Summary: A spell is cast on Harry which creates lots of angst. Draco comes along and creates lots of fluff. Hurrah. Not HBP/DH compliant. Slaaaaaash!
Disclaimer: Me no owny.
A/N: Call it a belated Christmas present!
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Chapter 35
Twelve hours later, Harry woke with a start. Evening had descended, deep blue twilight filtering through the slats in the blinds. The room was shadowy and silent. Harry lay still, his heart racing, his chest rising and falling fast. He had just suffered a terrible nightmare. Inbetween his regulation pyjamas and his skin was a fine layer of cold sweat.
He pushed the covers back from his upper body, cool air hitting his exposed arms. Habitually he reached his hands out in front of him and squinted down at them, checking for cuts and bruises. Nothing.
This nightmare had not been a by-product of Lucius Malfoys' curse, but the dreams of an overwrought imagination deprived of sleep and faced with terrible things. Harry sighed heavily, slumping back into the mattress. He had been back in that endless space again, unable to run away, waiting in the cold and the dark for something unspeakable to come crawling out of the shadows after him. He scanned the darkening room, a childish fear of the unknown dark creeping through his mind.
He felt more alert, more active than he could remember feeling in weeks. The grey cloud of dragging exhaustion had been lifted. He flipped back the covers and set unsteady feet on the floor. The cold seeped into his skin. He stumbled over to the trunk pushed up against the far wall, flipping open the lid and peering inside.
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Ten minutes later he was clad in jeans and a thick sweater, making his way cautiously through the deserted corridors of Hogwarts. The invisibility cloak was draped over him. He had tiptoed from the hospital wing, eyes fixed on Madam Pomfreys' turned back at the far end of the room, opening the doors the slightest crack and slipping out. He needed fresh air, a change of scenery. He wanted to find Draco.
He knew the Great Hall would be deserted, it was after dinner time. And the library would be closed by now. He passed a few wandering students, seventh years who had a later curfew. The tall ghost of the Grey Lady glided past him. He kept silent, not wanting to be discovered. He could not quite face all the questions yet. He had no idea how much the student body knew about the past three weeks. The shadowy dark pressed in on him as he entered the dungeons, and his heart began to squeeze and thud at the thought of a million hidden menaces lurking in the shadows. The lone torches set far apart along the wall were a comforting beacon. It was colder down here than the corridors above.
Slowing to a halt in front of the blank stretch of stone that hid the Slytherin dungeons, a thought struck Harry. He had been so intent on reaching this point that he had not exactly thought of how he was going to get in. He could hardly knock on the wall and ask to speak to Draco Malfoy.
"Pureblood?" he whispered doubtfully.
Nothing happened. That had been the password five years ago, of course it had changed. He sighed. The silvery folds of the invisibility cloak ruffled.
"Okay… Salazar?" he tried. "Slytherin. Ambition? Muggle scum."
Nothing. Sometimes the Gryffindor passwords were complete nonsense made up by the Fat Lady, he had no chance of guessing correctly. Maybe he could owl Malfoy to make him come out…?
"Open up," he muttered. He tried it in Parseltongue. Still nothing. "Voldemort is the best. Snape rules. Gryffindor is for losers. Let me in!"
A distant noise made him whirl around, his heart leaping into his throat. Shadows rippled and distorted along the narrow walls as three girls with green lining in their robes approached. Harry pressed himself against the wall and crossed his fingers.
One of the girls rested a large hand on the blank wall, her small dark eyes fixed on it.
"Lakewater," she said, her voice echoing. The stone wall slid back with a rumbling grind and Harry darted in after them, his heart thudding.
The Slytherin common room was just as he remembered. Long and low, with green lanterns hanging from the stone ceiling and a fire burning in the enormous fireplace. Shadows danced along the cold walls and students sat in groups and knots, talking in lowered voices. It was nothing like the Gryffindor tower. He made his way as quietly as he could past carved chairs and dark furniture, hardly daring to breathe. He felt as though he were inside a snake pit.
He cast around for Draco, for a blonde head amongst the black and brown, but could not see him. He wound his way towards the back of the room, to a low entry carved into the stone and a narrow tunnel beyond. He passed doors labelled with different year groups, boys on the left, girls on the right, until he reached the end and read a small sign on a left hand door that read "Seventh years."
What now? he thought. Knock? Or try to sneak in? Surely if someone was in there they would notice the door opening and closing? What if Draco was in there, but not alone?
If Crabbe and Goyle were in there, that was no problem. They could be outwitted. He had seen Nott in the common room, reading alone. That just left Zabini.
The seconds ticked by. Eventually, steeling his resolve, Harry took a deep breath and reached out to knock quietly on the door.
No answer. He knocked again.
"What?" called an aggravated voice from within. Harry's heart leapt. Dracos' voice. He turned the handle and slipped into the dormitory.
Draco was alone. He sat on a green-covered four-poster in the corner, the drapes tied back. A heavy book lay across his lap. Draco stared up at him unseeingly.
"Who's there?"
"It's me," Harry replied, slipping off the invisibility cloak.
"How did you get in?" said Draco blankly.
He looked worse than Harry felt. He was pale, his eyes huge and dark, outlined with shadows. He did not look like he had been sleeping much. His hair was ruffled, an air of exhaustion clouding him.
"Some girls came in, I followed them."
This room was marginally more cheerful than the cold common room, but still not somewhere Harry would choose to live. The dormitory too was long and narrow with a low ceiling. Four beds were lined against the long wall, and then a fifth, Dracos', at the end against a shorter wall. A door was just to the right, which Harry presumed was a bathroom.
"How - how've you been?" he asked.
Draco gazed up at him, his expression guarded and somewhat confused.
"Fine," he answered. "You look much better."
"Once the curse was lifted Madam Pomfrey could fix all my cuts and bruises in a heartbeat. My arm, too."
Draco nodded. A strange silence fell over them, Harry did not know why but it was awkward. He kept his eyes on Draco, who stared fixedly down at the page before him, his eyes not moving, merely avoiding. The air felt heavy and tense, and Harry was suddenly struck by a strange thought, like none of it had really happened, like they were still enemies and he was down in the Slytherin dungeons with Draco when neither of them had a clue what he was doing there. He swallowed.
"I just -" he began, needing to fill the silence, needing to lift the heavy awkwardness with something, anything. "I just wanted to check that you were okay."
"I'm fine."
"Only you weren't there when I woke up. And… you haven't been to visit."
Draco looked up at him, frowning. His grey eyes seemed shuttered, and when he spoke his voice was clipped and strained. "Did you need me to?"
Harry blinked. "W-well, I -"
"The curse is lifted now, Potter. You don't need my help anymore."
"I know, but -"
"Everything's back to normal then," Draco interrupted. He stared, unmoving, up at Harry. "Don't you remember what we said at the beginning? A temporary truce, and when it was over we would go back to how things were before."
Harry felt a dreadful falling horror in his stomach, like he was stumbling backwards, losing his footing. He stared at the blonde boy in front of him, who turned away, gazing back down at the book in his lap.
"How things … were?"
"Before any of this happened."
"But - Draco, I thought - after everything that's happened, you just want to go back to hating each other?"
"That's what we planned, isn't it?"
"Yes, but -"
"Look, Potter," Draco sighed. He carefully closed the book and set it down on the mattress, rising to his feet. He moved in towards Harry, frowning. "Whatever we thought we might be feeling -" he lifted a hand and touched his fingertips to Harry's hairline, slowly brushing them down across the dark fringe. Then he blinked, cleared his throat. "It was all just a side-effect of the curse. Now that it's gone… there's no reason why we can't just forget it ever happened."
"Forget -? You're going to go back to the other side? Your father -"
"My father is in prison," Draco snarled, cutting across him harshly, and Harry closed his mouth, suddenly afraid. That topic was off limits.
"What are you going to do?"
"That's none of your business, Potter."
Harry stared at him. A thick, panicked dread was filling his throat, his lungs did not seem to want to take in enough air. How could Draco say he wanted to forget - everything?
"Was there anything else?"
Draco gazed at him, an impatient, angry expression on his face. Harry wanted to grab him and shake him and make him snap out of it. He wanted to grab him and -
"No," he said quietly. "No. I'll just…"
He turned, pulling the invisibility cloak across his shoulders and over his head. He stumbled to the door, feeling distant, reaching out a hand that felt like it did not belong to him. He grasped the doorknob, feeling his defences crumble. He turned back to see Draco staring unseeingly at him, his face struggling to remain blank. Harry staggered through the door and out into the dark corridor beyond, closing the door behind him.
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A/N: Thank yooouuuu to XxEmoHuggingDotXx, meghan7474, evildictionaryninja, Lady Sakura of the Fated, TheGirlWthCheeseInHerPocket, eleventy7, Dezra, Nagini Potter, SwarmOfFanGirls, TwIlIgHt-LoVeR24, Secluded Angel 33 and SkyeEyesSparkle7135. You guys rock. Happy holidays!