"But I don't understand." Harry could hear the whine in his voice, and hated it, but he had to be let out of this if there was any way he could be. "Why do I have to watch Draco Malfoy? The Wizengamot exonerated him. He's not being tried again. He—"

"That's exactly the reason why we're having you watch him." Guinevere Trilling, his instructor in Stealth and Tracking, had a harsh face and an inflexible manner. She barely looked at him as she pushed Malfoy's file across the table between them. "Of course we wouldn't assign you a dangerous criminal on the first time out. That would be madness."

Harry opened his mouth to indignantly remind her that he'd seen a lot worse than mere dangerous criminals during the war with Voldemort, but Trilling rolled over him.

"But you need to understand the other side of the war, the people who caused some of the suffering." She looked up. "It's not just you, Potter. Pure-blood trainees are watching Muggleborns, and so on. Someone will be watching you."

Harry stiffened, his neck prickling.

Trilling rolled her eyes. "Not to interfere," she said. "Not to judge you. Simply to get to know you as a person, rather than the hero they probably thought you were. Someone who was on the opposite side of the war."

Harry sighed. His Auror instructors were obsessed with "reconciling" the two sides of the war, and had gone out of their way to make the Auror trainees work together, even—especially—when they were reluctant. Harry could understand why he wasn't being assigned to watch Ron or someone else he already knew well.

Still, there was a particular problem here, so he tried to resolve it. "But I might not be fair to Malfoy," he said. "I hated him in school. I—"

Trilling leaned forwards, her eyes sharp and narrowed. "You will judge him fairly and give neutral reports on him to us," she said, "or I will know why not."

And that, Harry noted as he grumpily picked up Malfoy's file, appeared to be that.

*

Harry was bored out of his skull and ready to hex someone for excitement. Malfoy had been doing nothing but sitting at a table in a small open-air café, one of the many new businesses that had opened in Hogsmeade after the war to accommodate those tourists who wanted to look at the site of Voldemort's defeat, for four solid hours. He'd read theProphet through, had three cups of coffee, and flirted with two of the servers. Now he was staring dreamily towards the Forbidden Forest, his hand curled around his coffee mug.

Do something interesting, already, Harry thought, and sipped again at his own tea, ignoring the dirty looks the servers gave him. It didn't matter that "Gerald Lassiter," the persona he'd adopted with his glamour, had given them large amounts of Galleons to be allowed to sit here in peace with only one drink; they still thought he should get up and let someone else to have the table.

But Harry didn't know what else he could do. He didn't dare drink more than that in case he had to go to the loo and then lost Malfoy when he left, and he didn't trust his own skill with glamours enough to yet to leave the café and come back in with another disguise.

Then Malfoy stood up as though someone had given him an invisible signal, folded his paper, and began to briskly move away. Harry started, dumped some more Galleons on his table, and stood up to follow. As he moved along, he heard several large clocks striking the hour.

Noon. I reckon he might have an appointment at noon, or want to go somewhere that's only open then. But did he have to wait for that long?

Malfoy walked openly down the main street of Hogsmeade, not seeming to notice or care about the many hostile looks sent his way. Harry sucked his lip thoughtfully as he avoided an old witch with an enormous armful of packages and several people his own age on their way back from Zonko's. Does he really not care? At least, he's got better at pretending that people's opinions don't matter to him.

Malfoy finally turned in at another of the new brick buildings near the outskirts of Hogsmeade, towards the Shrieking Shack. Harry squinted at the name on the large sign above the door, and blinked. The Severus Snape Memorial Fund.

Why is it that I didn't hear about this? Harry had done his best to get Snape recognized as a hero after the war, making speech after speech about the memories he'd acquired. This Memorial Fund had to be new, or surely they would have contacted him for a donation.

Is that why Malfoy's here? To make a donation?

That made no sense. Malfoy had already parted with a significant portion of his estate given lawyers' fees and some small war reparations. The man Harry knew would never have given up more after that. It would mean giving up a chance to sneer and make himself look superior to other people.

On the other hand, maybe the Malfoy he knew had changed. Harry dawdled on the other side of the street from the door, pretending to watch a wizard who was calling pigeons and making them perform tricks to amuse several small children, and cast a spell that would allow him to see through the windows and observe what Malfoy was doing.

Malfoy stood talking to a tall young woman with a thin face who Harry thought was familiar. He was leaning forwards, elbows braced on the counter she stood behind. The witch nodded now and then, as if reluctantly admitting Malfoy's point.

After a minute of study, Harry recognized the witch. She'd been a Slytherin two years in front of him, who'd left at the end of his and Malfoy's fifth year. He thought her name was Mary something, but he really couldn't remember.

Malfoy drew out a large bag that clinked and put it on the counter. The witch accepted it with a small smile that she tried to hide. Malfoy smiled back at her and then left the building, whistling again as he passed Harry.

Harry hesitated for long moments. He had two choices: to go after Malfoy or to try and find out what he had donated and what for. The question was which would help him understand Malfoy better, since that was supposed to be his assignment.

For the next month,he thought, depressed, and then sighed and entered the charity, preparing a story in his head about why he was there.

The witch behind the counter looked at him without smiling. "What do you want?" she asked. "I don't recognize you. Were you in Slytherin?"

What an odd question to ask someone who might want to help, Harry thought, but assumed Gerald's slightly stupid grin and fumbled for some Sickles. "No," he said. "My parents schooled me. I admired Severus Snape, though, and I heard about what he did for the war effort. I thought some money—"

Mary's eyes softened slightly, but she shook her head. "No," she said. "There are other charities to donate to if you want to do that." She sniffed. "Most people think that getting Professor Snape's picture on the wall of the Headmaster's office should be the limit of his honor. But we, the Slytherins he protected with his life and who knew him, are going to collect money for another cause." She looked proud and fierce, like a hawk.

Harry blinked, caught off-guard. "What other cause?" he asked, wondering if it was a posthumous Order of Merlin or something of the kind.

"To create a fund of money for Slytherins who try to protect Slytherins and keep up the honor of our House after they leave the school," Mary said simply. "And, you see, there are still too many people who allow House hatreds to control their lives. We won't accept donations from non-Slytherins because the money might be cursed."

Harry swallowed a comment about the Slytherins allowing House hatreds to control their lives, if they'd set up a fund like this. But instead he nodded, grinned vaguely, said, "I see, good luck," and walked out.

Malfoy had already Apparated, but Harry wasn't worried about that. Instead, he trailed up the main street of Hogsmeade, trying to fit this information into the picture of what he already knew about Malfoy.

Well, of course Malfoy had always been Slytherin to the core. It made sense that he would want to support a place like this. But since the Malfoy name was shite right now, it also made sense that Mary would resist a little before she accepted a donation from him.

But giving away any money at all, and especially to a charity that was keeping a low profile—Harry knew it must be keeping a low profile, or he would have heard of it before now—and so couldn't help him gain back a shining reputation was…strange.

Not like Malfoy,Harry thought, and Apparated home, wondering what other things he would learn that were not like Malfoy.

*

Malfoy had bought so many flowers that Harry was amazed he didn't stagger under them all. Roses, carnations, lilies, white flowers that Harry didn't recognize, sunflowers, and an oddly brilliant bunch of clover completed the array. He'd left the last florist shop he intended to enter, or at least Harry hoped so. He was going to get a headache from the drifting petals if this didn't stop fairly soon.

And Harry still didn't have a clue where they were going, as Malfoy pursued a meandering course down the middle of Diagon Alley.

There were hostile glances here, too. This time, Harry could see the darting little looks that Malfoy sometimes cast off to the side and behind him. But it seemed as if he were looking for Tripping Jinxes and the like, rather the way Harry would have if he was walking near the Slytherin dungeons after dark. Not as if he were paranoid, or as if he didn't believe that anyone could wish him evil.

Malfoy finally left Diagon Alley and continued walking, past Knockturn Alley and into a section of wizarding London that Harry hadn't seen before. The buildings stood further apart here, and small plots of grass appeared between them. The houses frowned fiercely, but Harry thought the grass was cheerful, at least until Malfoy turned into a fenced area of it and he realized where they had arrived.

A graveyard, Harry thought, and hesitated near the gate before he followed Malfoy in. If he'd done his job, Malfoy would have no reason to be suspicious that they'd both entered at the same time, especially since Harry was wearing another glamour.

And Harry really needed to be certain that Malfoy was doing what he thought Malfoy was doing.

Yes, he was. He knelt down and began to put flowers on the graves, sometimes pausing to say a few words, sometimes shaking his head and moving on, and sometimes standing in front of a headstone for a long time in silence, as if he were communing with the spirit of the dead person.

Harry drifted up to the largest mausoleum in the graveyard, an ostentatious thing of marble, and gave it an intense, admiring stare while watching Malfoy from the corner of his eye. Yes, he just went on putting flowers on graves, and he didn't even draw evil necromantic runes around them first.

Perplexed, Harry cast the spying spell that had served him well in the Severus Snape Memorial Fund's case again. That let him see the name on a headstone Malfoy had stopped in front of but not yet covered with lilies.

Julia Black.

Stunned, Harry stood there blinking for a moment. He would have expected the Blacks to have their own private and expensive graveyard, not this relatively simple affair. Besides, how could Malfoy have known all these relatives?

He hadn't, Harry decided as the moments passed and Malfoy continued to tend the graves—the simple ones, ignoring the few mausoleums. This was probably a way that he kept alive a sense of family pride, though, and maintained a connection with his mother's people.

Which was very much Malfoy, just as his pride in Slytherin House was. But not in a way that Harry would have expected. Decorating the mausoleums slavishly and talking aloud so that anyone who passed could hear what illustrious people the Blacks had been would have been more his style, Harry thought.

Instead, he did this—for himself, it appeared. And when all his flowers had been distributed, he left the graveyard, with a faint smile on his face which appeared pleased, but not self-satisfied.

Harry stood with his hands in his robe pockets after Malfoy had gone, and thought about a lot of things. For example, about how he had the Black house and most of the Black heirlooms and money that Malfoy might have inherited otherwise.

And about how he really hadn't visited his own parents' graves in too long.

*

"The Ministry is watching you."

Harry froze when he heard those words from Malfoy's friend Blaise Zabini and leaned forwards, peering cautiously around the heads between him and Malfoy's table in the Hog's Head. So far, this had been a boring watch, since Malfoy had only laughed and drunk with his friends and made plenty of jokes about people whom Harry didn't know, but who all seemed to have been in Hufflepuff.

"Oh, I know that," Malfoy said, with a shrug. "It makes sense that they would watch me after what I did, or what they think I did." If he was hiding a bitter smile behind his foaming mug, then Harry really couldn't tell. Harry leaned back in his seat, sipping cautiously. He had to pretend that he wasn't too interested, even as he cast spells that would sharpen his hearing. Luckily, all his immediate neighbors were too drunk to notice anything that subtle.

"But aren't you concerned?" From the sound of it, Zabini was running his fingers along the rim of his glass. "About what they'll do, and whether they'll take more of your money in reparations?"

"No," Malfoy said. "I know that I won't gain back much of a reputation in my own lifetime. What I'm doing now will be for my grandchildren to enjoy, maybe." Harry heard the gurgling that meant Malfoy had taken a sip. He had incredibly dainty sips, but his swallowing wasn't totally silent, any more than anyone else's was. "If I have grandchildren at all," he added in a thoughtful voice. "I'm thinking of not marrying."

"Draco." One of other drinkers sounded horrified. Harry thought it was Marcus Flint.

"Well, why should I want to?" Malfoy laughed a little, but Harry thought that sound concealed more than his friends could know. Maybe it was arrogant to think he knew more about Malfoy than his best friends after a fortnight of observation, but Harry doubted they had paid such concentrated attention as he had. "It was something my father always wanted for me, and I accepted that it was my goal to keep the Malfoy line alive because I didn't question what he said. We all know how not questioning what he wanted for me turned out."

"But—but—"Flint was evidently at a loss. Harry hid a smirk in his own mug, not that it would matter much if people saw the stranger he had glamoured into smirking. "It's important to keep the family line alive."

"I don't think it is," Malfoy retorted at once. "If you think about it, every single one of the families alive today has accomplished the same feat as the Malfoys. They all had children, and here they are! EvenMuggles can accomplish that. Excuse me for wanting to do something grander with my life."

"This is something you've thought about for a while, isn't it?" Zabini asked quietly. "You're not speaking as if it's sudden."

Zabini, Harry decided grudgingly, in the middle of the odd smugness he felt for knowing so much about Malfoy, was smarter than the rest of them.

"Yes, it is," Malfoy said. From the squeaking sound of his expensive clothing on the chair, Harry thought he had turned to face Zabini. "There's no reason for me to do something I don't want to do, when I'm free now. And maybe I'll change my mind in a few years and want children. For now, I don't. I want to explore."

"Explore?" Flint slapped his hand on the table. "You're giving up on your family to travel the world?"

A dangerous silence followed that. Harry supposed he should feel sorry for Flint, but he really didn't think it worth his sympathy.

"I want to explorethis country," Malfoy countered, his voice rich and soft. "All the perspectives that my father's training taught me to ignore. All the history that I never got to learn because Binns was such a poor teacher. All the spells that they didn't teach at Hogwarts because they couldn't get competent professors or the competent ones were too busy. There's a life out there, a world of lives, and I haven't even lived one full one yet. I want to know what they are."

"That's admirable," Zabini said into the silence that followed. "I didn't know you wanted that, Draco, but it's admirable."

Yes, it is, Harry thought, and watched as the table of Slytherins rose and headed for the door, Flint still futilely trying to argue with Malfoy. I could end my observation here and make a good report on Malfoy.

But he didn't want to. He wanted to watch out the full month, because after this, he doubted that he would ever get the chance to know Malfoy again.

*

"I don't understand, mate." Ron's brow was furrowed, and he leaned forwards. "Watching Malfoy has made you convinced that he's trying to get his reputation back? I don't see how that could have changed your mind about him. Of course he would try to get his reputation back after the way the war destroyed it."

Harry sighed, and reminded himself that he really couldn't expect his friend to share his opinions about Malfoy, when he hadn't seen the same things Harry had. "I don't think he's doing these things to restore his reputation," he said. "The charity he donated to is small. He could have raised his reputation higher with his friends by saying that he would be a good little pure-blood and continue the family line. I think he's doing things because he wants to, because they make him feel good."

Ron cocked his head. "But Zabini said something about the Ministry watching him. Maybe he's doing these things just to impress you, or whoever else he thinks is watching."

Harry shook his head. "I considered that, but I don't think so. These feel sincere."

"Mate," Ron said, gently, "you're not always the best judge of character. Remember Snape?"

"That was different." Harry tapped his hand on the desk between them; he and Ron shared this small study room with several other Auror trainees, but at the moment they were the only ones here, so they had the luxury of sitting on opposite sides of the table from one another instead of being shoved in knee to knee. "I always thought the worst of people on slight evidence. When have I believed the best of them?"

"With Sirius," Ron said without a pause, "when you heard his story about Wormtail."

"But beforethat," Harry said, valiantly clinging to his theory, "I thought he was a murderer, the way everyone told me. Why can't I change my mind about people like Malfoy when new evidence comes in? Why do I have to be condemned to always believing the worst of them, to believing what I believed during Hogwarts?"

"I didn't say you should." Ron tipped his chair back so that his head nearly hit the wall—there was no way to tip it back far enough that one could get decent distance between it and the table—and frowned at him. "But it sounds like you just want to believe the best of Malfoy, and you haven't considered all the evidence."

Harry turned away without saying anything further. Ron was observing Blaise Zabini, who was a less demanding target. Maybe he just hadn't heard Zabini talking the way Malfoy did.

But for Harry, Malfoy was becoming like hammered gold. The metaphor had come to him when he read a description of goodness and wisdom as being like hammered gold in a dusty Auror treatise the other day, and it had stuck with him when the rest of the text had faded into nothingness. Hammered gold was thin, but beautiful. Malfoy might have been evil in the past—although Harry was starting to think he hadn't been so much evil as stupid—but now he was covering over those mistakes with a thin layer of goodness. And it actually made it more credible, for Harry, that he wasn't contacting the press about his "reformation," because it suggested that he wanted to do these things just for himself.

That didn't mean he would ever get Ron to believe him, or anyone else.

But, like Malfoy, Harry was beginning to think there were things he could do just for himself, entirely forgetting about the Auror program, the wizarding world, and anyone else who might benefit from them.

*

Malfoy spun around and ended up on the floor on his arse. He laughed instead of attacking, which Harry thought wouldn't have been true just a short while ago. Then he got back on his feet and started circling the man opposite him again, his eyes bright.

Harry, clinging to the wall outside the building's window with a Spider Stick Charm, shook his head. Malfoy had signed up for Muggle fencing lessons. He was allowing someone he thought his inferior to poke at him with a sharp object, and perhaps draw blood.

Harry had more trouble believing this than he did believing that Malfoy didn't want to have children.

But he was going on with the lesson, and he responded to the instructions he got with a few serious nods, concentrating fiercely on the sport. Harry had seen that same intense look on Malfoy's face during Quidditch games. Now and then he even managed to clack swords with the instructor in a way that looked as if it was in his favor; Harry knew nothing about fencing.

Because of that, the contest ought to have been fascinating, but he found himself watching Malfoy more than the passes of the swords. The way his head swung from side to side as he studied the movements. The way his body swayed backwards from a strike, and even the ungraceful way that he scrambled and fell and tripped sometimes. How his hair hung in his face; the Muggle would have started suspecting something if Malfoy's hair stayed perfect throughout the bout, so he left off certain glamour charms when he visited these parts of London. The way a brilliant flush ran along his throat when his instructor mentioned something in a gently praising tone (Harry didn't hear the exact words)—

And then Harry paused, and swallowed, because the details he was noticing weren't the kinds of things that he could put in an Auror report. In fact, most of the fencing lesson wasn't the kind of thing that belonged there.

Oh, of course, he could say that the lesson showed that Malfoy was willing to spend more time on exploring different perspectives, just the way he'd talked about to his friends. That meant he told the truth to them, even though he didn't make an ostentatious show of proving that he'd spoken the truth. That, in turn, could be used to say something good about Malfoy's character. Harry really didn't think he was plotting against the Ministry.

But the chaotic emotions that shot through him as he watched Malfoy duck his head and study a new move the instructor was showing him weren't part of a good Auror report. In fact, they probably should have stayed far away from his head while he was watching Malfoy as a detached, neutral observer.

Neutral, my foot. If Trilling really wanted a neutral report on Malfoy, she would have assigned someone else to do this. You know that she's testing you, wanting to see what conclusions you come to after a month of watching him.

Harry swallowed and then scrambled silently down the building under his Disillusionment Charm and away. If he stayed here, then he would become less and less neutral, and that wasn't a good thing.

*

Harry was following Malfoy on the evening that he evidently decided it would be a good idea to walk up the center of Diagon Alley. He sauntered, his hands in his pockets, his head craned to the side as if studying the construction of the buildings. As always, he took virtually no notice of the people around him.

This time, though, he should have. Harry tensed as he realized that two wizards who looked as if they should still be attending Hogwarts were following Malfoy, their steps too casual to be real, their hands invisible in the folds of their robes but probably resting on wands.

Malfoy, look around! Harry was not sure that he dared interfere. Someone would either notice him and involve him in an altercation he didn't want, or Malfoy would probably notice him and want to know more about his savior. The flimsy identity Harry had prepared for his glamoured self wouldn't stand up to probing questions.

On the other hand, how could he leave an oblivious Malfoy to face this by himself?

As it turned out, he didn't need to. Malfoy reached one end of the main Alley, near the turning into Knockturn, and turned to face his pursuers, his eyes cool and his mouth lifted in a faint smile. The two assailants paused when they noticed that, then shook their heads and kept walking straight towards him, a bit faster now.

"Do we really have to do this?" Malfoy asked, in a world-weary tone.

The two wizards paused again, but one drew his wand in the next instant and said, "Of course we have to. You're evil."

"Oh, this again," Malfoy said in a disgusted tone. "I keep hoping that the people who want to punish me will find a more original excuse, but I reckon I shouldn't be disappointed this time. After all, you're also stupid enough to attack me in public."

The one who hadn't drawn his wand yet looked around anxiously; Harry had the feeling that he was the brighter member of the pair. The one who had his wand out never looked away from Malfoy, but said, "The people here agree with us. They won't meddle because they're all wishing that they could punish you themselves. How dare you walk around in public as if you weren't tarnished?"

"First of all," said Malfoy, "you need to learn what the word tarnished actually means. Although my hair might look like it, I am not a piece of silver. Second, if you actually hit me with spells, then I think someone might have something to say about it." He raised an eyebrow. "If you go back to your friends and forget about this, of course, then maybe they won't."

The smarter wizard tugged on his friend's arm. "Luke," he whinged. "Come on. Please?"

Luke shook the other man off. "Maybe you're a coward, but I'm not," he said. "He can't use Dark Arts on us, the Ministry would be down on him in a second, and I'm not afraid of anything else he can do." He started stalking forwards.

Malfoy looped his wand—and when had he drawn it?—in a complicated circle. There was a puff of red smoke, and Luke appeared hanging upside-down when it cleared, naked and trussed in red rope, entirely covered with red paint in the form of gamboling lions. Harry gaped for a moment, then had to resist the urge to applaud. It looked as though Malfoy had been studying a combination of spells that he wanted to use to taunt Gryffindors, but it was still impressive to cast them all at the same time.

The other wizard hastily collected his embarrassed, snarling friend and led him off. Malfoy looked around, as though hoping for some other challenger, then shrugged and turned away when no one else moved forwards to yell at him.

Snickers ran up and down the street, and most of the people who had watched seemed to forget about Malfoy. But Harry, his gaze fixed to that departing back, knew that he could not. His heart throbbed and ached. He thought—he knew­—Malfoy had handled that more gracefully than he would have.

He relaxed his tight grip on his wand, took a shaky breath, and turned away. He couldn't watch Malfoy anymore tonight.

*

Harry struggled slowly through the report that Trilling had wanted him to write when his month was done. It wasn't that it was hard to think of things to write about. Jostling ideas filled his head, scraps of observations about Malfoy that he could have pinned together into a long, sprawling cloak of almost any color and arrangement.

Except that the Auror Department wouldn't be interested in most of those observations. They wanted to know if Harry had kept himself from being seen, whether he thought Malfoy likely to be a threat to society again, and what kind of skills Harry had perfected in the pursuit.

In other words, nothing real. Nothing that mattered about Malfoy as a person.

Harry closed his eyes and spent a long moment massaging his forehead. Then he pushed the report away from him and sat there until his wildly pounding heart slowed and his thoughts spun into some semblance of normality.

All right, then. He would write the report on Malfoy, because that was what he had been assigned to do. He would give the Auror Department everything it wanted. He would report everything relevant he had learned in a neutral tone. He would show Trilling and the rest that they had made a smart investment in his education.

But for himself…

For himself, he kept seeing the flush along Malfoy's throat in his fencing lesson, and hearing the passionate tone in his voice as he told his friends he wanted to explore alternate perspectives, and feeling the relaxed tension in his body as he watched his complex of spells handle the man who wanted to hurt him. He saw the tenderness Malfoy had bestowed on the graves and the memory of Severus Snape.

Harry didn't know if he had anything to offer, compared to that.

But he knew that he had to try. He didn't want to remain at a distance anymore. Simply watching Malfoy had changed him.

He wanted to be his friend, if he could.

The memory of the flush along Malfoy's throat flashed in his head again, and Harry glanced around guiltily, even though he had deliberately chosen to write his report late at night so that no one else would be in the same small room with him. Or I want to be something more, but—I have no idea if he'd want another man just because he doesn't want children. I don't know that much about him.

But that thought only unleashed a torrent of hunger within him to know more. More, more, as much as he could. Malfoy was changing himself for the sake of himself, Harry thought, taking steps to becoming a better man because he wanted to. Harry wanted to share that journey and see what else he could find out, and maybe what Malfoy would want to find out about him.

Maybe, maybe. Harry had no idea whether Malfoy would warm up to him, particularly when Harry confessed that he'd been watching him for the Ministry—as he knew he would have to do.

But the maybe meant nothing. Harry wouldn't learn anything sitting behind a table like this and uselessly wondering.

What he could do was ask.

*

"Potter? This is a surprise." Malfoy stood in the door of the small flat he lived in and studied Harry with an eye that revealed curiosity and wonder. Nothing more than that, but, Harry told himself sternly, he didn't have a right to expect more than that at the moment.

Harry nodded. "I know," he said. "I just finished my Stealth and Tracking Course in Auror training."

If anything, Malfoy looked more bewildered. "Congratulations, I suppose," he drawled, leaning a shoulder on the doorframe.

"You were the one I was assigned to watch," Harry said. "For the last month," he added, as Malfoy's face grew a little white. "I've been following you under various glamours and deciding whether you're a threat."

Malfoy spent some moments studying him. "The graveyard," he said at last. "And perhaps some scraping sounds outside my window during fencing lessons that I couldn't otherwise explain."

"Yes," Harry said simply, ridiculously pleased that Malfoy hadn't spotted him the other times. Or maybe he had, but was too polite to say so. There was a lot more going on behind those pale grey eyes than Harry had ever given him credit for.

Now I want to know what it is.

"Well." Malfoy surveyed him again as he had done when he opened the door. "Was that all you came to tell me? I don't take offense, Potter. I knew that the Ministry would have someone watching me."

Harry slowly shook his head. Then he cleared his throat. Then he switched his weight from one foot to the other. Now that it came down to the moment, he was shy about admitting what he had really thought and felt and learned during that watch.

I may be a little bit in love with you. Maybe.

But he would never have anything more with Malfoy than he did now if he didn't say something, and the mysteries of that soul like hammered gold would never be revealed to him.

Still, there was the problem of choosing the right words, something Harry had never been especially good at. In the end, he settled for simplicity.

"I liked what I saw," he said, and held out his hand. "Could I—could we…be together, some of the time?"

Malfoy's eyes widened in surprise, narrowed as he studied him, and then slowly settled back to what looked like a normal size. But Harry had seen the intelligence going on behind that gaze, and didn't think he was being rejected or accepted just yet. He was being judged. He held his breath in hope, then let it out again and coughed.

At that, Malfoy grinned and clasped his hand. "I reckon we could try," he said. "If there's anyone whose perspective is alien to me, it's you."

Harry said, helpless in the grip of his happiness, said, "Maybe not as alien as you think." He beamed at Malfoy.

Malfoy looked back, with that calm pride Harry had first noticed and valued, and then stepped out of the way. "Let's see," he said, with a gesture that could have meant either that Harry could look at his flat, or that they might see if they possibly had a future together.

Harry chose to take it as both.

End.