“ Oh my gods, why do you have this?” Draco laughs, bent over Harry’s trunk. “I thought you hated these.”
Leaning back on his heels, Harry squints across the room.
“I don’t know.” He says, thinking back to Fourth year. “I think one of the Creevey brothers gave it to me maybe?”
The badge’s fading red letters still flash in the light from the window, reading Support Cedric Diggory - The Real Hogwarts Champion.
“My father would’ve been livid if he’d known I was supporting a Hufflepuff.” Draco smiles, pressing on the badge to turn it from red letters to toxic green Potter Stinks.
“You didn’t have many options.” Harry points out, tilting his head. “How did you make those? Colin tried making it say something better but it only got worse.”
“I’m really good at Charms.” Draco shrugs, lifting one of Harry’s folded school robes and pinning the badge to the chest. “I charged a sickle apiece for these. Made myself a lot of money.”
With a scoff, Harry returns to sorting his old class notes and assorted school supplies into ‘keep’ and ‘toss.’
“I hated you so much that year.”
“I know.” Draco says lightly. “What year did you hate me the most?”
“Hm. Fifth.” Harry says, then considers. “Well, you were always in the way. I probably hated you the most in Third, for trying to get Hagrid sacked.”
“I hated his class.” Draco admits, wrinkling his nose. “I hated it. So much. I hate animals. I hated Care of Magical Creatures.”
“You’d still have to take it if he wasn’t teaching.” Harry points out.
“The substitute didn’t make me work with animals, though. She just talked about them.” Draco says, sitting against the wall beneath the window. The sunlight makes his hair glow golden.
“I had to dislike her on principle. Ron did too, but Hermione was torn because Gibbly-Plunk was sort of an objectively better teacher.”
“ Sort of?”
“Hagrid was a good teacher!” Harry protests, throwing a balled up piece of parchment at Draco, whose hand shoots up to catch it before it hit his face.
“He was awful! Look, I know you like him and all, but he’s a rotten teacher. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, which is fine, but he shouldn’t have been teaching. He was gone every other year, anyway!”
“On Dumbledore’s business, mostly!”
Draco guffaws, shaking his head at Harry.
“Either way, I wasn’t going to stand by and get a T on my OWL just because Dumbledore plays favourites. So he had to go.”
“Except he didn’t.”
“Right. And I got a P on that OWL.” Draco says, curling his lip in a very unflattering way. Harry smiles as he returns to his sorting. “I got an O on every other one of my exams, and if it wasn’t for Hagrid, I would have beaten or at least tied with Hermione.”
Harry laughs quietly.
“You and Hermione would’ve gotten on if you weren’t such a twat.”
“I know.” Draco mutters. “I wish she’d talk to me. There’s loads of swotty shit I don’t really have an outlet for because our classes focus on the basics, which I already know.”
“You should just start talking about it around her, see what she does.” Harry suggests. “I don’t think she’d be able to resist.”
“Maybe.” Draco says. “Are you tossing out your Potions book?”
