A/N Kind of late this time, but finally finished the next chapter! I need to clarify one mistake I made. I had written something in an earlier chapter about Victoire, when in the canon Victoire isn't born for another two years after the war. I've decided to just stick with what I said earlier, and Victoire has been born two years early.
In uncompromising black ink, the team roster was still etched across Harry's thoughts as he darted down the corridors toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Against all preconceived odds, Team Patronus had drafted Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. But how had it even been possible? There was absolutely no chance that the Basilisks had overlooked the star Slytherin player when they submitted their picks. There was only a single explanation that was viable, and it set Harry's curiosity aflame.
Malfoy had actually elected to be on Team Patronus.
It was practically unthinkable. Entirely beyond belief. But, admittedly, so was the notion that Harry even wanted Malfoy on his team. His level of interest in the affairs of Malfoy's mind had swiftly escalated, and Harry's primary focus was on that desk that he shared with Malfoy as his cloaks whipped around each corner.
His momentum caused him to spill clumsily into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and his senses were washed with elation at what he spotted at the front of the room. Malfoy was already seated at their joined desk, flipping nonchalantly through his textbook, oblivious to Harry's arrival. In several quick bounds Harry was in his seat, poised for questioning.
But as Harry sat, Malfoy turned to him and their eyes met. Harry was immediately overcome by self doubt and any curiosity he'd previously felt was swallowed into the vacuum of his mind. This was Draco Malfoy after all. Harry couldn't just come careening into his space and start tossing personal questions at him. In fact, a year ago, that seemed like a pretty sure way to get killed. Resolving to leave Malfoy alone, Harry gave him a stilted nod in greeting and awkwardly pulled out his textbook. The remaining stragglers all hopped into their seats as Professor Tag strolled to the front of the classroom.
"And good morning!" he said merrily. "I hope you all got plenty of sleep last night, because today's lecture is incredibly boring and I expect all of you to stay awake! That's right, today we will be covering the highly anticipated topic of eastern European toads and their contribution to modern spellwork. You'll want to take notes." He finished with a wink.
As promised, the lecture was quite boring and Harry found his note-taking to be too strenuous a task for so early in the morning. His mind began to amble down less significant trails of thought until he felt something prodding at his elbow. Apparently, also unenthused with the topic of discussion, Malfoy had scribbled a message across a small piece of parchment and was now trying to furtively gain Harry's attention with it. A single line of text was written across it.
So what exactly is the mascot supposed to be for a Patronus charm?
Harry grinned without thinking, then moved his quill to the piece of parchment.
Oh, you know, a wisp of silver or something.
He hoped that Malfoy would sense his sarcasm through the written words. Malfoy responded immediately.
That will definitely intimidate the other teams.
Malfoy quipped. Harry grinned once more, but the thought registered with him. He hadn't even considered what the team colors or mascot would be. A flag emblazoned with a silver stag came to mind, but he quickly swatted the thought away. Struck by a lack of any further ideas, Harry's timid curiosity once again ebbed through his rationale.
What's your Patronus?
Harry wrote to Malfoy.
What do you think?
Malfoy wrote back. He was obviously alluding to a serpent or something similar, but Harry's memories were thrown back to an incident in their fourth year, when Malfoy had found himself on the wrong end of Mad Eye Moody's transfiguration spell. Harry moved his quill to the parchment.
Ferret?
This elicited an unbridled laugh from Malfoy, which immediately caught the attention of Professor Tag.
"I won't read it aloud to the class, but I will be taking this." The Professor explained as he slid the parchment off the desk and into his pocket. He looked to Harry with mild disappointment before continuing with his lecture.
Draco watched as Potter's shoulders slumped in disdain at being chastised. Potter quickly returned to taking diligent notes, which lasted the rest of the hour. As class adjourned the students tumbled out through the stone doorway to the freedom of the hallway, ecstatic at having finished an hour of toad lecture. Potter exited the room quickly with Draco close behind. Potter still appeared to be marred with dejection from earlier. He stepped toward the stream of students flowing down the corridor until Draco spoke up.
"I know for a fact you've had teacher mad at you before." Draco pointed out with a hint of his old sneer. Potter turned toward him, but his eyes darted back and forth between the ceiling and floor.
"It's not that." Potter said timidly, obviously weighing the wisdom of elaborating. But Draco was fairly confident he understood Harry's current qualms.
"He reminds you of Lupin and you don't want to disappoint him." Draco said bluntly. From the expression on Potter's face, he'd hit the nail on the head. Draco changed his tone and continued. "The truth is, he's not Professor Lupin. And for that matter he's not even that disappointed in you. He'll probably still be rooting for you at our first Quidditch match." Draco's reasoning had either eased Potter's troubles, or else the mention of Quidditch had put all ill thoughts from his head. The edges of his mouth turned up into a grin.
"Speaking of Quidditch, what are the chances that you've done any athletic training in the last year?" Harry asked coyly. Draco smirked beneath a furrowed brow.
"Considering that I was surrounded by Death Eaters who wouldn't let me leave my house, none." He admitted. "I did play a lot of wizard's chess, though."
"You're good at chess?"
"I am."
"We should play sometime."
"Oh, I would destroy you." Draco promised.
"Destroy me, then." Harry welcomed, holding his gaze. For a moment they both hung there, silver eyes to green eyes, before the stare was broken by a wash of long black hair.
"I need to talk to you." Said Pansy, yanking Draco down the corridor without another word. Once safely beyond Potter's ear shot she dropped Draco's hand and marched solemnly beside him, gathering her thoughts on what to say to him. The penetrating silence proved to much for Draco's interest, so he chose the first meaningless topic that came to mind.
"We talked about the strangest thing in Defense Against the Dark Arts today." He said, looking over to her. She stared ahead, jawed clenched in a gesture of resolve. "It was about this kind of toad that collects pansies, so, naturally, I thought of you."
Pansy abruptly rounded on him, interrupting his stream of speech and forward movement.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. Draco's face crumpled in feigned innocence.
"I'm just trying to have a conversation with you."
"You're going to play Quidditch with Potter? What are you thinking?" She asked as one of her hands rose to cradle his cheek, only to be quickly batted away.
"No, what are you thinking?" he asked, rage glimmering in his eyes as she pulled her hand back in fear. "Did you think this was all just temporary?"
"I thought," she said delicately "since the war is over-"
"I didn't break up with you because of the war." he said with deadly precision. He glared unblinkingly at the gathering pools that trimmed her dark eyes.
"Everyone is worried about you!" she exclaimed, taking no account of her volume.
Draco shook his head and slinked away, numbing his thoughts enough to transform Pansy's shrieks into an unintelligible buzz.
There had been hardly any notice, only three hours in fact, but as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny entered the living suite that Mr. Weasley was staying in during his employment at Hogwarts, they were met by a small Weasley family reunion.
Mrs. Weasley was there, ready to shower each of them with a large fuss at the lack of meat on their bones. In the corner, seated on the couch like a handsome family portrait were Bill, Fleur, and baby Victoire. When the three of them had heard that Mrs. Weasley was visiting Arthur for the weekend, they took it as an invitation to tag along, citing the importance of spending time with family now that everyone was safe. The girls quickly dissolved into giggling puddles of estrogen as they took turns holding the baby, and even Ron was several shades more bashful as his niece rested in his arms. Harry sat quietly and watched the family wrap each other in familiar warmth. He was surprised by his level of comfort with the situation. He'd mostly avoided Weasley family gatherings since Fred's funeral, but for the moment he was content.
The four of them were each gifted a hand knitted pair of mittens from Mrs. Weasley, since, apparently, it was beginning to get a bit nippy outside. It was as Harry slipped his mittens on at the request of Mrs. Weasley that another guest entered the suite, and with a resounding cry of delight, everyone saw that it was George. There was a flurry of hugs and greetings at the surprise appearance, and George murmured something about how he couldn't miss an opportunity to see everyone. George gave Harry a nod as a hello, but Harry's head was already drowning in a spiral of guilt and panic. No longer fully in control of his limbs, he stumbled out the door as his chest seized and his skin puckered with a cold sweat.
His eyes seared with the images of Fred, lifeless on the floor of the Great Hall, followed by the image of Fred and George handing him the Marauder's map in his third year. George sobbing over Fred's lifeless corpse. Fred kneeling beside George, making jokes about his lack of ear. George collapsing to his knees at the funeral.
The onslaught of memories was interrupted as Harry vomited onto the floor. He panted and wiped the sweat from his forehead, noticing that he was still wearing the mittens, just as he buckled over with another wave of vomit. The expulsion of fluids had brought some clarity to Harry's mind, and he saw that he'd made his way out into the solitude of the corridor under the haze of dwindling sunlight. Another spasm of anxiety added another pile of sick to the floor, and Ginny was suddenly by his side.
"Are you okay?" she asked, shocked by the sudden bought of illness.
"Yeah."
"Are you sick? What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I just need to be alone." Harry said, standing up to his full height.
"I should come with you." She said, wand already brandished and siphoning away the sick. Harry shook his head and turned away. He had never much liked other people near him when he felt nauseous. This probably harkened back to his childhood stomach flu's spent over a bucket in the back yard, Aunt Petunia tapping her foot impatiently behind him.
"I just need to go." He said without taking another look behind him. Now free of his previous company, he found his system completely void of any guilt.
Despite his earlier assertion that he wanted to be alone, Harry was oddly gratified to find Malfoy still awake in their empty dormitory. He was lying atop his bed, still fully clothed, looking above him into the darkness. Deciding to also forgo pajamas, Harry moved towards his own bed to slide between the sheets.
"You have nothing better to do on a Friday night?" Malfoy asked, taking note of the absence of their other dorm mates.
"I could say the same to you." Harry pointed out, settling into his bed. "You like it this dark in here?"
"It's relaxing." Malfoy clarified. Harry rolled onto his side to get a better look at his dorm mate.
"You know how to do a patronus?" Harry asked, thinking back to their earlier conversation.
"Voldemort made us learn." Malfoy explained. Harry was impressed by how unaffected Malfoy was by his own use of the dark lord's name.
"So, did he actually live in your house?" Harry wondered, trying to imagine sharing an estate with Voldemort.
"He was gone a lot of the time, but he had his own room and bed, if that's what you're asking."
"He slept?"
"I'm assuming. I never actually saw him doze off, or anything like that."
"Did other death eaters stay with you?"
"We were basically a death eater hotel. Everyone was always coming and going." He said, reminiscing on a chunk of his past he preferred not to reminisce on. But for some reason in this moment it felt easy, almost therapeutic, to talk about. "The ones that only showed up every once in a while weren't so awful, it's the ones who stayed for months at a time that made the place unlivable. My dear aunt Bella, for example." He said with a sarcastic curl of his lips.
"Did you not like her?" Harry pried. Draco snorted a laugh.
"She was horrifying; like a deranged ghost crawling around my house. If you ever came across her somewhere, she could never just say hello, or even better, just ignore you. She always had scream or say something horrible. She was insane."
"Did Voldemort ever..." Harry trailed off, catching himself.
"What?"
"Nevermind."
"Honestly, I don't mind." Draco promised. Harry gathered his thoughts, preparing his question.
"Did he ever kill people at your house?" He asked. Malfoy nodded.
"You were there, you saw what kind of place it was." he said. Harry heard Hermione's shrieks as Bellatrix tortured her rattle through his memories. "Do you remember the old Muggle Studies teacher who died?"
"Charity Burbage."
"That was at my house." He clarified, turning his attention toward the ceiling, watching a grisly memory float through his thoughts.
"I never knew her." Harry remarked solemnly.
"I took her class one time." Draco admitted. "It was just so I could harass her during her classes for teaching about Muggles. But she was nice." He told, his voice stripped of any strength. "I liked her."
The words drifted through the darkness like a haunting apparition, Malfoy continued to gaze upwards, taunted by the swirling memories of a horrifying past.