Chapter 3
“Did you and my sister have a row or something?” Ron asked Harry the next day at breakfast.
“Took him three days to notice,” muttered Hermione from her seat at Harry’s other side.
“Or something,” mumbled Harry.
It was just as well, because Ron didn’t really seem to be listening.
“She looks like someone just killed her Pygmy Puff, and keeps shooting you these... glares, you know,” whispered Ron, apparently convinced he was supplying Harry with new information. His eyes narrowed, though, as he turned to inspect Harry’s face. “Actually,” he said slowly, and Harry gulped. “You two have been kind of weird for some time now. You didn’t dump my sister, did you?”
“Well...”
Sighing, Ron graciously raised a hand. “Nah, mate, you don’t have to tell me what it was about. Just tell her you’re sorry, and make up, yeah? ‘Cause if not, I’d have to beat you up, you know.”
“Er...”
“I mean, I’m her older brother, right? Just so we’re clear,” said Ron in what Harry thought was probably a warning tone. Then, he shrugged and bit into his toast. “You’re still just about the only bloke I could accept as my brother-in-law, by the way. Pass me the pumpkin juice, will you?”
“... Yeah...” Harry said as he handed Ron the jug with pumpkin juice. He looked down at his own plate, prodding at his cornflakes, and feeling guilty beyond measure.
At least the sky seemed to agree with him that this day was not going to be a good one – the bewitched ceiling of the Great Hall was dark with grey clouds.
From the corner of his eye he could see Ginny at the other side of the table, looking glum and tousled, with visible shadows under her eyes. Neville was beside her, as well as a few girls from her year, apparently trying to engage her in conversation, but not really succeeding.
This was the way Ginny had been ever since Harry had broken up with her. Occasionally, she would glance his way, but not exactly to glare as Ron had said – they were just looks of resignation. Apart from several awkward instances in which their gazes had met, both she and Harry had been avoiding each other like the plague.
Yet, Ron expected him and Ginny to get married. He expected that Harry would become family – actual family, and not just a close family friend. What would he say if he knew that Harry had, technically, dumped Ginny, and that there was no chance of them ever getting back together? Would he accuse Harry of stringing Ginny along? Would he be wrong?
Harry was mulling over that when he felt a hand squeeze his knee. He blinked at Hermione in question.
“Eat, Harry,” she commanded with a pointed look at his soggy cornflakes. Her hand retracted with a final pat to his knee. “And don’t worry – it will turn out alright.”
“Ron is going to kill me when he finds out,” Harry muttered dejectedly as he and Hermione claimed a worktable in the corner of the Potions classroom. Slughorn had paired them off at the beginning of the lesson, which Harry took to mean that the potion they would be making today was a difficult one.
“No, he isn’t,” countered Hermione in a patient tone. “Ron’s an idiot, but you’re his friend – he will understand. Crush the snake fangs, Harry.”
Consulting the blackboard on which Slughorn had magically written the brewing instruction, Harry put six snake fangs in his mortar and started crushing them using a pestle. They were making the Wound-cleaning potion, apparently.
“I think you should talk to Ginny first, though,” said Hermione. She dropped a porcupine quill into their cauldron, and began stirring. Harry could hear her counting the stirs under her breath.
“And what will I say to her? I’m not even sure if... I don’t know what she’s thinking,” he muttered at last. He put the pestle away. While he thought he did a fine job of crushing the fangs into a powder, Hermione picked the mortar up to examine it, anyway. Seemingly satisfied, she added the powder to the cauldron.
“You will say to her what you didn’t say the last time,” she replied simply. Stirring again, she added in a softer voice, “You can’t avoid each other forever. Ginny isn’t really cross with you... well, maybe she is, a little,” she conceded when Harry just stared at her. “But mostly, she’s just embarrassed and unsure, and – well, hurt.”
They noticed Ernie MacMillan heading their way, supposedly to fetch some ingredient from the cupboard a little ways behind their worktable, and busied themselves with the potion until he walked past. Then, Hermione continued in a whisper, “Look at it from her point of view – things seemed to be going well between you two. We all thought so, as well. Ginny was completely smitten... and suddenly, you tell her you don’t feel the same way. She was confused...”
“It wasn’t that sudden,” defended Harry, for lack of anything else to say. Under the heavy weight of Hermione’s gaze on the side of his head, he offered, “I’ll cut the ginger roots.”
“Just talk to her,” was all Hermione said in response.
With the cut ginger roots merrily boiling in the cauldron, they were instructed to leave the potion to brew for twenty to twenty-five minutes.
Harry and Hermione were soon joined by Ron, whose potion was apparently at the same stage.
“Nott is a complete plonker, I’m telling you,” he complained, only to be instantly scolded by Hermione.
“Ron!” she hissed.
“What? He is!”
She shook her head at him, looking disapproving. “Did he even do anything to you? Theodore Nott is a perfectly polite, studious boy. You’re just being a prejudiced idiot, because he’s a Slytherin.”
While Ron mumbled something about ‘arrogant and annoying, anyway’, Harry looked at Nott. The other boy was sitting at his and Ron’s current worktable, hunched over a book that wasn’t a copy of Advanced Potions-Making. Nott was thin and gangly, and there was always a weedy look about him, as though he’d just been cured of some malady. Aside from Malfoy, who was curiously absent today, he was the only Slytherin left in the Potions class.
“... and why are you defending him so much, anyway?” Ron was asking Hermione suspiciously, when Harry turned his attention back to them.
“Stop your train of thought right there, Ron,” ordered Hermione. She rolled her eyes before explaining, “As it happens, in the spirit of inter-house cooperation, Professor Babbling has decided to partner off each of us in Ancient Runes to a student from a rivalling House for the rest of the term. I happened to be paired with Theodore Nott. That is all – so quit with the absurd theories, Ron.”
“Fine,” said Ron, looking flustered. “But if he starts chatting you up, you’ve got to tell me. I’ll show him...”
“Ron, that’s ridiculous. He’s got no interest in me, whatsoever...”
Sighing in an aggravated manner, Harry opted to tune them out again – there was no end to Hermione and Ron’s bickering once they got started. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) Slughorn chose that moment to appear at their worktable.
“And what have we got here?” he queried jovially, peering into Harry and Hermione’s cauldron. “Well, seems just about flawless at this stage! Excellent consistency, and a brilliant rosy colour... Oh, one thing, however... Ahh...” He nodded to himself; Hermione (who had stopped speaking in mid-sentence as soon as Slughorn showed up) was breathless with anticipation. “Yes, yes, it’s quite a shame... It appears that this Wound-cleaning potion is just a smidgen short of cut ginger roots. See, here – otherwise, the surface of the liquid would glisten with red under certain light. Ah, better luck next time, Harry, Miss Granger! Still, a very good attempt...” Patting his enormous belly, Slughorn strolled away to check on Ernie and Padma Patil’s progress.
Ron (whose presence Slughorn seemed to have just missed completely) must have sensed a change in Hermione’s mood, because he scampered off to his and Nott’s table.
When Harry turned to look at her, Hermione seemed rather peeved indeed.
“Harry! How many ginger roots did you cut?” she demanded.
“Three, just like it said on the blackboard!” he insisted. “It isn’t my fault that the roots were kind of small...”
Half an hour later, when they finished brewing the potion, Hermione was still tetchy with him. Harry was just glad he hadn’t botched their potion completely, but he felt it would be wise to stay quiet.
Slughorn seemed rather disappointed when he examined their concoction, which was something Harry had come to expect. There was no getting around it – without the Half-Blood Prince’s book, Harry was shoddy at best at Potions, and Hermione had just had to pull his weight. Despite this, Slughorn’s partiality towards him shone through. He still clearly believed Harry was a Potions prodigy, and although he couldn’t understand where the sudden incapability was coming from, he appeared to think it was just a temporary phase.
While Ron often made fun of Harry for this, Hermione just seemed even more annoyed.
She was in a right state when they exited the Potions classroom, along with the other students.
“When are you going to tell him about that stupid book?” she barked.
“Hermione—”
“I hope soon – because if you don’t tell him, I will.”
“Oh, come on,” said Ron. “Like Slughorn would believe you over Harry.”
This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, but fortunately they were interrupted before Hermione could snarl a retort.
“Harry! Hi, Harry!” a voice called from the courtyard, and they turned in that direction. It was Luna Lovegood. Although the distance between them was rather short, when Luna finally trotted up to them, she was out of breath.
“Alright there, Luna?” said Harry. They all stepped closer to the wall so as not to be trampled by the passing students.
Luna was still catching her breath, resting her hands on her knees. “Oh, yes, I’m – I’m quite well. I haven’t had this – this kind of workout in a lifetime... Makes you feel rather fresh and frisky, did you know? Hello, Ronald and Hermione.”
“It was just a few feet distance,” Ron said with some exasperation as Luna finally straightened.
She blinked her bulging eyes at him. “Yes, Ronald,” she agreed.
“Did you want something, Luna?” asked Hermione impatiently.
“Well, yes,” said Luna in her dreamy voice. “I wanted to say hi to Harry. But I suppose I’ve just done that, didn’t I? Oh, and I thought I would tell you about the Wrackspurts floating around your head, Hermione.”
For a moment, Hermione looked like she might make a sharp retort, but she held back. “I’ve got Arithmancy to go to. See you later,” she said before she spun on her heel and walked off.
“Don’t mind Hermione – I made her kind of angry earlier,” Harry felt compelled to say. Luna looked curious instead of offended, though.
“That’s okay. I did just tell her about the Wrackspurts.”
“Is this a dead spider?” Ron’s voice was strangled as he pointed at something black and hairy dangling from Luna’s neck. Harry had noticed him eyeing her new necklace, but he had rather hoped Ron wouldn’t ask about it.
“No, it isn’t,” said Luna, now frowning a little. “It’s a Clinking Hexapie. And it isn’t dead, it’s only sleeping.”
Although Harry was almost certain it was a dead spider, he definitely didn’t feel like arguing about it with Luna. As Ron asked sceptically what Clinking Hexapies supposedly do, Harry looked about himself in search of a different topic... And he found one fairly quickly.
“Him again!” muttered Harry to himself, his attention caught by a flash of blonde hair. He walked over to stand by a pillar, from where he had a better view on the grounds near Hagrid’s hut – and sure enough, there was Malfoy, with five or six white, dragon-like creatures flying around him. The sky was getting darker; it was about to rain. “What’s he doing there?”
“Who?” Ron stepped closer, still looking a bit green. “What, you mean Malfoy?” he asked after Harry just pointed with his hand.
“Who else?”
Ron squinted into the distance. “Seems to me like he’s feeding those things, or something. See, he’s carrying a bucket – bet you there’re dead ferrets inside,” he said, smirking.
“Yeah, but – don’t you think it’s queer? Malfoy doing that? Why the devil is he doing that?”
“Well, I reckon Hagrid probably told him to...”
Harry stared at him blankly, but it was Luna who shed some light on the matter. (Harry had only vaguely noticed when she had come to stand beside him.)
“Actually, it’s because the Ministry told him to,” she told him serenely. “It’s a condition of his probation. Draco’s been made Hagrid’s assistant, so he has to help Hagrid look after the creatures. Personally, I think that’s a lovely pastime.”
“Are you joking?” Harry laughed. “Oh, he must hate this!”
“You mean, you didn’t know?” Ron was befuddled. “It was all over the papers! Me and Hermione spent half the summer taking the piss out of it!”
Harry suspected it was more along the lines of Ron taking the piss as Hermione frowned at him, but he let it slide. “Well, it’s not like I read the papers anymore. You would stop too, if every paper you took had your face plastered on it,” he commented. “Besides, you and Hermione were kind of busy most of the summer, so we didn’t really talk much, if you remember...”
After a pause, Ron shrugged somewhat guiltily, and Harry winced at himself. Great, he thought. Now he sounded like a resentful child denied of his parents attention.
Luna was there to break the uncomfortable silence. “I think he quite enjoys it,” she said placidly, and Harry realised after a second she was talking about Malfoy. He looked again; Malfoy was throwing what seemed to be chunks of meat into the air, for the dragon-looking beasts to snatch them midflight. “Otherwise, I imagine he wouldn’t keep missing classes to do this. Then again, maybe he’s affected by Wrackspurts, too. They do seem to like his company.”
Despite knowing Luna for a few years now, Harry still wasn’t sure how to deal with her eccentricity sometimes. “Yeah, he bunked off Potions today,” he conceded at last.
The possibility that Draco Malfoy might be anything but miserable didn’t seem to sit right with Ron. “Who cares what the slimeball does, anyway?” he muttered peevishly. “He can clean Hipogriff dung for the next ten lifetimes, as far as I’m concerned. Hope he gets sick of it by then.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Luna said with a smile. Ron eyed her like he’d never seen her before.
“You expect me to say nice things about Malfoy?” he drawled out the word as though it had an unpleasant taste. “Luna, he was Death Eater – the only thing nice about him is that he keeps bunking off, ‘cause then we don’t have to look at him as much. The bloke had you locked up in his basement for a month, for Merlin’s sake!”
“If you say so,” Luna said dreamily.
“I saw him walking with a Thestral yesterday,” remarked Harry. “I thought he was trying to sneak out on it, or something.”
“Oh, no, why would Draco want to do that?” Luna looked genuinely puzzled. She shook her blonde head. “It had to be Tenebrus. He broke his hind leg a few days ago, so Draco probably took him out for a walk. Tenebrus is an old boy now, so his healing takes more time, you see.”
Harry didn’t really see. Since when did Draco Malfoy care about creatures other than himself? As far as he knew, Malfoy had never showed aptitude for dealing with animals, either (the Buckbeak incident was ingrained in Harry’s mind). Actually, Harry was fairly sure Malfoy hadn’t even passed his Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L.
Well, it wasn’t Harry’s business if Malfoy fancied himself a wildlife connoisseur now. It was certainly an improvement over the plotting Death Eater-Malfoy of the last two years.
Wanting to clear his mind, Harry shook his head. “Do you have a free period now, Luna?” he asked.
“That’s right,” she said, before turning her misty smile on him. “Unless you wanted me to say I don’t, so that I would leave. That would be okay too, really.”
Ignoring Ron’s imploring face over Luna’s shoulder, Harry went on, “Er, no. Ron and I were going to see Neville in the greenhouses, so I actually wanted to ask if you wanted to come, too...”
“Oh, I’d love to!” Luna beamed. “I promised Neville I’d show him this Clinking Hexapie pendant, anyway. To think he didn’t believe me when I said they exist...”
Barely had they managed to hide inside Greenhouse Four, when it started pelting down with rain.
Regardless of the weather, Neville still looked excited (if a little tired) upon seeing them enter. It turned out that he’d been assisting Professor Sprout with the fourth-years today, which demanded re-acquaintance with the nasty affair that was Bubotuber pus. Not that Neville complained. In fact, it was quite the opposite, as Neville insisted with fervour that serving apprenticeship as a Herbology teacher was proving to be the most interesting time he would have in years.
They parted on friendly terms, having reminisced about the various stunts they had pulled during Dolores Umbridge’s reign of Hogwarts, and about the wicked tasks in the Triwizard Tournament. It was Harry who checked the time twenty minutes before the next class, and reminded Ron they had Transfiguration next. Luna, in a true Luna fashion, suddenly and noisily recalled she had class as well.
Since Neville still had one more Herbology lesson to supervise alongside Professor Sprout, he bid them all goodbye and stayed at the greenhouses.
Outside, it was still raining heavily.
“There’s a secret entrance by the courtyard, through the boys’ toilet,” said Ron to Harry and Luna over the noise of the downpour; Harry knew what entrance he was talking about. “I say, let’s go that way – it’ll be fastest.”
“You two go,” said Harry. “I’ve still got to get my Transfiguration book, so I’m gonna go through the Entrance Hall. Otherwise, I’ll be late for class.”
“Mate, you’ll be drenched by the time you get there,” said Ron in a unusual show of compassion.
“It’s fine, I’ll just use the Drying Charm,” replied Harry.
“Alright, see you in Transfiguration then,” Ron called before he and Luna took off towards the courtyard. Stealing himself for a long, unpleasant soak, Harry headed for the main entrance of the castle. The visibility was dreadful, and the ground soppy. Despite what he’d told Ron, Harry had a pessimistic thought that by the end of this ordeal even the most efficient Drying Charm wouldn’t save him from a flu. His feet were drenched inside his shoes.
He was climbing a slight uphill, actually grabbing at grass so as not to slide down (and cursing himself for thinking that taking this route in such weather would be a good idea) when he heard it: a shrill, ringing cry, by far louder than the pouring rain.
Harry paused, straining to listen, but no such sound came again. Still, he felt unease creep up his spine – the shriek sounded human. Was someone being hurt? Why did they not cry out again?
Without pondering this any further, Harry let himself slide down the slight slope, before landing on his feet and racing in the direction from which he thought the shriek came.
It wasn’t easy to navigate and separate sounds in heavy rain, but somehow, Harry managed it. He ended up somewhere near Hagrid’s hut (he recognised the surroundings) and stopped in his tracks upon seeing the scene several yards in front of him. There, a tall figure dressed in a black cloak was standing, seemingly being assaulted by a small flock of large, white birds – no, not birds, thought Harry. They were the dragon-like creatures he’d seen Malfoy feeding an hour back.
God, Malfoy was a prick, thought Harry. Somehow, he knew that in some way Malfoy was involved in this.
Harry broke into a run.
In spite of the raindrops on his glasses blurring his vision, he could see that one beast had seized the cloaked and hooded person’s forearm in its talons. Not slowing down, Harry watched through squinting eyes as the person threw out their arm, dislodging the creature. It instantly took flight, joining its kindred in circling above the cloaked man (for Harry was now fairly sure the silhouette wasn’t that of a woman).
In the next moment, however, another beast was swooping down. Deciding he was near enough to use magic, Harry raised his wand in mid-run, aimed, and uttered the first spell that came to his mind.
“Expelliarmus!”
The creature, with its legs outstretched to bear down on the man’s shoulder, was instantly knocked down. Ear-splitting shrieks erupted from above. Harry, wand trained on the four outraged beasts still soaring in the air, was now at the cloaked man’s side and he made to grab his arm, when the person whirled on him.
“Are you mad?” Draco Malfoy snarled, shoving him away. Dumbfounded, Harry lost his balance and fell to the muddy ground.
“Malfoy?” he yelped. The beasts were still shrieking; Harry suddenly knew it wasn’t a person crying out earlier, but these creatures.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Potter?”
Harry scrambled back to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing? I thought you were – you were –”
“I was – I was?” mocked Malfoy. “Put your wand away already, for fuck’s sake.”
Reluctantly, Harry lowered his wand from the beasts now angrily flapping their wings, however he kept watching them from the corner of his eye.
A few feet away, Malfoy was kneeling by the white, dragon-looking creature that had been hit by Harry’s spell. Slowly, the creature rose to a crouch, supporting itself on clawed wings. Malfoy held out his arm and whistled, but the beast just eyed him balefully, turned away, and rose to a wobbly flight. It soared away to a small cave close by, where it hid from sight. Malfoy ran a hand through his wet hair as he stood up; at some point, his hood had fallen off.
Harry noticed that the other four creatures seemed to have calmed down slightly at last. In fact, he thought that they now looked more curious than angry, but then Harry wasn’t an expert on creature behaviour. Two beasts had perched on a nearby tree, while the other two awkwardly landed on the ground and started crawling towards Malfoy. Harry thought of it as crawling, because these creatures (unlike dragons) had no arms – they only had clawed digits in their wings, which they used to support themselves with when they moved on the ground. Harry was reminded of a picture of a pterodactyl he’d once seen in Dudley’s atlas of dinosaurs.
Once more, Malfoy raised his arm and whistled, and this time one of the crawling beasts beat its wings and obediently flopped onto his forearm.
“What are they?” asked Harry as he warily came closer.
“Wyverns,” muttered Malfoy, petting the creature.
And wasn’t that a strange sight – Malfoy petting a creature. Harry couldn’t recall seeing him pet even his eagle owl.
Holding out his arm, like he’d just seen Malfoy do, Harry clucked his tongue a few times at the Wyvern still sitting on the ground.
Nothing happened. The Wyvern seemed to be more interested in a worm it had found lying at its feet. With a glance, Harry confirmed his suspicions that Malfoy was currently staring at him like he’d never seen anyone as idiotic.
“Er, I get it they aren’t much like owls then?” said Harry.
“No,” said Malfoy.
Harry ignored Malfoy’s insistent stare as he crouched in front of the Wyvern. He figured if he could make eye contact with the creature, then perhaps he could make it understand what he wanted it to do – and right now, he wanted it to get onto his outstretched arm so that Malfoy could stop looking at him like at a complete dimwit.
Pursuing his lips, Harry tried to whistle – and then, was abruptly jerked upright by the back of his cloak.
“Hey!” he complained, twisting around.
“You are mad,” Malfoy said with some wonderment as he released his grip. “Either that, or just plain stupid beyond recognition. Do you always approach unfamiliar creatures without even knowing the first thing about them?”
“What, you mean like yourself in third year?” When Malfoy just stared uncomprehendingly, Harry clarified, “Buckbeak.”
“Oh, shut up. As you’ve just shrewdly observed, Potter, Wyverns aren’t owls. You can’t summon them whenever it strikes your fancy.”
The Wyvern perching on Malfoy’s left forearm hopped up onto his right shoulder instead. Harry thought it unfair that the creatures seemed more comfortable with a git like Malfoy than with him, but then Harry wasn’t the one feeding the beasts.
“You seem perfectly fine summoning them whenever you like,” he ventured to say.
“Oh, well, let’s see,” said Malfoy in a scathing voice. “Maybe that’s because I’ve got this fancy little glove on to ensure my arm isn’t ripped to shreds?” He presented his left arm, and indeed he was wearing a thick-looking glove which covered his forearm up to the elbow. Nevertheless, Harry didn’t really fault himself for not noticing it before, considering his mind had been occupied with more important issues, like keeping an eye on bloodthirsty, winged beasts.
The weather wasn’t helping much, either, he thought with a glance skyward. While at least it wasn’t pouring buckets anymore, the rain hadn’t stopped yet. The visibility was still poor.
“I suppose,” he replied to Malfoy at last. “Those are some menacing-looking claws,” he added, pointing at the Wyvern’s talons.
Malfoy just grunted. He patted the creature’s white, scaly neck.
“So, er, does he have a name?” asked Harry.
“It’s a female, Potter. Fulgora.”
Taken aback, Harry blinked. He hadn’t really expected Malfoy to tell him. “How about that one?” He indicated the Wyvern he’d tried to approach earlier; it seemed to have discovered that more worms were hiding in the damp soil.
In response, Malfoy whistled at the beast, arm held out, but to no avail. The Wyvern kept clumsily clawing at the ground. “Come here, Cybele, you idiot.” Looking exasperated, he whistled again, and finally the creature obeyed. It settled on Malfoy’s gloved forearm, still flapping its wings lightly. The Wyvern perched on Malfoy’s other shoulder, Fulgora, cried softly like a bird; Harry supposed it was some sort of a greeting.
“Is Cybele a female, too?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Unsatisfied with that reply, Harry pressed, “Are they all females?”
“No,” Malfoy said, scowling at him. “The one you hexed, Orcus, is a male.” Harry felt himself flush guiltily. Malfoy turned his attention to the Wyverns perched side by side on a tree branch a little ways away. “So is the one on the left – his name’s Virtus. Beside him is Mefitis – she’s the oldest in the flock.”
“How do you differentiate between them?” asked Harry as he slid his gaze from one creature to the other, scrunching his brows in thought. No matter how much he squinted, the four Wyverns just looked the same to him: eagle-sized, white and scaly, with albino red eyes and leathery wings. He said as much to Malfoy, “I mean, they all look practically the same.”
After several seconds passed and he still received no response, he glanced at Malfoy. “What?” he asked when he found Malfoy just staring at him.
Malfoy shook his head. “Nothing, Potter,” he said. “They don’t look the same. If you look closer, you’ll see the patterns on the scales are different. Besides, the size – the males are generally larger than the females.”
“This is so strange, you lecturing me about magical creatures,” Harry blurted out.
Malfoy must have agreed with him to some extent, though, because his lip curled up unpleasantly. “Whatever. Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Potter?”
“Well...” Harry trailed off, restraining a smile. He sort of wanted to pull Malfoy into a banter with him, but then he remembered that he did have somewhere to be. “Oh, crap! Transfiguration!” He made a whining noise, which was embarrassing for the simple reason that Malfoy was there to hear it. “Professor McGonagall is gonna take points again...”
“Come late to class often, Potter?” Malfoy smirked.
“Well, at least I still come, unlike you,” retorted Harry. “What’s up with that, anyway? Moved on to bigger and better things again?” he said, looking around himself to indicate Malfoy’s new status as an assistant caretaker. It was a bit of a low-blow, but he couldn’t help himself.
“That’s none of your business,” Malfoy bit out. “Now go on, Potter, run along. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is.”
“Whatever,” said Harry. He wanted to add a cutting remark, however upon seeing Malfoy’s smirking face he decided to curb it. Obviously, Malfoy was still an arrogant prat, but at least he’d ceased preaching about Pure-blood supremacy, and mentioning Harry’s parents.
While Harry thought it was a start, he couldn’t resist having the last word in this exchange. “Prick,” he muttered as he left, too quietly for Malfoy to hear.