Chapter 2
Harry rushed to Transfiguration, his footsteps echoing through the hallway. For once he’d slept soundly, and as a result, he'd slept through breakfast and was late for class. He vaguely remembered Ron trying and failing to shake him awake and Hermione leaving toast on his bedside table. Cursing himself and his messed up sleeping schedule that resulted in him being late, Harry burst into Transfiguration with apologies on the tip of his tongue only to find Malfoy in the middle of a heated argument with Professor McGonagall.
"Your homework is not here, Mr. Malfoy." Professor McGonagall said.
"I remember turning it in like I remember staying until the bloody library closed to finish the assignment." Malfoy argued. Harry stared at the blonde boy, seriously considering the possibility that everything that had happened last night was a dream. He didn’t think it could be possible that Malfoy could have gotten injured so badly just hours before and turn up to class as though nothing was wrong. Arguing with the professor, no less.
"Mr. Malfoy, unless you are suggesting that your homework somehow sprouted legs and ran away, I expect a copy of it in my office tonight by seven o’clock, sharp. Mr. Potter, how kind of you to join us." Harry thought he caught Malfoy flinching slightly at the mention of Harry’s name, but the moment was gone in a second and Malfoy silently returned to his seat without another word. Harry stared after him in disbelief. If there was one thing Harry knew about Malfoy, it was that he couldn’t stand to allow injustice as long as he was the one inconvenienced by it.
"Sorry, professor." Harry muttered as he took his seat next to Ron, who threw him a worried look. Harry forced the corners of his lips up into a smile in an attempt to reassure him - after all, he really was in better condition that morning. He then sat up properly in his seat and made an effort to listen, but promptly started to doze off. He woke to someone constantly poking him in the side.
"Stop... Ron... Stop that..."
“Harry.” Ron hissed, trying to salvage his friend from the murderous gaze of Professor McGonogall, but to his dismay, Harry snapped awake and didn’t seem to notice the angry professor right in front of them.
“What?” He demanded irritably.
"Oh I’ll tell you what, Mr. Potter. Detention tonight, in my office."
"Wait, what?” Finally realising the severity of the situation, Harry whipped his head around to face his professor. “I'm sorry Professor, but a detention is-"
"Lenient, considering the fact you showed up to class late, dozed off, and disrupted my class in the process."
"Sorry." Harry muttered, struggling to stay awake.
“Harry, are you sure you’re alright?” Hermione frowned as the three of them left their first class of the day together.
“Yes, I promise, Hermione.” Harry sighed. Thanks to Madam Pomfrey’s potion that worked wonders, he’d slept well. A little too well, considering he arrived late to class and seemed to be unable to shake off the effects of the potion well into the lesson.
“I can’t believe she gave you detention, mate. We’re adults now! There has to be some kind of rule against that.” Ron seemed disgusted on Harry’s behalf.
“We may legally be adults, but technically we’re still students. That means the professors can do whatever they like.” Hermione shook her head but shot Harry a sympathetic look which he appreciated. “I suppose you won’t be joining us at the Quidditch pitch tonight, then.”
“Quidditch?” Harry stopped in his tracks and stared at his friends blankly. Hermione rounded on Ron, who blinked and looked back at Harry.
“Did you forget to invite him, Ron?” Hermione scolded.
“No, I did invite him, he must have forgotten.” Ron spluttered. He turned to Harry. “Some of the eighth years are throwing together a makeshift Quidditch match since the eighth years aren’t allowed to actually join the teams because it wouldn’t be fair. I asked if you wanted to play Seeker and you said yes, though I guess we’ll have to find someone new anyway if you have detention.”
Come to think of it, Harry did vaguely recall Ron mentioning something along those lines a couple of days ago, but at the time he’d been so sleep deprived he’d barely stopped himself from putting salt in his tea instead of sugar.
“Oh,” Harry paused. “Sorry, I guess I’ve been a bit out of it these days.”
“Madam Pomfrey helped, though, didn’t she?” Hermione said in the tone of voice that she had which meant she was thinking ‘I told you so’ but she wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“Yeah,” Harry admitted. “I actually don’t have class for a few hours, I think I might go take a nap while I can. Is that alright?”
“Yes, of course. Please get some proper rest, Harry.” Hermione knitted her brows in concern. “You know, I wasn’t going to say this, but Ginny’s been asking after you.”
“What?” At the mention of his ex-girlfriend, Harry grew a little nervous. It felt a little ridiculous, to be worried about what Ginny might have said. After all, they were friends before they started dating, and had agreed to return to being friends again. “What did she say?”
“She’s worried about you, Harry. We all are.” Ron punched Harry’s shoulder. “You’re going to get better now though, yeah?”
“Of course.” Harry forced a smile. He didn’t know if an appropriate sleep schedule would fix the problems he’d been having with being back at Hogwarts, but he was going to try his best to convince his friends that he was just fine. They had enough to deal with, they didn’t have to worry about him too.
With that, Ron and Hermione continued outside to the lake where the weather was nice enough to sit by it and relax for a while, and Harry changed direction to go back to his dorms. Sleep was still clinging to his eyelids - whatever Madam Pomfrey gave him, that was some strong stuff.
He was just rounding a corner when he almost walked face first into someone who was walking incredibly quickly. Thankfully, Harry still had good enough reflexes to side step out of the way, but when he paused to get a look at the person who had very nearly run him over, he was shocked to find Draco Malfoy who hadn’t slowed his pace at all and was quickly disappearing down the hall. That aspect wasn’t what surprised Harry, however, as he very much expected Malfoy to almost barge into someone and continue on his way without an apology or even a second glance in their direction.
From what Harry could see, Malfoy’s usually perfectly kempt hair was dishevelled and despite the swift pace at which he was striding down the corridor, Malfoy was very obviously limping.
For a moment, Harry felt conflicted.
On one hand, he wasn’t the type of person to let someone who had clearly been injured in some way stroll past him without offering his help. Especially when Harry had already witnessed the kind of things Malfoy endured just last night.
On the other hand, this was Malfoy Harry was thinking about.
Stubborn, sarcastic, rude, arrogant, spoiled Malfoy, who’d made it very clear last night that he wanted none of Harry’s sympathy. Besides, it seemed like he was perfectly capable of going to the hospital wing himself if he really needed to. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Harry managed to convince himself that it was completely morally acceptable to move on with his day and go take his nap.
Back in his dorm, Harry slept blissfully and dreamlessly almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. He then proceeded to sleep through the rest of the day’s classes, which he unfortunately did not share with Ron and Hermione who were the only people that were aware he’d returned to his dorm to take a nap, and only opened his eyes again when he got the suspicious feeling in his stomach that he’d slept for much too long.
Fumbling for his glasses, Harry checked the time on a battered wristwatch he’d taken to wearing and swore violently under his breath when he realised that he’d missed all of his lessons for the day and barely had time to grab dinner before he had to go serve detention for Professor McGonagall.
After a very rushed dinner, Harry hurried to Professor McGonagall’s office, hoping that this detention would be a one-time sort of thing. It was nearing eight o’clock, and he longingly stared out the windows where the lights had come on in the Quidditch pitch and he could just about make out streaks of red and yellow flying through the air. Apparently it was a Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match.
Harry knocked on Professor McGonagall’s door.
“You may enter.”
Harry promptly pushed the door open, and was met by Professor McGonagall sitting at her desk with her glasses perched on the end of her nose, sifting through some paperwork.
“Good evening, Mr. Potter. Right on time for detention, I see.”
“Good evening, professor.” Harry quickly walked over to the desk. “Er, so what should I do?”
“You can sit right there and mark those papers for me.” Professor McGonagall nodded to a stack of parchment on the coffee table. “It’s First Year material, which I hope you won’t find challenging.”
Harry obediently sat down and grabbed the first essay on the pile. Soon enough, the office was silent save for the scratch of a quill on parchment and the clock ticking away. Harry was almost grateful for something to focus on, although that something being Quidditch may have made for a more entertaining evening, marking essays from the First Years wasn’t so bad. He quickly lost himself in the business of poring over them and scratching down comments in margins when the door to the office slammed open, causing Harry to jump so hard he spilled his ink bottle over onto a very well-written essay for a First Year.
He barely had time to be irritated, however, as once again, he was met by a flustered Draco Malfoy who, in his hurry, had forgotten manners all together and burst into the office with no warning whatsoever.
“Mr. Malfoy, whatever is the matter with you?” Professor McGonagall gasped out of pure bewilderment.
Malfoy looked an absolute mess.
His hair was as dishevelled, if not more, than earlier when Harry had almost run into him in the corridor, there was a flush creeping up the delicate skin of his pale neck and his cheeks were already stained scarlet. There were dark circles under his eyes, his shirt was untucked, his tie was nowhere to be found, and when Harry squinted hard enough, he could swear he saw a bruise forming high on his left cheekbone.
“I-I’m sorry, professor.” Malfoy stammered. He rummaged through his bag, and produced a crumpled stack of parchment. “This is the assignment you asked for. I know it’s late, but I was held up due to … unforeseen circumstances.”
Malfoy wasn’t stuttering over his words anymore, but there was an unmistakable quiver in his voice that Harry had never really heard before, except for perhaps when he’d been forced to try to kill Dumbledore. It didn’t seem right to compare a situation like this, as mundane as a late assignment, to the horrors of that night, though. Harry pushed the thought from his mind and quickly muttered a spell to clean up the spillage.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to elaborate on what you mean by unforeseen circumstances?” Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry, professor.” Malfoy ducked his head but didn’t go on. With a sigh, Professor McGonagall gestured toward Malfoy.
“Better late than never, Mr. Malfoy.”
A look of relief washed over Malfoy’s face. Harry wasn’t used to Malfoy being so expressive, but he supposed Malfoy had always reserved his cold, expressionless face for him.
“This won’t have any effect on my final mark, will it?” Malfoy asked, a little desperately.
“No, Mr. Malfoy, it will not. But I do hope you hand in your assignments by the given due date next time, because I won’t allow such extensions if this continues.”
“Of course not, professor. Thank you.” Malfoy began to back out of the room, and only then did he notice Harry, who quickly bent his head over the parchment but it was too late. Malfoy had seen him. Harry didn’t really know why he was hiding, but with all the information that he’d encountered about Malfoy within the space of 24 hours was a lot to process. He almost expected Malfoy to say something, or at the very least sneer in his direction, but Malfoy disappeared from the office almost as quickly as he’d entered, only this time he closed the door softly behind him.
“Professor,” Harry looked up. “Why didn’t you ask him what caused him to be held up?”
“I don’t discuss personal matters when other students are present, Mr. Potter. Now, are you about done with those papers because your time is up.”
“Here, I’ll just finish this one and go.” Harry flew through that last essay as quickly as he could, bid his professor goodnight, gathered his things, and left as soon as possible. He felt certain that if he ran, he could catch up to Malfoy, and then maybe he could confront him about … what? Harry didn’t break his stride but the abrupt stop in his train of thought winded him a little.
Still, the voice of doubt in his mind didn’t stop Harry from taking the route to the Slytherin dorms instead of Gryffindor’s, feet echoing through the otherwise empty halls as he steadily sped up. He didn’t know what he intended to say to Malfoy, but he knew he wanted to say something, and so Harry thought he may as well figure it out once Malfoy was standing in front of him.
Luckily for him, Harry managed to turn the corner just as Malfoy started his way into the dungeons. There was no one else around in this part of the castle, as few Slytherins had returned to Hogwarts after the war and those First Years that were sorted there avoided venturing outside of the common room at all unless it was for meals or classes. Harry’s rapid footsteps slowed to a halt, the sound of shoes slapping against marble fading as he registered that Malfoy had stopped in his tracks.
Before he could make sense of what was going on, Malfoy was spinning around on his heel and had his wand aimed at Harry.
For a moment, the two stared at each other. Harry, with his chest rising and falling heavily from practically running across the castle, and Malfoy, who made no move to lower his wand. Harry watched as the dim lighting cast shadows over Malfoy’s face, making his features seem even sharper than they usually did, and for a split second he questioned his decision to follow him. But the moment passed and Malfoy slowly let his wand fall to his side.
“What do you want, Potter?” Malfoy’s voice took on the usual sneer that Harry was accustomed to, but it was lacking any real malice.
“I, er, wanted to talk to you.”
Malfoy raised a perfect blonde eyebrow.
“Go on then.”
“What, right now?” Harry asked stupidly.
Malfoy rolled his eyes.
“No, Potter, why don’t you come in and I’ll make you a cup of tea and we can share a tin of biscuits before you share what’s on your mind?” Malfoy was slowly regaining his arrogant tone of voice and for some reason that pleased Harry.
“You’re a prick, you know that?” Harry wondered if he tried to pick a fight with Malfoy, things would go back to how things were. Before he turned up, tired and defeated at McGonagall’s office with a bruise on his cheek and his uniform messy. Before Malfoy barged past him with unkempt hair and a noticeable limp. Before Harry walked into the hospital wing and spread healing paste on welts that spelled ‘murderer’ on his back.
Harry wanted to say something mean and uncalled for to Malfoy, and he wanted Malfoy to bite back with something equally cruel with a malicious glint in his grey eyes.
He wanted things to be normal.
Instead, Malfoy sighed.
“Go to bed, Potter.” Malfoy said softly.
Without waiting for a response, Malfoy turned back around and walked away.
Harry stared after him.
Malfoy was still limping, and things were certainly not normal.