The corridor was quiet enough that they could hear their own footsteps.
Outside, the sunset painted the carpets gold, but the air still carried that faint, chilly undercurrent unique to the Manor.
"Honestly," Draco said suddenly, breaking the silence, "my father loves talking in circles. Isn't he tired?"
He made a face, but when his grey eyes flicked sideways at Harry, there was a trace of relaxed amusement.
Harry didn't answer, only let the corner of his mouth twitch.
The rigid portraits staring down from the walls looked at him with the same expression Lucius Malfoy had worn minutes earlier.
"But it wasn't bad," Draco continued, shrugging as he stepped a little closer, lowering his voice. "When you said he 'judges situations carefully,' I thought you were about to say something you really shouldn't."
"Almost did," Harry muttered.
When Lucius brought up Dumbledore, he had nearly said something else entirely.
Draco huffed a small, triumphant laugh.
"I knew it."
He bumped Harry lightly with his elbow. "Come on. I'll take you somewhere better than being stared at by ancient fossils in frames."
Without waiting for a response, he pushed open an unremarkable carved door.
Behind it wasn't a room—but a narrow spiral staircase leading upward.
"Where does it go?" Harry asked, following him.
"My territory," Draco said from above. "One place in this house where I can breathe without hearing about 'family honor' every five minutes."
At the top was a spacious attic room.
It looked nothing like the immaculate luxury downstairs.
Sunlight slanted in through angled windows, illuminating dust motes drifting lazily through the air.
Scattered armchairs that looked genuinely comfortable sat around the room.
A desk lay buried under books and rolls of parchment.
In the corner, a glass cabinet displayed odd little models and a polished telescope.
And best of all—
no portraits.
"What do you think?" Draco leaned against the desk, chin lifted proudly, as if showing off a prized treasure.
"Better than downstairs," Harry admitted.
His shoulders loosened slightly as he walked to a window, looking out toward the garden and the distant woods.
"Knew you'd like it." Draco joined him and handed him something—a piece of candy wrapped in silver foil. Honeydukes, unmistakably.
"Smuggled it out of my pocket. Want it? Helps with the shock."
Harry took the candy, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.
Tart lemon burst across his tongue, cutting through the lingering sweetness of afternoon tea.
"Is your dad always like that?" he asked around the candy.
"Like what? Diplomatic? Testing people?" Draco unwrapped one for himself. "More or less. You get used to it. Right now he thinks you're… 'interesting, worth observing.'"
He imitated Lucius's drawl perfectly.
Harry snorted.
"But really," Draco added, tone turning more serious, "you handled it well. That part about power and responsibility? He loves hearing that."
"It was true," Harry said quietly.
Power meant responsibility?
To Harry, power meant survival—protection—and the ability to take revenge.
"Exactly. Truth is what makes it convincing."
Draco suddenly remembered something and went rummaging through the papers on the desk.
"Oh—right. Here."
He pulled out a sheet of parchment.
"Possible questions Snape might ask next Potions lesson. I wrote them out. Look at it so he doesn't nail you again tomorrow."
Harry took it.
Draco's handwriting was neat, precise—listing ingredients, their properties, difficulties in preparation.
Far clearer than any textbook.
He didn't read it right away.
Instead he looked up.
"Why did you—"
"Hmm?" Draco raised a brow.
"…Nothing." Harry swallowed the rest of the question.
Why are you being so attentive?
It felt foolish to ask.
He already knew part of the answer—
from another life, another ending—
but still found himself startled sometimes.
Draco seemed to understand the unspoken words anyway.
He didn't respond directly.
Just turned to the cabinet, rummaging inside as he said casually,
"Nothing better to do. And if you understand this stuff, I'll have an easier time in class—not worried you'll blow up a cauldron and splatter me."
Harry said nothing, lowering his gaze to the parchment again.
Draco Malfoy's kindness was awkward, sharp-edged, yet genuine—
like the lemon candy: wrapped in shiny paper, startlingly sour at first, but with a lingering sweetness that stayed behind.
He remembered Potions earlier that week—Snape's robes billowing as he approached, eyes fixed on Harry's hands preparing puffer-fish liver.
The scrutiny had been there, but the hostility had faded.
Harry's fluent answer earned only a grunt. No insult. No deduction. Just a turn of the cloak and a glide away.
And Draco beside him had worn the same tiny, triumphant curl of a smile.
"Thanks," Harry said, folding the parchment and tucking it into his robe pocket.
Draco pulled out a telescope and wiped the dust off with his sleeve.
"No need. Oh—what do you want for dinner? I can ask Mother to tell the kitchen. Don't hold back."
"Anything," Harry answered.
Food didn't matter much to him.
"Knew you'd say that." Draco sighed theatrically.
"I'll pick something. It'll be ten times better than Hogwarts food anyway. You're too thin; you need to eat properly so you have the strength to—"
He stopped himself before finishing to get revenge.
Instead he shook the telescope lightly.
"Anyway. The stars are nice here at night. Want to look later?"
Harry nodded.
Outside, the sun finished sinking, and indigo dusk seeped slowly into the room.
No one lit a lamp.
Shadows gathered, leaving only two faint silhouettes.
After a long quiet, Draco spoke again—softer this time:
"My father's words… don't take them all to heart."
"I won't." Harry meant it.
He knew how to recognize truth wrapped in poison.
"Here," Draco tapped the air around them with the telescope, "and here—"
His fingers brushed briefly over his own chest.
The movement was so quick it might have been imagined.
"You don't need to test me."
Harry's head snapped toward him.
But the dim light hid Draco's expression; he was just a silhouette.
Immediately, Draco cleared his throat and added gruffly,
"I mean—cooperation should look like cooperation, right? If we're second-guessing each other all day, what's the point?"
Harry turned back to the window, watching the stars multiply in the darkening sky.
The lemon candy had long dissolved, but the aftertaste lingered—sharp, sweet, impossible to ignore.
"Yeah."
The word left him quietly.
Cooperation.
He knew it was more than that.
Just as he knew Draco Malfoy—with all his tangled gentleness and stubborn loyalty—
seemed willing to give every bit of it to this wounded, reborn Savior.
And Harry—
was beginning to accept all of it without question.