Draco reached up and raked fingers through his hair in frustration, his cowl brushing the back of his hand. He hadn't been quite sure why, but now he couldn't say so. And Slytherin knew he was courting Harry Potter, he'd made it obvious enough in Defense class. "Harry," said Draco, "people know I'm friends with you, they don't know about the Conspiracy of course, but they know we're friends, and it makes me look bad when you do that sort of thing."
Harry Potter's face tightened. "Anyone in Slytherin who can't understand the concept of acting nice toward people you don't actually like should be ground up and fed to pet snakes."
"There are a lot of people in Slytherin who don't," Draco said, his voice serious. "Most people are stupid, and you have to look good in front of them anyway." Harry Potter had to understand that if he ever wanted to get anywhere in life.
"What do you care what other people think? Are you really going to live your life needing to explain everything you do to the dumbest idiots in Slytherin, letting them judge you? I'm sorry, Draco, but I'm not lowering my cunning plots to the level of what the dumbest Slytherins can understand, just because it might make you look bad otherwise. Not even your friendship is worth that. It would take all the fun out of life. Tell me you haven't ever thought the same thing when someone in Slytherin is being too stupid to breathe, that it's beneath the dignity of a Malfoy to have to pander to them."
Draco genuinely hadn't. Ever. Pandering to idiots was like breathing, you did it without thinking about it.
"Harry," Draco said at last. "Just doing whatever you want, without worrying about how it looks, isn't smart. The Dark Lord worried about how he looked! He was feared and hated, and he knew exactly what sort of fear and hate he wanted to create. Everyone has to worry about what other people think."
The cowled figure shrugged. "Perhaps. Remind me sometime to tell you about something called Asch's Conformity Experiment, you might find it quite amusing. For now I'll just note that it's dangerous to worry about what other people think on instinct, because you actually care, not as a matter of cold-blooded calculation. Remember, I was beaten and bullied by older Slytherins for fifteen minutes, and afterward I stood up and graciously forgave them. Just like the good and virtuous Boy-Who-Lived ought to do. But my cold-blooded calculations, Draco, tell me that I have no use for the dumbest idiots in Slytherin, since I don't own a pet snake. So I have no reason to care what they think about how I conduct my duel with Hermione Granger."
Draco did not clench his fists in frustration. "She's just some mudblood," Draco said, keeping his voice calm, rather than shouting. "If you don't like her, push her down the stairs."
"Ravenclaw would know -"
"Have Pansy Parkinson push her down the stairs! You wouldn't even have to manipulate her, offer her a Sickle and she'd do it!"
"I would know! Hermione beat me in a book-reading contest, she's getting better grades than me, I have to defeat her with my brain or it doesn't count!"
"She's just a mudblood! Why do you respect her that much?"
"She's a power among Ravenclaws! Why do you care what some powerless idiot in Slytherin thinks?"
"It's called politics! And if you can't play it you can't have power!"
"Walking on the moon is power! Being a great wizard is power! There are kinds of power that don't require me to spend the rest of my life pandering to morons!"
Both of them stopped, and, in almost perfect unison, began taking deep breaths to calm themselves.
"Sorry," Harry Potter said after a few moments, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Sorry, Draco. You've got a lot of political power and it makes sense for you to keep it. You should be calculating what Slytherin thinks. It's an important game and I shouldn't have insulted it. But you can't ask me to lower the level of my game in Ravenclaw, just so that you don't look bad by associating with me. Tell Slytherin you're gritting your teeth while you pretend to be my friend."
That was exactly what Draco had told Slytherin, and he still wasn't sure whether it was true.
"Anyway," Draco said. "Speaking of your image. I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Rita Skeeter heard some of the stories about you and she's been asking questions."
Harry Potter raised his eyebrows. "Who?"
"She writes for the Daily Prophet," Draco said. He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. The Daily Prophet was one of Father's primary tools, he used it like a wizard's wand. "That's the newspaper people actually pay attention to. Rita Skeeter writes about celebrities, and as she puts it, uses her quill to puncture their over-inflated reputations. If she can't find any rumors about you, she'll just make up her own."
"I see," said Harry Potter. His green-lit face looked very thoughtful beneath the cowl.
Draco hesitated before saying what he had to say next. By now someone had certainly reported to Father that he was courting Harry Potter, and Father would also know that Draco hadn't written home about it, and Father would understand that Draco didn't think he could actually keep it a secret, which sent a clear message that Draco was practicing his own game now but still on Father's side, since if Draco had been tempted away, he would have been sending false reports.
It followed that Father had probably anticipated what Draco was about to say next.
Playing the game with Father for real was a rather unnerving sensation. Even if they were on the same side. It was, on the one hand, exhiliarating, but Draco also knew that in the end it would turn out that Father had played the game better. There was no other way it could possibly go.
"Harry," Draco finally said. "This isn't a suggestion. This isn't my advice. Just the way it is. My father could almost certainly quash that article. But it would cost you."
