Thanks to Everybody who sent their love, my friend is getting feeling back now, and he's starting to talk. Progress is slow but promising.
I seem to be having a very bad luck streak of late, with everything going on I managed to have a rather unwelcome meeting between the ground and my head and am currently recovering from a rather nasty concussion. God Bless Panadiene!
Now that I've gotten past that rather icky chapter, I can get onto the fun stuff. A lot of you have told me that Draco-chasing-Harry is super cliche, so don't worry, this was always going to be a Harry-chase-Draco kind of story. I wrote this chapter to the sound of Maroon 5, it was indeed distracting as all hell, but it cheered me up enough to make Harry get off his butt and stop moping.
Chapter 11 -Study
Ron is a very good friend to Harry, and over the following weeks he seems to be the only person in the entire school that doesn't gape openly at him in the corridors, with the exception of Draco of course, who seems to have forgotten that Harry even existed.
Harry spends every lesson with the Slytherin students glancing furiously between his books and the blonde head staring resolutely forward on the opposite side of the room, hoping desperately to catch him off guard. It never happens.
Ron does his best to distract Harry at the table in the Great Hall, sitting directly in the way of Harry's view of the Slytherin table, teaching him all about the rules of quidditch and interrogating Harry as to just what muggles are like. Harry really doesn't think his opinion on the subject is very valuable, but he does his best.
By the third week of school, Harry is positive he's heard every possible way of being fouled in quidditch twice over, and tells Ron that he has a particularly nasty headache. He isn't really all that hungry anyway, and he really needs to at least make some kind of attempt at his potions essay.
He doesn't bother returning to the common room, hitching the same ratty schoolbag from his old school higher on his shoulders and making the familiar trek up to the school's library. The corridors are empty, and his footsteps echo loudly from the walls and ceiling, the orange glow of sunlight filtering through the windows and catching on the tiny specks of dust the swirl around in the air.
He likes this place, it's pretty, and it feels safe. He just wishes it could feel like home.
Nothing feels like home.
The library is a grand room, with worn crimson carpet and high wooden bookshelves surrounding a central work area, filled with squashy chairs and thick hardwood tables. Everything smells like old parchment and leather.
It's just as quiet here as it was in the corridors, though Harry's steps are muffled now, so that the only sound reaching his ears is his own shallow breathing and the distant scratching of a quill.
Funny, he'd thought that everybody would be down in the Great Hall at this time. Even Madam Pince abandoned her books of an evening and trotted down to the Hall.
He padded his way down the little walkway between shelves, running his fingers over the thick spines of the books as he went, and rounds the corner carefully, poking his head out just far enough to spot the source of the scratching.
Draco isn't facing him, his head is bowed over a textbook as his hand continues scratching out messy notes on a long scroll of parchment resting next to it. His robes have been discarded, thrown over the back of the chair next to him, the cuffs of his white uniform shirt pushed up to his elbows and his hair breaking free ever so slightly from the sleekness Harry is growing used to now.
He doesn't know how long he stands there, staring at the back of his head, and it's only when he realises that he hasn't been breathing that he finally snaps out of his trance, ducking back behind the shelf and exhaling as quietly as he can.
What does he do now?
He wants nothing more than to sit at that table and demand answers from the other boy, slam his hand down on the wooden surface and shout as loud as he can, why did you leave me? Why didn't you come back to me when I needed you? I thought you were my friend... why do I still love you...
He huffs in frustration, pushing all those questions to the back of his mind and grabbing a random book off the shelf behind him. He stepped out from the shelter of the bookshelves and marched himself over to Draco's table, dropping the book down onto the table causing the blonde boy to flinch violently, glaring up at him coldly until he finally recognised Harry, his eyes widening in shock as Harry dropped onto one of the chairs.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, glancing around them for anybody snooping in the shelves.
"I'm sitting down," Harry whispered, scrubbing a hand through his hair and flushing gently. This was a stupid idea, he should have just left.
"I can see that," Draco stated bluntly, "why?"
"Do you want me to go?"
Draco hesitated. "I don't know," he dropped his quill down onto the parchment and rubbed his eyes, a few more strands of hair breaking away from their bonds and hanging down onto his face. Draco didn't seem too fond of them, batting them back roughly into place
Harry didn't watch the action, instead choosing to stare down at the quill now resting on Draco's rough scrawlings. The dim light of the library seemed to illuminate it, brilliant gold and green and blue flecks shimmering across the black surface of the feather, glinting up at him with sickening familiarity.
His own twin to this quill was tucked away in his bedside table, hidden underneath a small pile of galleons and his Hogwarts letter.
"You never told me you had one too," Harry whispered, pointing toward the neglected quill with interest.
"I didn't," Draco replied, resting his chin in his hand and studying Harry critically, "I had to help my mother with the garden for five months to save enough money for that present," He looked down at the tabletop, sighing gently, "Mother got me this one as a reward for getting into Slytherin, actually." He picked up the quill gingerly, watching as the light reflected from the little coloured flecks.
"She asked me what I wanted, and it was the first thing that came to mind. I really don't know why, considering you were so determined to believe that we're not friends anymore, but it did." He dropped it back onto the parchment, flicking a page over in his book and staring down at the writing in front of him.
This time it's Harry who looks as though he's had a bucket of iced water dropped over his head, his eyebrows knitted together and all the blood in his body running right away from his face, "I didn't think you wanted to be my friend..." he scrubs at his hair again, digging blunt fingernails into his scalp, "You left me."
"Do you really think I wanted to?" Draco spits, his cheeks flushing as he speaks, "Do you really think that I spent years walking to that bloody muggle park just because I wanted to ditch you when I needed you most?" he laughed, a broken, devastating laugh that made Harry's throat ache, "Do you think I sat in a garden, pruning bloody roses, getting thorns in my hands to buy you a bloody birthday present because I didn't want to be your friend?"
He looked like he was going to cry, his silver eyes shining brightly and his lip trembling gently, "Draco, I..."
"No, Harry, no." He stood, slamming his book shut and stuffing his things back into his bag, "It's too late now, we can't be friends anymore."
"But, why?" He was standing too now, snatching his bag from the ground and waiting for Draco to make his escape.
"Because you're a Gryffindor, Harry," he whispered, "And I'm a Slytherin. We can't be friends anymore."
"But, what - why does it matter?"
"You have so much to learn, Harry. So, so much to learn."
And then he was gone, and Harry couldn't bring himself to follow after him.
It's very short, but there really isn't anything else I want to add to it. Plus I feel the need to make up for lost time.