Here we have: another chapter. Sorry it took me so long to update, but I had a lot of real life crazies, as sometimes happen. It was extra evil because I left you with a cliffhanger of sorts, but I tried to wrap the one up better (I'm not sure if it worked) so hopefully that won't happen again.
I hope you read and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series, and am merely borrowing its characters to entertain myself, and hopefully you.
Harry felt really creepy. He wasn't about to back down at this point- he'd already firmly made up his mind about pranking Malfoy. But even so. Waiting outside of a theatre so that he could fulfill his immature and undeveloped plan against his old nemesis was not something that he could claim exhibited any small amount of creepiness.
He felt awkward too, standing in wait just outside of the door to an insignificant theatre, alone. Because of this, he still struggled, everything few minutes, with the sudden and powerful urge to bolt. He didn't knew how long he'd have to wait until the movie ended, either. He stopped himself from leaving though, because he knew that seeing Malfoy again, reminding him of the slimy git he was, would make it all worth it.
This argument's effectiveness was wearing, however, and Harry was feeling more and more like being mean to Malfoy was actually just mean, petty, and a terrible idea. It made him feel like somewhat of a slimy git himself, in fact.
But there was that need to prank Malfoy- he knew that was what it was. It'd drive him insane if he didn't quench it, it would!
So, instead of running away like the immature coward he must've been to consider doing what he was going to do in the first place, Harry stood there and tried to formulate an actual plan.
Because, he wasn't about to go into the world and the presence of Malfoy equipped only with the terrible plan to "maybe just kind of follow Malfoy around and scare him a little while under his invisibility cloak". He knew it would not yield any sort of good results.
And so he tried to come up with something.
He had nothing, still, when Malfoy walked through the door, but it seemed to him that it suddenly didn't matter. Malfoy took all of his attention and a Malfoy-induced light haze fell over his mind.
It was Malfoy.
Finally.
His hair was the same. That was how Harry'd recognised him, after all. Blond, sleek, almost pretty enough for Harry to admit he thought so. It glinted beautifully, as in the theatre, and considering that this was in synthetic light, Harry couldn't wait to find out how it'd shine in bright, natural sunlight. Even in his imagination that scenario was breathtaking.
Malfoy's face was mostly the same too, as far as structure went. Pointy, mostly. It still seemed to rest in an expression that wasn't very welcoming. But one thing was completely different, and it changed his overall appearance so much that it was almost hard to believe it was Malfoy at all.
His eyes.
In school, they'd been grey, clearly, a dull color that suited Malfoy's habit of masking any and all positive emotions that showed up, especially around Harry. They'd been interesting then, sure, because of how uncommon the color was as far as eyes went, but they'd seemed kind of cold, dead. Like a wall that Malfoy always had up, rarely ever letting it down, and certainly never in Harry's presence.
Now they were grey, still, but in a completely different way. They had a shine and life to them that indicated a person with emotions living within, and since this was talking about Malfoy, that meant something. Something big. Now, instead of making him seem cold and unfriendly, they seemed to indicate simply that he was smart, maybe a little bit cheeky too, and had a child-like curiousity. He looked at the world in a way that made Harry think he was always noticing everything, and taking note of it, and wondering about things he wanted to know more about.
You know, maybe it wasn't Malfoy after all- maybe it was like Malfoy's evil twin, except that Malfoy was the evil twin and this was the decent one. After all, Malfoy had never expressed any of the things he was now expressing simply by his existence before, and Harry'd gone to school with him for many years.
Of course, Malfoy had never intentionally showed Harry his good side, if he'd had one, but Harry didn't want to consider that.
Instead of that argument as to why this was Malfoy, Harry looked at him again, and saw that there were more similarities, too.
His cocky grin was the same, as he smiled at whoever was next to him. It was clear that he thought well of himself, and wasn't hesitant in expressing it. At least, that's what it seemed like from what Harry could see.
His lazy, relaxed gait was the same. He looked ridiculously confident, just walking along while somehow making it look like he was effortlessly strutting away. It intimidated Harry, if we was being entirely honest.
Wait.
Away. Malfoy was strutting away.
No! Harry had to catch him before he escaped!
Startled out of his haze, Harry realized just how far he'd let Malfoy walk away from him.
Too far.
Harry was currently standing next to the theatre door, ducked behind one of those fake plants, mostly so that no one would accidentally bump into him before he could get out of the way. Now he made good use of this by ducking down further and pulling off his invisibility cloak quickly. He could only hope no one had seen him do so, and that no one was suspicious of someone popping out from behind a plant, but he hadn't really had a choice.
Sure it wasn't the best plan, but how many plans had he made today that were even remotely good? None, that was how many. Plus, he couldn't very well charge through a crowd in pursuit of Malfoy if he was invisible. He imagined anyone who felt an invisible person running quickly by them would be extremely confused and suspicious.
He straightened up and skirted along the wall in an attempt to get past the crowd more quickly. Not too long later, he swore he saw a blond head. Emboldened by the sight of his objective, he gave up all pretenses of being polite, and practically charged towards Malfoy, pushing people out of his way as gently as he could manage. He tried to be nice, he really did, but all he could focus on was Malfoy.
Within feet, finally, Harry had to wonder what he planned to do now. He wasn't wearing his invisibility cloak anymore and couldn't just put it on in public.
And he still didn't have any inklings as to what his plan should be.
For now, Harry thought, how about I just follow him.
Again, not the best plan, and similar to his first, but he was desperate at this point and it gave him time to think of something better while still being in Malfoy's presence, so he decided he'd take it.
He'd have to be careful about this. He didn't doubt Malfoy's ability to recognize him what with their history, so if Malfoy saw him at all, the whole escapade was pretty much doomed.
He didn't want to try to sneak around, because he knew that'd just draw attention from everyone behind him and then around him, and eventually Malfoy would realize something was up and figure it out.
He also still couldn't use his invisibility cloak, unless he wanted to duck into a corner somewhere and put it on. Actually, he could do that if he wanted, because the crowd was thin enough that he could probably avoid bumping into anyone. That might be the best thing after all.
His thoughts were quickly interrupted by a loud, startling, and worst of all, noticeable for Malfoy, meaning he might've heard it, call of "Harry?"
He turned around to look for the source of the voice, hoping to make it shut up.
Oh crap.
It was his date.
"Harry?" she asked again. "I thought you left."
"Uh," he said, trying to think of something.
"You do remember me, right? Your date, Sam?"
"Yeah, I do," he responded, grimacing.
"Oh."
Than an idea struck him that was practically brilliant in its surplus of stupidity.
Why not just tell her the truth? It was a stupid idea, and the truth was stupid too, but...
The theme of the day so far having been stupidity, he went with it.
"I have a story for you," he started.
In his surprise at seeing Sam, Harry had stopped walking and she nudged him forwards, not wanting to draw anyone's attention.
"Wait. I have one question before you start. Does it have to do with the blond guy that was sitting in front of us?"
That was extremely alarming. How had she known?
"How did you know?" he asked.
"It was fairly obvious, what with you ogling- er, sorry, looking at him every time you exited or entered the theatre. Did you know him, or did you just really like his hair? It was very pretty."
"Oh, I knew him. Well. I know him too, just not as well." If he thought about it, Harry hadn't really known Malfoy that well before, either. He only knew the bad side, and was beginning to think that wasn't all there was to Malfoy.
"So the story does have to do with him, then?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." She looked down thoughtfully for a moment. "Actually, can I ask one more question? You don't have to answer it."
"Sure," Harry said hesitantly. He knew that since she was giving him the option to not answer, he probably wasn't going to want to answer it.
"Do you like the blond guy? Romantically? Because I was just thinking about how we were on a date and how it would make sense if you had wanted to leave the date because you were interested in someone else. It'd be a little bit reassuring for me, honestly."
Oh. This wasn't so bad; the answer was obvious.
"Of course not, no. Sorry, I guess."
What a funny idea. It was ridiculous, practically unthinkable, so unlikely that-
Oh.
Oh.
"Oh."
So that's what this whole thing had been.
Sam stifled a laugh and Harry was almost tempted to do the same.
"Oh?" she said, still smiling.
"I guess," Harry starts, furrowing his eyebrows at saying what he'd about to say, "that- that I do? Like him? Maybe? This is all very confusing for the both of us, so I'm just going to stick with the maybe." Maybe was slightly better than just saying that he did, so at least there was that.
"Okay. Now, the story."
"Right." He'd completely forgotten. "I'm kind of in shock, so I'll give you a shortened version. Basically, I saw him again and I wanted to prank him and I didn't have any good ideas, and that's how I ended up outside the theatre and creepily following him around."
"Huh," Sam said, processing this.
"Actually," Harry says, remembering something, "I thought you left after I did. Or after I pretended to. Didn't you?"
"Well, no," Sam says, smiling slightly apologetically. "The movie was quite good but I wanted to be a good date so I offered to walk you wherever. Once you let me go, though, I went back to the movie. It wasn't that crowded for no reason, after all. You missed out- the ending was awesome!"
"I was too distracted to pay attention at all, much less get invested in the story to any degree, so I think I'll be okay."
"Yeah, okay. That makes sense. So what's blondie's name?"
Harry looked up, distracted from thinking about all the confusing events so far.
"Malfoy."
"What an interesting name. Can't say I've met anyone with it."
"Well, yeah." Of course she hadn't. Most people have unique last names. Then Harry realized what she must've meant. "Oh, sorry, that's his last name. We were kind of rivals. His first name is Draco."
"Not much more common, really. So Draco Malfoy, then. Wait, you said you used to be rivals, though. What kind of crazy past do you two have?"
Now this is where it really got complicated.
See, the thing was, Sam was not a wizard and knew nothing of the wizarding world. Harry, maybe unwisely, had wanted to try dating a Muggle, if only because they wouldn't know his as The Harry Potter. To them, he'd just be some guy, which was exactly how he wanted it. But now he couldn't really tell Sam much about his past with Malfoy, and he doubted that rivalries as intense as theirs had been occurred very commonly in Muggle schools, what with it basically ending in war. He could, however, give her something general to work with, and that was exactly what he planned to do.
"I guess," Harry starts, "that you could say we had different view on a subject rather important to both of us. He was on his because he had family there mostly, I think, and by now he's probably changed his ways."
This might seem like a bad thing to assume from Sam's point of view, but considering that Harry had just encountered Malfoy peacefully existing in a Muggle theatre, and that Malfoy hadn't done anything evil after they'd graduated, much to the media's dismay, he thought it he was okay in assuming it. Plus, he really did think that Malfoy had been primarily under Lucius's influence as far as anything Voldemort related went.
"Okay. So you still want to prank him, with your recent realization?"
Harry thought about it.
"Yeah, I think so. If nothing else," he felt childish just saying it, "it'll get his attention."
Sam nodded.
"Let's do it."
"Let's?" Harry asked.
"Oh, yeah, sorry, I just assumed I could help. Can I?"
"Yeah. Then I guess you were right. Let's do it!"
Pranking Malfoy was not at all easier with two people. It wasn't as if it was any harder, but neither of them had any ideas yet, and that was really all they needed at this point. Now they were sneaking behind Malfoy, still with no plan, and trying in vain to think of something. Harry was no longer sure if pranking Malfoy was a realistic future to aspire to.
As he and Sam tailed Malfoy, they talked some more, and Harry really began to like her. Not in a romantic way at all, but she was fun to talk to, and he could see them being friends.
"What if we tried to… douse him with water?" Sam suggested hopelessly at one point. Harry looked at her completely straight faced, and nodded curtly once, trying his hardest to look serious.. They both cracked up not a moment later, trying to keep their snickers to a minimum as to not attract Malfoy's attention.
"Fine, okay, not that either."
Eventually, Sam got understandably tired of walking around and decided it was time to turn in for the day. She left Harry her phone number and told him to keep her updated on all of the Malfoy business.
Being alone was kind of refreshing and, obviously, kind of lonely. Deciding it was probably time for him to go home soon too, but wanting to stick it out a little bit longer, Harry ducked into a smallish space between two buildings. He checked for people and made sure no one was looking, and when he was sure it was safe, he quickly got out his invisibility cloak and shrugged it he exited the alleyway, he felt strangely content. It had been a good day.
He stood just out of the way of the pedestrians milling around, and people-watched for a bit, happy. If anyone came close enough to touch him, he always made sure to duck further back into the alleyway.
That is, until he saw Malfoy walking back towards him. He was only slightly in the pathway of Malfoy, but he found himself so surprised that he was unable to move.
It was different, seeing Malfoy straight on without having any worries Harry might be spotted. It was enchanting. Plus, Harry hadn't expected to see Malfoy again that night. The only thing he could think of to explain it was that maybe Malfoy had gone too far and needed to retrace his steps. Or maybe he'd forgotten to get something on the way to wherever he'd gone.
Anyways, Harry found himself standing stock-still, gawking at the approaching Malfoy. Malfoy got closer and closer, and Harry did nothing to get out of his way.
Then, suddenly, Malfoy was walking rights past him, and was close enough that, even though they barely brushed arms, Harry could see that Malfoy had felt it, if only a little bit. Malfoy stopped for a moment, looked around, furrowed his brows, and whispered something that sounded almost like "Potter?" before shaking his head slowly and walking off.
Still frozen, Harry forced himself to regain enough control of himself to Apparate home, which he quickly did.
