Harry woke up the next morning feeling strangely dull. He was meant to be seeing Dave for lunch, but despite the fact that he had enjoyed Dave's company the other night, he didn't feel like going. He forced himself to get out of bed and make his way to the shower. He wasn't the type to cancel plans, so he figured he needed to hurry up and find a way to make the best of it. Besides, he would surely enjoy it once he was there.

When he finally felt more awake and had made it downstairs to the kitchen, Malfoy was, of course, already up. Harry mumbled a good morning.

"Morning, Potter," Malfoy said, looking up at him. Malfoy gave a small start, his eyes lingering on Harry's hair.

Harry ran a hand self consciously through the wet tendrils that had curled around his face. "Is there something in my hair?" he asked.

Malfoy shook his head quickly and turned back to his toast. "I should be used to the shocking untidiness of your hair by now," he said with a smirk. "But it never fails to amaze."

Harry made a face. He sat down and took two pieces of toast from the rack Kreacher had prepared. Catching sight of his reflection in the window, he thought his hair looked rather tidy this morning, particularly since it hadn't even dried yet. He paused for a second, assessing his appearance. He'd never been one to really care how he looked, but if he was going to start dating properly then he figured he should probably consider it a little more. And if he thought about it, his glasses were very old fashioned.

He lifted his hand and took off his glasses. Of course, now he couldn't see anything. He turned to Malfoy.

Do you think I should get contacts?" he asked.

Malfoy stared at him. At least, Harry assumed he did. All he could see was a pale face and blonde hair.

After a long pause, Malfoy made a movement that could have been a shrug and said, "Shouldn't you ask Dave?"

Harry put his glasses back on. "Not that I know very much about any of this," he said. "But I'm pretty sure that if you're making an effort in your appearance for someone, you don't ask their advice. You just do it."

Malfoy seemed to be avoiding his eyes. "Then get contacts," he said, inspecting his toast carefully before taking a bite.

"So I look better without them?" Harry asked, his suspicions confirmed. That must be why Hermione was always offering to teach him spells that could temporarily help his vision.

"I don't know," Malfoy said, looking up at Harry with a strange mix of exasperation and amusement, like there was some joke that Harry wasn't getting. "Yes. Yes, you do."

Harry felt slightly disappointed. He was getting the sudden impression that he'd failed to pick up on years of hints suggesting that he could do with some aesthetic improvement. That was a little disconcerting, to say the least.

Malfoy frowned at him, seeming to realise that Harry was a little hurt. "Not that you look bad now," he said, the expression still on his face.

Harry laughed. "Thanks, but it's alright, Malfoy," he said. "I'm just a little stunned that people have apparently been telling me I look bad for years."

He pulled out his wand and tried to remember one of the spells Hermione had taught him. He had never bothered to listen. Finally he remembered one of the longer-lasting ones, although it did leave everything softly blurred. "Ensighteous", he muttered.

The world turned blurry. He pulled off his glasses. Malfoy was staring at him again, except Harry could see it now. Malfoy's expression of amusement had dropped and he looked almost lost.

"Er, it worked," Harry said, looking Malfoy up and down. Everything looked softer, the edges less defined, but it was clear.

"What worked?" Malfoy asked, still staring at Harry.

"I can see you," Harry said with a grin.

Malfoy gave a start and looked at him properly. "Really?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "You're the slightest bit blurry, but that's it."

Malfoy's eyes widened. "What were you talking about contacts for, then, if you could do it with a spell?" he said. A slight, pink tinge had crept onto his cheeks.

"Well, I wasn't sure I could," Harry said. "Hermione kept trying to teach me, but I was never interested."

Malfoy turned back to his toast. Harry finished his and looked at the time. He was due to meet Dave in three hours, so he had time to look at some books before then. The problem was, he was a little nervous to open another one.

"Do you think any of the other books have anti-theft spells on them?" he asked in an attempt to be casual.

Malfoy grimaced. It was only for a second, but Harry saw. "Not sure," he said, finishing his breakfast and looking up. "Perhaps if I opened them first and passed them to you, the book might realise you were only borrowing the titles?"

Harry nodded. "Worth a go."

They moved to the living room and Malfoy opened a book at random and passed it to Harry.

"Dueling with the Dark Arts?" Harry read with a grimace. "How pleasant."

Malfoy smirked. "It's not all Unforgivables you know," he said without looking up. "If you hadn't caught me off guard in the bathroom I would have wiped the floor with you."

Harry gave a small smirk, but the memory of Malfoy lying on the floor in a pool of blood was still too vivid for him to find humor in it yet. He turned a few pages without reading before looking up at Malfoy.

"I am sorry about that," he said.

Malfoy looked up in surprise. He blinked. "Well, I was going to Crucio you," he said. "And I was trying to kill Dumbledore." He gave a humorless laugh. "So don't feel too bad about it."

"That's true," Harry said. "But he knew that and he forgave you up until the very end, so in a way I'd be dishonoring his memory if I didn't forgive you."

"So you mean it, then?" Malfoy said, his lip quirking in surprise. "You were queen of the Dumbledore adoration club. I thought you were just being noble and pretending you forgave me." Malfoy's voice caught on the word 'forgave'. Harry admired him for saying it anyway, despite how it must catch on his pride.

"Every good decision that Dumbledore ever made was based around forgiveness and trust," Harry said. "I guess I'm just trying to live up to that. I still think you were acting like an evil little git, but I understand why you were. Like Dumbledore said, you're not a killer. And I don't know what I would have done if Voldemort had threatened Ron and Hermione unless I killed, say, Snape." He was fairly sure he wouldn't have tried to kill even Snape, but Malfoy didn't need to know that. If Harry had been raised by Lucius, who knows what he would have thought.

"So you are being noble," Malfoy said with a sneer, but he went quiet as he processed Harry's words. To his credit, he didn't rage about Harry patronizing him. He seemed to have already moved beyond the point where acknowledging that he had grown beyond his past bad choices felt like admitting a weakness.

Harry remembered something else. "Did you know he was dying anyway?" he asked.

The shocked look on Malfoy's face told Harry that he hadn't.

"He was cursed by a ring," Harry said. "If you had killed him, you would have only been giving him a merciful death. I guess knowing that makes it a little easier for me to see your point of view."

Anger crossed Malfoy's face, but just as quickly it passed. He looked worn. "Doesn't really matter, does it?" he said. "Although it would have been nice to know that. Maybe then the nightmares would have stopped."

"Nightmares?"

"Where I actually pulled it off," Malfoy said with a humorless smile.

Harry had nothing to say to that, so he turned back to his dueling book and began to read.

"Hey, it talks about Grindelwald's duel with Dumbledore," he said after a while.

"Of course it does," Malfoy said. "It was something of a big deal."

"First time I've seen someone write that Grindelwald lost because he failed to complete ownership of the Three," Harry added conversationally.

Malfoy dropped his book. "What?" he asked.

"That's all it says," Harry said with a shrug. "As if we're meant to know what that means."

"The Three," Malfoy repeated. "Could be another way of referring to the Hallows."

Harry nodded. Malfoy suddenly flipped back several pages in the book he was reading.

"There exists only one known way to achieve Mastery: ownership of The Three," Malfoy read. "It doesn't say anything else."

"What's Mastery?" Harry asked.

"I've never seen it defined exactly," Malfoy said. "But it seems to be some advanced form of magic use. Which is kind of obvious from the name really, you'd think they could have tried a little harder to keep the mystery. At any rate, I don't think people agree on exactly how it does that, but whenever I've seen it mentioned, it's always as some kind of revered stage of magic use."

"It's got to be the Hallows," Harry said, his voice raising in excitement. "What else could it be?"

Malfoy's eyes were bright, although his tone was cautious. "It may not be," he said. "But it does sound like it." He suddenly stopped still. "Don't you have all three of them?" he asked.

Harry froze. They could try it out, find out what Mastery was. But- "Shit," he swore. "I don't have the stone anymore."

Malfoy swore. "Can we go get it?" he asked.

Harry nodded. "We can try," he said.

Malfoy turned away and picked up another book, flipping to a seemingly random page.

Suddenly Malfoy thudded back against the couch like he had been shoved. He fell back, twitched, and was still.

"Malfoy?" Harry asked, jumping up in alarm. Malfoy didn't move. "Not again," Harry muttered, fighting the instinct to rush to Malfoy's side and instead hovering back, hand over his wand.

Malfoy moaned.

"Are you okay, Malfoy?" Harry asked. Malfoy moaned again. "Draco?" he asked.

Malfoy lifted his head to stare at Harry. If Harry had thought he had seen Malfoy hit rock bottom before, he was wrong. The mask had been torn from Malfoy's face. Drained of colour, his pale skin was suddenly clammy. His eyes were wide and unseeing.

"I can't do this anymore," he moaned.

Harry dropped his hand from his wand and rushed across the room. He crouched down in front of Malfoy and lightly touched his hand to Malfoy's shoulder. "It's alright, Draco," he said. "It's over now."

"Stop showing me," Malfoy cried. To Harry's horror, Malfoy latched onto Harry's shoulders, burying his face in Harry's neck. "I can't do it. I can't take it."

Harry wrapped his arms around Malfoy's shoulders and held him close. "You don't have to," he said, wondering what memories Malfoy was revisiting. Living with Voldemort for so long, what had he seen?

Malfoy shuddered, not lifting his head from Harry's shoulder. His body continued to shake. Harry thought of all the times he had called Malfoy a coward, and regretted every one. He had learned a little more about being afraid in the last months. It wasn't something to be laughed at. It sounded like Malfoy had spent most of his life afraid of something.

Slowly, Malfoy stopped shaking. Harry moved up onto the couch next to him, but didn't let go. Eventually, Malfoy raised his head. His face was deathly white, but his eyes were dry. He opened his mouth to say something, but Harry gently but firmly shoved his head back down onto Harry's shoulder.

"Don't worry about it," Harry said. He felt Malfoy relax and they sat together on the couch, Malfoy's head on Harry's shoulder and Harry's arms around him. After a while, Harry felt Malfoy move his hands slightly, so that they were no longer resting on Harry's shoulders, but were tucked around Harry in an embrace.

Harry felt alarmingly lightheaded. It was so comfortable, resting there in each other's arms. He had never felt this kind of comfort with anyone before. Just a simple sharing of support. Before he could question what he was about to do, he turned and pressed his lips lightly onto Malfoy's hair.

Malfoy stiffened slightly, but then relaxed. After a long time, when Harry had almost dozed off, he said, "Thanks, Harry."

Harry stirred and adjusted his seat, but Malfoy lightly pulled away and stood up. "Anti-theft spell similar to a boggart," he said, running his hand through his hair. "Looks like the books are objecting to being removed from the mansion, rather than to who is reading them. You'll be late," he added, looking at the time.

Harry caught Malfoy's eyes. Something passed between them, but Harry couldn't identify what it was. He felt reassured, but also bereft. Harry had seen through Voldemort's eyes. He knew the depth of destruction that had been done at his hands, and he knew how it felt to be a powerless observer. Malfoy knew how it felt to be a powerless victim. Harry had spent so long in the knowledge that no one else quite grasped what it was like to have gone through what Harry had, that he felt suddenly lost in the presence of someone who did.

He looked at the time, swore softly and stood up to go meet Dave.