Harry woke to brisk knocking on the pillar that guarded his quarters. Classes had just started up again, and he was exhausted.
For a moment, he wondered if maybe if he just ignored it, it would go away — but a quick time-checking charm told him it must be important for someone to wake him at two in the morning. Probably Minerva, since she was the only one who knew where his rooms were, as far as he knew.
He sighed and extracted himself from Draco's arms, pulling on a robe.
"Minerva? What is it?" he pushed the pillar that served as the entrance to his rooms open, only to find three Seventh Year prefects standing there.
"It's Peeves, sir; he's wrecked the Potions classroom. We were on patrol, when we heard all this crashing and when we went to go investigate, well...it's a complete mess."
"Why did you come to me, then, and not your head of house?" He recognised dimly that two of them were Slytherin, although the other was a Gryffindor.
"Well we wanted to tell Professor Malfoy, sir, but we didn't know where his rooms were."
"And you came here?" he raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't aware students knew about the location of this room either," he muttered, then he sighed.
"Alright, go back to your dorms or patrol or whatever, he will be made aware of the situation."
Harry let go of the hinged pillar, but it stayed somewhat ajar. As they heard him walking away, the three students crowded closer to listen.
"Come on love, get up."
They heard a disgruntled groan.
"What?"
"Apparently some of the prefects were patrolling and they heard crashing sounds from your classroom and...Peeves sort of...wrecked it."
"You're joking. Please tell me you woke me up in the middle of the night to play a joke so I can castrate you instead."
"Draco. Really."
"Bloody Merlin, I swear if that little meddling piece of shite poltergeist messed up my veritaserum brew, I am going to find a way to murder him."
"Go fix your classroom so you can come back and get some sleep before breakfast."
"Ugh," the pillar was pushed open, and the students came face to face with an angry, shirtless Draco Malfoy. He promptly turned back around and slammed the pillar shut.
"Thank you for warning me that there were still students outside our room."
"I told them to go back to their dorms, it's not my fault they're nosey little bastards. It's too bloody early for this."
Draco yanked on a shirt and stormed out of the room, shooting the students a quelling look. They were duly terrified.
When he got down to the dungeons, he sighed, there were smashed jars and ingredients all over the halls. Great.
By the end of two hours, he managed to put everything in order by summoning the ingredients one by one, and repairing the jars. Once he had ascertained that his veritaserum was, in fact, miraculously untouched, he dragged himself up to the sixth floor.
"Green."
The pillar swung open, and he stumbled sleepily in.
He crawled back into bed behind Harry and snaked his arms around his waist. Harry stirred.
"You know the fact that you were in here is gonna be everywhere by breakfast."
"Why should I stop at just one poltergeist when I can add hordes of children to my hitlist," Draco sleepily replied, and Harry chuckled quietly.
"I guess we'll deal with that later."
"Shh," Draco whispered, and half-assedly covered Harry's face with his hand. "Sleep."
~*~
Draco thought that skipping breakfast was the best option. Although Harry reluctantly agreed, he pointed out that they wouldn't be able to avoid their classes.
Harry's first class was his Hufflepuff and Slytherin Third Years. It was awful.
They wouldn't stop gossiping, so Harry had to resort to taking points to get them to just shut up. But then, every time they raised their hands, they would ask something along the lines of 'Why was Professor Malfoy in your room last night?'
Harry quickly lost his temper. He stood up to his full (still kind of short) height, and crossed his arms.
"I will say this once and one time only. I will not entertain gossip and/or silly rumours in my class. My personal life is of no relevance to you, as I made clear at the beginning of this year and last year. That does not just apply to questions about the war or my past. There will be no more questions or conversation about anything except for Defence Against the Dark Arts. Specifically Kappas. Now, since these creatures tend to dwell in..."
Harry continued on with his lecture and the class stayed silent.
~*~
Draco had a different technique for dealing with his students. As soon as his Fifth Years took their seats for the first lesson, he turned from the board and shot all of them his most terrifying glare.
"Today, we will talk about the Draught of Living Death, and what makes it so unique. We will also discuss what a few simple changes can do to make it an entirely different potion altogether..."
There were still a few whispers, but Draco was mostly satisfied that he had terrified them enough to keep quiet.
~*~
A/N:
Somebody made fan art! I repeat! Someone made fan art! Of this chapter! And it's fantastic! Three and a half years and this book finally got fan art! I am beyond thrilled!!!!!Please go check it out, there is a part 1 part 2, and both can be found on their Instagram (qina_f23).
