Chapter 3
Draco found himself content with his situation, what with the comfort of his warm, soft and soft pillow, he didn’t much want to move. Even if that pillow was Harry Potter.
That was until his ‘pillow’ had the audacity to move, interrupting his train of thought.
***
Harry wakes up with dull pain in his neck, bones poking into him at awkward angles, and a layer of warmth settled atop of him. He shifted trying to make himself more comfortable before the warmth spoke.
“Pot- Harry, Sit still.”
And he did, regardless of the fact that they both had to get ready to teach soon. Regardless of the fact he was going to have to sprint up to the DADA classroom to get ready. Regardless of the intense pain making it’s way through his body due to the awkward position.
Eventually, Draco sighed, sliding off of Harry with a cat-like grace , “Up with you then, we have breakfast to attend to.”
Draco digs through his drawers until he pulls out an exquisite sky blue robe with delicate silver pattern.
Casting a quick tempus on his way to the bathroom, Draco tacks on, “You may want to floo back up to your room.”
Harry does, scrambling off the couch and throwing down the floo dust into the fire place, speaking as clearly as possible, “Harry Potter's Room, Hogwarts,” Before stepping in.
Upon arriving back into his own room he rushes to pull on a pair of jeans and a Nirvana shirt, and adds some simple black robes over top of it to complete the look. Realizing he had left his wand holster, who knows where he shoved his wand into his back pocket.
He debates with himself about whether he should run down to the Great Hall or floo back to Draco to walk with him. He went with the later.
Upon entering his room, Draco was looking more hastily put together than before. His hair was wet and he appeared to have misplaced his wand.
Harry grabs it off the ground, where it had apparently rolled this morning, and handed it to him. Draco barely acknowledged him and strutted out the door with a regal air about him.
***
When Draco sat down at the table he noticed the appalling outfit Harry had deemed suitable for teaching.
“What in Merlin's name are you wearing?” Draco whispered fiercely.
Harry looked down at his attire, “Jeans?”
“I gathered as much,” Draco says, wrinkling his nose. “But why are you wearing them here?”
“I don‘t know, they’re easy to move in?”
Draco did not think that was a sufficient answer, slacks are equally moveable and far less atrocious, but he doesn’t say that, instead, choosing to focus on his breakfast.
He lets his attention drift across the students. The Gryffindor and Slytherin prefects are chatting and the entire Great Hall seems to be mingling in a display of inter-house unity that Draco couldn’t imagine seeing when he went there.
The students who were crying before were looking down at their breakfast, shooting not so subtle longing gazes at other houses. Ms. Burk excuses herself from her conversation and waves the students in the direction of their friends from other houses.
Draco wonders now if Dumbledore purposefully kept the houses apart.
Draco takes to Mcgonagall for conversation as Harry shovels food into his mouth.
“Prof- Sorry, Minerva,” It felt terribly odd to call his old transfigurations professor by her first name, he had always thought she was the most sensible Gryffindor, “Everything you’ve done has made the school so much more welcoming.”
“I try my best,” Minerva starts to smile but it melts into a distant expression, “it’s a school, the way Albus handled competition wasn’t particularly healthy.”
“Everyone seems so much happier than they were in my time.” Draco observes, there has always been a sense of community at Hogwarts, but laughter rings out far more clearly than it had.
“Well the war is over,” She points out, “There's less fear,”
Draco hums and Harry decides to butt in, “Great job Minnie,” with a supportive thumbs up before going back to his breakfast.
***
During Harry's first class, he is as disorganized as he expected, really. He couldn't find where he put his lesson plan. He forgot his wand was in his back pocket and thus spun around in circles looking for it while the students snorted (He will never know a shame more than a bunch of thirteen year olds laughing at him). But, as the day went on, he found he excelled. Harry had almost missed teaching DA. He felt in his element covering everything from offensive spells to defensive spells.
A lot of the work was theoretical, he assigned the first years a book on the dangers of magic so they would understand that not everything about magic was fun. Even with all the warnings and the theoretical work he felt like his students understood everything he went over.
***
Draco was not prepared for Gryffindors.
The Hufflepuffs were delightful, if a little slow, the Ravenclaws really tried their best, but the Gryffindors. They were chaotic, they were accident prone, they were distracting the Slytherins. Even if Draco did his best to calm the racket with a well placed glare, they didn’t stay down for long.
After the sixth or seventh time, he decided the way he was trying to teach them to respect their space wasn’t effective and they would have to learn the hard way.
Mr. Juniper vaguely reminded him of Seamus Finnigan in that he had a tendency to light himself aflame, and this time instead of preventing yet another catastrophe, he let it happen.
Obviously people started to panic when he lit himself aflame, once again, and this time it didn’t magically poof out. Ms.Smoul told him to stop, drop, and roll, whilst hitting him with her jacket. A few other muggleborns cheered at the sentiment.
Once Draco had decided they’d learned their lesson, he waved his wand in a rigid motion, extinguishing the fire. He turned back to the rest of the room, raising an eyebrow to efficiently silence the class before schooling his expression to one that almost rivaled Snape's.
“If we do not respect our environment and ingredients, there are bound to be-” He pauses for dramatic effect, “Issues…”
After that, they were all model students.
~~~
When Draco got back to his room he wasn’t even surprised to see Harry there. He just threw open the medicine cabinet, which he had stocked with skin care, and pulled out two face masks. He had ordered them a while ago from some muggle-french catalog and had thought they’d be nice.
Aligning the mask with his face, Draco laid it on his skin and smoothed it out, before walking over to Harry, who was snacking on a macaron and tapping his fingers on a blocky device. Noticing the hinges, he snapped it shut right on Harrys hand, proceeded to take the macaron and eat it himself, and then placed the mask on Harry’s face.
When Harry attempted to remove his fingers from the device, Draco moves one of his hands to pinch him in the arm. Harry winced in protest.
Draco shushes his attempt to object as he smoothes the edges, “We are skipping dinner tonight.”
After Draco had finished, Harry reopened his device and pulled Draco down next to him to get a better look at it.
It wasn’t like any of the muggle televisions Draco had seen, but it seemed to do something similar because after a while he clicked on something and calming music echoed through the speakers.
“It’s a movie called Spirited Away, I think you’ll like it, it came out a couple years ago.” Harry was doing his best to speak around the face mask when he suddenly shot up, “Shit, no, we need popcorn.”
He dashed over to the floo and disappeared in a puff of smoke only to come back moments later bearing blankets, something with a Jiffy Pop label, and Pajamas.
‘Pajamas’ is putting it loosely. Its a Weasley sweater and a pair of lounge pants.
Harry's face mask is a little lopsided, so Draco smoothes it out with his thumb.
Draco has had popcorn before, but Jiffy Pop is not like the popcorn Pansy and him had eaten at the movies when he decided the best ‘fuck you’ to his father would be going to a muggle cinema. No, Jiffy Pop was loud and the pan inflated, but it tasted similar enough so Draco wasn’t really worried.
Draco and Harry curled up on the couch, content to watch the movie and snack in their pajamas. Several hours had passed when there was a knock at the door.
Draco panicked. He had just earned their respect, he couldn’t go out with a facemask on. His gaze settled on Harry, who seemed unconcerned.
“Go.”
Harry startled, “What, why me?”
“Because it took so long for them to respect me, now go.” Draco said, shoving him towards the door and settling back on the couch.
He could hear Harrys string of curses as he walked away, things like, ‘Blond git,’ and more notable, ‘Ferret fuck’.
“Can I help you?” Harry asks, opening the door.
***
Standing behind the door were around ten Slyhterins all with worried looks on their faces, lead by Ms. Burke.
“I am so sorry Professor-” She breaks off ending in a questioning tone, “Potter?”
He raises an eyebrow inviting comments about his current state of being.
She clears her throat and continues, “They were worried about Professor Malfoy, because he didn’t show up at dinner.”
“He’s fine,” Just a spineless ferret, he did not say, “He’s in there.”
“You heard him, back to your dorms.”
Moments later Ms. Foster shows up.
“Rosie,” She says enthusiastically.
Ms. Burke seems fond rather than exasperated at her words, “I don’t suppose they rioted into making you come down here too,”
“Oh they did, Hello Professor Potter,”
He waves, honestly wanting to curl back up into those blankets.
“He’s fine, I told you guys he was just with Professor Malfoy.”
Harry sighs, “Well, I’m going back in. Prefects, lead them back to your dorms.”
When he goes back in Draco is just as comfortable as he was before, except he had eaten all the popcorn.
“Can we go lie in your bed, please,” Harry says emphasizing the ‘puh’,”last night i woke up in agony.”
“I suppose.”