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“I’m thinking of ways to embarrass Crabe later. He never told me he was interested in Millicent.”
Harry looked over and saw the two Slytherins in question chatting in a manner that was a little more than friendly.
“Well, you didn’t tell him about being a Veriae and me, did you?”
Draco had the grace to look uncomfortable. “No, but that’s different.”
Harry was confused. “How?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.”
Harry just laughed and took a sip of butterbeer.
Ron looked a bit worried as he turned to Hermione. “You know I haven’t seen Harry anywhere today. Are you sure he was OK with this?”
Hermione smiled. “Yes, Ron, I’m sure. He had someone to spend the day with.”
Ron’s eyes widened a bit. “Really?”
“Really.”
A comfortable silence had fallen over the two boys, and Harry noticed that time had stretched into the late afternoon, when Draco said, “I don’t hate you anymore, you know.”
The silence that followed was not as comfortable. “I don’t hate you anymore either.” Harry finally replied, thinking a bit and then adding. “In fact, I think I might like you.”
He looked up to find silver eyes looking at him with a strange expression. “Sometimes… I’m not sure if it’s me or the Veriae who likes you,” Draco said slowly, “but it’s becoming harder to distinguish between the two of them.”
Harry didn’t know exactly how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to as Hermione and Ron entered the pub, clearly looking for someone.
“They’re looking for you.” Draco’s always prominent smirk was back on his face.
“See you back at Hogwarts then?” Harry asked.
Draco nodded. “Hopefully we’ll end up in my bed tonight, we’ve been in yours for three days straight.”
Harry realized how that would sound to someone who didn’t know the situation they were in, and laughed.
Harry noticed that Draco was frowning on Monday morning, as the mail was delivered. He then noticed the owl that sat perched on Draco’s shoulder and the letter in his hands. Draco scribbled something at the bottom of the letter and put it back in the envelope, handing it over to the owl. The owl flew up into the crowd of other owls all bearing mail and Harry was very surprised when it dropped a letter in his lap a few minutes later.
Curiously Harry opened the letter, to find another article inside it. At the top of the article Draco had written: Here’s another one.
Harry looked up to see Draco watching him and nodded minutely. Draco smirked and turned back to what his year mates were saying. Harry quickly got out addressed the letter to Luna and placed it in his bag for Hedwig to bring to her later.
Chapter 25: Snitches and Kisses
As her last class of the day ended, Hermione caught Ron’s look from across the room and nodded discreetly. Ron flashed her a smile and turned to the door. Hermione sat a few rows in front of Harry and Ron in Transfiguration, so they were closer to the door than she was. She smiled slightly when she remembered the small argument they’d had about seating in the first week of school, how she’d been adamant that they should take their own notes instead of always coming to her. After all, when they left Hogwarts, they wouldn’t be able to come to her with every little problem. Secretly, Hermione hoped that they would still come to her with their problems. But they still needed to be somewhat self sufficient. And so, in their first big argument of the year, Hermione had moved her seat up three rows from theirs in Transfiguration. They’d dropped the subject, Hermione secretly thought that Ron had dropped the subject because he didn’t want to upset her and that Harry hadn’t really been part of that decision to begin with, and so Transfiguration was the only class in which Hermione sat far away from her two best friends.
Ron was, as he had asked in their silent exchange, waiting for her near the doorway and the two of them began the walk to the Room of Requirement.
“Harry went ahead.” Ron said awkwardly. He’d been somewhat awkward around her ever since he’d asked her out. If they were alone for a while, he would eventually relax but in the short times that they had alone he was…awkward, there was no other word for it.
“That’s fine. I don’t mind walking with you.” Hermione smiled at the redhead, who was fighting back a blush. “In fact, we could do this more often.”
The two entered the Room of Requirement to find Draco and Harry sitting in what had become “Draco’s Corner”, talking about something in low voices. Draco’s only acknowledgement of their presence in the room was to end whatever conversation he’d been having with Harry. This was the routine. Whenever Harry was with Ron or Hermione, Draco made himself nonexistent, either leaving the room or ignoring them. In fact, the only time Hermione could remember Draco talking in their presence was that one time when Harry’d been stuck on the potions ingredient and Draco had told him what to look for as he left the room. While such behavior around them could be considered insulting, Hermione understood that Draco did it so as not to start any fights with them, and thus upset Harry. Ron still muttered under his breath whenever Draco purposefully ignored them, but Hermione didn’t mind being ignored. In fact, she didn’t know if Draco realized why he was staying away from Harry’s friends, but she knew the reasoning. Any fights that, say Draco and Ron, got into would cause Harry to choose a side. So Draco kept his distance and they allowed him to.
“Ready for tonight?” Harry asked as he joined them. They had decided to work on an advanced healing spell for this DA meeting. It was rather basic, but if you concentrated on it, it would heal and protect you during a battle or duel. Little things like scrapes and cuts could be healed instantly if you got good at it.
“Yes.” Hermione replied.
“When isn’t she?” Ron asked, earning a small shove from the girl next to him. “So, Harry,” Ron asked, shoving Hermione back “When are you going to tell me what made you almost late for Divination?”
Hermione turned to Harry and he could see a lecture beginning to form. “I wasn’t late, Hermione, I was almost late. There’s a difference. And I’ve got a good reason for it.”
“You had better, Mr. Potter.” Hermione scolded, sounding strangely like a certain Transfiguration teacher when she did so.
And so Harry began to explain.
The DA meeting had progressed to the dueling stage, with all of the members trying out the continuous healing spell in a duel setting. Because everyone needed to try out the spell, the staged duels were shorter than normal, timed and without a true victor.
From his section of the room, Draco looked up from his Potions studying to see Harry ascending the dueling platform. Sighing slightly, Draco rested the open book on his lap and watched the duel. No one noticed this extra pair of eyes.
In the first few weeks that Draco had been sitting in the corner, there had been a lot of speculation about his presence. But once the other DA members figured out that he wasn’t going to do anything, they left him alone. In fact, most forgot about his presence during the meetings. Which suited him just fine.
His eyes watched as the duel progressed. It was obvious that this was one of those times when Harry was in his element, but still he was wary.
Harry dodged a bolt of blue light as he concentrated on keeping the healing spell inside his skin, something that was easy when you didn’t have four other people to watch. Ginny sent a curse at him and he jumped to right…right into another spell of red light.
His head came up to see the spell, just inches from his skin, veer off course and spin, heading towards the boy who had cast it. Harry blinked. He hadn’t done that…
His eyes drifted off to the corner of the room directly behind the boy who’d cast the spell at him. They locked onto Draco’s eyes and Harry saw the source of that protection. “That’s cheating,” he mouthed in Draco’s direction, ducking under another well placed curse. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Draco shrug, uncaring.
The next day Ron came down to breakfast looking like Christmas had just been canceled. Seeing Harry’s questioning look, he shook his head, sitting down in his customary seat across from Harry.
“Don’t ask mate, you’ll see soon enough.”
And Harry did see, or hear, when Hermione came down to breakfast a few minutes later.
“Harry,” she asked as she began to load her plate with food. “Do you know when exams are?”
Exams? Harry hadn’t even thought about exams. They were…four months away after all. “They’re four months away, Hermione, give or take a week.” This was the last week in January…so yeah, about four months.
“Exactly! Four months! Only four months!” Hermione said this as if it was a bad thing.
“That’s a lot of time Hermione—” Harry started.
“I missed a whole month of studying! Normally I start when there are five months left to the exams, but I missed almost all of January!”
“What?” Harry mouthed, disbelieving, to Ron, who shrugged. They would never understand Hermione’s logic when it came to exams.
