Trust
The experience of waking up to Weasley’s face a few centimeters from his own was not one that Draco would remember fondly. It was a bit overwhelming, really—that many freckles and that much red hair. Halfway immobilized and still blearily blinking awake, Draco just groaned.
“Weasel.”
“Ferret,” Weasley replied, far too cheerful.
“No,” Draco said, not really sure what exactly he was objecting to. Weasley’s presence as a whole, perhaps. The cheer, the apparent civility. The sinking realization that he was likely there to help Draco.
Draco rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. Weasley tutted. “Come on, up you get. Wouldn’t want to be late for breakfast, would we?”
“Not hungry.” It would have been a brilliant lie, really, if his stomach hadn’t chosen that precise moment to growl.
“Obviously not,” Weasley poked him. “Up. Food. Now.”
He almost considered complying, but then a horrible mental image crossed his mind of Weasley spoon-feeding Draco his breakfast. Draco shuddered. “Can’t exactly eat right now, can I?”
“‘Mione is already on top of it, mate. She guessed that you’ve been drinking some sort of nutrient potion, since you can’t use your hands?” Draco nodded against the pillow, ignoring how weird it was to be called ‘mate’ by Ron Weasley and fretted about by Hermione Granger. “She’s getting it sorted with Pomfrey. In the meantime, you need—to—get—up,” Weasley said, poking at him between each of his last words.
“Alright, already! Get your grubby fingers off me!” Draco sat up with a huff. “Merlin, not all of us are as obsessed with food as you are.”
“I’m the one doing you a favor, here.” Ah, there was the irritation that Draco was so used to. It was refreshing to hear. Draco reveled in it for a moment before conceding that Weasley also had a point. He couldn’t exactly ask anyone else to help him get to class that morning—his Slytherin friends hadn’t returned for their eighth year and nearly everyone else at the school hated him. Golden Trio it was, then. But he was slowly waking up, coming to his senses, and first—
“Why?” Draco asked as he stood, drawing himself up to full height. He wanted to brush his hair back, but his arms felt even stiffer than they had before his full night of restless sleep. He tossed his head to at least get his bangs out of his eyes, then leveled his chin at Weasley. “Why are you helping me?”
“Merlin knows,” Weasley muttered, casting cleansing and grooming charms at him. A quick spell exchanged his pajamas for a pair of fresh robes. Weasley turned and grabbed Draco’s book bag from the desk, shoving textbooks in at random. He turned back to Draco and pulled up short.
Draco hated it. He wanted to put up an act and treat the situation as though he had gained a house elf at his beck and call, but he couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t bring himself to parade around Hogwarts this year like the haughty, unrepentant yet “reformed” Prince of Slytherin that everyone expected him to be.
He was repentant and he was really reformed, but that didn’t mean he could just forget his past and move on. Draco knew that. Better to stay quiet and out of everyone’s way. Any toe out of line would spark every hateful fire that he’d spent all of term trying to stamp out.
And now, Weasley was helping him. For all he knew, Draco’s injuries had come from an attack on Potter. Or perhaps Weasley thought that Potter had attacked Draco—Draco, the ex-Death Eater— first. Either way, Draco stood there, fully awake and intimately aware of how wholly undeserving he was.
“Why?” Draco repeated.
The Weasel swallowed visibly, seeming to gather his thoughts. “I trust Harry,” he said after a pause. That at least suggested that he wasn’t helping out of second-hand guilt. “And Harry cares about you.”
That hit Draco like a ton of bricks. He didn’t even care about the way Weasley had said it with that unattractive wrinkling his nose. Potter cared about him. The feeling was reciprocated, of course—if that wasn’t already obvious from weeks worth of soothing him to sleep—and he might have known it objectively, but to hear it come from Weasley’s mouth… it somehow made it real. Believable.
“How much do you know?” Draco had to ask. There were clearly things to know about the situation if Potter was asking his friends to look after his ex- school rival, but Draco didn’t know how much he’d clued Weasley and Granger in on.
“I know that Harry cares about you,” Weasley repeated, “And that you’re hurt and need our help.”
“That’s it?” Draco asked. It was that simple?
Weasley shrugged. “If the war taught me anything, it was that Harry’s got good instincts. So yeah, that’s it.”
Noble, self-sacrificing instincts that nearly get him killed half the time, Draco amended mentally. But okay, he could accept that answer. Draco had grown up since the war ended. Granger had proven to have dropped plenty of her nosy pre-war habits, not prying at all the night before. Maybe Weasley had matured, too.
Weasley clearly hadn’t gotten over his fixation for breakfast, though, as evidenced by the way his eyes kept sliding toward the door. Draco broke, finally. “Alright, Weasel, let’s go eat.”
Weasley went to hand him his bookbag, then stopped, holding it halfway awkwardly. “Er— it’s your arms, right? Do they hurt?”
“No. They just refuse to do what I tell them to. They’re healing, but weak.”
With a thoughtful narrowing of his eyes, Weasley stepped forward and draped the strap of the bag over Draco’s shoulder. “Is that okay, then?”
“Yes,” Draco said, and it was. Better than okay, if he was being honest. It didn’t hurt—which was the answer to Weasley’s question— but it went deeper than that. His life had been turned upside down in the last few days, and even with the unresolved issues still at hand (Potter, his arms), this was good. He felt the most normal that he had in a while, dressed in his school robes, about to get breakfast, bag over his shoulder, and heading to class later.
“Do you need anything else?” Merlin, even the imminent promise of food wasn’t enough to distract Weasley from the task at hand. Draco was impressed. He casted his gaze around his room, double checking.
“Those scrolls on the nightstand, the ones with the exercises on them? And my wand, please.” Even if he couldn’t actually use it, he felt better keeping it with him. Weasley tucked the items into the side pocket of Draco’s bag and they headed out the door.
It was strange, walking with Weasley to breakfast. Draco was used to getting up early, sneaking down back hallways, nipping into the kitchens for a bite of food, and heading to class at the last possible second. Instead, the corridors were busy, and Weasley led him down the main ones towards the Great Hall. Pairs of curious eyes followed them. They received more questioning looks than accusatory glares, but Weasley treated them all equally, acting like a guard dog, staring down anyone that so much as glanced their way.
Draco had no idea how to handle it. He opted for not handling it at all and went along with it, acting like it was perfectly normal to be walking to breakfast with Ron Weasley, where they would presumably meet Hermione Granger and sit down to eat together. His mind derailed onto its favorite track as of late—would Potter be there? Was Potter alright? Draco regarded Weasley carefully. He probably knew. Harry cares about you, echoed through his mind. Well, Draco cared about him too.
“How is he?” Draco asked. Weasley scoffed under his breath, looked up at the ceiling.
“Absolutely brilliant.”
“That bad?”
“He claims he wasn’t hurt in… whatever happened,” Weasley said, glancing at Draco before focusing on the ground. “But he’s not making it very easy to believe him. Seems hurt, but won’t let us check him over or anything. Avoids us as much as possible. You’ll see, I guess.”
“Will I?” Draco hadn’t seen Potter since the night in the hospital wing and hadn’t sensed his magic since the night before. All that he’d been able to see was the avoidance bit that Weasley had mentioned.
Weasley could only shrug helplessly. They walked in silence for a moment.
“It wasn’t a fight,” Draco said quietly. He wasn’t about to spill all of his secrets about Potter, but he felt an inexplicable need to set the record straight on this. “It was an accident. I didn’t attack him and he didn’t attack me.”
The expression on Weasley’s face was hard to name. “That’s what Harry says, too.” He pushed open the door to the Great Hall, holding it open for Draco. With a deep breath, Draco walked through.
--
Harry stepped into the Great Hall, eyes landing on Malfoy immediately. He was getting settled at the Gryffindor table with Ron, a source of unrest for all of the other students in the Hall. They shifted in their seats, whispering amongst themselves and throwing curious looks towards the pair.
It wasn’t so much that a Slytherin was eating at the Gryffindor table—House tables were more of a formality than anything, these days. McGonagall had encouraged intermingling at meals in the name of House Unity, only requiring students to actually sit with their houses at holiday feasts.
No, the issue was that Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley were sitting together, talking quietly. Ron actually laughed at something Malfoy said, then reached over and took the bag from Malfoy’s shoulder, setting it on the ground behind them. Their audience tittered.
Harry walked towards them. He could see the exact instant that Malfoy sensed that he was there, watching as he froze, everything stiff. Ron saw it too, furrowing his eyebrows and leaning towards Malfoy, whispering something. Malfoy replied, then Ron turned to face Harry, a hesitant smile breaking across his face. He turned back to Malfoy and whispered something else. Malfoy nodded, still facing the table. Then he turned, facing Harry.
They took each other in for a moment, emotions swirling between them. Worry. Relief. Guilt from Harry, anger from Malfoy.
Harry worked his way around the table, feeling Malfoy’s gaze on him the entire way. He sat across from the pair of them. “Morning,” he tried, wincing internally. As if he could just greet them normally. As if this was a normal situation to be in. Malfoy just looked at him.
“Morning,” Ron said. They had barely gotten through the greetings and it already felt like a dead end to the conversation. They sat there awkwardly for a moment, Harry avoiding Malfoy’s eyes and Ron shifting uncomfortably.
“Where’s Hermione?” Harry asked.
“She was talking to Pomfrey—actually, speak of the devil, there she is.” Hermione was striding across the Great Hall to their table, bag over her shoulder. As she reached them, her narrowed eyes indicated that she had taken note of the tense atmosphere of the group. She slid into the seat next to Malfoy.
“Gentlemen,” she greeted them, setting her things down. She looked around the Hall, noticing the renewed attention the group had since her arrival. Harry imagined the headlines: The Golden Trio Extends Olive Branch to Ex-Death Eater. Drawing her wand, Hermione cast a Muffliato and the conversations around them faded to a soft hum. A mild Notice Me Not charm was enough to get most people to stop watching them. “That’s better.”
The three boys looked at her, all too happy to let her take the lead in this new, weird dynamic they had. She grabbed a cup and began pouring pumpkin juice into it, then raised her eyebrows at them. “Well?” They snapped to it, Ron and Harry piling food onto their plates.
She turned to Malfoy. “Madame Pomfrey gave me a nourishing potion for you to take instead of eating. She said that we could just pour it into a drink because the taste is a bit foul on its own. It goes tasteless when mixed, though.” Hermione turned to rifle through her bag, emerging with a vial full of a sickly yellow liquid.
“Thank you.” Malfoy wrinkled his nose at it. “She never let me mix it with anything else in the hospital wing, but maybe she just wanted me to suffer.”
Hermione chuckled. “I can testify that she was not very happy about discharging you.”
“I barely escaped,” Malfoy said.
“Really though, I don’t know what she was thinking, keeping you for so long. Everything but your arms were fine after a day, weren’t they? That’s no reason to keep you from classes. We have NEWTs approaching.”
“A sucker for gossip, that one, and I wouldn’t give her any,” Malfoy said with a wry grin.
Hermione pushed the cup of pumpkin juice towards him, then uncorked the vial. She stopped. “Harry?”
Harry stared at her, then looked down. Oh. His hand was around her wrist, keeping her from pouring the potion. With a very conscious command, he uncurled his fingers one by one, releasing her.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry.” Oh, Merlin, he could feel a blush taking over his face. Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy were all staring at him. “Sorry, it’s just, er— Malfoy doesn’t like pumpkin juice.”
“I don’t?” It was the first thing Malfoy had said to him since he sat down.
Harry grabbed a cup, then reached for the coffee pot. “I— well, no. There was that time—third year, I think— Parkinson switched out your orange juice for pumpkin juice and you nearly vomited all over the table. Hilarious, honestly, but it was obvious—” Harry cut himself off, face burning even more than before. He held out the cup of coffee that he had poured—milky with a dash of cinnamon. Weird way to drink coffee, if anyone was asking Harry, but it was how Malfoy liked it. “Here.”
There was an awkward beat. Malfoy could only look down at the cup Harry held outstretched. Ron’s mouth was slightly open in disbelief. Hermione had her puzzle-solving face on, looking back and forth between the two. Finally, Hermione reached out, took the cup and set it in front of Malfoy.
Right. Malfoy couldn’t move his arms.
“Malfoys never vomit, Potter,” Malfoy was saying, but Harry wasn’t listening.
Malfoy couldn’t move his arms because of Harry.
Hermione was pouring the potion into Malfoy’s coffee. Ron conjured a metal straw and stuck it into the cup, making some sort of joke. Hermione laughed.
Harry was dangerous to be around.
Merlin, what was he even doing in the Great Hall? He was planning on attending classes that day. What had he been thinking? He remembered waking up to the shout of his name, seeing Malfoy sprawled across the ground, limbs at strange angles, bloodied and burnt. That had happened while he was asleep; who knew what could happen even when he was awake? He had such little control over his magic these days.
A sharp kick to his shins brought him back to the present. Malfoy was looking pointedly at him. He realized his silverware was rattling violently against the table. With some difficulty, he concentrated on it, trying to reign his magic back in. His fork and knife stilled.
Horrified, Harry stood. He had to get out of there.
“Harry?” Hermione asked, a nervous edge to her voice. He ignored her. He had tried, and it hadn’t worked, and now he had to leave.
Grabbing his bag, Harry fled.