Harry Potter: Reunion with the Enemy

Malfoy Manor.

The family dinner ended in a happy atmosphere.

Draco tried to keep smiling, chatting with his parents like a good kid while pretending to enjoy the delicious food at home. The topic of conversation at the table not only subtly avoided the biggest event recently - the goblins' disturbance in the Muggle world, but also avoided his own experiences in the past few months. Even the savior who just left seemed like a stranger and was not worth mentioning.

The three of them tacitly maintained this perfect warmth.

"Has the wizard ballroom project above Manhattan been abandoned?" Draco was searching for irrelevant topics in his mind. He didn't want his parents to feel that he was affected by any factors.

"Yes. I said it was ridiculous - these people with poor vision didn't like this plan." Lucius answered patiently, occasionally looking up at his son's expression. "I just happen to have some new investment projects. I'll let you help me share some of the burden when I check them out."

Draco felt his stomach churning even if the silence lasted only a second. Normally, he would tell Lucius and Narcissa all his thoughts without any scruples. He would laugh out loud when he was happy, complain loudly when he was sad, and talk endlessly to his parents when he was frustrated. The content was nothing more than showing off the new knowledge he had learned at Hogwarts, or being indignant because he was defeated in the Quidditch game. His parents could always comfort him with a smile. But at this moment, it was difficult for him to stand up from the dining table abruptly and yell, "That Harry is fake! It's all a misunderstanding."

Doing this now will only make them worry and disappointed.

The memories that he had extracted before the fake Harry left were still lingering in his mind. Even in the blink of an eye, those fragments would replay at a very fast speed - a little boy curled up in the corner of the room under a bright full moon, gasping for breath to control himself - the death scene of an old woman covered in blood - a large forest - a werewolf gathering area - occasional uncontrolled transformation due to emotional fluctuations - children of the same age received admission letters to magic schools but he did not, and of course a flash of Harry - the little boy called Harry "Godfather".

The Godfather… Such a jumble of memories, a mixture of werewolves, Metamorphmagus, and murder.

Draco felt his nails digging into his palms, pricking him. He couldn't even feel what he was saying to his parents, but he should still have a smile on his lips.

"I'll go back to my room and rest for a while." Draco came back to his senses and hugged Narcissa. He rubbed his chin on his mother's shoulder. Even though he hadn't been home for a long time, he would still act like a spoiled child in front of his mother like he did when he was a child.

"Of course. Of course." Narcissa ruffled her son's hair. "Your things are still in your room, well packed."

"Go." Lucius simply patted Draco on the shoulder and left.

Draco walked quickly through the empty corridor. A row of portraits belonging to the Malfoy family were staring at the young master whom he had not seen for a long time. There was an abrupt empty space at the end of the portraits. It was where his wedding photos were hung not long ago. The empty shelf told everyone that the huge photo above had been cleared away, but there were no new portraits or photos on the empty space - it was as if there was an invisible and intangible unresolved attitude on the empty shelf at the end.

The moment he walked into his room, Draco felt as if all his strength had been drained away and he was about to fall down. He staggered to the desk and stopped.

As soon as Draco raised his eyes, he saw the wedding photo, which was lying quietly next to the bookshelf. It could be seen that Narcissa had added dust-proof and moisture-proof magic to it.

The cabinet that originally held magic textbooks was now more than half empty. After learning that Alex was a wizard, Draco had written home and asked Narcissa to help deliver his old textbooks to his apartment in London. Now, there was only a pile of neatly arranged parchments on the half-empty shelf.

Draco held out his hand in confusion; for a moment he did not remember having this pile of papers.

The upside-down parchment was turned over, and Harry's childish handwriting appeared before his eyes.

Draco's hands trembled slightly. These were Harry's homework and papers from the five years of Potions class - these parchments were originally sandwiched between the textbooks by him, and he originally thought that no one would find these trophies with strong emotions during his student days.

It all started one night in Snape's office.

Maybe it was to ask a question, or just to hang out in the office of his favorite teacher. When Draco visited that day, Snape was marking students' homework in a sarcastic manner.

"Look... Potter... the whole paper is full of nonsense." Snape nodded to Draco who walked into the office, and gave Harry a low score. "If I correct it in class, I can deduct some more points from Gryffindor."

"Professor, what is this?" Draco walked forward and saw stacks of parchment - homework for the Potions class.

Snape held up Harry's parchment with a look of sarcasm. "Potter thinks that the sleeping potion should contain prickly hair in addition to flobberworm slime. He probably wants to laugh while he sleeps."

"Hahahahaha!" Draco took the homework from Snape. He felt a strange emotion in his heart. This was the first thing that truly belonged to the savior that he had obtained since Harry refused to shake hands with him.

"Genetics may have failed with Potter," Snape drawled. "--that's stupid."

Draco knew he should put the homework back after laughing, but a mysterious impulse made his hand stay in mid-air. "Professor, I think--"

A questioning look appeared on Snape's face.

"Can you give me a copy of this assignment? I want other Slytherin students to appreciate his masterpiece." Draco made up a reasonable and appropriate reason without thinking.

Snape snorted. "I thought he was already known to be stupid."

"If you want it, take it. I don't think he'll even give this nonsense a second glance."

Draco quickly used the Copying Charm to create a fake and put it back into the pile of papers. When he finally left Snape's office, he took Harry's original manuscript with him. This homework was of course not circulated in front of anyone, but was put into the textbook by Draco. In the rare occasions when he was alone, Draco would pull out the parchment and read it again, trying to imagine the boy's expression when he wrote them in the curves of those letters.

Unless Harry invited him, Draco knew he had no chance to lose his mind in his clear eyes. At that time, those green glass-like eyes were always extremely cold, hostile, and almost cruel when they looked at him.

Gradually, it became Draco's habit to take away a copy of Harry's homework, paper or potion label every time he left Snape's office.

Once again, Draco was able to expertly pull Harry's copy out of the pile without even glancing at the name.

"How stupid." Draco looked up and saw Snape's bottomless black eyes looking at him.

"Thank you Professor for answering my question." He fled with what he wanted.

In the fifth year, the news of Harry's love affair with the beautiful girl Cho Chang had spread to every corner of Hogwarts.

Draco was still searching for the paper as usual. "How stupid." This time he said it himself.

After listening to this, Snape smiled bitterly. "Have you ever heard that latecomers can prevail because the early comers did not fight or compete?"

Draco didn't answer, but his index finger and thumb holding the paper were somewhat out of control.

"Well - it's better than being rejected. At least there's still room." Snape muttered to himself.

After Slughorn took over, Draco no longer ran into the Potions teacher's office every now and then like before. The panic and shadow caused by Voldemort had gradually gotten out of control in the daily order. He and Harry seemed to be becoming more and more antagonistic.

One day, when Draco was lying on the wall of the castle and watching Harry on the lawn in the distance, Snape, who was already the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, stopped silently. Draco retracted his wrist, trying to hide the Dark Mark under his sleeve.

"Only by staying alive can there be a chance of turning things around." Snape said in a very soft voice.

"..." Draco looked back at Snape's flying black robe and said nothing.

"Do whatever it takes to stay alive. As long as you're still alive, you still have a chance to struggle."

……

The parchment slipped from Draco's fingers, and he felt a thin layer of mist rising in front of his eyes.

As Narcissa packed up his textbooks, she carefully unpacked each of Harry's homework that was tucked in between, and the dated parchments were arranged in chronological order.

These originally wrinkled papers appear brand new and fragile after being sealed for many years.