Summer 7:   Part B

Draco was furious.  Potter was avoiding him, making sure he was surrounded by the Weasel and Granger at all times, dashing out of class the second they were dismissed and not showing up until just before class started.  He’d stopped showing up for most meals and when he did, eating a deplorably little amount before leaving.  As for post, well, Potter was taking the letters he got, but he wasn’t opening them at the table.  He’d shove them in his bag and Draco got the feeling he never looked them again.

It was maddening.  All Draco wanted to do was make sure he was okay and then shout at him for doing something so idiotic that it nearly got him killed again, but no, he couldn’t, because Potter couldn’t be arsed to open his owl post or be alone for any length of time.  He kicked at the leg of his table, ignoring the odd looks that Pansy kept throwing at him.  Professor Vector, looked up, but didn’t say anything and Draco sneered as soon as she’d looked away.  Stupid Arithmancy.   The year was practically over anyway, he should be planning on ways to get Potter alone, not sitting in a class when he wasn’t learning anything.

“Malfoy.”  It was barely a whisper and for a second he thought he'd imagined it, but then a hand tapped his shoulder.  He started, turning around to find a piece of parchment shoved at his face.  He looked past it and his sneer deepened.  Why the bloody hell was Granger passing him notes?

He took it, though, because he didn’t want to take tha chance that anyone would see her even trying, and turned around, opening it.  For a moment he was looking at only blank paper, then writing began to appear in a slow scrawl, ‘You’re both idiots.’

He looked back at her incredulously, but she was staring at a piece of parchment on her desk, writing.  Looking back at the note, he saw more writing appear.  ‘If you don’t stop pouting at each other, people are going to figure it out.’

Draco felt his whole body stiffen.  The ink sank into the paper and disappeared.  He took up his quill and scratched a note back, ‘Malfoy’s do not pout.’

‘Then you’re doing the most impressive imitation of a recalcitrant three-year-old that I’ve ever seen.’

Stupid Granger, and why was he bothering with this nonsense anyway?   She was a mudblood, he didn’t talk to mudbloods.  He picked up his quill to tell her just that, when he heard Harry’s voice in his head, “So help me, Draco, if you finish that I will hang you upside down from the tower again.”   Oh, fine. ‘Is there a point to this, Granger?’

He heard a huff of laughter behind him and nearly chucked the paper back at her, but she was writing again.  ‘Yes, actually, I was wondering why you don’t just talk to him instead of sending him owls and staring all day.  You could be more discrete by holding an I’m-in-love-with-Harry-Potter banner over your head.’

Then, the strangest thing happened.  He laughed.  In the middle of class and at apparently nothing, which earned him another odd look for Pansy, whom he rolled his eyes at and leaned further over the parchment to keep her from seeing it.  It was just that the idea of him holding any banner up, let alone one that announced his feelings for Harry had… not been that atrocious an idea.

Worse yet, he hadn’t felt the least defensive at the idea that she thought he was in love with Harry; embarrassed, but not defensive, because the more he thought about it, the more he thought it could be true.  He thought about him every day, he dreamed about him at night, he worried if he was okay, and when Pansy had been blithering on mindlessly about all the rumours she had heard concerning the Department of Mysteries fiasco, he had nearly keeled over.   The mere idea that Voldemort had possessed his Harry was enough to make him physically ill with distress.  He couldn’t even bring himself to be appropriately outraged that his father was in Azkaban, because if it was between his father and Harry…

Giving up, he sighed and wrote back, ‘He’s never alone.’

‘He’s always alone; you’re just not looking in the right places.’

Draco turned around, exasperated.  Why did women always have to talk in riddles?  Why couldn’t they just be straightforward?  “Where?  When?”

She looked up, startled and her face coloured.  “Down by the lake, during meals.”

He nodded and turned back to his desk, folding the parchment neatly and putting it in his Arithmancy book.  Before dinner he’d go down to the lake.

___________________

Granger had been right.  Potter was sitting at the lake, staring intently at the water as it rippled orange and purple with the setting sun.  Draco walked up behind him, but Harry didn’t seem to notice.  Without saying anything, he sat down, but Harry still didn’t look at him.  After several seconds of staring, Draco pulled a face and was surprised when Harry reached one arm out and shoved him over.

“I’m not blind, Draco, I’m ignoring you.”

Draco frowned and sat back up.  Well, at least he knew Harry hadn’t gone catatonic, but why would he ignore him?  However, over the years he had learned that asking Harry a direct question was very rarely the way to go about getting an answer.  He’d have to blind-side him with it.  “You haven’t been eating.”

“I’m not hungry.”

A low rumble from Harry’s stomach said otherwise, but Draco didn’t point that out.  “You’re getting too thin.  I’ll be able to toss you over my head before long.”

“You’re not my mum, Malfoy.”

Draco pretended not to hear.  “Of course, being able to toss you around might not be so bad.  Maybe I could…”

“Would you lay off, Malfoy!”  Harry stood up and started to march back to castle, but Draco scrambled to his feet and caught his arm before he was more than a few steps gone.  “Let me go!”

Draco pulled Harry around to look at him.  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.  You’re like a bloody ghost, you don’t eat anything, you don’t talk to anyone, you won’t answer any of my letters…”

“What do you care?!”  Harry pulled away sharply, but didn’t storm off.  “You should just leave me alone before you get hurt, too.”

“Wha…” but he didn’t finish, because suddenly, he knew very well what this was about.  It was about Harry’s stupid Gryffindor protectiveness.  Well, he’d be damned if he let Harry push him away just because of some ill-gotten sense of responsibility.  “Don’t you dare do this, Potter.”

Harry straightened up, “I’ll do what I want, Malfoy.  It may be too late for the others, but it’s not too late for you.  Stay away from me and you might stand half a chance of surviving this war.”

Draco faltered for a second, which was enough time for Harry to turn back around and start walking again.  He caught the back of Harry’s robes and the other boy stopped, though he didn’t turn around.  “I…”   I don’t want to survive if it means I can’t even talk to you.  Draco closed his eyes in frustration.  He couldn’t say it.  He just couldn’t.  It was admitting too much and he was afraid, terrified that Harry didn’t feel the same way.  “I don’t stand a chance either way.”

Harry looked at him then, “But your father…”

“Is in Azkaban, yes.  It’s a bit of a sore point for me, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up again.  You really think it matters whether my father is there or not?  There are things that are expected of me, things I can’t get away from.  I want…” ‘I want to run away with you, to you, I don’t care as long as I’m not left to face everything on my own,’ but he couldn’t say that, either.  “I’m a Malfoy, Harry, with my father gone the Dark Lord will be at my doorstep the moment I get home.”

Harry’s eyes widened slightly and he started to step forward, but stopped himself. “Then… then don’t go home.”

Draco shook his head. “I can’t leave my mother there to face him alone.”

The silence stretched between them for eternity, a few second, and was finally broken by Harry, who stomped his foot into the ground, in a childish display of frustration.   “For gods sake, Draco, then why did you even bother to talk to me?!  You’re going to go home and do what Voldemort tells you to and I’m going to stay here and prepare to kill him and anything that stands between that goal and me.  We’re on different sides of the bloody line and you can’t just cross it whenever you want.”

“I don’t want any of it, Harry, I just want…” you.

Harry shook his head, but didn’t turn around and Draco looked back around the grounds, making sure that everyone was still inside eating.  When he was satisfied that no one was watching, he stepped up and grabbed Harry’s face, kissing him soundly on the lips for only a second before pulling back.

“You’re such an idiot, Harry.”  He opened his eyes and saw tracks of tears running down Harry’s face.  “Oh, god, I didn’t mean it, I was only just… I mean…”

Harry leaned forward and put his head on Draco’s shoulder.  “Shut up, Malfoy.”

Why was it that this had to feel so right?  He cast an obscuring charm around them, hoping that it would deter anyone from looking too closely and put his arms around Harry, not really sure what he was doing, or why he was doing it.

He could safely say that the most terrifying moment of his life was when he’d been sitting alone in Snape’s quarters, waiting for news that Harry was okay and Snape had stumbled in through the floo, slightly more pale than was usual and said that the Ministry had been a trap.  If it hadn’t been for Snape physically restraining him, he would have left right then.  To hell with whether he could make it in time to do any good, to hell with the fact that what he was doing verged on Gryffindor stupidity, it was Harry walking into that trap and he couldn’t just sit there.

Snape had stopped him, however, looked him in the eyes and told him that it was taken care of.  It was by no means an admission to anything, but somehow, Draco knew what it meant.  Maybe it was Legilimency.  He’d heard from his father that Snape was good at it, so maybe Snape was sending him thoughts, but he just knew that Snape was a spy for Dumbledore and that there were others going to help his Harry.  It wasn’t as good as if he’d gone himself, but it was better than nothing, so he had sat back down and was waiting again, still feeling the soft wetness of Harry’s lips on his.

It had been utterly terrifying to simply not know and even worse when, much later that night, Snape had informed him that Harry was alive, but nothing more.  Not even a simple ‘he’s going to be okay,’ just ‘he’s alive’ and that was it.  He wasn’t even permitted to go to the hospital wing to see him, because he wasn’t there, he was in Dumbledore’s office.

When he’d gotten back to the Slytherin dorms, he’d brushed Pansy off and ignored Crabbe and Goyle completely, going instead to his bed and lying there, trying not to think about everything that could have gone wrong.  It felt like there was a giant knot in his stomach every time he imagined that Harry was hurt in some way.  He hadn’t been able to sleep until the next morning when he’d gone to see Madame Pomfrey on a fake claim that he had an upset stomach.  Harry was there, surrounded by his friends, who appeared to be in worse shape than he was.

The Weasley girl had noticed him and glared at him before turning away.  She’d had a crush on Harry, Draco remembered, but he’d thought that was over.  She hadn’t shown any interest in him in over a year, not that he knew of, but that didn’t matter because even though she wasn’t with Harry, she was with him.  She could sit next to him and talk to him and publicly be with him and no one would think twice about it.

For the first time in his life, Draco realised he was jealous.   Someone had something he couldn’t have.   Stupid bint.  But before he could do anything about it, Madame Pomfrey ushered him out of the room.  Well, that was just fine, because she was a stupid bint too, and he’d show them all.  Harry was his and his alone, even if it was only when no one was looking.  He’d have to do something drastic, though, like kissing Harry in front of her again - no, kissing him in front of the whole bloody school, his father’s wrath be damned.

He’d been in the middle of planning his great triumph over all the stupid bints in the school that thought they could get their hands on his Harry, when Pansy had rushed over to him, telling him how sorry she was and why didn’t he tell her.  Blaise had seen his confusion and handed him a copy of the Prophet and the floor had dropped out from under him.

His father had been arrested in connection with an unfortunate incident at the Ministry of Magic.  The same man that had literally beaten lessons into Draco about discretion and respect for the family name had been arrested by the Aurors and publicly outed as a Death Eater for the second time.

Why was it that Draco was caned for failing to make nice with Harry, but his father allowed himself to be publicly caught trying to kill him?  Where were all the lessons about a Malfoy doing what was best to live up to the prestige of his ancestors, instead of being selfish and doing something stupid that could bring shame to the family name?  A Malfoy bows to no one.  A Malfoy is his own law.  A Malfoy does not allow someone to tell him what to do, he does what he thinks is best.  What happened to all of those rules when his father had obeyed the Dark Lord and gone on an attack in the middle of the Ministry of Magic?  Surely being publicly humiliated was not in their best interest.

He’d been so caught off guard by the entire thing that he’d forgotten about his plan to show Weasley who owned Harry.  It was probably for the best anyway, because things were going to be more complicated now.  He tightened his grip on the boy leaning against him.  Harry wasn’t making any noise beyond a few shuddered breaths, but Draco could feel the dampness soaking through his shirt.

He’d deal with the Weasley later.