Draco sat beside him at dinner the next night too.

"You know, I had the sixth years today," Draco said casually.

"Okay," Harry answered uninterestedly, stuffing more mashed potatoes in his mouth. He really didn't feel the need for conversation with Draco, and he had the feeling that the pompous prat was going to try to one-up his comment yesterday about them liking him.

"Yes. Funny, they didn't give me any trouble at all. One of the Gryffindors even told me I was cool at the end of the lesson."

Harry snorted. Fat fucking chance. That was a lie — had to be. But still, trying to call him on it wouldn't get him anywhere; the little shit would probably just dig his heels in. "Okay, great Mal— Draco. They like you too. They probably like everyone."

"They don't just like me too, they like me better."

Oh, Draco was really trying his grace, wasn't he? Did he want Harry to break their stupid fucking little truce and get them both fired? It would be his own fault, and Harry would tell him so.

"Okay, well all of my students like me. Most of yours probably just cower in fear."

"They do not." Draco sounded miffed. "I'm willing to bet all of my students like me better than they like you. I'm an excellent teacher. You're just a bumbling fool who got tired of chasing villains for too long."

Oh fuck off. He wasn't entirely wrong, but Harry wouldn't admit that over his dead body, and he didn't have to be so smug about it. (A small part of Harry noticed that Draco actually did not seem very smug at all, but a larger part of him did not care very much about listening to that part at the moment, thank you.)

"Excellent my arse," Harry muttered.

And then, more intelligible, "I'm also an excellent teacher, and I have experience. I was already teaching people Defence before we even left Hogwarts, plus I helped train new Aurors!"

Draco pressed his lips together in a disgruntled frown.

"Experience isn't everything. That doesn't mean I'm not good," he finally said. "I know some people think nobody can hold a candle to the legendary Harry Potter, but I did a very long and intensive Potions apprenticeship in France, and I'm good at what I do, thank you very much."

Harry scoffed as he took another bite of his potatoes, and pointedly ignored Draco's wrinkled nose as he talked with his mouth full, "Yeah, okay."

That didn't mean he was good with kids, though, or good at teaching, and that was even if Harry believed that he was so amazing at Potions to begin with. He believed McGonagall (Minerva, he really, really needed to start remembering to call her Minerva, or she would keep giving him that look) wouldn't hire someone utterly unqualified for the job, but the pickings could be slim sometimes, and that didn't mean he was anything special.

~*~

Harry's classes over the coming weeks went more smoothly, and he found that most of his students did indeed really like him, even once the awe of Harry Potter teaching them started to wear off and they saw that he was just another boring teacher.

They were hardly over a month into the term now, but he felt like he was getting to know them fairly well already. There were a lot of students to keep track of, but he had the general feel of each class and how to handle them, and also a newfound respect for all of his old teachers going through all of this every year.

The other thing he was still having to get used to was Hogwarts. In general.

He constantly went back and forth in his head about whether he had simply misremembered so many things with time, or whether it was fucking impossible for him to misremember this much about what had been his home for six years of his life — the routes and rules that had been ingrained into him from years of habit. He found himself relying on the Marauder's Map quite often for the first few weeks, having to discreetly step aside and hide in one of the many small alcoves behind a tapestry to take a quick glance at where the fuck he was supposed to be going. He was still having to look at it occasionally, and he'd fallen through that goddamn trick step twice now, because he was used to skipping the step two up from that. He was sure, he was sure of it. Right? Pretty sure, at least. Sometimes he wanted to ask Draco, but Draco never said anything about it or looked lost, so Harry kept his mouth shut and just kept wondering.

Speaking of Draco, he and Harry had fallen into the habit of continually trying to one-up each other (or perhaps it was more accurate to say they had just never stopped after the first day), bragging to each other every time a student gave them a compliment or a class went particularly well, and at some point — Harry didn't know when — he stopped wanting to actually throttle him every time. He still couldn't say he liked him (I mean, he was Draco bloody Malfoy. It would be a miracle if they ever became friends, and the world might actually stop turning or something), but their interactions had turned more into just bickering now, rather than genuine antagonism, and Harry supposed he could live with that.

The other teachers seemed exasperated with their constant bickering, and seemed to do their best not to be the ones to have to sit beside them at mealtimes, and okay maybe their competition was a little ridiculous and perhaps a bit excessive, but there wasn't nearly as much entertainment around here as a teacher as there had been when he was a student. He did visit Hagrid fairly often, which was nice, since he hadn't really seen much of him since the war and hadn't realised quite how much he'd missed him, but there were only so many rock cakes he could pretend to eat, and Hagrid had things to do as well.

Harry supposed he should probably call Hagrid by his given name too now, but he just couldn't bring himself to — not only had Hagrid been a teacher, but he had been a friend and something of a paternal figure, and it just felt...too strange, stranger even than the rest of the staff, the same way Harry couldn't imagine calling Dumbledore by his first name either. Hagrid never tried to correct him, though, so he supposed it was alright. 

The few visits to Hagrid and little else, though, still left Harry with a gap in his life that his sporadic letters or Floo calls to Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville, and Teddy and Andromeda (and, once in a blue moon, Molly and Arthur as well, just to keep them from worrying too much) still could not fill. They had lives of their own, and when he wasn't swamped in essays, he needed something to entertain him, something physical and present and engaging, not something that — as much as he loved them all — sometimes felt much like more of the same paperwork.

And that entertainment was apparently arguing with Draco about who was the better teacher. He could have worse vices, he thought.

He had been reluctant to admit it to Ron and Hermione at first, thinking Hermione might be cross with him, but eventually it became rather hard to keep avoiding, as, without realising it, his competition with Draco had become such a big part of his daily life.

Hermione hadn't exactly been approving, but she hadn't reprimanded him either, and had allowed that it was certainly better than actually fighting all the time. If that was what it took to be civil and keep on McGonagall's good side, she told him, then that would just have to be good enough.

Ron, on the other hand, found the whole competition absolutely hilarious, and, much to Harry's satisfaction, insisted there was absolutely no way Potions could ever be better than Defence Against The Dark Arts, even if the git was a brilliant teacher, which was already debateable.

Half of Harry wanted to tell Draco that, but in the end he realised it was utterly pointless. Draco would dismiss it as biased and uninformed, and the fact that he'd never liked the Weasleys (and Ron in particular) certainly wouldn't help matters.

~*~

By mid-November, Harry and Draco had started occasionally showing up in each other's offices before dinner as their competition had only escalated, and Harry hated to say it, but things were looking disturbingly chummy these days.

They weren't friends — definitely not — maybe...competitive acquaintances, if anything, but the fact that Harry didn't actively dislike him on sight anymore and sometimes sought him out himself was enough to make him occasionally wonder if he was perhaps ill with some sort of hitherto unknown flu. Maybe one with a strange disorientating effect that boggled one's mind and scrambled their senses of friend and foe. Who knew. In the wizarding world, anything was possible.

In any case, the winter holidays were now quickly approaching, and Harry had decided to avoid the Burrow for the second year in a row. He just wasn't ready to subject himself to that much Ginny yet.

He was starting to wonder if perhaps some of the reason their marriage had lasted so long was that he hadn't often been subjected to that much Ginny, seeing as she had been away with the Holyhead Harpies so much and he had been so busy with Auror work. He knew Molly would try to guilt trip him, but he just didn't think he could do it.

He'd probably force himself to go next year, though. Maybe in a year's time he wouldn't be quite so bothered about Ginny any longer.

Harry was currently reading an essay with his feet propped up on his desk, when Draco graciously invited himself into Harry's office.

"You know, I had a student tell me today that he was staying over the winter holidays because I had inspired him to practise more potions," Draco bragged without preamble.

"Oh good, there will be at least one other person with me at the Christmas feast," Harry said distractedly as he tried to finish reading the paragraph he was on.

"You're staying?" Draco sounded more surprised that Harry thought he really ought to. Was it so strange? He'd stayed plenty of years before when they'd been students. "Do you not go to the Weasleys'? I was under the impression they were sort of your adoptive family."

Well, that was fair enough, Harry supposed. He put the essay down and sighed.

"Yeah, they are," he said. "It's just, ever since Ginny and I divorced...well, I don't want to be around her quite that much, so I just skip out. I'll probably go next year or something, it's just still too soon."

"Oh, did it not end well?"

"No, it did — as well as it could. I guess we're still friends, I don't know, we haven't really talked much and I prefer it that way."

"What happened, then? It always seemed like you two were bound to have the perfect happily ever after and pop out another horde of red-headed, freckled children. Granger and Weasley, too — I'm surprised it's taken them so long."

Harry shifted uncomfortably, suddenly realising just how odd it was to be pouring his heart out to Draco Malfoy.

No. No, he really didn't need to get into his marital troubles with Draco bloody Malfoy, whether they were more amicable now or not. It was just too strange and wrong and just uncomfortable. Alarmingly vulnerable.

Draco cleared his throat and hastily backtracked, as if he could hear Harry's thoughts. (He had frequently been told he was a rather open book, so he wouldn't be all too surprised if Draco could see it on his face.) "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that. That's rather personal."

There was a long pause before Draco spoke up again, asking, "Did you get anyone telling you what an amazing teacher you are today?"

Harry grinned. "Yes, actually. A group of third years told me I make my class so interesting and fun that it doesn't even feel like work — not like other classes, they said. And, you know, Potions is another class."

"Well it must have slipped their minds," Draco said haughtily. "Or they value my class for actually teaching them instead of just being fun."

Harry snorted derisively. "Whatever. You're just jealous because you know they all actually think my class is better than yours."