At the Hour - Book Two

(Draco's POV: 18.8k Hits-First Book)

Draco sat on his bed, curtains drawn, back resting against the headboard. He hid his head in his knees, a silk pillow in his arms. He had not been crying, but the feeling stuck in his lungs felt worse than that. Everything dry and brittle, nothing left to form tears. Ivan knocked on his desk. Draco knew Blaise or Theo never rapped their knuckles so quickly.

"Come in," Draco mumbled, muffled.

The albino boy opened the curtains. Draco could barely make out his shape with the light shut. Theo and Blaise must have gone to sleep. Ivan sat on the edge of the bed, facing Draco. he cast a small lumos.

"Draco, do you want to talk about it?"

Draco lifted his head. "Do you want to listen?"

"Of course. You can talk to me."

"I just-" Draco sighed. "Why did everything have to blow up? I- He- Ivan, I know it's not my fault but I feel...guilty."

Ivan hummed sympathetically.

"And- and what am supposed to do? Wait for him to come to me? He's not the only one in the wrong, but if I go to him, I'll be-he'll think I'm-" Draco groaned.

Ivan quirked a white eyebrow. "Since when does Draco Malfoy care about what others think?"

"I do not! I just- I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like inferiority?"

"Do you think you might not want him to think you're...weak?"

Draco murmured, "I don't want anyone to think I'm weak."

He stared up at Ivan, holding his gaze. Ivan said, "Does this have something to do with your family?"

And that was it, wasn't it? It always returned to his family. Draco knew he was prideful and snobby, but he changed for Harry. He changed to be right.

Ivan blanched at himself. "I'm sorry, I'm probably the last person you'd want to talk with this about, should I wake up Theo?"

"No, no," Draco said quickly. "You're a good listener."

Ivan gave him a small smile. "Yeah, I suppose I am, aren't I?"

Draco didn't know what to say to that. "Actually, go to sleep. I'm alright now."

"You sure?" Ivan said, cut off by a yawn. Draco snorted.

"Yes. Get some rest, young man."

"Sure, Father," Ivan quipped, but Draco saw him smile.

The curtains shut. Draco poked at his arm, trying to get the feeling to return to it. Intus rapio was a blood magic hex. If the spell caster had a sample of the victim’s blood, they could bind their limbs by blood, the magic working from the internal veins. It never hurt, it was just numb, like losing control of a part of your body.

Draco thought of the day when Father showed him exactly how the spell worked. He had conjured up a 3D diagram in the drawing room.

Father led him through the marble halls, gradually narrowing until they came to one of the smaller empty rooms.

"Father, what are we doing here? Mother is waiting to go to Diagon Alley."

"I want to show you how the Limb-Binding charm works. That would be useful information to you once you come home, wouldn't it?"

"...Yes, Father." The door clicked shut. The white walls looked different than the ones in the kitchen, which were covered in whitewash, a cheap powder. These walls screamed wealth. Father waved his wand, and a hologram floated above the ground. It was pale blue and glowing softly. It was shaped like half an arm, from finger tips to elbow. A string-like glowing bit of dark blue wound around the arm, just beneath the skin. It tightened, changing colors violently. It was horrible. Draco looked up to Father, who was staring right back at him. “Maybe if you can learn how to un-bind your limbs, you’ll have a chance at getting better marks this semester.” He shoved him towards the door. “Move. Your mother is waiting.”

[End POV]

Harry debated whether or not to stay back and maybe join in on the Slytherins' Sleepless Symphony Showcase, but decided against it. Instead, he summoned his invisibility cloak and suck out of the dungeons. He tried going to the girl's bathroom on the second floor, but as soon as the stairs felt his intentions, they changed direction. Harry heaved a sigh. He didn't feel like sleeping in the common room, or the Gryffindor dorms. So, in the dark, he wandered up to the Astronomy Tower.

The cold stone was smooth beneath his thin slippers. The moon shone bright, waxing into fullness. A full moon.

Harry did not move to the balcony. He stayed in the castle, hiding in the shadows.

Was Sirius seeing the same moon from Azkaban? Was Remus undergoing transformation?

Harry's eyes were empty, unseeing. Dumbledore died, his falling replaying over and over.

Harry crumpled to the ground. I'm sorry, he thought. Apologizing to who, he did not know. The people who died in the war? Draco?

That night, Harry did not sleep.

...

The moon peeled away from the sky and the sun took its place. It was dawn when Harry returned to the dungeons. The dormitory door clicked shut behind him as he took off his cloak. Draco was sitting up on his bed, back straight, eyes wide.

Cepheus jumped into Harry's arms as they stared at each other. Wordlessly, Draco got up and stepped into his walk-in closet, shutting the door.

Harry's misery tripled before Draco stepped out with two flutes, looking up expectantly at Harry.

In the common room, Harry cast a silencing charm as Draco conjured a book of duets. The notes of either part chased after each other in ink, a rhyming pattern. It was in a major key. Draco gave the countdown. Harry followed. The music was nice. It filled his ears, the dynamics swelling. He kept his eyes on the paper, never once looking at the boy beside him.

When it was over, Harry met Draco's eyes. They stayed like that before Daphne called, "Play it again without the silencing charm!"

Harry jumped. In the doorway stood Blaise, Ivan, Daphne, and Pansy, all of them grinning in their pajamas.

"Come on, Theo's already in the Great Hall."

...

In DADA, Draco sat down next to Harry and he didn't know what on God's green Earth that meant. Draco hadn't said a word to him since yesterday night.

Theo, who had studied the second-year DADA coursework from midnight to breakfast, rotated between taking minute-long power naps, glaring at Lockhart, and suspiciously eying the covered cage of Cornish pixies.

Harry let himself ignore Lockhart's words, He busied himself with trying to discreetly look at Draco without him noticing. Draco's expression was one of vague disgust; Harry feared it was directed at him before he realized it was for Lockhart.

Defense Against the Dark Arts ended too quickly. Draco was out of his seat in a flash, Harry running to catch up with him.

A Ravenclaw girl tripped him, sneering. Poorly hidden by a cough, she said, “Purist traitor.”

Harry scowled as she walked away. The nasty looks in the corridors, the applause whenever he sat down at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Harry had taken to skipping meals to talk with the Marauders.

Daphne appeared beside him. “Are you alright, Harry?”

“Splendid, Daphne. Just peachy.”

She frowned, moving away with the excuse to tell something to Millicent.

McGonagall passed Harry in the hall, beaming. “Best of luck to you in the Qudditch Pitch today, Potter.” Harry smiled tightly back at her.

Harry and the Gryffindor team went to the locker room. Fred and George had treated him the same, making jokes, inviting him to late-night pranks (which Harry started declining), but Alicia Keys wouldn’t look anywhere near his vague direction. Oliver Wood was rambling on and on about Quidditch.

“Get that Snitch before Malfoy, or die trying, Harry, because we’ve got to win, we’ve got to.” Wood clapped him on the shoulder encouragingly.

Just then, Ron burst into the locker room, looking panicked. “I’m talking to Harry. Alone.”

Ron dragged him outside, behind the Quidditch stands. “Where the fuck have you been?” he hissed.

“I was just in the changing rooms, if you weren’t aware.”

“No, during meals! You don’t go with the twins for pranks anymore! You don’t stick around to talk with anyone, Blaise told me you just lock yourself in your dorm and read a stupid bit of parchment all the bloody time!”

“I don’t really fancy getting called a purist when I’m trying to have a Treacle Tart, if that’s what you mean. What I do with my time is no one’s buisness!”

“Harry, what the fuck? What happened to looking after eachother? Something’s going on and I know it!”

“That’s new.”

“What?”

“You knowing something. Ron, I’m going to be blunt when I say this, but I don’t need someone to baby me like a fucking mother.”

Ron blanched, furious. “I’m not a mother!” he hissed.

“You sure do act like one.”

“Fine, blow up your own shit!” With that, he stormed off.

The rest of the team gathered around him. They walked to the Pitch, the audience cheering.

Ron was right. Something was very wrong.

But it was probably just Harry himself. Like always.

Harry mounted on to his broom. Draco wasn’t there.