Harry was left alone for the rest of the morning, which certainly suited him. As promised, Malfoy did not come into their shared room, which left Harry alone to try and distract himself from all the memories of his crappy childhood that Snape’s stupid talk had brought up. There was a reason Harry didn’t talk about this stuff, even with Ron and Hermione; because it meant he had to think about it.

And Harry didn’t want to do that. So, instead he drew. It was the Quidditch pitch, this time, since Harry really missed flying. Drawing was all well and good, but he did really enjoy taking his broom out and soaring through the air. After a long summer without access to his Nimbus, Harry was even starting to miss Oliver Wood’s early morning Quidditch drills that he usually grumbled about.

Maybe he should take up jogging or something. Perhaps that would help with how antsy Harry felt. Unfortunately, that would involve leaving the house, which Harry really couldn’t do without permission since Snape was now tracking his every move. He certainly wasn’t going to ask Snape to let him, either, so he was pretty much stuck. Harry sighed and ran a finger across the coarse grooves of the runes carved into his tracker, feeling thoroughly miserable.

Harry spent the entire morning half-expecting Snape to burst into the room unannounced and declare another mandatory conversation that Harry was in no place to tolerate. He felt like his emotions had been rubbed red-raw by the events of the last twenty-four hours, which made every strong feeling painful and amplified. Harry didn't know how he'd react if he was told he had to talk about the Dursleys again, and that volatility scared him. He despised feeling so sensitive.

Luckily, Snape kept to his word and left Harry to his own devices. The only indicator Harry had that the other man was even in the house was the occasional open and shut of the door to his laboratory, which was often accompanied by the low-voiced murmuring of two individuals.

It was midday before there was at last a knock at Harry’s door, but it was only Snape summoning him down for lunch. Harry walked into the kitchen and came to a sudden halt, wrinkling his nose when he saw who was already waiting at the table.

“Well hello to you too, Potter,” Malfoy muttered, refusing to look at him.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, pulling a face.

“He is eating lunch, as are the two of us,” Snape said, abruptly coming up from behind Harry. “Well? Sit down, then.”

Harry did so, casting suspicious looks at Malfoy the whole time. He was still refusing to look at Harry, and wasn’t touching his food.

“Draco, I believe you have something to say,” Snape said, crossing his arms and eyeing Malfoy expectantly.

“I…I apologise for blackmailing you into doing my chores,” Malfoy said quietly, eyes fixed on his lap. Harry had to struggle to hold back a scoff. “And for framing you for stealing my mother’s necklace. Oh, and for punching you.”

Snape turned to Harry. “Do you have any sort of response?”

Harry wasn’t sure if Snape knew about him kicking and shoving Malfoy yesterday, but he certainly wasn't going to apologise for that. Malfoy had started it! Instead, he simply tutted. “Okay, then. You’re sorry? For a Slytherin, you’re a terrible liar, Malfoy.”

Malfoy slammed his fork to the table. “See, Severus? I told you it was pointless!”

“You are not entitled to an acceptance of your apology, Draco,” Snape said, giving him a piercing look.

“An apology he doesn’t even mean,” Harry muttered.

“And you ought to stop assuming you can sufficiently determine Draco’s sincerity,” Snape said sharply. “Given your fractious relationship, I highly doubt that you are an expert in his mannerisms.”

"Oh and you would definitely know when he's lying," Harry muttered, crossing his arms.

"Potter," Snape said, the warning clear in his voice. Harry sighed to himself but didn't say anything further. He could sense Snape was losing patience and didn't feel up to another lecture that day.

While he was eating, Harry noticed something strange - the overpowering, strong smell of vinegar lingering in the air. He frowned, since that wasn't in any of the food they were eating. He glanced to his left and realised that the smell had to be coming from Malfoy, oddly enough.

Malfoy noticed him watching. His fingers tightened around his cutlery. “And what fascinating thing has caught your eye, Potter?”

“Why do you smell like a fish and chips shop?”

Malfoy gave him a vaguely disgusted look and ignored Harry’s question.

“Draco has been pickling toad livers this morning,” Snape explained. Harry made a face. “He has been around a rather significant quantity of vinegar.”

“I knew it was going to stick to me, Severus!” Malfoy said irritably. “I told you it would!”

“And I believe you are familiar with the concept of showering and laundry?” Snape raised his eyebrows. “You’ll recover, I’m certain. At any rate, I do not design punishments to be pleasant, particularly punishments for nasty, bullying behaviour like that which you have been engaging in for this last week.”

Malfoy’s cheeks grew rather pink. He stared at his plate and didn’t meet either of their eyes. Harry tried not to look too visibly shocked that Snape had actually just called out Malfoy’s behaviour and returned to his food, mulling things over. So Snape was telling the truth - about Malfoy, at least. He genuinely wasn’t happy that Malfoy had been so horrid to Harry this past week…

After a couple of minutes, Harry realised that Snape was closely watching him while he ate. He scowled. “Can you stop staring at me? It’s creepy!”

“I’m sure it has not failed to come to your attention that this table is rather small,” Snape said, pointedly continuing to stare down Harry. “There are only so many directions in which I can look. It is also, I might add, good manners to look at the people you are eating and conversing with."

Malfoy scoffed. “Potter wouldn’t know good manners if they hit him over the head.”

“It shocks me how you fail to notice the rank hypocrisy in that statement when you yourself have exhibited appalling manners through your lack of respect and decorum while speaking with Mr Potter this past week,” Snape said waspishly. “And congratulations, Draco. On top of everything else you’re dealing with, you just earned yourself an earlier bedtime.”

"Oh, come on, Severus!" Malfoy snapped. "I'm not five!"

"Really? Your behaviour would suggest otherwise!" Snape said caustically. "Keep complaining and I can make it earlier, if you'd like?"

Malfoy sat back with a loud huff, clearly disgruntled. Harry stuck his tongue out at him, feeling rather smug. Snape saw this and let out a very loud, very long sigh. “I don’t know why I even bother. For my sake, will the two of you limit yourselves to silent glaring for the duration of this meal and cease with the other childish theatrics? I am beginning to think a prolonged stint under the Cruciatus Curse would be more bearable than this…”

They both nodded. Harry wasn’t entirely sure what the Cruciatus Curse was, but it certainly didn’t sound pleasant. Besides, he could make do with staring. In fact, Harry took it upon himself to make it his personal mission to give Malfoy the dirtiest looks he could possibly muster, which the other boy did his best to return. Snape looked like he wanted to throttle them both, but otherwise didn’t comment.

They dined in silence until the end of lunch, when Snape cleared his throat and banished the dishes to the kitchen sink with a wave of his wand. “Draco, you’re to clean those.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be joking!” Malfoy shouted, kicking his chair back. “You can do it easily with a spell! I understand I’m in trouble, but making me do house-elf work in addition to slaving away in your laboratory is just excessive!”

“Considering the fact that your rule-breaking consisted of blackmailing Harry into doing your previous punishment for you, I think it’s very apt,” Snape said calmly. “Washing a few dishes will not kill you.”

“It’s the principle of it!” Malfoy yelled, the volume of his voice reaching new heights. Harry nervously eyed the glass of water still sitting on the table and prayed Malfoy wouldn’t throw it.

Snape didn’t reply immediately. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small vial of purple liquid, and walked over to Malfoy. Snape uncorked the vial and held it out to him. “Drink.”

“Shove off!” Malfoy snapped, turning his head away. “I don’t need any of your stupid Calming Draughts, I’m fine.”

“Nonetheless, you will drink it,” Snape said in a tone that beggared no argument. Malfoy shot Snape a withering glare and downed the Calming Draught in one gulp. Harry noticed the potion worked nearly instantly. The tension in Malfoy’s shoulders and the tightness in his jaw faded, and he stared at the floor, a faint pink flush staining his cheeks. He stormed over to the sink and started washing the dishes with more force and clatter than was strictly necessary, but didn't complain again.

“Er - what did you do to him?” Harry asked a little nervously.

“I gave him a quarter dose of a Calming Draught,” Snape explained.

Harry frowned. “You’re drugging him?”

“No, I am not drugging him!” Snape said exasperatedly. “While Draco works on long-term strategies to manage his self-control, we both came to the decision that it would be wiser to reign in his temper through potions when his anger gets too out of hand so he does not break anything else in my house.”

“You know, I don’t appreciate you going through all my personal issues with him, Severus,” Malfoy said, pausing his scrubbing to scowl at Harry.

“Considering you threw something at his head not one week ago, I think Mr Potter is entitled to know what we’re doing to deal with your little temper issue,” Snape said pointedly. Malfoy huffed and returned to pouring what Harry thought to be a rather excessive amount of washing up liquid onto a plate. He really didn’t know how to do any housework, did he? How odd…

"This is only a temporary measure,” Snape added. “It is not advisable to use Calming Draughts long-term to dull one's emotions, which is also why Draco is taking a lower dose. This method generally allows the drinker to take the edge off of powerful emotions so they can control themselves without fully dulling all feelings, which is what a regular dose would do."

Harry nodded. He vaguely remembered writing a Potions essay about the addictive nature of Calming Draughts, but all he could remember about it was that Hermione and Ron had gotten in an argument that day when Hermione wouldn't proofread his homework for him.

“What summer assignments are you working on today?” Snape asked. It was as if Harry’s thoughts about school had turned his teacher-mode on.

“I was going to take a stab at Astronomy,” Harry said.

Snape nodded. “Perhaps you should begin, then.”

Harry glanced out of the back door to the rainy sky above. This was the first day in a week he’d not done any gardening, and it felt strange. Almost itchy, Harry decided. The sensation of a guilty conscience.

“What’s happening with chores and stuff?” he decided to ask. “I didn't do my gardening this morning.”

“It’s predicted to rain for a fair few days, so none of that at the moment,” Snape said, waving his hand dismissively.

Harry frowned. "What housework do you want me to do instead, then?"

“I’ll work something out."

Malfoy looked up from the sink, his mouth hanging open slightly. “Why are you asking for housework, Potter? Are you mental?”

Harry made a rather rude hand gesture at him. Unfortunately, Snape noticed this. His eyes narrowed. “Do not let me catch you doing that again or I’ll have you writing lines until your hand cramps. Go do your homework.”

Harry nodded glumly and trudged up the stairs.

Harry sighed and put his quill to one side, finished with the essay. As he’d not wanted to be anywhere near Malfoy that afternoon, he had elected to do his Astronomy homework in his bedroom. Harry had a feeling that the Snape from before his runaway attempt would have forced Harry to do it downstairs anyway, but as things stood, Snape was practically tiptoeing around Harry. He was giving Harry far more free reign to do as he pleased with his time, it seemed. He’d become almost lax.

Well, except when it came to being polite to Malfoy.

God, Harry was furious with Malfoy. He’d had all afternoon to think about why, and had come to something of a realisation. He wasn’t necessarily angry about the punch, or the insults, or even the blackmail, really. That was typical Malfoy nastiness, and didn’t bother Harry all that much.

No, he thing that really incensed Harry about the whole situation was the fact that Malfoy had chosen to reveal the information he’d been blackmailing Harry with to Snape. After Harry had spent all week doing Malfoy’s chores for him and putting up with his horrid, nasty remarks, it had all been for nothing. Even though Malfoy’s blackmail had been tangentially related to the necklace at best, Malfoy had still snitched about the bruises to Snape! He’d probably done it for the sole purpose of getting Harry in trouble, too, not even realising the problems he was going to cause.

This whole situation was entirely Malfoy’s fault. If he’d kept his big mouth shut, Snape never would have found out about the bruises, or subsequently the Dursleys. Harry wouldn’t be stuck at Spinner’s End having his childhood and home life constantly dissected for the next two weeks if not for him. Everything would be normal, but now it wasn't and never would be again, and Harry hated Malfoy for it.

Harry exhaled loudly and banged his head against the desk. The other problem that was becoming increasingly more and more pressing was how bloody bored he was. It had been a solid week of hiding in this room at all hours so Malfoy and Snape wouldn’t remember he was there, and Harry was really running out of interesting things to do with himself. The rain outside wasn’t helping, either; Harry couldn’t even go out into the garden to find something else to do without Snape pitching a fit and levitating him inside.

Just so he wasn’t stuck staring at the same four walls for even more time, Harry decided to finally go downstairs into the kitchen for a change of scenery and to get a glass of water. Malfoy was conspicuously absent but Snape was inside, chopping vegetables. He looked up as Harry walked in.

“How are you finding your Astronomy homework?” he asked.

“Er - alright. I think it’s done.”

Harry got a glass out of the cupboard and went over to the tap to fill it, trying very hard not to think about how Snape’s relatively mundane question had made him feel. It was strangely parental, and for some reason immediately reminded Harry that the Dursleys couldn’t give a fig about how Harry was finding his homework, even when that homework hadn’t involved wand-waving and magic tricks.

“If it’s completed, bring it to me later to look over,” Snape instructed. Harry nodded, watching closely as Snape sliced a spring onion. He couldn’t help his twitching lips. Snape even cooked like a Potions Master! Harry had never seen someone cut vegetables with such surgical precision!

Snape noticed Harry’s amusement and his eyebrows contracted. “Do you have something to add?”

“That is a really weird way to cook,” Harry said with a snort.

“Really?” Snape drawled, putting the chopping board to one side to turn and look at him. “Does this come from your perspective as some sort of Michelin Star chef, Potter? What makes you such an expert?”

“I cook all the time, actually!” Harry said indignantly. Snape's constant implications that Harry would either cause severe food poisoning or a catastrophic explosion really irked him, especially since he most certainly did know his way around a kitchen.

“Indeed?” Snape picked up his wand from the countertop and waved it, causing another chopping board and knife to appear next to him. “Well, be my guest. Those peppers need to be diced.”

Harry almost refused automatically, but stopped himself at the last minute. He really was quite bored, so much so that even cooking with Snape sounded like a more appealing activity than just sitting in his room. Besides, Harry was feeling incredibly antsy. He hadn’t done any chores today, and he was worried if he didn’t do something, Snape would flip out over Harry being a lazy, good-for-nothing leech. So, instead of declining, he simply nodded and picked up the knife. He intentionally started dicing the pepper into noticeably uneven chunks, just to prove a point while next to Snape. He was watching Harry with his nose wrinkled.

“The subpar quality of the potions you turn in is beginning to make far more sense.”

“Well we’re not making a potion, are we?” Harry pointed out. “A stir fry isn’t going to explode if the spring onions are slightly different widths.”

“But a Befuddlement Beverage would,” Snape said.

"Which we aren't making!"

"Don't be so contrarian." Snape rolled his eyes. “At any rate, when you become used to preparing ingredients in a certain way, it becomes habit and leeches into other aspects of life.”

Harry supposed that made sense. Snape slid a second pepper over to him. “Dice this one as precisely as you can manage. Perhaps you can use this as an opportunity to hone your ingredient preparation skills for Potions next year without some of the external pressures of the laboratory.”

“Can’t you ever turn off being a teacher?” Harry said grumpily. He wasn’t entirely certain how he’d just been roped into an impromptu Potions lesson, but he wasn’t particularly happy about it.

“Consider it another habit that has seeped into other aspects of my life.” Snape raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to give it a go, or do you not think you can manage it? Is that why you’re protesting?”

“No, I can do it!”

Harry was never going to turn down an opportunity to prove Snape wrong, so he began to slowly dice the pepper, taking extra time and care to make sure each cube was equal in size. He obviously knew how to dice something properly, he just didn’t have the patience for it most of the time.

When he was finished, Snape looked the pepper over and nodded. "Those are very even. Well done."

Harry didn't know how to respond to that. Snape actually complimenting him, of all things, just felt so incredibly wrong. He just stood there, mouth hanging open stupidly, until he shook himself. "Well don't expect more of it. It's stupid to cook like that, it's inefficient."

"To each his own." Snape had stopped chopping and was watching Harry. "Where did you learn to cook, then? You speak as if you know what you're doing."

"I do know what I'm doing," Harry grumbled. There was a borderline insulting undertone to Snape’s words that Harry was itching to start an argument over, but he just about restrained himself. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours almost exclusively fighting with either Snape or Malfoy, and was honestly exhausted by the constant quarrelling. Maybe it would be easier to just let this one go.

"I've been cooking for years now, actually."

"Really?" Snape asked. "When did you begin?"

"When I was tall enough to reach the stove." Harry couldn't remember a specific age. He’d done excesses of chores at Privet Drive for as long as he could recall, and couldn’t pinpoint the year when washing up and cleaning had melded into preparing food.

"Did your aunt or uncle teach you?" Snape asked. He waved his wand, and three chicken breasts flew through the air and onto his chopping board.

"My aunt, and 'teach' is a strong word." Harry wrinkled his nose at the memories. Learning to cook had just consisted of a lot of shouting, oil burns, sharp knives that he couldn’t wield properly, and general misery at the hands of Aunt Petunia. "She goes by your teaching style in all the worst ways."

"I see."

Harry winced, realising he had just insulted Snape to his face. He prepared himself for some growled reprimand about respect, but no such scolding came. After a moment, Harry looked to his left and realised Snape had stopped chopping the chicken to watch him carefully. With an odd swooping sensation in his stomach that reminded Harry of missing a step on the stairs, he had the sudden realisation that he'd just let slip something about the Dursleys without even thinking about it. To Snape.

"Don't do that!" he snapped, defensiveness flaring up in him. Harry stared at the chopping board, his heartbeat uncomfortably rapid. Snape was a Slytherin at the end of the day. Harry should have expected him to use some kind of sneaky, underhanded methods to squeeze the information he'd wanted out of Harry. Now he was probably going to ask some horrid follow-up question, and Harry was almost certainly going to lose his temper again and shout at Snape, and then he'd have to spend the rest of the evening feeling even more emotionally wrung-out than he already did…

But to Harry's immense shock and relief, Snape didn't ask. He simply slid some garlic over to Harry and instructed him to mince it. Harry crushed the clove beneath his knife in something of a daze. Maybe Snape had suddenly learnt how to respect boundaries that afternoon.

Or Harry wasn't out of the woods yet, and the awkward, probing questions would drop at any minute. He needed to change the subject.

"So I'm confused," he began, staring at the chicken. "I’ve seen you use your wand for some things, like heating the stove or summoning the ingredients, but then you chop them by hand. Why not just use a spell for that, too? It would save loads of time."

Harry knew cooking spells existed. Mrs Weasley could make potatoes shed their skins untouched, or pots stir themselves, or beef mince itself. It was quite simple compared to some of the other magic he'd seen, but Harry still thought it was amazing, especially when he recalled the hours of preparation some of the meals he’d made could take back at Privet Drive.

Snape's lips thinned. "In all honesty? I find household Charms such as that rather difficult."

Harry's jaw dropped for the second time that evening. "You find magic difficult?"

Snape scowled. "Close your mouth, Potter, unless you're trying to catch flies?" Harry obeyed. "Don't act so surprised. The majority of witches and wizards are not Albus Dumbledore, you know! Everyone has an area of magic they struggle with, including myself. Watch. Poultry talis."

The chicken breast did not dice itself, which was what Snape must have intended. Instead, a few lines scored the surface of the skin in a grid shape, leaving a few chunks of slightly ragged chicken half-attached to each other. Snape gestured to it. "It is impractical for me to do things this way, especially when my proficiency with brewing means I can prepare ingredients by hand very efficiently."

"Huh." Harry frowned. "But wouldn't practising the spell actually help in the long run?"

He highly doubted that he could get out of extra homework for a tricky Transfiguration spell by saying to Professor McGonagall that turning beetles into buttons just wasn't his strong suit.

"No." Snape scowled as he began to correctly chop the chicken by hand. "Are you aware of the Muggle bias surrounding left-handed people, Potter?"

Harry nodded, unsure of how this linked. "Yeah. They used to force people to write the other way, did they? Because they thought being left-handed was a sign of the devil?"

"Indeed. Unfortunately, the wizarding world held some similarly unfounded beliefs in the early twentieth century, although this was more linked to the casting of spells than any religious factors."

As Snape spoke, he finished chopping the meat, picked up the chopping board, and headed over to the stove. He flicked his wand at the waiting pan, heating it instantly so the cubes of chicken sizzled as they hit the oil without much influence from the spluttering gas burner beneath.

“There was a false claim that the only natural and correct way to cast spells was using your right hand, despite much evidence to the contrary that many witches and wizards could perform magic of the same calibre with their left hand. Hogwarts consequentially enforced a regime of exclusively right-handed spellcasting for a fair few decades until it fell out of fashion, when people finally began to realise it significantly hampered one's magical ability to not cast with the correct wand arm.”

“Was that still happening while you were at school, then?” Harry asked.

Snape shook his head. “Hogwarts completely abandoned the practice in the early sixties. However, even though this school of thought was thoroughly disproven, a large sect of witches and wizards still had these views internalised to a degree when I was growing up, including my mother. As she was the one to teach me household Charms, she insisted on making me learn them with my right hand. I had no reason to refuse to follow her methods."

"And you can't get the magic to do it properly because it's not with your wand arm," Harry said, understanding dawning. "Couldn't you just teach yourself it left-handed now, though?"

Snape shook his head. "Once you learn a spell a certain way, it is extraordinarily difficult to change how you perform it. Imagine trying to fit a square peg through a round hole. It comes from a mixture of your wand disliking the change, depending on the core and wood, and a degree of mental blockage. It is honestly easier for me to do it with my opposing hand, even with the impaired quality of my spell outcomes."

The wand switching Harry had noticed earlier in the week now made a whole lot more sense. As he cast his mind back, Harry realised that all of the spells Snape cast with his opposite hand had actually been household-related ones.

"I can't believe they used to enforce that sort of thing!" Harry said indignantly. "There's probably a load of witches and wizards who got stuck not able to cast everything properly because they were lied to and told they were doing spells wrong! That's so bad!"

"I agree," Snape said, shaking his head. "Demetrius Diggle, the man responsible for the falsified research which contributed to the widespread misinformation, was eventually found out as a fraud, thankfully. He was fined thousands of galleons and essentially exiled from magical British society."

"Good riddance," Harry muttered.

"Indeed," Snape said, pursing his lips. “Go and set the table. This is almost ready."

As Harry placed the knives and forks down, he had a sudden, strange realisation. He'd just spent time with Snape…and it hadn't been entirely unbearable. At a push, Harry might even reluctantly admit that he'd enjoyed their conversation. That stuff about left-handed magic had been really interesting, and Snape had actually dropped the conversation about Aunt Petunia when Harry wanted him to.

So far, Harry had only experienced two extremes of Snape: angry, nasty Snape, and overly pushy, Dursley-obsessed Snape. Harry hated both these iterations, but this Snape who he'd cooked with? That man was possibly bearable.

Or he was lulling Harry into a false sense of security by pretending to be friendly so he'd slip up and tell Snape more stuff about his childhood. That certainly seemed like something Snape would do. He was incredibly manipulative, after all…

No, Harry couldn't let his guard down. He had to remember who he was dealing with here. It was Snape. The other shoe was going to drop eventually, and it would be all the more painful if Harry actually started changing his opinions on Snape only to realise how wrong he was. He had to remain vigilant.

As if the universe was reminding Harry of how careful he had to be at Spinner’s End, Malfoy flounced into the kitchen just as Snape was serving up the food. He immediately looked daggers at Harry, and Harry scowled right back. Snape pointedly ignored this behaviour, although he speared a piece of chicken on his fork with more force than strictly necessary as he sat down to eat.

“So, Draco,” he began. “How many lines have you completed?”

“A hundred and twenty,” Draco muttered. Harry looked closer at the other boy and noticed the edge of his hand was smudged black with ink.

“Reasonable progress,” Snape said.

“It would be more if you hadn’t assigned me a bloody paragraph!” Malfoy growled.

“I can make it longer, if you’d like?” Snape asked, his voice dangerous. Malfoy at last fell silent, but he continued to glare at Harry like he was personally responsible for the lines he’d been set, which Harry didn’t think was entirely fair. Malfoy was the one who had utterly wrecked Harry’s life, after all. He had no right to act like he was hard done by!

Dinner was a silent affair after that, as Harry and Malfoy had something of a staring contest from their opposite ends of the table. In fact, Harry was so laser-focused on matching Malfoy’s withering glower that he actually ended up missing the food on his plate with his fork multiple times because he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. He could see Snape out of the corner of his eye, pressing his lips into a thin white line like he was barely biting back an insult.

Because he thinks you’re some pathetic, half-starved little orphan, an annoying little voice in the back of Harry’s head reminded him. He’s too obsessed with you eating to say anything.

His shoulders tensed. If there was one thing Harry couldn’t stand, it was pity. It wasn’t like Harry was going to drop dead because he’d missed a few meals in his time! He wasn’t some fragile little creature that Snape needed to tiptoe around, he just wasn’t. While Harry didn’t exactly like when Snape was horrid and mean to him, the knowledge that the changes in his behaviour were because of what he knew about the Dursleys made Harry shrivel up a little inside for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Malfoy finished eating before Harry did and hurried away upstairs, presumably to do more lines, judging by his general huffiness. Harry went to leave as well, feeling vaguely irritated, but stopped in the doorway when Snape cleared his throat.

“Do you remember what I told you,” he said, “about Demetrius Diggle’s falsified research into left-handed wizardry?”

“Yeah?” Harry turned around to face him.

“Why do you think people would believe him in the first place?” Snape asked, steepling his fingers.

Harry frowned, thinking hard about both the question and why Snape was asking him this. “Um… well, I’m guessing it was some sort of official-seeming research?” Snape nodded. “Right, then that means they’d think it was true. I mean, it’s not like they’d have any reason to think Diggle was lying?”

“Indeed,” Snape said. “And the myth persevered amongst a large portion of the British wizarding population, even after his fraudulent data collection methods had been exposed. Why do you think that is?”

“Er… I guess once people believe a certain thing, they find it hard to change their minds about something,” Harry said slowly.

“Correct,” Snape said with a nod. “Now, this long-lasting misconception came from just one misleading study. Imagine, I suggest, what the wider magical community would think if there were dozens upon dozens of researchers claiming that casting left-handed was an inferior method of sorcery. How difficult do you think it would be to convince a group of people that these facts, which they had internalised into their belief systems, were completely unfounded and they needed to change their minds immediately?"

“Pretty hard,” Harry said, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Now, change left-handed spellcasting into Muggleborn magical ability,” Snape said. “Imagine going through life being presented with what appears to be very valid, rigorous research telling you a group of people are inherently magically inferior -”

“Muggleborns are not magically inferior!” Harry shouted, anger surging in him. “Don’t be stupid! I know you don’t like her, but Hermione alone completely proves that’s a lie -”

“Will you let me finish before you start yelling at me, Potter?” Snape’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut across Harry’s shouts. He fell into mutinous silence. “If you’d bothered to listen to me more carefully, you’ll recall I stated that this research appeared to be valid, not that it actually was.”

“Oh.” Harry stared at his shoes, feeling his cheeks heat up.

“Now, the majority of magical Britain had no way of knowing this research into Muggleborn and half-blood magical ability was invalid, you know,” Snape said, mercifully overlooking Harry's outburst of temper. “In fact, the researchers and academics producing these reports were generally quite renowned scientific figures, who were not yet known to be Death Eaters with biases that were leaching into their research. The idea that Muggleborn blood was not as magically concentrated as that of pureblooded wizards became a rather ingrained ideology amongst certain groups of the population over the last few decades, particularly in the run up to the war. Even though all of these studies have now been disproven, the seed has still been planted in many pureblood minds.”

“I still don’t think that’s an excuse for people to be so nasty to Muggleborns today,” Harry muttered. “It’s not true, so Muggleborns should be treated equally!”

“No, I quite agree,” Snape said, “but my point here is that some people quite genuinely do not know any better. Take Draco, for example.” Harry screwed up his face. “He did not get this way on his own, you realise? Imagine you have spent your entire life being told that Muggleborns are inferior to you in every way. Imagine hearing that they are stealing a place in a world that rightfully belongs to you, and that they are less powerful in every conceivable manner. Then, imagine being told you have to completely change these worldviews overnight. He is currently deconstructing beliefs that are ingrained into every corner of his psyche, and that does take time.”

“Is he really?” Harry asked sceptically. Malfoy seemed like just as much of a nasty bigot today as he had been since first year.

“Yes, he is,” Snape said firmly. “I am making sure of it. Finding out that everything you stand for is a complete sham can come as something of a shock to the system, though. Draco is obviously rather defensive, but he is starting to reconsider what he’s grown up being told.”

Harry scoffed. “I get what you’re trying to do, but I’m not going to feel sorry for Malfoy. I just won’t. I don’t have to be nice to him, especially when he goes out of his way to be nasty to me for no reason.”

“No reason?” Snape arched an eyebrow. “I recall you calling him an ‘inbred git’ at some point.”

“He started it!”

Snape sighed very loudly. “I am simply suggesting that it might do for you to reconsider the constant exchange of vitriol. I am working to help Draco improve his ways, but it might make all our lives a bit easier if you weren’t both so focused on constantly aggravating each other. Perhaps try to give him a little bit of grace while you continue to reside here?”

“It shouldn’t be my responsibility to do that, though!” Harry protested.

“No, and it is not your exclusive responsibility,” Snape said tersely, “but wouldn’t you rather put an end to the contentious relationship between yourself and Draco in the long-term by making a few sacrifices in the short term? I am simply wondering if you can find it in yourself to extend an olive branch for both your sakes.”

“I’m just not convinced he’s actually going to change,” Harry said, feeling a bit exasperated. “I’m still not convinced he’s sorry about any of the stuff he did, either.”

“Draco is more sorry than you are able to understand,” Snape said quietly. “As I mentioned, he tends to put up quite a defensive front about these sorts of things, especially with you. In private, he is quite remorseful for his behaviour.”

Harry shook his head dismissively, and Snape sighed again. “There are things you don’t know about Draco that I do know, which is why I am so assured of his sincerity. I might add, Harry, that there were many things I did not know about you that caused me to behave towards you in a way that was not entirely fair. Do not make the same mistakes that I did with you and presume something about another person without knowing the full picture.”

Harry’s hands clenched. “I am nothing like you,” he growled, “and I’m getting pretty sick of you trying to convince me how nice Draco is.”

He stormed out without another word, fuming. Harry didn’t need the full intricacies of Malfoy’s life to get a good read on him! All he needed to know was that Malfoy was a horrid little bully who called Hermione awful names and wouldn’t give Harry the time of day if their roles were reversed. He wasn’t worth the effort.

Snape didn’t come after Harry as he hid himself away in the bedroom, but annoyingly enough, his voice was still whispering away in the back of Harry’s mind. After all, he had made a very good point - Malfoy really must have spent his entire life being told terrible things about Muggleborns. Harry had had the unfortunate opportunity to meet Lucius Malfoy on a few occasions now, and could admit the man was far nastier than even his son. Draco really didn’t know better, did he? Not with a man like that for a father. Somehow, Harry had never really thought about Malfoy’s behaviour from that perspective…

But even though Malfoy couldn’t help it, Harry was still angry. It shouldn’t be his responsibility to do anything to help that prat.

A little voice in the back of Harry’s head still quietly argued that maybe, just maybe, he should try and help anyway. He didn’t have to like Malfoy to want him to change for the better. And if Harry was somehow able to help, maybe he should…

But it was hard to think that way when the residual anger about everything from the past two years and especially the past two weeks was still rammed in the forefront of Harry’s mind. No, he decided, Harry was not going to forgive Malfoy.

Not even when late that night, while Harry was struggling to sleep, Malfoy sat up and whispered, “I did mean it, Potter.”

Harry ignored him, but Malfoy continued to speak. “It’s just - it’s hard, in front of Severus, but… I am really sorry. I shouldn’t have done any of that. I just get so angry sometimes…” He sighed mournfully. “Severus said… look, if I’d known those bruises weren’t caused by whatever biking was - that it was something actually serious, whatever it is that hurt you, I mean, then…”

And with those words, Harry hardened his heart. “Just shut up, Malfoy.”

He had ruined Harry’s life by telling Snape about those bruises, and Harry was never, ever going to forgive him for it. It didn’t matter that Malfoy apparently hadn’t even known what biking was, or that he still didn’t seem to realise what was behind the injuries. He’d still told, and Harry was furious.

“Fine,” Malfoy snapped. “Be that way.”

Harry heard the rustling of the covers as the other boy turned over, leaving Harry alone in irritated silence, trying not to wonder if he should have answered differently.