Harry didn't bring his Marauder's Map to the hospital wing. So when he jerked awake almost at midnight and found Draco's bed was empty, he panicked. The blond was supposed to leave the hospital tomorrow. Clutching his Invisibility Cloak wrapping his body, Harry got up from bed with shoes still attached to his feet and flew out of the hospital wing.
To the Gryffindor Tower to get Marauder's Map, or searching for Draco blindly, Harry could not decide. All he wanted was to find Draco without delay.
He felt tingling sensation through his veins. Harry stepped forward, hesitated. It was as if his magic was swaying toward a certain direction. Harry didn't want to think, he wanted Draco. Follow your intuition, people said. The pull could be his intuition. So he surrendered into it and started walking following the guided direction.
Harry stopped before the tapestry hiding the Room of Requirement behind it. Ah, he should have guessed it in the first place. Of course, it was very possible that Draco visited the Room again. He could feel Draco's magic vibrating softly behind the wall. Harry decided to wait in the corridor.
He didn't have to wait for long, though. Ten minutes later Harry sensed Hogwarts magic rumbling on the wall against his back and then a door appeared. He saw Draco Malfoy stepped out from the door.
"Potter!" Draco choked as he walked out of the Room of Requirement.
"How did you know I was here?" Harry asked, bewildered. He was still covered in the Invisibility Cloak from neck to toe and Draco hadn't even turned his head to Harry's side yet.
"I can sense your magic!" Draco turned to his right side and found Harry's head floating in the air. Draco cringed. The rest of Harry's body was hidden behind the Invisibility Cloak. "How did you know I was here?"
Harry averted his eyes.
"Potter," Draco demanded.
"I don't know. Something pulled me here, or toward you..." Harry answered, frowned. He didn't know what exactly that had pulled him here. It didn't feel like purely his magic.
"What do you mean something pulled you here?" Draco stared at Harry with his cold silver eyes.
"I don't know! I just… It felt like I was being guided by something in my body to go here. Or to find where you were..." Harry answered with another frown. "How did you know it was my magic? How did you sense magic?"
Draco was taken aback by Harry's question. The Slytherin looked confused. He didn't know the answer, then, Harry thought.
"Well, that was weird. Something in me pulled me toward you, and you recognised my magic…" Something crossed in Harry's mind. "Do you think this is Voldemo—"
"Shut up!" Draco almost screamed. And then the blond walking fast, leaving Harry alone on the seventh floor.
Harry frowned at Draco's attitude but then shrugged it off. He decided to go back to his own dorm since hospital wing was clearly off the book and it was likely the blond would return to Slytherin dungeon.
~o~
The next whole week Harry didn't see Draco on meal times at the Great Hall.
Then Saturday morning came unwelcomed by Harry. Today he would have his first day of detention with Professor Snape at ten in his office. But he didn't complain because majorly he felt guilty to Draco Malfoy. Harry had hidden his used old copy of Advanced Potion Making where the horrible spell he casted to Draco was written by someone in it. He hoped no students would stumble upon the antique wooden cabinet he found to hide the book in the Room of Requirement.
"Harry?" Hermione called from the other side of his bed's curtains.
Harry inhaled deep and exhaled heavily. Why couldn't everybody leave him in peace? And he was kind of resented Dumbledore for using his friends to get him. For this once, Harry wanted to take a break from all those "Battle against the Dark Lord" trainings Dumbledore gave him almost every day. It all wore him down and he felt too tired today. He hoped the detention with Snape wouldn't take more than two hours. He wanted to sleep all day this Saturday. Quidditch practice could wait until next week. Good thing he passed his captain position to Ginny temporarily. Bless that girl. She seemed to be the only friend who understood his condition (a.k.a. left him alone in instant without question the first time he told her he wanted solitude).
Harry opened his bed's curtain. Both his friends looked at him with worried faces.
"Mate, you look…" Ron was struggling to find the right word to describe Harry's pale face with bags under his eyes, hair more unruly than usual. And thinner.
Harry got up from his bed with a bit sway.
"Harry, you didn't eat again yesterday?" Hermione held Harry's arm to steady him. "Um, maybe I'll tell Professor Dumbledore that you aren't fit for a training today?"
"Yes, yes please, Hermione. Thank you." Harry smiled at her and walked to the bathroom.
"But you are going to have breakfast with us today, Harry," Hermione told him. "It's been four days you didn't eat properly! Well, two days, for that, and another two days without food at all in your stomach."
"I know you felt guilty, Harry. But that didn't mean you had to ruin your body for the git." Ron was standing next to Hermione at the door now, waiting for Harry to go with them to the Great Hall.
Did he feel guilty, Harry thought. Yes, of course he did. But his lack of appetite was because he was worried about Draco. Which was worrying him for worrying about Draco Malfoy. He forgot meal times because those were the only times –days and nights— he could visit the blond in the hospital wing without disturbance.
The first day he visited Draco, Harry was shocked and panicked when he felt his magic was drawn from him as he stood close to Draco lying asleep in the hospital bed.
Even though it was just a small stream of magic he felt being drawn to Draco's body continuously, Harry didn't know how and why. He still didn't know why even now. But what mattered most was that apparently it had helped the blond to regain his drained magic. Since then, Harry came to the hospital wing every time he had the chance. He wondered why Draco's magic was drained. According to Madam Pomfrey —Harry eavesdropped, Draco's magic had been drained even before the day Harry attacked him. So it wasn't because of the Sectumsempra.
Without he realized, Harry had arrived in the Great Hall. Hermione dragged him to the Gryffindor table and then filled his plate full with scrambled eggs and fried sausages.
"Finish that," Hermione commanded.
The Great Hall this morning was crowded and so alive. Enthusiast chatters discussing their plans for their visit to Hogsmeade today. And then Harry sensed something. He turned his head to the entrance door. Draco Malfoy walked confidently, chin high, guarded by his duo cronies on either side, followed by Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson behind. Draco looked so alive, too. And the blond's magic was vibrating lively in the air.
Wait. Why Harry could feel Draco's magic? The Slytherin's magic was prominent in the air among the crowded hall. Harry turned his eyes to Hermione but the brainy girl didn't pay attention at all to Draco. So it must be just him.
Draco sat on the Slytherin table and was facing him. For the first time since Monday night, their eyes met again.
Yep. Definitely could sense and feel Draco's magic.
~o~
Harry was in the middle of cleaning the fourth bookcase in Snape's office when suddenly he felt tingling sensation in his magic core. A second later the office door flung open and Draco Malfoy strode in as if he owned the room. The blond was about to greet his House Head when he spotted Harry in the corner. Draco closed his mouth tightly.
"What are you doing here, Potter?" Draco sneered. "Ah, let me guess, like usual, detention?"
"How observant of you, Mister Malfoy," Snape drawled.
"Did you feel that?" Harry blurted out without a thought.
Both Slytherin wizards raised each one of their eyebrows at Harry. Draco held his stare longer as the question was addressed at him.
"The…magic…" Harry was trying to form a logical explanation of his thought but couldn't find any to communicate it.
Draco squinted at Harry and he knew the blond understood what he was trying to say. And apparently Snape noticed the exchange between the teens.
"Seeing as Mister Potter has yet to find his brain to gather sequence of words to describe what he intended to say, let's not waste time and please enlighten us, Malfoy," Snape said.
Draco was uncertain and he glanced at Harry again.
"Well, Professor, I think me and Malfoy seem to be able to locate each other?" Harry glanced at Draco, asking confirmation. The blond said nothing, his face blank. So it was all on Harry then. "I mean, I think…we can sense each other's magic. I didn't even know we can sense someone's magic. It happened since, um…well, when I was in the hospital wing visiting Malfoy, I felt my magic was drawn to Malfoy. I don't know how and why. And since then, I can feel his magic when he's near." Harry explained fast so as not to miss any information in his head.
"How are you sure that it was Malfoy's magic?" Snape asked.
"I don't know. I just knew. Um, or my magic knew it was him…" Harry shrugged.
"Your magic 'knew'?" Snape inquired.
"I could feel my magic reaching out to Malfoy." Harry's voice was showing bewilderment. "I mean, like, when some of your hair reaching for the hairbrush with static electric, you can feel it, right?"
"…And you said Malfoy experienced the same," Snape moved his attention to Draco now. "Malfoy?"
Draco was staring at Harry for a moment. He was reluctant, but finally made eye contact to their professor.
"When I was in the hospital, I felt another magic flowed into me. And when I noticed that Potter was standing beside me, I figured out that it was his magic. Though I don't know why and how that happened. And yes, I could sense his magic from certain distance," Draco explained. And when he finished talking, he looked panic and touched his temple. Snape looked at Draco sharp. There was secret communication being exchanged between them.
"Did you tell anyone about this?" Snape asked Harry. And when Harry shook his head, Snape told him not to tell about it to anyone else, even Dumbledore. Harry immediately dismissed from his detention.