I wrote this over a year ago. It was for a prompt, but I got carried away with 20k of doing my own thing. Anyway, it's old, but… enjoy? Or not.

CHAPTER 1

Draco Malfoy hovered uncertainly outside the train compartment, eavesdropping shamelessly to check that Harry Potter was really inside. If he confirmed beforehand, he could avoid talking to unnecessary strangers. Draco preferred to speak to as few people as possible. He peered through the crack between the wall and the door.

"You could do it, I bet," Ronald Weasley bragged from inside the compartment, arm slung around the other boy's shoulders, even though they could hardly have met more than a few hours ago. "You defeated You-Know-Who, a simple spell like this is child's play!"

Harry Potter did not look so certain of his abilities, but before he had a chance to respond, Draco Malfoy walked into their train compartment, saving him from the need to demonstrate. Sizing up the two boys, Draco noted that Potter seemed pleased to have someone hang onto his every word; Draco wondered that it never got old, since Potter had surely had plenty of attention since he was a baby. Vanquishing a Dark Lord did tend to attract acclaim.

"I was wondering if I might join you?" Draco said, after taking a deep breath. He didn't think the Boy-Who-Lived would really want to be his friend, but his parents had insisted he try. Harry Potter's political clout was not to be dismissed; and his parents had expectations about Draco's time at school.

"I was wondering if I might join you?" Weasley mocked in a high pitch, girlish exaggeration of Draco's upper-class accent. "Ugh. Posh accent, vampire hair... you must be a Malfoy."

"You must be a Weasley," Draco observed neutrally, eying the red hair and hand-me-down clothes. Still, if he wanted to please his father, insulting Harry Potter's apparent best friend likely wasn't the smartest way to earn his respect.

"You two know each other?" Potter piped up, eyes darting between the two of them.

"No, but my dad knows his," Weasley said with disgust. "The Malfoys supported You-Know-Who and then bought their way out of trouble. He probably came here to make friends with you just for the fame."

Draco stiffened, straightening his back with his chin held high. His fingers clenched around the door handle, and he wanted to snap back and defend himself and his family, but reality meant that even if he thought of dozens of witty retorts as he obsessed over this moment in the years to come...

In the moment itself, Draco froze. Potter and Weasley stared at him with increasing disgust.

"See? He can't even say anything 'cause it's true. Slimy Slytherin," Weasley taunted. "Get lost, Malfoy."

"Yeah, I've already got a vault full of gold," Potter said, gaze darting to Weasley as though looking for approval. "So if you want to buy my friendship you're out of luck. This compartment doesn't have any room for Voldemort's minions."

Weasley and Malfoy both flinched at the use of the Dark Lord's real name, but Weasley's smirk of victory didn't diminish. Draco thought that the power of being Harry Potter's best friend was going to the boy's head; it was obvious Weasley was enjoying ganging up on someone else for a change. His family was poor, and Draco wondered if Ronald knew how much Arthur Weasley got pushed around at the Ministry.

Draco also recognized a lost cause when he saw one.

"I think this compartment isn't up to my standards," he managed to bluff, before turning on his heels and walking away as quickly as he could.

Behind him, he heard Weasley start up a chant of "Malfoy's a dirty Death Eater, Malfoy's a dirty Death Eater" which Potter joined in shortly.

Draco self-consciously lowered his head, darting into the nearest empty compartment he could find, hoping that the heads that turned weren't observant enough to notice his watering eyes. He locked the door behind him, and wondered what his father would say. Draco was such a failure, that even with all his advantages, a Weasley had gotten the better of him. He truly was worthless.

ooo

"Harry's not a loser," Ron said, getting up in Smith's face. "Of course he'll do it."

"Yeah," Seamus chipped in. "He's the Savior of the Wizarding World. You think he's scared of a detention?"

Harry did not, actually, want to sneak into the broomshed just to prove to Zacharias Smith that he could do so, when the boy seemed like an arse anyway. He did not actually remember facing Voldemort at all. Therefore, detention—or falling a hundred feet to his death, after riding a broom without supervision—did intimidate him, since he had nothing to compare these fears to.

"Right, Harry?" Ron prompted him, while all three of them stared at him expectantly.

But then Harry realized he did have another fear, one more prominent than detention or spectacular falls from a broom.

Harry remembered sitting alone at recess all through elementary school, and being chased by Dudley's gang. He remembered having his lunch stolen (only provided because the school would ask Aunt Petunia questions if he didn't bring something). He remembered bruises from kicks under the desks and from being shoved into lockers.

'Savior' or 'The Chosen One', while not ideal, were better than 'loser' or 'freak'.

Yet Harry was also keenly aware that he didn't know how he defeated Voldemort... and if anyone realized this, he might return to his loser status. They'd call him a fraud and fluke instead.

If they realized he was intimidated now, how long would it take for the admiration to change to disgust? How long until they turned on him? Disappointment was powerful. They might not want to be his friends if he refused to do crazy, brave, Gryffindor antics. He had tricked the hat, after all. If he didn't prove he was great, they'd realize he was a fraud, a slimy Slytherin.

Ron and everyone else wanted to be his friend because Harry was the Chosen One. If they lost this reason, if Harry proved to be anything other than that hero, he felt terrified of returning to his days as a pariah of the elementary school.

So Harry watched their faces fall with disappointment and irritation as he hesitated to answer, and knew that he'd have to face one fear to avoid the other.

"Yeah, whatever," said Harry with a shrug. "Where's this broomshed then?"

And their wary, disappointed faces lit up with excitement as Seamus and Ron whooped. Smith scowled.

They got caught, in the end, but Harry was breathless with the rush of wind and the dive he'd taken to catch Ron's dropped wand. The detentions didn't seem so bad, and more than this, McGonagall made him Seeker of the Gryffindor team.

Harry walked the halls, more worshipped than ever, and found the attention uncomfortable. Still, he could get used to it, because he knew exactly what the alternative was.

"Yep," Harry said with a cheeky grin, smirking at the second-year students all asking him if the rumors were true. "That's what McGonagall said. The youngest seeker in a century..."

ooo

Harry shifted uncomfortably, even while Ron levelled his wand on Malfoy. Malfoy had made the mistake of snorting when Parvati Patil had been going on about how Harry had more quidditch talent than even Ludo Bagman.

Harry didn't even know who Ludo Bagman was, and they were about to have a fight about it. He wouldn't have thought much of it, had mostly been letting the praise wash over him while Lavender had nodded along. Hermione had been ignoring the conversation up until now, working diligently on her assignment. The girls seem to have invited her mostly because they'd hoped she'd let them copy her homework, but she'd refused.

"You got something to say, Malfoy?" Ron demanded, hostile. Malfoy watched him warily, glancing up from where he'd been quietly working on his Charms worksheet. He sat alone at an adjacent table; the Gryffindors had decided to also sit in the Charms section to work on the assigned homework.

Harry couldn't help but notice that, for an evil Voldemort supporter, Malfoy seemed to keep to himself these first few weeks of school. Harry didn't think he'd heard him speak since that first day on the train.

"Put that thing away, Weasley," Malfoy said, shoulders hunching. Harry was reminded uncomfortably of how he used to react when Uncle Vernon bullied him. It made him irrationally angry; Malfoy at least had the chance to fight back and defend himself, so why didn't he?

"Malfoy is right, Ron," Hermione sniffed, butting into the conversation. "Fighting is against the rules-"

"Oh, give it a rest, Hermione," Ron grumbled, although his wand lowered a fraction of an inch.

"Malfoy just doesn't know how to recognize quidditch talent when he sees it," Parvati sniffed haughtily, crossing her arms.

"He's eleven," Malfoy finally burst out, seemingly at his limit of how much he could bear silently. "He's not going to be better than a professional quidditch player!"

"And why should we listen to a Death Eater?" Ron demanded, Parvati and Lavender nodding along and voicing their agreement. Harry startled when the quill in Malfoy's hand snapped, dark ink spilling over his hand.

Harry wondered why a supporter of Voldemort would be so angry at being called a Death Eater. He opened his mouth hesitantly, maybe to tell his friends to lay off. He closed it again. He didn't want them to think he was ungrateful for them sticking up for him.

"Well, Malfoy's not wrong," Harry said carefully, but he managed to force a smile, hoping to diffuse the situation. "I'm just a kid. But that doesn't mean I can't be as good as Ludo Bagman with some practice."

"Malfoy's just jealous, anyway," Lavender sniffed, and Harry winced. "He's a no-good Death Eater and you're the Chosen One."

"I hate all of you," Malfoy said lowly, standing abruptly from his seat and shakily collecting his papers and bag with trembling hands. He all but ran from the library, and Harry felt torn between irritation and guilt, even though he'd barely contributed to the interaction at all.

"Coward," Ron muttered, while Hermione tutted in disapproval.

Harry shook his head, clearing any doubts he had. His friends said Malfoy was bad news, so they were probably right.

"Let's just get back to our homework," Harry suggested, glancing back down at the question sheet. No need to feel guilty on a Slytherin's behalf.

ooo

"That's incredible, Draco," Pansy simpered, sneaking a look at his first report card. Draco had studied hours upon hours, sequestered away early mornings in the library, and the afternoons and evenings hunched over his books in the common room.

Whispers of Death Eater followed him if he tried to study after breakfast in the library, his table frequently jostled to splatter ink across his parchment. The taunting of the Chosen One's lackeys (and occasionally, the Chosen One himself) proved influential: the majority of the school now shared the sentiment.

"You're smart, handsome, pureblood, and rich," Pansy listed with delight, wrapping herself around one of his arms. "You really have everything going for you."

Draco stared at his report card with dread, a deep sinking sensation in his chest.

O Potions

O History of Magic

O Defense Against the Dark Arts

E Transfigurations

O Charms

"Yes," Draco said faintly. "I have everything going for me."

He wondered if his father had already seen.

ooo

An angrily worded letter, expressing intense disappointment, answered that question a few days later. Draco could expect to have privileges revoked this summer.

For all his advantages, he only received an E in Transfigurations, and lost top of the class to a mudblood.

"I am displeased..."

His mother's letter was less harshly worded, and even worked under the guise of approval. Still, despite all his effort, his mother still made sure to gently remind him, there is always room for improvement.

ooo

So I wrote this for the prompt "Harry and Draco switch personalities". The result didn't end up with them being a complete 'switch', but rather, I altered things in the beginning to push them in that direction, with the changes becoming more noticeable as they got older.

The end result might not be what the prompt asked for, but I had fun writing it. I hope it's still enjoyable.

Thank you for reading.