Second Impressions
Sunday passed off fairly quietly and uneventfully, but with each hour that passed, Harry felt himself growing more and more nervous for the following day. How were he and Draco supposed to act at school now that they weren’t enemies? They couldn’t possibly just go on like business as usual, right? Wouldn’t their living in the same house make that more than a little awkward?
Harry wouldn’t admit it out loud, and certainly not to Draco himself, but he was probably worrying about it a little too much and too often for it to be healthy, especially since he could have just saved himself the suspense by asking the blonde what the plan was.
But in the end, Harry didn’t have to ask—Narcissa beat him to the punch.
“You boys have lunch and chemistry together, correct?” she asked over breakfast on Monday, her tone strongly implying that she already knew the answer.
Harry nodded the affirmative and tried not to think too hard about how prettily Draco’s cheeks and ears turned pink at the question.
“Good,” Narcissa replied briskly. “If it’s at all possible, sit together at lunch. And—regardless of whether or not you find it to be possible—be civil to each other.” She gave her son a pointed look before going on. “And walk to and from school together today. I don’t want any surprises.”
Harry didn’t quite understand what she meant at first; but when Sirius told his cousin, in no uncertain terms, what he would do to Lucius if the man dared to show his face, let alone attempted to convince or force Draco to go back home with him, her meaning became a little more apparent.
Harry was very quick to agree to Narcissa’s terms. Draco, though clearly mortified, also agreed without any struggle, and Remus very quickly changed the topic of conversation after that.
Soon enough, it was time to leave, and Harry was glad to find that Draco hadn’t been lying to his mother when he’d consented to walking to school with Harry.
“Sorry,” Draco half muttered almost as soon as the front door was closed behind them.
“Huh?” was Harry’s incredibly articulate reply.
Draco was scowling at Harry as he explained himself. “I’m sorry that my mother put you on the spot like that. You don’t have to walk with me if you don’t want to. I won’t tell her.”
Harry blinked at the blonde, stupefied. Then he said, “Draco, that is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” He hurried to continue when his former-rival’s scowl turned much more indignant than confused and semi-annoyed. “Why wouldn’t I want to walk with you? We’re friends now, remember?”
Draco only shrugged in response, but his expression was less angry, so Harry counted it as a win.
“Is it possible for us to sit with each other at lunch?” Harry asked hesitantly after they walked for a minute or two in silence.
“Yes, if Pansy and Blaise can join,” Draco replied; his tone implying that he did not expect Harry to agree.
“That’s fine,” Harry instantly retaliated by saying. “I’ve got no problem with them.” At Draco’s confused and mildly irritated glance toward him when he put an emphasis on his last word, Harry decided that it couldn’t hurt to clarify. “Well, I suppose I do, but not to the point of no return. I couldn’t say the same about Crabbe or Goyle, though.”
Draco immediately flushed at the reminder. “I told you that I’m not really friends with them,” he half snapped.
“Good. Let’s try and keep it that way, yeah?” Harry said, ignoring his companion’s tone in an attempt to keep things as light as possible.
Again, though clearly still on edge, Draco seemed at least somewhat appeased by Harry’s attempt. If things continued on like this, then maybe Harry would get to the point of not ever needing to walk on eggshells around the blonde in—say—six months from now? A year?
It was slow progress, certainly, but at least it was progress.
“I still don’t see why we all have to sit together,” Ron grumbled as he, Harry and Hermione all sat down together at their usual lunch table. “It’s not like we’re friends.”
Hermione, attempting to kick Ron under the table, missed and got Harry rather hard in the shin. She blushed at his slight grunt in response to the unwarranted attack, and quickly muttered, “Sorry, Harry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Ron, who did not seem to find their interaction worth inquiring into, continued to make his point. “I mean, really, Harry, why on bloody earth do we have to—”
Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) Ron was cut off by the arrival of Draco, Pansy and Blaise. Well, in reality, he was cut off by Pansy, who kicked his seat rather harshly as she passed to sit down next to him. Blaise sat down across from her, at Harry’s left side, and Draco took the last remaining seat—at Harry’s right, across from Hermione.
Ron was glaring rather furiously at Pansy, who looked very smug, and the table seemed in danger of falling into a very contemptuous and tense silence. Thankfully, Hermione caught Harry’s desperate look towards her, and quickly started up a new subject of conversation.
“So, Blaise, I hear that you’ll be showing quite a few paintings for this year’s gallery. How many did Madam Attlee select from you?”
Blaise, though seeming a little confused as to why Hermione was at all willing to speak civilly with him, didn’t seem displeased with her choice of topic as he answered, “Three.”
Hermione’s eyes widened a little. “Three? She never takes more than two! You must be very proud, then.”
“Yes, I am,” Blaise said, sounding more and more willing to speak with each word. Then, in an act of compassionate consideration which Harry had never seen from him before, he turned to Ron and said, “Some of yours will be up too, won’t they?”
The tips of Ron’s ears crimsoned as he replied in a voice low with shame, “Just one, actually.”
Blaise’s eyebrows drew close together. “Why? You’re a great artist—the best in the school after me, I’d venture to guess. You should at least be showing two, if not as many as me.”
Seeming too shocked at Blaise’s extended olive branch to deflect, Ron answered honestly. “She doesn’t like the supplies I use, I don’t think.”
“Because they’re cheap?” Blaise asked.
“Yeah,” Ron replied, bristling a little.
Instead of getting offended by his tone, Blaise only nodded and said, “Then borrow some of mine. Lord knows that I’ve got enough for two of me, at least.”
Before Ron could respond to such a kind offer, Pansy muttered, “Oh, wonderful, now we’re making friends with the lot of them,” in a tone which very much conveyed her disgust.
Harry stiffened; saw Ron and Hermione stiffen likewise; even felt Draco do the same from his place next to him—but Blaise remained cool and collected as he said, “Pansy, I think that ship sailed the very day we made the blunder of not being here for our best friend. Potter is being exceptionally kind to Draco at the moment, and I would like to give him every possible motive to continue on that way. So yes, it would probably be best to ‘make friends with the lot of them,’ as you put it.”
“I wouldn’t stop even if you didn’t make friends with us,” Harry felt the need to say, though both Pansy and Blaise ignored his interjection.
“Narcissa can handle this without the Blacks’ help,” Pansy damn near hissed back at Blaise. “That woman can do anything once she sets her mind to it. I still don’t see why—”
“Could the two of you just drop it, please?” Draco pleaded, speaking for the first time since the start of lunch.
In an act which proved the two of them to really care about Draco in a way Harry had scarcely suspected before, both Pansy and Blaise immediately fell silent. For Pansy, the struggle not to go on seemed to be taking its toll on her facial expression, but Blaise began to look perfectly and utterly blank as soon as Draco had requested that the subject be dropped.
“So, er…” Ron started to say after a dreadful moment of silence from the group. “You’re moving in with Harry, Mal—I mean, Draco. That’s… nice.”
Draco huffed in amusement and immediately replied, “You don’t have to beat around the bush, Weasley. I know you aren’t very fond of the idea.”
Both Ron and Hermione seemed positively shocked at the small nudge Harry gave to Draco’s side at that comment—and Pansy looked a split second away from trying to tear his arm off for the offense—but Draco only gave a slight start and said, “Sorry, old habits die hard. You don’t have to beat around the bush, Ron.” He then gave Harry a very indiscreet look that seemed to ask whether he’d done a sufficient job of using Ron’s first name rather than his last.
Harry rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh with only some success. Pansy and Blaise were both watching him very closely now, though, which made Harry uneasy enough to tamp down his enjoyment of the moment.
“Is there a reason your dad isn’t moving in with them, like you and your mum?” Ron asked pointedly.
This time, Hermione didn’t badly aim her kick; but all Ron did in response to it was look at her indignantly and say, “What the hell was that for?”
Hermione scoffed at Ron, then turned to Draco and said with forced cheer, “Your mother settling in nicely to your new routine, I hope?”
Draco nodded primly in response and said, “Yes, but she’s always been one to adapt.” The affection and pride in his voice was palpable.
Harry felt himself smile a little at the thought that Draco Malfoy was so close with his mum—but the smile nearly turned into a frown when he remembered why it was only his mother that Draco was close to.
“Yes, she seems the type,” Hermione replied briskly. “I assume she’s the reason we’re all sitting together now?”
Draco nodded. “Yes, she thought it would be for the best.”
“Do you?” She asked.
“I trust her judgment,” Draco told her; which was a start, at least.
Hermione seemed to digest his words for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you sit with us in chemistry, too? Unless you’d prefer to sit with Crabbe and Goyle…”
Draco’s cheeks turned slightly pink at the insinuation, and after briefly darting his eyes over to Harry, he said, “I’m not actually friends with either of them.”
Hermione hummed. “So, you’ll sit with us in class, then?”
For a moment, Draco seemed on the verge of turning down the proposal, but when Harry said, “I think you should,” it made him give another slight start.
He looked at Harry again—for half a moment longer this time around—and then turned to Hermione and said in a guarded sort of way, “If it’s all the same to you.”
“Of course.”
“You can’t stay friends with Crabbe or Goyle,” Ron said suddenly, his tone strangely harsh. “Or pretend to be friends, or whatever it is you do with them. Not if you’re going to be friends with us.”
“Ron!” Hermione hissed, but he didn’t even look at her.
“Crabbe’s dad tried to murder Harry last year—and he did murder Cedric,” Ron told Draco coldly. “And he’s my best mate, so whether he likes it or not, you can’t be friends with them and him at the same time.”
“And what, exactly, are you going to do about it?” Pansy snapped, no longer able to keep quiet. She, half a second later, turned to glare at Blaise and said, “Kick me one more time, Blaise, and you’ll lose whichever foot you use for the task.”
“I only kicked you once.”
“And that’s one time too many!”
“I cut off contact with both Crabbe and Goyle just as soon as Harry invited me to stay with him and his family,” Draco said, effectively cutting off the argument that would have naturally ensued between his best friends if he hadn’t spoken. “I know you won’t believe it, but I’ve got some sense of human decency. I wouldn’t disrespect anyone like that, much less someone letting me stay with them.”
Ron looked calculatingly at the blonde for a moment, then turned his gaze to Harry. “I think he means it,” he said very cautiously, and that was the end of that.
Very soon after the close of that topic, lunch ended, and Harry was more than relieved for it. Lunch was his fifth period out of eight, and chemistry—the only other period he shared with Draco—was his seventh, so he would have to wait until then to get a better read on how his new friend was acclimating to everything.
Much to Harry’s surprise, Draco muttered, “I’ll see you in chemistry, Harry,” before he headed out of the cafeteria with his best friends.
“Yeah, see you,” Harry barely managed to reply before the blonde had left the room entirely. Turning back to his best friends, Harry murmured a, “Thanks, guys,” as they headed to their English class. “I know this kind of came out of nowhere.”
Ron snorted and muttered, “That’s an understatement,” and then promptly ignored the none-too-gentle punch in the arm from Hermione as a result.
“Of course, Harry. We don’t mind at all,” Hermione said, shooting a pointed look at Ron as she did. When she turned back to look at Harry reassuringly, he became absolutely certain that her suspicions as to why Harry and Draco were now living under the same roof were, at the very least, extremely close to the mark.
Though the thought made Harry’s stomach drop a little for the sake of Draco’s privacy, he was still glad that at least one of his friends understood how important it was to keep giving Draco incentive to stick around.