worthy of notice. But Draco had for a very long time simply found it an irritating element of an irritating whole, nothing more, just another reason why Potter needed to be shown the error of his irrational ways.

He had been perfectly content with this situation until something strange had happened. Draco had found himself doing something against the laws of self-interest. It had made no sense at the time, and no matter how much his mind ran over it, it made no sense now. Draco hadn't killed Dumbledore. Not only would killing him have been a very good thing for Draco, but in fact not killing him was just about the most foolish thing he could have done, really. And that had been, it seemed, only the start of a slippery slope. Things like that had kept happening, and now Draco found himself here, in Azkaban. If he had looked out for himself, he would have been fine.

And so he had taken to pondering Potter's example, in the hope that if he could come to understand Potter, he might be able to understand just what had happened to himself. He still hadn't managed to fathom the whole business, but it had led to some insights about his old rival. Draco couldn't help but be staggered that someone could suffer that many setbacks, that much pain, and continue following this peculiar compulsion to defy all sense, the compulsion which had recently caused Draco himself so much trouble. Draco had seen, those last few weeks he had been at Hogwarts, though it seemed aeons ago now, the look on Potter's face when he was with the girl Weasley. That had brought him pleasure, and that was the selfishness of love that made sense to Draco. And, as if to prove to Draco that nothing he did was ever going to make sense to him for long, Potter had abandoned all of that. It was entirely nonsensical.

But where once that would have increased Draco's contempt for his adversary, now it provoked a certain sort of admiration. Draco knew what it was like to live with that, unable to regulate your own actions in accordance with your desires, and now he half-wished he could take some of the crippling burden from the other boy. Again an illogical peculiarity.

"It's just unfair!" Potter exploded, breaking his awkward silence and jolting Draco out of his thoughts. "You didn't do anything wrong!" Draco stared at him again. Clearly none of that new found empathy meant that the fool wasn't still illogical.

"Potter, I did quite a lot wrong, from all points of view." It was surprising that after months without speech his drawl came back to him so naturally. Like riding a broomstick. "From my own point of view, I should have taken care of my own interests and done what was expected of me, and I wouldn't have ended up here."

"You would have at some point," Potter said, looking up sharply, suspicion in his eyes.

"I'm not saying I would have done it; it just would have been the right thing to do from a self-interest point of view."

"You make it very difficult to want to help you, Malfoy," Potter replied warily. "But I'm still going to, because like I said, from a moral point of view you did nothing wrong!"

"And like I said, from any point of view, I did something wrong. I'm a Death Eater. I have the Mark. I let Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Just that alone is enough to convict you in this day and age. When they actually manage to catch a real-life Death Eater, they quite like to hang onto them, to prove a point. I understand that."

Draco was interested to note that Potter clearly didn't. That was intriguing. Perhaps they were entirely incompatible that way- perhaps everything Draco understood, Potter would struggle with, the way Draco found incomprehensible everything Potter took for granted. Maybe, if they could somehow both be slotted on to one another, fitting like jigsaw pieces, like ying and yang, maybe the whole mess of the world would suddenly become understandable. But without that understanding of Draco's logical world, Potter was currently going an unattractive shade of purple. His hands were clenching and unclenching in fists. It was probably quite annoying him that he wanted to punch the person he was intending to save.

"They let Snape off, the first time," he said, through gritted teeth. "Why not you?"

"Professor Snape had Dumbledore to vouch for him. I am an accomplice in Dumbledore's murder. The difference in circumstances means a lot. You know how they cling on to him as a symbol, how they say now that he always knew the right thing to do, how he always saw the truth when others were wrong. How we should avenge his death." Potter growled with anger.

"The Ministry couldn't stand him back then, but suddenly they'll use his memory as a rallying call when it suits them? I hate it! It's not what he would've wanted, and this is just a part of it! He was all for forgiveness, even when no-one else would have been, and in the end, you made the right choice. You didn't kill him. He was trying to persuade you to the right side, and he wouldn't have wanted you to rot in here!"

"It's the way the world works-" Draco began, but Potter interrupted.

"And you, you! How can you be so matter-of-fact about it?"

"There's nothing I can do about it," Draco said tetchily, his tone rising slightly with annoyance. "I made some poor moves, and now I'm paying for mistakes. It's my own fault more than anyone else's, and sitting here hating myself would be the most idiotic, illogical thing to do! They were big mistakes, and I can understand why they've reacted this way."

"I know about making mistakes that get people killed, and I know about the uselessness of self-blame, but that doesn't mean you just accept it all. You keep fighting," Potter pressed, searching Draco's face for comprehension, but receiving only a frown in return.

"Maybe you do. I don't understand how you can. What am I going to be able to do about it?"

"You keep on anyway," Potter insisted again, apparently on firmer ground now, although Draco felt suddenly cast adrift, away from the anchoring, sensible logic he clung to. "I'm going to keep on trying, even if you don't care. I'd have them put me in here too, if I could," he said, with fierce truth lighting his eyes. "I've done stupid things, too."

At those words a piece of the puzzle seemed to slide into place. Though Potter probably had a different idea of what constituted a 'stupid thing' to Draco's- given that Draco's definition could probably be summed up as 'what you do all the time'- that final 'too' was the key. Draco had found this sudden, peculiar feeling that he should attempt to share some of Potter's burden, and apparently Potter was feeling roughly the same thing. Because they had experienced the same things, broadly, and despite having an entirely different perspective on those experiences, it still meant that they shared something now. Memories slipped strangely around Draco's mind, trying to shape themselves around this new idea. One of them caught.

"The Dark Lord once said something," Draco began, and despite Potter's fierce glance at him, he continued. "He didn't understand it, and neither did I, I think, until you said that just now. It was something some philosopher had said, some French wizard- he said it in the original French at first, because even though we were all grovelling before him, he still seemed to need to prove his superiority.

"He said we couldn't love anything except in relation to ourselves, our own desires. That if we were to prefer our friends to ourselves, it would only be because our own tastes led us to do so. That only if we were to prefer our friends to ourselves in that way, could we have true friendship. He thought it was impossible; that was why he was telling us. Oh, how he laughed, laughing at you, and all the others, because you think friendship is so selfless, and actually it's the exact opposite, and the ideal you strive for is impossible, because your desires could never lead you to prefer another to yourself."

Harry started to say something, but he was confused, and Draco was suddenly sure again, and Draco's words were the ones that carried through. "But he was wrong, it's not impossible. The philosopher had it right, but the Dark Lord didn't see all of his meaning, he could only see it from one angle. It is possible to prefer other people to yourself, but only if you can see yourself refracted in them, if you can get a handle on them and want to help because you know how awful it feels. But when you have that... it's like a second self. It's still all about self-interest, but suddenly there are two of you whose interests you need to defend."

Draco's mind spun as Potter grasped for words. But in the eye of the storm of thoughts, there was a sudden new certainty, as ever entirely contradictory to Potter's confusion. He contemplated his former adversary in this new light, and finally he spoke again.

"You know, Potter, I think I'm going to try that not giving up thing of yours. I don't have a clue why you think it'll help, but on the current standings your way is working marginally better than mine, so perhaps even logically, it might be a good idea to do things your way for a while." He stuck out a hand. "Friends?"

Harry stared at the suddenly animated blond boy standing before him, with his overly skinny hand outstretched.

"Well, I, er, I mean..." He stared at the hand, gathered his thoughts and recalled what he had come here to do. He had wanted to help Malfoy, because Malfoy deserved his help, in a strictly objective, non-personal sense, much as he was finding this encounter disconcerting. Malfoy was obviously in need of help- aside from the matter of his freedom, he seemed tired and thin, and it even seemed possible that his time here had already unhinged him, given this sudden outburst. Harry knew how horrible it was to be punished without deserving it, and had known others who had even greater experience in the field. Hagrid. Sirius. He was resolved; he wasn't going to leave Malfoy here without his help.

"Right," he said, taking Malfoy's hand and shaking it. "After what you've been through these past few months, all because you did the right thing... you deserve this much."

A/N: This fic is based around one of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes:

Nous ne pouvons rien aimer que par rapport à nous, et nous ne faisons que suivre notre goût et notre plaisir quand nous préférons nos amis à nous-mêmes; c'est néanmoins par cette préférence seule que l'amitié peut être vraie et parfaite.

And in my imperfect translation:

We cannot love anything except in relation to ourselves, and we do nothing but follow our own tastes and pleasures when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless, it is only by this preference that friendship can be true and perfect.