We Will Protect You

Chapter 6 - Making Up

!!!I wrote something in present-tense before I wrote this, so please tell me if there's any present-tense/past-tense discrepancies!!!
!!!TRIGGER WARNINGS: NONE, I THINK, TELL ME IF THERE IS!!!

~~~~~

The night prior, when Harry went to sleep, he wouldn't have believed this would happen. When he woke up at midnight, got the Marauders Map and the invisibility cloak, he wouldn't have believed this would happen. When he checked the Map (frowning at a name he'd never seen or heard before— who is Peter Pettigrew?), he wouldn't have believed this would happen. When he crept up to the Astronomy Tower and saw that bleach-blonde hair and tall, skinny frame, he wouldn't have believed this would happen. When Draco Malfoy had turned around to face him, looking anxious, and asked Harry to sit with him, he still wouldn't have believed this would happen.

But there he was, Harry James Potter, sitting across from Draco Lucius Malfoy, just... looking at him. Harry nervously shifted his weight around, not entirely sure what to do. Malfoy didn't seem all that concerned with starting the conversation, he looked perfectly content to continue staring into Harry's soul, reading his expressions, or whatever he was doing. Sure, Malfoy looked pretty damn nervous, but he didn't speak.

Harry decided to take a moment to look at him, study him back. Maybe he could scrutinize him into saying something. Although, in looking at Malfoy's platinum blonde hair, still perfectly flat and styled, even at midnight (Should Harry be fixing his own hair, he wondered distantly), his silvery-grey eyes, glossy and shining in the moonlight, and pale, completely unblemished skin, save for a faint mole on his left jaw, Harry was only getting more questions. He was sure ten minutes ago he hated Malfoy, but now... now he's really not. How could he hate someone so... pretty?

No, no, he couldn't keep thinking that way. He shook his head, pulled his lip from between his teeth, even though he wasn't sure when he started biting it, and broke the silence, "Why'd you want me to sit with you?" Harry asked, fiddling with the hem of his jumper. Malfoy seemed surprised at the question, which lead Harry to think he probably wasn't thinking all that much, just daydreaming.

"I, uh..." Malfoy stumbled over his words, which was a new thing for Harry to hear, Malfoy was notorious for his endless confidence and stuttering is certainly not associated with that, "I've been... I don't really... shit, hold on," he finally looked away from Harry, staring out at the stars, "I don't want to keep fighting with you," he finally spat out, "You're not... any of the things I've called you. Neither are Weasley and Granger. I've been thinking, I guess, and I've been a dick. I'm sorry," he said it all in one quick breath, like it was painful to say, and Harry couldn't lie and say he expected that to come out of his mouth. Sorry? Draco fucking Malfoy was sorry? Malfoy looked worried, and Harry realized he hadn't spoken in a hot second, "Are you okay?" he asked, which really only furthered Harry's confusion.

"You're... apologizing?" Harry cursed himself for phrasing it like a question, "You're apologizing," he stated it that time, "What happened? What changed? Why now? Why did you decide to say sorry now?" and all of his questions tumbled out of his mouth, falling past his lips with little regard for how they would hit. Malfoy was like a puzzle, but every piece he'd ever been given seemed to be from an entirely different set, just given to him to further warp his ability to understand the boy.

"I don't know, really," he mumbled, "I was an ass to you, and I know that. My... my family, my father, especially, said things like the shit I did. I thought it was... well, not okay, but I thought it was normal," Malfoy said, looking anywhere other than Harry, who was trying his best to catch his eyes, "I kinda knew it was fucked, in a way, but I only recently realized how fucked. And I never really had a way to tell you, y'know?"