"What are you doing here?"

"Getting soaked. I should think that would be obvious even to someone of your limited reasoning capacities, Potter. Are you going to let me in?"

His glasses are off and his hair sticking up in every direction and there's no reason that he should look even a tiny bit intimidating. His eyes are very green, I notice absently, and he doesn't look nearly as blind as he ought to. Or as harmless. Even in striped pajamas.

His fingers are tapping the doorframe. I can't see his other hand, but I'm sure it's clutching his wand and that he has any number of painful hexes on the tip of his tongue. "Malfoy. It is three o' clock in the morning and you are not supposed to have any idea that this place exists. What are you doing here?"

I open my mouth, and then shut it again. "They killed him. My father." I want to kick myself as soon as the words are out. Potter's thin face goes through an inexplicable series of expressions and it suddenly occurs to me that he might want to laugh, and also that if he does, I am going to kill him. Which would not be the right way to start out this uneasy alliance. A hot bubble of hysterical laughter rises in the back of my throat. "Well, go on then. Say it. Happy, are you? I suppose all of your sort will be, he was quite high up in the ranks, I don't know what the Dark Lord was thinking, getting rid of his most powerful lieutenant..."

Potter's posture relaxes slightly, and he lifts his left hand to rub across the bridge of his nose where his glasses have left a permanent dent, and suddenly he's just seventeen, like me, and tired, standing barefoot in the doorway of an abandoned Muggle building. "Shut up, Malfoy. You'd better come inside and explain yourself. And give me your wand," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

"Like bloody hell am I giving my wand to you."

He smiles pleasantly. "Then you're welcome to stay outside and melt, for all I care." He makes as though to close the door and I'm suddenly struck by the thought that he really might lock me out and let me get murdered on the doorstep. I' ve never made any secret of how much I hate him and it galls me to no end that now I haven't got anyone else who (probably) won't kill me or turn me in.

I slide my wand out of its holster and throw it at him, hoping that he'll fumble it, but of course he doesn't.

"Happy now, Saint Potter?"

He pockets the wand. "Yes, Malfoy. I can't think of a single bloody thing that could make me happier than having to wake up at three in the morning to deal with you. Get inside before someone sees you. And close the door."

I slam the door as hard as I can behind me, and darkness closes in around us. Over to my left, Potter snorts, sounding inexplicably amused. "Welcome to the light side, Malfoy."

"Shut it," I snarl, but the only answer is his footsteps retreating into the shadows. Cursing under my breath, I follow him.