Chapter 3
With almost all eighth years shattered after the war, and banned from playing quiddich for their houses (it was unfair to the younger students), there wasn’t a lot of fun to be had, however McGonagall had set up a few things to try to help them to not drive themselves completely mad. The first of these things was permission to visit Hogsmead whenever they liked, which is how Thursday found Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny, Dean, Neville and Seamus skipping History of Magic to visit the small town. Admittedly, Luna and Ginny shouldn’t have been allowed to leave, however the teachers had started treating them like eighth years after they got back and so rules were bent and backs were turned when they skipped out with the others. Hermione almost never joined them but somehow almost all members of their little gang had decided (separately) that it was imperative that she be there as they had something to tell everybody.
They all settled into a rather large booth in the Hogs Head and Dean placed orders for Butterbeers,
“It’s on the house,” Aborforth told him when he tried to pay. Harry was replaying the image of Draco crying in the strange room (Harry also decided that he needed to come up with a name for it. The room of sadness? The room of secrets?). Small talk was being made about which quiddich team would win the cup this year, Ron said the Cannons, Ginny said the Harpies but Seamus was convinced that it would be the -----. Hermione had out her History of Magic textbook and was reading through next lesson’s chapter for the eighth time, Luna looked out into the distance with a frown, actually it was more a suggestion of a frown, resting between her eyebrows, whispering very softly to herself. Neville held Ginny’s hand under the table and thought that nobody could see but when he met Harry’s eye, Harry winked at him and his ears turned pink.
Harry and Ginny had broken up right after they returned to school, Ginny had said that it honestly wasn’t Harry’s fault, that for some reason she didn’t particularly want to snog anyone as such ever, let alone go any further and when she cast her mind down the track, she thought that Harry was a very snog-and-take-it-further kind of person (which he accepted as the truth and so wasn’t offended by in the slightest) and that she had been thinking about it for a long time and they both agreed that their romantic relationship might not be the best thing for them. Harry loved her company and loved her, and felt like they could have had a happy, comfortable life together, but it was a kind of love that felt more like the way a brother loves his sister. So when she got with Neville, of course he was as happy for them as their best friend should be. Plus they made a perfect couple and he would approve of any sister of dating him.
When the drinks arrived at their table they all thanked Aborforth and proceeded to chug down half of their glasses happily before pausing when Ron asked them all what they had gathered to talk about.
Ginny was the first to answer the question. “Neville and I are together” she blurted, then took a long swig of her drink to avoid answering any questions and Neville got redder, but there were no questions asked as everyone nodded in a half knowing, half accepting manner and Dean pressed a sickle into Ron’s hand, making Ginny blush as well.
“While we are on the topic of people being together,” Seamus started, then he took Deans hand and rose it a little above the table as an explanation. The group reaction was very similar to that of the reaction to Neville and Ginny’s confession, however Ron’s eyebrows arched slightly as he looked between them and Hermione extracted herself from her textbook and looked pointedly at him and he gave Dean’s sickle to her as he said,
“Well alright guys, good for you.” And Seamus smiled at Luna who beamed back at them. I’m glad that went well and thank you, his face said and hers was saying back, see I told you that everything would be OK.
“What’s your news Luna?” Hermione asked softly.
Luna closed her eyes and shook her head, her ghost-frown returning, “maybe I’ll tell you a bit later, I don’t think I’m sure how to word it” she said in her lilting voice. The people at the table OK-ed and nodded and shrugged. And Harry felt quite detached, like he was there the whole time but at the same time he wasn’t. He witnessed it and took it in and felt happy but his mind was too busy thinking about how he could help Draco to really participate much outside of nodding and making encouraging comments when they were called for.
After the rest of a slow-moving day, Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room with a foot of parchment to write for Defence homework PLUS he had to work on his charms project, not to mention catching up on what he had missed in Binn’s class. While he was distinctly not looking forward to writing his essay on the pros and cons of a disarming spell versus those of a stunning spell, and certainly not to copying Hermione’s notes on the mass unicorn slaughter of the late 1830’s in Eastern Europe, he found himself quite exited for his charms assignment. The task was to turn a regular item into something of magical use, to be utilised to make life easier at St. Mungo’s, the wizarding hospital or outside in the general wizarding community. Flitwick had said to his class that the best results would be sent there after he deemed them both useful and safe so Harry had spent ages on attempting to come up with an idea that was worth using. He had purchased a small stuffed bear while in Hogsmead a few days beforehand and had spent the time since trying to work out how to do what he wanted to do.
Four hours, a foot of parchment, half a pot of ink and two games of exploding snap later, Ron and Hermione both said their goodnights to Harry and trudged sleepily up to their respective rooms. Harry was still tinkering with his teddy when they left but soon he too would have to either head off to bed or leave the dorms and start wandering around and tonight the latter sounded more appealing. He had a sufficient supply of Pepper-Up potion that he could use in the morning if need be, even if Hermione and Ginny spent all day telling him that he shouldn’t be reliant on it and that he should try to sleep properly.
After he finally made up his mind at around midnight to go for a walk, he bid goodbye to the portrait of the Fat Lady and, ignoring her protests, began his walk. At least I don’t actually need to stay under my cloak all the time now, he thought, although sometimes on particularly terrible nights he would take it with him anyway.
He marched down a flight of seemingly unfamiliar stairs and found himself somehow outside the entrance to the Slytherin rooms and then quickly turned and scurried away, of course he still wanted to confront Malfoy and ask about what he was doing in the Room of Requirement but not like this. He didn’t want the other boy to think that he was actually looking for him and turning up outside of the Slytherin common would definitely give out those vibes. So he ran back up the stairs, taking them two at a time for good measure and when he spun around the second corner on the way to get out of the castle, he slammed into another person, knocking them backwards so that they both fell, Harry on top. Harry started to panic, what if this was a death eater who wants revenge for him killing Voldemort? What if it’s a ministry official that he just bowled over? What if it’s somebody who wants to tear the castle apart looking for him and he has just walked directly into their waiting arms? Thoughts, and likely irrational ones at that, were racing through his mind at a mile a minute as he rushed to regain his footing to face his attacker.
“Who’s there?” He asked, panic evident in his voice, “Oh, it’s just you, Malfoy,” he breathed after the other person cast a weak Lumos that gently illuminated their face.
“Why are you out again? Did you have another bad dream?” Malfoy asked cruelly, “Poor widdle potty” he sneered.
Harry almost yelled, “Piss off, Malfoy”
“Gladly” he returned, face twisted into a show of just how much he didn’t want to be in ‘Potter’s’ presence.
Yet again Draco strutted towards the direction of the Room of Requirement and Harry actually wondered whether he actually wanted to help Malfoy anymore, now that he was being such an arsehole.
“Wait!” he called after the retreating figure, “I saw you in the Room last night you know.” Harry saw him visibly stiffen. Draco spun around so violently that Harry was surprised that the paintings didn’t all fall off the walls from the shock of it.
“What did you see exactly?” he snarled back, already stalking forward dangerously.
“You.” He went for the shortest, safest answer, the one where he saw himself keeping all of his extremities still attached to the rest of his body in future.
Draco was livid now, he latched a hand into the collar of Harry’s night robes and pulled him forward so that they were standing face to face, almost nose to nose, “I’ll ask you one more time. What. Did. You. See?”
“You were on the floor and you were crying.” Yet again Harry took the concise option, honestly beginning to fear for his balls.
Draco let go of his shirt almost immediately and sunk to the floor and Harry followed suit, sitting next to him with his back pressed into the hard, stone wall behind him.
“It’s alright, you know” Harry whispered into the darkness, Draco must have casted his Nox while Harry wasn’t paying attention.
“Oh yeah, coming from you,” Draco whispered back, and Harry felt the sting of his comment burrow its way down, but he could deal with that later.
“Hey, you can cry if you want to, and I mean this in the nicest possible way- but no one cares. You can cry, you can scream, you can send a letter of absolute hatred to someone, you can murder twelve people and string them out on your washing line if you want. Nobody cares.” Harry stopped, “wait, maybe not the last one, I think the Ministry might care about that,” he corrected, which earned him a short bark of laughter which in turn made him feel quite accomplished.
“But I’ll tarnish the family name, and Merlin knows I’ve already done enough of that. Plus, Slytherins don’t cry. Well more like they don’t show weakness because that weakness can be exploited, why else do you think that I hide in that miserable room?” Malfoy asked.
“Fair call, but that is honestly ridiculous. I know, I know, it’s none of my business and I will leave now if you want as long as you aren’t planning on committing any mass-murders before sunrise because there is only so much I can deal with in one night. You aren’t even allowed to kill one person either, for that matter.”
“You know for ‘The Hero of the Wizarding World’ you really are quite humorous.”
“Thanks,” Harry breathed, standing from his place next to Malfoy, “I think.”
“You’re welcome.” He half smiled, “I think.”
Harry left slowly, he was curious as to what Draco would do after he did leave, and his answer was nothing. He crept up the endless flights of stairs and whispered staccato at the Fat Lady and she welcomed him in, saying how she was glad that he decided to finally get some rest. Sleep that night was blissfully dreamless.
Harry didn’t see Draco the next day before dinner, although not for lack of trying. He hadn’t turned up for either breakfast or lunch and they shared no classes. Even when Harry went out of his way to bypass Draco’s Muggle Studies class (it was a condition of his release that he would take the subject and so he did, albeit begrudgingly) on his way to Defence in the afternoon he was not to be found. He wanted to ask him if he felt any better or if he needed someone to talk to. He couldn’t understand what it was that stirred deep in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Draco but he didn’t think that it was nice. The feeling was almost that of his tiny model Horntail flying around inside his abdomen, hot and flying and more than a little dangerous. And even a little afraid. The dragon was beating incessantly at the thought of the two of them talking to each other in the darkness last night and while it scared Harry, he had to admit that there was something a little thrilling and a lot nice about having a proper, civil conversation with the boy who he had spent seven years throwing curses and hexes and jinxes and threats and sly remarks at.
He skipped history of magic again to continue working on his charms project and to (definitely not) copy Hermione’s potions homework. The small bear sat on his desk as he wrote, watching Harry with its beady plastic eyes until he found his mind wandering so far that he abandoned all efforts to complete the homework- the method for brewing a successful pepper-up potion and started doodling mindlessly on a new sheet of parchment. It was not as if the new potions teacher, Professor Skrewt (all of the eighth years agreed that he had quite an unfortunate name), would care. As much as Harry had hated Professor Snape he almost missed his potions classes and Slughorn had run away soon after the battle, telling Headmistress McGonagall that it was for his health and safety. Hogwarts is the safest place you can be right now Horace, and now that Voldemort is dead there is no need for you to be on the run anyway, she had told him to which he had smiled weakly and said it is more for my health than my safety Headmistress, I intend to stay in retirement this time.
The bear was still looking at Harry as if asking what he was going to do with it. It had to be for children, he had decided that much already hence the teddy, something for children in a position similar to his preferably. Possibly young muggle-born children. An idea washed over him and he pulled out a new sheet of parchment, ignoring what was drawn on the last one, and started writing at a speed comparable to his first Nimbus, this is going to do wonders for somebody, he thought.