They decided to apparate to Malfoy Manor, since someone could easily watch the Manor fireplaces for Malfoy to appear. After a long silence, Harry realised that Malfoy was taking longer than he should to work out their apparition stopovers. He looked up to see Malfoy staring into space. He looked lost. Harry suddenly realised that despite how much Malfoy had brushed it off on the outside, his father's death was hitting him hard.

Harry mentally kicked himself for not understanding sooner. Malfoy's father had meant everything to him. Harry might have dealt with something similar with Sirius, but he had still only known him a couple of years. And besides, he and Malfoy were completely different people, so they were going to deal with grief differently. Harry had become little more than a zombie, making it blatantly obvious how he was feeling, but Malfoy was acting exactly the same as he always did. Harry should have recognised that something more was going on underneath.

That was when last night suddenly clicked into place.

"Er, Malfoy," he said, trying not to sound awkward.

Malfoy looked up at him, making a visible effort to appear normal.

"It's okay," Harry continued, rubbing the back of his neck and finding that he couldn't actually look at Malfoy while he was speaking. "I get it."

Malfoy frowned, but Harry pressed on before he could say anything.

"I didn't even think, you know, about your dad. And we deal with things differently, but even I acted kind of barmy when Sirius died. I kept looking around for his ghost until Nick told me it wouldn't happen. And then I looked for him in the mirror-" Harry realised he wasn't making sense. On the plus side, Malfoy was looking significantly more normal with an expression of scorn creeping onto his face. "Anyway," Harry decided to start again. "People do weird things when they're grieving. So I get why you kissed me, and I'm not thinking anything into it."

Malfoy blinked, looking surprised.

Harry laughed. "I guess I pushed you a bit anyway by telling you that you weren't gay. If someone had shoved that in my face when I was trying to help them get a proper date, I'd feel angry enough to want to prove something, too."

Malfoy's eyes widened, making him look comically shocked. Then relief suddenly crossed his face. "Well, yeah," he said, trailing off, his temporary speechlessness making him sound almost like Harry. He smirked. "You could say that was the final straw." He narrowed his eyes. "But I never told you I was gay."

Harry smirked at him, enjoying the brief role reversal. "Well, I figured it out somewhere around the time you shoved your tongue down my throat."

Malfoy looked faintly horrified at Harry's lack of tact.

"Actually, I'm lying," Harry said, deciding to give Malfoy a break. "You confused the hell out of me. But then I realised that if you weren't gay and had just been trying it on, you would have made a massive effort afterward to convince me you weren't gay. But you didn't even care about that. You only cared that you had kissed me without meaning to, so I should have realised you were just messed up about your dad."

Malfoy smirked. "I always knew you were an idiot, Potter," he said. "Mortal enemies for seven years and you couldn't figure it out."

Harry shot him a glare, but there was no real malice behind it.

There was another silence, but this time there was no tension. "So, we're fine?" Malfoy asked finally.

"My eleven year old self would kill me for saying it, but yeah," Harry replied with a grin.

Malfoy laughed at that. "My seventeen year old self would kill me," he muttered. "Alright, let's go." He stood up and held his arm out to Harry as if he were escorting him to a dance.

"We've got to do it on the front step," Harry said. "Wards and all that."

"Ah," Malfoy nodded and walked off, Harry following.

Harry knew that if he had time to stop and think about it, he would be stunned at the friendship that had developed between him and Malfoy in the last week. As it was, it just felt normal. Without the constant need to be admired, to be the best, Malfoy seemed to have no reason to hate Harry. It made Harry realise just how many of their exchanges had been nothing but hate and the ridiculous need to crush each other in some competition that no one could win. Harry found that he was profoundly grateful for whatever it was that had made Malfoy suddenly grow up.

It wasn't until they were apparating to their first stop that he realised that perhaps he had grown up a bit, too.

"Home, sweet home," Malfoy said drily as they landed on a hill overlooking the Manor.

They had decided to apparate some distance away, to make sure that they didn't set off any sensors that might be keeping a lookout for Malfoy. When they had decided it was as safe as they could determine, they headed down to the back entry.

For a place that had been a Dark Lord's headquarters for months, there was surprisingly little evidence of Voldemort. Possibly because the place was evil enough already. Harry felt like he was back in Grimmauld place before they had renovated the old Black decor.

"So, what would your family have done if you weren't sorted into Slytherin?" Harry asked, looking around at the elegant green and silver decorations.

Malfoy laughed. "As if, Potter. Use your head. That would have been as likely as you being sorted into Slytherin."

"Actually, I nearly was," Harry said, enjoying the look on Malfoy's face.

"Come again?" Malfoy asked politely when the horror had subsided.

"The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin," Harry said, pausing to look closely at a shriveled head encased in glass. "I told it 'no'." He turned to Malfoy and grinned. "I'd just met you, you see. You kind of put me off the idea."

Malfoy wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I wholeheartedly admire your foresight, if not its catalyst," he said, shuddering dramatically. "Imagine if we had shared a House. I would have had to move schools."

"You don't think we'd have been friends?" Harry asked innocently, jogging to catch up as Malfoy made his way to the stairs.

Malfoy laughed. "Friends? I would have hated you even more."

Harry had to agree. They climbed up to the second floor, which was surprisingly less well lit than the lower level. The velvet curtains were drawn and the air was getting that faintly musty smell of a house that was falling into disuse. Harry noticed that Malfoy kept casting glances at him, but Malfoy said nothing.

"I haven't been up here much, recently," Malfoy said after a few moments of silence where nothing but the soft fall of their feet on the carpet could be heard. "My bedroom is downstairs, and there was nothing I needed up here."

Harry recognised the room where the three of them had been taken, as well as some rooms he had seen through Voldemort's eyes, and found he didn't blame him.

Finally, Malfoy led them into a large room near the back of the house. The room was lined with pristine black bookshelves filled with leatherbound volumes; enough to rival most libraries Harry had seen. The curtains were even thicker in here than in the rest of the house. Malfoy pulled out his wand and cast Lumos. "Don't want anyone seeing us through the windows," he muttered before stopping and looking around.

Harry looked at him. "Where do you want to start?" he asked after a pause.

Malfoy looked almost overwhelmed. "Do you think we look while we're here, or take them back?" he asked.

Both prospects were daunting. "Shall we narrow it down here and take the best back?" Harry asked.

Malfoy nodded and they split up.

"What am I looking for?" Harry asked after about five minutes of looking closely at the shelves and realising he had no idea what the collection contained.

Malfoy made a derisive sound from the other side of the room. "Honestly, Potter, how did you even pass your subjects at school?"

"Hermione," Harry answered promptly.

"Figures," Malfoy muttered. He ran his fingers across the shelves and plucked off three thick volumes. "Here, look at these."

Harry sat down in one of the leather armchairs and opened the first book.

"Urgh," he said involuntarily. "You do this for fun?"

"Some of us have an intellect," Malfoy said airily. "Look for anything to do with notorious dark objects. Maybe a notable invisibility cloak, or powerful gem. Anything. Don't bother reading the chapters now, we can do that back home." Malfoy's voice stuttered on the word home, but Harry pretended not to notice. He glanced up at the pile of books Malfoy was selecting as useful and was suddenly devastated that Dave hadn't been free for lunch until the day after tomorrow. If Malfoy was anything like Hermione, Harry was definitely going to spend all of tomorrow going cross-eyed looking at pages so old the ink was almost invisible.

Harry decided the books Malfoy had given him were as good as any other and added them to the 'keep' pile. After several minutes of further searching, Harry realised that he was spending more time casting glances at Malfoy than assessing the library. He mentally shook himself and tried to focus. It was difficult, because the more he focused, the more he noticed the silence of the room. And that meant that he had to notice how relaxed the silence was. And that meant he had to notice Malfoy, and wonder why on earth he was already as comfortable with Malfoy as he was with Ron and Hermione.

Malfoy looked up at Harry, his expression unreadable in the low light. He seemed to be lost in thought. Then he noticed Harry watching him and gave a small start. The open surprise on his face in that moment made a striking comparison to his usual demeanor. It was such an unguarded expression. Harry thought it suited him, just as the casual laughter had.

"Oh!" Malfoy said suddenly, his expression changing to excitement. "Wait!" He put down his books and ran out of the room before Harry could say anything.

He was back in seconds, a thick leatherbound book in his hands.

"What's that?" Harry asked, looking at it curiously.

"I've no idea," Malfoy said, his voice slightly awed. "Father paid an exorbitant amount for it when he was young. It's meant to be a relic of Salazar Slytherin's. Father never showed it to Voldemort, because he knew that Voldemort would want to claim it as his own."

Harry ran his hand along the cover. It had a small metal clasp in the shape of a snake. He pressed it, but nothing happened. Malfoy looked up at Harry, his expression hesitant and almost embarrassed. "When the rumours spread about how you opened the Chamber of Secrets, I always wondered if you would be able to open this."

Harry had a sudden vision of twelve year old Malfoy staring in fury at his favourite family heirloom and wondering if his most hated rival could know its secrets. He grinned. "That must have killed you," he said.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "Don't keep me waiting any longer, Potter," he said, his voice dangerous. "Salazar Slytherin was power-hungry and cunning. If there is any text exploring the possibility of powerful, magical objects - a text that Dumbledore couldn't access - it would be this."

Harry stared at him a split second before turning to the clasp and willing it to flicker in the wand-light.

"Open," he said, when he saw the eyes glint with life. His voice made a soft hiss in the quiet of the room.

Malfoy drew a sharp breath at the sound, and they both watched as the clasp slithered free. He opened the book carefully. Tiny writing covered page after page, scratched in a steady, meticulous hand.

"Potter," Malfoy said slowly, his voice slightly unsteady. "This is his research."

"Research into what?" Harry asked, trying to keep himself from getting too excited. There was no guarantee Salazar Slytherin had found anything that was useful to them, no matter how powerful and ambitious he was.

"Everything," Malfoy muttered, flicking through the pages. "Everything he thought might give him power. Spells. People. Objects."

"Anything about a cloak or a stone?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Not yet," Malfoy replied.

He turned the page and Harry saw a small drawing. "That's it!" he said, just stopping himself from stabbing the page with his finger and probably ruining the parchment. "That's the sign of the hallows."

Malfoy stopped turning and glanced at Harry, his eyes wide. He turned back to the page.

"The stone of wisdom grants the possessor infinite knowledge," he read. "That doesn't sound right. I thought you said it was meant to bring people back from the dead?"

"It is," Harry said, disappointed. "Maybe he drew the wrong stone."

"Although the stone will bond with a wizard, it is easily passed from person to person through gift or theft. Possessors beware: guard the stone of wisdom with care. Its power grows over time as it builds the wisdom of the dead."

"Wait, what?" Harry asked, frowning.

Malfoy looked up at him, equally puzzled. "I don't know," he said. "The wisdom of the dead?"

An idea started to take shape in Harry's mind, but he didn't want to say anything until he was sure he was right. "I suppose, collectively, the dead are wise," he said slowly.

A look of understanding went through Malfoy's eyes. "How did you say the stone worked again?" he asked.

"I was able to speak to my parents, Sirius, and Remus," Harry said, fighting to keep down his excitement. "They were with me for as long as I was holding the stone."

"You could ask them anything," Malfoy said, the expression in his eyes mirroring Harry's. "But it didn't really bring them back to life, did it? They were never resurrected."

Harry shook his head. "They were only shades of themselves."

"So Beedle got the name wrong," Malfoy said, the excitement in his voice no longer carefully contained. "Because, let's face it, resurrecting the dead makes a much cooler fairytale than infinite wisdom."

"But that's really what you're getting, isn't it?" Harry said, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face. "The ability to talk to anyone who has ever lived. To ask them anything."

"Infinite wisdom," Malfoy uttered, sounding breathless.

They stared at each other for several seconds before Harry whooped and punched the air. "We were right! There is more to the Hallows than Dumbledore thought!"

Malfoy pointed his wand at the stack of books they had selected, making them hover in the air by his side where he could lay a hand on them. "Come on, Potter," he said, holding out his arm. "Let's go find out what the others do."