Meetings in Private
“I take it Professor Snape already told you why I found you standing so peculiar…”
The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher changed the room around from last year’s Golden Moron’s set. For the first time in at least a year the room looked like a classroom, dark wooden desks, a few odds and ends for decorations, no over the top dragon hanging from the ceiling, no weird golden bits throughout the walls, just a normal classroom. Draco felt like he would actually be learning for once, he was fairly excited about it.
“Yes, sir. He did.”
Draco is not, however, excited about this conversation.
“Would you care to explain to me,” Lupin leans against his desk, arms crossed and eyebrow raised expectantly, “If you’re okay?”
The shock on Draco’s face must be a little too clear because the professor smiles and continues.
“Don’t mistake me, Mr. Malfoy, I won’t pry into personal matters so early in the term. Your life outside these walls is not my business unless you choose it to be. Should you decide to talk to me about things, I would be thrilled of course, but given your father, I understand if you don’t.”
“You know my father?”
“I knew him.” Lupin corrects, “He was a few years ahead of us all though. A Perfect when we were first years, and quite terrifying if I remember correctly.”
Draco snorts in spite of himself, “Yeah that sounds like good old dad.”
To his surprise, Lupin smiles. “I’ve heard you have the same glare.”
“Mine is much scarier, Professor. You can never tell if I truly mean it.”
“Keeping your peers on their toes?”
“Always.”
He gets a chuckle out of the man who uncrosses his arms and nods. “Well, Malfoy, it seems to me like you’re in good working condition. Carry on to your dorm, now, you should get some sleep before the first day.”
Draco pauses, not sure about the new affection for the stranger in front of him. Lupin seems trustworthy, he’s never felt so at ease around a stranger before, and the man was in league with Dumbledore, which meant he was in league with Potter. Plus, if it weren't for him stepping in and getting rid of the Dementor... If that much was true then….
“Professor,” Draco begins, things gathered and ready to leave if this does go horribly wrong, “Call me Draco. I am more than my father’s son.”
Lupin grins, “I can see that already.”
He leaves the room feeling a little lighter than he did after the Dementor’s attack. Maybe he could finally get some sleep, hell he deserves some rest after all this. Making his way down the steps and taking a few twists and turns, he starts to get a particularly annoying feeling that he won’t be getting to bed so easily.
Footsteps echo his, slightly off beat, like someone is walking behind him but he can’t see anyone. Not even a shadow. Draco palms his wand, slowing down and trying to think of who. Not Snape or Dumbledore, they would’ve simply called out his name by now. Not Pansy or Blaise, they would’ve linked arms and laughed at scaring him. Not Crabbe and Goyle, they were too heavy footed for the pattern. It couldn’t be Lupin, the man had started lesson plans when Draco walked out. It wouldn’t be his father, Dumbledore would never let him walk alone in the hallways with him in the school. So who is it?
His heart beat picks up. Sirius Black maybe? He couldn’t have gotten in the school though. There was no way for him to sneak in unnoticed. It was impossible…..besides he wasn’t the man’s target….either way the suspense is starting to irritate him so he snatches his wand and whirls around, pointing it into nothingness.
“Show yourself.” He keeps his voice level and calm, if there is an attacker, he’s right by two classrooms. Should something bad happen, he could bunker down in one of those and get help. “I know someone’s there. Stop hiding like a coward and face me.”
Nothing happens, so he waits, wand drawn and ready to strike. And then, to his utter astonishment, he hears a weirdly familiar sign and Harry Potter is appearing out of quite literal thin air.
“You?! Where did you- what? You have an invisibility cloak? Potter what the fuck- “
The idiot rolls his eyes and before he can properly hex him, Draco is being shoved into the classroom on his left. And yes, he does throw a fit about it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I’ll have your head for this! Get your hands off me what the fuck Potter?! I’ll report you so help me Merlin I am going to-“
“Will you shut up for two seconds Malfoy!”
Potter locks the door behind them, after casting a wary glance at Draco he adds a few silencing charms too. Seeing all this does strike a weird chord in his chest, something akin to fear, mixed with a little bit of anger. He keeps one hand on his wand just in case.
“You really never do stop talking, did you know that?”
Draco sneers, fuck being quiet, “Corner me for some old fashioned duel then? If you wanted to hurl insults can’t you wait until there are people present to tell me how wonderfully I embarrass you?”
Potter rolls his eyes for the second time and Draco fears he really might give the other boy a black eye before whatever this is ends.
“Listen, you prat, I’m not here to insult you-“
“Really? Because you’re doing a great job of it.”
“I know about Dobby.” Potter all but yells, in his defense he had to do something to shut Draco up, and it works pretty well considering the boy gapes like a fish. Seizing his opportunity, Potter continues.
“I know you sent him to keep me safe last year, I know you were happy to see him freed, I know you got him a job at the castle, I know you lied to your father about a lot of things last year,I know you’re close with Dumbledore, and I know that despite you being a giant asshole, you tried to save my life multiple times last year.”
Draco doesn’t respond and for a second Potter looks like his plan has backfired, so, a little more quietly, he adds, “I know about the abuse too.”
Oh fuck. Bloody hell, Draco almost screams at him. This is not good. There’s nothing he can say. Nothing he can deny, because Potter knew the truth, or maybe he didn’t. Maybe this was some weird test of sorts. Draco snorts, “You must have hit your head while you were stalking me because I-“
“Cut the crap, Malfoy. I was there. In the Astronomy Tower. I saw everything. I heard everything. You can’t lie to me. Not about this.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Shit! This is Not Good! Draco inhales sharply, then tries to make it look like he’s just breathing and not about to have a full blown panic. Instead of flying off the broomstick, he leans into the desk behind him and crosses his arms, this way he’s grounded. The warmth from his palms flood his arms, the sharp edge of the desk snaps him back to reality. He has to keep this hidden. No matter what he could not be exposed.
“What do you want, Potter?” Draco asks, evenly, as calm as he can manage, quiet to an extent.
It’s not what Potter is expecting. “What do I want?”
“Yes. You’ve caught me, found out some of Draco Malfoy’s dirty little secrets, surely you realize none of those things can be known. They’ve been hidden for a reason, and I’d like to keep it that way so I’m asking what you want. Money? Homework? A winning streak in Quidditch? What will it take to keep that big mouth of yours shut?”
Potter looks at him like he’d just insulted the man's unborn children. “I don’t want any of that! I wasn’t going to tell anyone anyways, no one would believe me. I just want to know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why did you protect me? Why are you and Dumbledore so close? Why do you care about Dobby? Who’s side are you really on?”
Draco shrugs. He could work with that. Some of them were vague enough, if he was lucky he could get out of here without revealing more than he had to.
“I protected you because you’re too stupid to protect yourself, Dumbledore is the headmaster and concerned about all his students. Dobby was a house elf of mine since childhood, and as for sides...I am always on my own side. Whatever is best for me is what I will choose.”
He starts towards the door but Merlin damn him if Potter doesn’t speak once more.
“And the abuse? He knocked you clean out….you didn’t even flinch.”
His back stiffening is a clear sign but before he can retort Potter signs again.
“Look. You asked me what I want. I want us to stop fighting so much. Clearly there are worse things out there than our little rivalry. We could be friends, Draco.”
“That’s Malfoy to you.” Draco turns on his heel, glaring into green eyes. “We cannot be friends, Potter. Let me get that clear that I will never be your friend. I am a Malfoy. I am a Slytherin. There is nothing in this world that could make you and I friends. Not even your stupid Gryffindor pride. If you corner me again, I will hex you into next week and laugh at your tears.” He unlocks the door. “I didn’t flinch because I’m not fucking stupid, something you should take note of.”
And then, before Potter can hold him back even longer, Draco matches out the door and straight down to his bed, where he ignores Blaise and Pansy and all his other friends so he can finally get some fucking sleep.
----------
“You have got to stop hexing people. You’re gonna end up in detention if you don’t.”
Draco shrugs, shoving another spoonful of yogurt into his mouth, Pansy is not impressed.
“Blaise is right, I get that you’ve been a little stressed but you’re starting to lose out house points.”
“I’m being careful, it’s only been a day, hun.”
“Yes and being down fifty points because someone is irritated can put us behind for the whole year.”
He would glare but Blaise is already doing it. A poor imitation, really, Draco could show him a pointer or two, but he knows his friends have a point. His little meeting with Potter on the first day had made him anxious, put him in a completely sour mood, and he took it out on any annoying bastard who dared to get in his way. So far he had only hexed about thirty people, but given that hexing was generally frowned upon, he supposes it's kind of an issue. He had expected to come down to breakfast and see the entire school talking about him, whispering about him being a blood traitor, making fun of him for being thrown around so easily, and yet nothing happened. If anything the gossip around him had been his own doing, Potter really was keeping his mouth shut. Here Draco is, at lunch, and everything is completely normal. Well as normal as it could be, putting on a show of pretending to ignore Potter when he would usually be heckling him was a little bit unusual.
“Alright, fine. I’ll calm down with the hexing, but if you think this means I’m going to start being nice….”
Pansy actually laughs, “Honey, you being nice would be the end of the world.”
At least some things would never change.
“He’s nice to LuLu.”
“That’s because she’s not insufferable like the two of you.”
LuLu picks that exact moment to hop into his lap, meowing at his friends across the table and looking at his chicken like she’s in love with it.
“No, no, no, love, you can’t have any of that. I know you ate today, I saw it at breakfast.”
She glares at him, but makes no further moves towards his plate. Pansy and Blaise stifle their laughter behind coughs, completely giggling when Draco sneaks her a bit of the white meat anyways. How could he deny those sparkly blue eyes?
They part not long after, Blaise and Draco, along with Crabbe and Goyle, waving goodbye to LuLu and Pansy. It had only taken them a few hours to realize how much the thing hates being outside, preferring to lounge by the fires or in bits of sunlight versus the actual sun.
“Did you hear about what happened to Potter this morning?”
Draco almost trips over nothing at Blaise’s question, but quickly catches himself. “No?”
“Apparently,” Blaise laughs, “That old hag Trelawney predicted his death in front of the whole class! I wish I could’ve been there, his face would’ve had us laughing for hours!”
They burst into a bit of chuckling and Draco hopes Blaise can’t tell his isn’t real. Is Potter okay? Even a mistaken death prediction can fuck someone up mentally, it’s never a fun experience, and fucking hell he wished he knew why it made him so worried.
“Maybe he’s still wearing the face, we could still get in a few good laughs before class starts.”
Crabbe and Goyle grin at the two, “We sure hope so.”
Care for Magical Creatures was being taught by that awful giant Hagrid this year and why Draco agreed to take the class he still didn’t know, something about it being required. Idly he wonders if he can get Snape to get him out of it, after all, no one seemed to be able to open their book.
Which, apparently, wasn’t supposed to be an issue.
“How?” he asked for the class after Hagrid instructed them to open it.
“Eh?” came the ever fruitful response. Dear Merlin, his irritation was spiking and he couldn’t even hex anyone now.
“How do we open our books?” Draco repeats, watching in amusement as the class pulls them out, all bound in one way or another, Potter’s with a belt of all things. How annoying.
“Yer, um, yer supposed to stroke them…”
He was going to have a stroke before this class was over with. Hagrid took Granger’s book and opened it with ease after running a finger down it’s spine. It had been that simple? Oh fuck he was gonna blow.
“Oh! How silly we’ve been! We should’ve stroked them!” He turns to Blaise, “Why didn’t we guess that?”
Blaise elbows him, a plea to stop antagonizing a professor. Potter is the one to actually voice what his friend thinks.
“Shut up, Malfoy.”
That’s a familiar sentence. Normal and welcome, so unlike the kind green eyes that begged with him last night, now they were furious, which serves the idiot right for thinking that they could be friends. His real friends stiffen beside him, ready to attack.
Hagrid disappears to grab something he doesn’t pay attention to, so it’s no surprise that Blaise glares back at the insulter as soon as he’s gone.
“Careful, Potter, there’s a Dementor behind you.”
Draco wants to laugh but Hagrid is back and the face Potter makes is enough to get him back in good spirits until he sees what the giant brings with him.
“Hippogriffs! Beauties aren’t they?”
More like the most terrifying thing Draco has ever seen. Larger than a horse, beaks and talons like birds but with the body of a lion and wings, dear Merlin, the size of Draco’s entire body. What the fuck was this oaf thinking?
“Who wants to meet him?”
Draco hears the sentence and immediately swears to the seven circles of hell that if Harry bloody Potter- naturally steps up with his other two idiot friends. Draco’s going to murder him. Crabbe glances at him, biting his lip with worry. “We’re not going to have to ride that thing, are we?” he whispers.
“Merlin, no, it looks like Potter already got that role,” Draco grumbles back.
Potter picks that exact moment to smile at Hagrid and announce “I’ll do it.”
And, it has occurred to him more than once, but he should really pay more attention to his classes.
“Harry!” Lavender and that one Parvati chick whisper, “Remember your tea leaves!”
Maybe Draco should’ve threatened to kill him if he jeopardized his safety last night. Maybe that would’ve kept The Idiot Who Keeps Trying To Die from walking forward and staring directly into the creature’s, Buckbeak, eyes. He glares at the animal like he was daring it to hurt Potter, and then the stupid thing bows and Hagrid is bellowing “Good Job!”
To his absolute horror, the dimwit doesn’t stop there, “You can rid ‘em now Harry!” And before the boy can protest, yes Draco does see the ‘no wait’ trying to slide off Potter’s mouth, Hagrid lifts him and places him onto Buckbeak’s back.
Tell me he isn’t going to - Hagrid gives the beast one pat on the butt and the two are off, soaring over the sky like it isn’t the single most dangerous thing Potter has done. Really! No saddle, no instructions on how to ride it, nothing. Although, if he thinks about it, Potter does something stupid like this every other week . It’s a wonder the boy is still alive at all and it pisses off Draco so much that when they land and Potter is bloody smiling he decides enough is enough.
When Hagrid releases the rest of Buckbeaks’s friends, the whole class pairs up to attempt the same idiotic thing as Potter, and given his luck, Draco winds up with Buckbeak himself.
As much as he hates to admit it, the creature isn’t that bad. Crabbe and Goyle keep a good distance away, enough that he can speak freely.
“You’re really quite stunning up close,” he whispers, “although for a moment you really did scare me. You would never hurt Potter though, would you? I agree that he’s tempting to hex but Merlin having him hurt is a headache for everyone.”
Buckbeak nods, easing his head under Draco’s hand like he’s saying ‘I get it’. It almost makes Draco smile, but then he feels those stupid emerald eyes watching him.
“Annoying,” He continues loudly so that Potter will get his bloody eyes elsewhere. “I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you? Giant beast…”
Buckbeak takes offense and he can feel it, the creature tears it head up, nicking its beak against the wound on his arm and fuck it hurts. Draco flinches back instinctively, clutching the wound to his chest. Fuck he can feel the blood oozing between his finger. To his left, Blaise yells.
“Professor! Draco is-“
Crabbe and Goyle let out screams, it’s only then that he realizes Buckbeak has lost it. Raised on his back legs, talons on the air. Oh fuck please don’t- Hagrid grabs the beast by its neck, and suddenly Draco feels a little light headed. There’s a lot of blood everywhere, dripping through his fingers and staining his robes. Blaise looks horrified, and even Potter and crew look a little concerned. Someone hoists him up in big arms, to his right he vaguely hears Granger say “He needs Madam Pomfrey!” and is suddenly very thankful to have her in this class.
“My father will hear about this!” he tries to warn whoever’s carrying him.
“I know, I know, he’ll hex me won’t he?”
Ah; so it’s Hagrid who’s carrying him. He would be mortified if he wasn’t so thankful to have something warm keeping him from losing his grip on reality.
“No you don’t understand,” he tries again, aware enough to know they’re almost at the castle doors and far away that no one will hear him, “He’ll hear about this and try to-“
“Draco?”
He recognizes the voice as Dumbledore and almost sighs in relief. If anyone could help him now it would be the headmaster.
“Dear heavens child! What happened?” Dumbledore asks, following them to the infirmary. He has to wait for Madam Pomfrey to gasp and tear open the arm of his robes. The room goes cold.
“Hagrid, might I suggest you return to your hut and make sure the Hippogriffs are seen too? I’ll report to you later about Mr. Malfoy’s condition.”
The giant looks like he wants to argue, but there’s no point in resisting Dumbledore, so he turns and goes. Madam Pomfrey bustles over to her medicine cabinet, giving Dumbledore the chance to lean closer.
“Draco, creatures like Buckbeak do not make these types of injuries. I am curious as to what happened.”
Without giving Draco time to respond Madam Pomfrey returns, bandages and ointment in tow. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as he thought it would, as a matter of fact it’s over in the blink of an eye and she leaves the two males alone, as if sensing that a private conversation needed to be had.
“Hippogriff wounds are normally jagged, claws and beaks never make for a clean cut, you see, nor a deep one as they never aim to kill, merely scare off. So tell me, where did this mysterious, perfectly and deeply carved wound come from? And why has it not been healed correctly?”
“It’s nothing, headmaster.”
Dumbledore doesn’t look like he’s buying one syllable of Draco’s bullshit.
“Very well, but until these strange circumstances are uncovered, I’m afraid you’ll have to forgo classes. Oh, and I will be alerting your Head of House of this most unfortunate occurrence.”
And, like some type of fucked up karma, Dumbledore is out of the room before Draco can even think of a protest.