Okay, I’m going to post this now, but be aware that it hasn’t been run through the betas yet – it will be, I promise! So check back for changes.

Three

It was stuffy; stuffy and smelled of dust and mildew. The floorboards were soft and worn, the shelves caved slightly under their weight, the faucet in the bathroom – he didn’t care which – dripped in a steady, rhythmetic pattern, Hawk ruffled his feathers constantly, Hedwig made soft little cooing noises in her sleep, Harry’s pencil scratched against the thick parchment, and the damn faucet was dripping! Drip, ruffle, scratch, coo! Drip, drip, coo, scratch, ruffle, ruffle, ruffle, coo! Drip. Ruffle. Scratch. Coo!
“Godamnit, Potter! Say something for fuck’s sake!” Draco screamed; he was at the end of his nerves and it had barely been a few hours into the first day. For a minute the room was absolutely silent save the drip, drip, drip of the faucet.
“Are you alright, Malfoy?” Harry asked finally. Hedwig returned to her nap, Hawk to his preening, and Harry’s pencil ghosted over the paper.
“No, I’m not alright!” Draco snapped, hugging his knees to his chest. He was surprised when there was suddenly a pair of warm arms around his shoulders; he hadn’t noticed the absence of the scratching pencil.
“Calm down,” Harry whispered rocking him gently. “I know it’s unnerving; it will get better, you’ll see.” Draco allowed himself a few precious moments to breath and gather himself.
“No! No it won’t get better! It won’t get better because I’m stuck in a Muggle house in the cupboard under the stairs with Harry Potter, a couple of owls, cleaning supplies, and a leaking fucking faucet for company!” Harry said nothing and there was quiet again; neither mentioned that Draco made no attempt to pull away from the other boy. Several minutes passed and the faucet dripped, Hawk preened and Hedwig cooed.
Draco could have screamed!
“What are you drawing anyways?” he asked instead, his tone managing to sound desperate, bored, and completely condescending at the same time. Harry reached over and flipped the top shut.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. Draco tried very hard to bait the other boy; what, drawing pornographic pictures of young girls, Potter? Anything to start a fight, a conversation, anything! But his own sense of sudden claustrophobia had leapt up to take hold of his voice and he couldn’t speak. So instead, he whimpered helplessly and turned a pleading eye to his companion. Had he not been so beside himself, he would have been disgusted with himself; this was Potter of all people!
Harry looked at him reluctantly and very slowly reached over to grab the pad. Taking a slowly, shuddering breath, he pulled back the top and set it on top of Draco’s knees. He turned his face away while the other boy examined his work.
Draco’s jaw dropped. This is an outrage! A complete invasion of my privacy! Did I give you permission?! How dare you! These are awful, tactless, horrifyingly...
“Wonderful,” he breathed quietly. Harry’s head jerked up and his cheeks burned. Draco’s eyes remained locked on the pad; he’d never seen something so life-like and well drawn before. He stared back at himself from the cream paper, his eyes half closed and a peculiar smile spread across his face. On the next, his head was back against his trunk and he had a particularly displeased expression on his face. The next showed his arms wrapped around his knees, his head leaning against his knees, eyes closed.
Though the pictures didn’t move, they almost looked as though they could.
“I’ve seen plenty of portraits of myself before,” he said. “but...these are...I don’t know how to describe them...they look so life-like. Not like all the stuffy portraits of me at all ages climbing silk couches and sitting between great hunting hounds.” He smiled and flipped through the pages; there were several of them, broken occasionally by pictures of Hedwig, her head tucked under one-wing, looking remarkably content, or Hawk, looking regal as ever, his curved beak poised over a feather. One was a cartoon of Snape teaching class in his underwear, unable to figure out why the class wouldn’t pay attention and taking ridiculous amounts of points from Gryffindor (the line above read that it was a Ravenclaw fourth year class) He laughed despite himself and flipped the page to find the shelves above the bed, each article detailed perfectly.
Draco handed the pad back reluctantly after a minute of staring at the pages.
“They’re really good; as loath as I am to say it.” Harry smiled and took the pad back.
“Thank you,” he said, seemingly stunned. “Do you draw at all?” he asked quietly. Draco made a face.
“I try,” he said slowly.
“Would you like some pointers?” Draco hesitated; of course he didn’t want pointers! Why would he want lessons from Potter?
“There you go thinking you’re better than everyone else again,” he said nastily, getting back into the swing of being the Malfoy prick that he was, hoping to keep the fight going; it was much better than being civil.
Potter glared at him and said nothing.
Draco glared back.
Silence fell.
Drip, drip, ruffle, coo. Drip, drip-
Draco crept over and carefully extracted the pad from Harry’s hand and took the pencil with a little more effort. The faucet dripped as his hand glided over the page. After several minutes, he handed the pad back, the look on his face suggesting that he had just signed his own execution order and handed it over to the executioner.
Harry’s eyes drifted over the page critically.
“This is good,” he said finally. “May I...?”
“Critique my work? Go ahead, I’m sure I’ve had far worse than whatever you can come up with.” Harry flashed him an almost smile and turned back to the page.
“There are only a few things I can really pick out – and I’m certainly not a professional, and I’ve never had a lesson in my life, so don’t take them to heart – but the major thing I see is the proportions and the planes of the face. Easily corrected with practice, of course. The eyes though... they look-”
“Lifeless?” Draco supplied. Harry gave him an apologetic look and he shrugged.
“Use the eyes to express the lighting around your subject,” Harry suggested. He took the pencil from Draco’s loose grip and looked up at him in askance. Draco nodded, curious. The eraser swept over the paper delicately. After a minute, he held it away and looked at it critically. Apparently satisfied, he handed the pad back.
Draco was surprised by the change. All though only a few streaks had been added to the eyes, they looked much improved. He looked up in shock.
“Pictures - even still portraits – tell a story. They eyes tell all,” Harry said. Draco didn’t reply, and the other boy smiled at him.
Maybe being civil wasn’t that bad.