Weeping willow, chapter 2.
By Dreamsplinter.
Rating: PG, for now.
Warning: Slashed like Ron's drapes in the Prisoner Of Azkaban.
Length: 2 of quite a few.
Author's Note: Slightly darker than the first chapter, but rather important for the next. Thanks to all the reviewers out there! You guys make writing all the more worthwhile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 2 iStars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desiresi
- - Macbeth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Three AM.
Cold moonlight slanted through the windows of Griffindor Tower, reflecting off the glasses of one Harry Potter slouched on the windowsill. Three days had passed since the notorious Potter-Malfoy detention, though the entire school seemed intent on making the biggest fuss they could about it.
But gossip was the farthest thing from Harry's mind at that moment. He had been robbed of sleep for nearly a week by nightmares, and that night had been a regular hell. Twisted, demented images of Voldemort's face, his parent's death, Cedric's lifeless body, snakes and fire floated in his mind through a foggy haze. And the screaming. That was the worst part of all. His head was still ringing for those terrible cries, though they were no more than a memory now.
He shifted off of the sill and padded over to his four-poster, eyeing Ron's snoring form with envy. Sleep was out of the question, but there were plenty of other things that could occupy the time of a raging insomniac. He shuffled around under his bed in search of the Invisibility Cloak, and ignoring his lack of footwear or proper clothing completely, he walked out the portrait hole and out into the halls of Hogwarts.
Harry let his mind wander and his legs carry him wherever they pleased. Leaving the dormitories helped clear his brain, and he was freer to think of pleasant things. He wondered how Sirius was doing, what tomorrow would hold, how the upcoming Quidditch game would turn out, and on and on. He found himself climbing the spiral stairs to the Astronomy Tower, and vaguely considered bunking down on one of the couches in there, as he was starting to feel a little fatigued again.
He continued up the stairs until a small, insistent sound caught his attention. A soft tapping echoed through the spiral stairway.
*Thump, thump. Thump thump. *
Harry froze, poised on the next step. He backed against the wall that would be the outside of the tower, his wand already out. The noise came again, muffled thumps, two in a row like a heartbeat from deep within the tower, this time in a constant rhythm. He stepped up one stair, and the noise ceased. His feet touched the previous stair, and the noise returned. The next stair down had the same effect. He could only hear the thumping when standing on that particular step.
Harry leaned in towards the inner wall, his wand held before his face. He tapped a stone with his wand tip, and nearly fell back in shock when a shimmer of blue light rippled across the surface of the stone where he touched it. The light spread outwards and settled into an outline of a rectangle whose side lines ran down to connect with the stair.
The thumping increased in volume.
Harry placed a tentative hand on the glowing blue rectangle, and with just a light push, the outlined block slid backwards and sideways into the darkness, revealing a narrow hole in the wall.
Like Neo in the Matrix, all Harry could think was, //Whoa.//
Tucking the Invisibility Cloak around him, Harry wriggled sideways through the opening to find himself in a spacious, but dimly lit passageway.
"Lumos," He murmured, and started down the tunnel, his feet cold on the stones. A solid oak door loomed in his sight, left slightly open by whoever (or whatever) had last been there. Harry's heart seemed to be trying to flee his ribcage as he peered around the doorjamb, extinguishing his wand light. A strange sight met his eyes.
It was a large, circular room with no windows save a skylight nearly five stories up at the top of the tower. Warm candlelight soaked into burgundy rugs and furnishings, and shed light on the best thing about the room. The walls were shelved all the way to the ceiling with books. An entire section of a secret library tucked into the center of the Astronomy Tower, with two platforms on vertical tracks set into the wall for the apparent reason of getting a person to volumes on higher shelves. The thumping had stopped for a few moments, and Harry pushed into the room.
It was there he saw the person he would have least expected to run across at this time of night.
//Malfoy?!//
The blond boy was perched on one of the moving platforms by the bookcases, holding something in his fist.
At this moment of realization, a dark blue blur, about the size of a golf ball hurtled out of the darkness and collided into Harry's temple, knocking him onto the ground and out of consciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry swam upwards through murky, shifting sensations and opened his eyes cautiously. The room was a warm maroon haze due to the apparent fact that his glasses had flown off. He rolled over and searched blindly for his missing eyewear. A voice stopped him abruptly.
"Were you following me, Potter?" came the familiar sneer.
Harry groaned and shifted to his knees, squinting to see Malfoy standing over him. His head throbbed with every move and his words were sluggish.
"Wha- what the heck did you do to me?" He slurred.
"You haven't answered my question. And I didn't do it on purpose. After all I couldn't see you," Draco replied with a shrug, and bounced a dark blue racquetball idly against the floor.
//Ah, hence the thumping noise.// Thought Harry. He gathered this was also what had laid him low when he entered the room.
Harry struggled to his feet, reeling a little as the room spun. The Invisibility Cloak slid to the floor while Harry tried to focus on the angry Slytherin. "What is this place?"
"I found it during third year. Great for being alone, unless buffoons like you happen to stumble onto it. Or, follow you into it," Draco added with a hiss.
"Look, I didn't follow you here. I just, kind of--"
"Decided to spy on someone who obviously wants to be left alone?" Draco offered sarcastically. He picked up Harry's glasses from the desk near him and turned them over in his hands idly.
"No. I just found the door, alright? And I'd appreciate my glasses back, please."
Harry hated how pitiful he sounded, but there wasn't much helping it. But surprisingly, Draco walked over to him, and held out his glasses at arms distance. Harry hesitated before accepting them, but quickly rammed them onto his face. The two boys faced each other in a silence which could be described as "awkward" at best. Harry rubbed the back of his neck, and studied his bare toes.
"Uh, I guess I should be going, or something," He tired to be casual, and failed.
Draco couldn't help but smirk a little at the other boy's ungainliness. "So since you're here, maybe you'd like to enlighten me as to why you've decided to pay a visit?" He questioned.
"I --I couldn't sleep." Harry said.
"That's it?" Draco seemed almost amused. He placed a hand on the desk, causing a loose parchment to flutter from its surface and land at Harry's feet. Naturally, the other boy stooped to pick it up.
"What's this-?" Harry began.
Draco's eyes widened in horror. "Nothing, Potter. At least, nothing quite comprehensible to you." He added icily, striding over and snatching the parchment back.
"Looks like a letter," Harry raised one eyebrow. "A letter you couldn't read over the breakfast table?"
" I'll thank you to stop playing nanny for me. Personal business should stay that way," He replied with a sidestep.
Harry tensed a little. After all, if it was personal, then he didn't really have the right to go barging in. "Er, sorry then." Without thinking, a thought flew from Harry's lips.
"I saw you in the lake the other day," He blurted.
"And couldn't help staring, could you?" Draco's voice was a little colder than a tease.
"No! I mean, you were- I was just wondering- No.," Harry broke off, looking rather pained.
"You mean you wanted to know why?" Draco suggested.
"Yeah."
Draco shrugged, and set the parchment that he had been tightly clutching back on the desk. "Why not? It keeps me in shape, and isn't such a bad skill to have."
Harry scoffed, "Not that you'd need any extra exercise!"
"Been checking me out?" Draco asked sardonically.
"I meant since you do Quidditch." Harry was ready for him this time.
"Of course," Draco replied coolly, "But it never hurts to have a bit of an edge over the enemy."
"Hah! You'll never be on any sort of edge, Malfoy. Unless you mean a cliff's edge and plan to do us all a favor."
"We'll see about that in the Quidditch game tomorrow," Draco's voice held a good measure of intensity.
Harry seemed to relax into the familiar volley of insults. "I'm sure we will. But if either of us is to do any good tomorrow we should sleep." He started for the door, the paused, looking back at Draco.
"Well, for crying out loud Potter, you know the way out. And I'm not about to walk you back to your dormitory." Draco said.
Harry looked surprised for a millisecond, then resumed his nonchalant attitude, saying, "I never once expected you to. Just get some rest. When I beat you tomorrow, it should at least be a fair win."
With that, he exited and shut the door firmly behind him.
Draco stood wavering for a few seconds after he left, then collapsed into a nearby armchair.
//Oh God, what if Potter had read that letter?// Draco raked nervous fingers through his hair. He leaned over and picked up the parchment off the desk, reading it again. He drew his wand slowly from the folds of his robes, and whispering a spell set the frail document ablaze. He let it smolder gently on the desk and crossed to one of the moving platforms attached to the wall. He let it rush past five stories all the way to the top of the tower to hover beneath a large skylight.
Draco stared upwards out the window, wishing he could disappear for a while. The Quidditch match was tomorrow, and he knew quite well what Lucius had asked, nay, commanded that he do. Not only did he have to win, oh no. He had another mission tomorrow, but not one that he wanted to carry out.
He reached into his pocket for the parchment that had come with the letter.
//a tracking spell. Very subtle, excruciatingly complex.//
Draco had to marvel at his father's skill with magic. Such a spell could monitor every detail about a person, even their emotions, without being noticed. Such a spell could give anyone gradual control over said person, and eventually opportunity to have them conveniently disappear. Here Draco frowned. This was * not* his job. He had always followed his father's directions before, but this time something held him back. He didn't want to do Daddy's gruntwork. It would have been so easy to nail Potter with the spell as he lay comatose on the floor, yet Draco had stayed his hand.
It just wouldn't have seemed *right. * Not that morals had ever stopped him before.
Draco pulled a book off a nearby shelf and slowly tore the first page out, as if to prove to himself just how bad he was. But now he had been sent like hell's missionary to perform another rite for all that is Dark and Unholy, and he didn't want to. He was a Malfoy, dammit! Malfoys don't piddle around when there's work to be done. He unconsciously tore the page into increasingly smaller pieces, becoming steadily more angry. Whatever it was that was making him feel so merciful towards Potter would have to fix itself. But the annoying part of his brain that was usually right kept insisting that maybe there was more to Harry Potter than it seemed. He remembered their detention together, and how easy it was to let his guard slide down. He felt a twinge of nervousness in his fingertips, and tried to banish the thought of Potter lying on the floor of this very room, defenseless as a newborn, hair in his eyes and a bruise on his temple. This was exactly the sort of thought that should have made Draco crow with triumph; but now he only felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, like he had destroyed something beautiful.
Beautiful? //Teenage boys are not beautiful. Period.// Draco thought with a shake of his head. It was almost like for a moment, he had cared for him. Cared! Ridiculous. That sap deserved everything he got, walking in and acting like he owned the place. He looked at the spell again, and put it back in his pocket, resolving himself for the day ahead.
//Family before feelings,// Draco thought grimly, and tapped the side of the platform twice, signaling it to return to ground level.
During his return trip to the floor, he decided to catch a few hours of sleep in the tower rather than go back to Slytherin, and was just about to settle into a large armchair when he noticed something wadded up next to the desk. Potter's Invisibility Cloak. He walked over and picked up the cloak, which was surprisingly lightweight for its size. Honestly, Potter. You're determined to make this difficult, aren't you? Draco tried not to think any more of it, and settled down to go to sleep, unconsciously wrapping the cloak around him. It was a cold night, after all.
By Dreamsplinter.
Rating: PG, for now.
Warning: Slashed like Ron's drapes in the Prisoner Of Azkaban.
Length: 2 of quite a few.
Author's Note: Slightly darker than the first chapter, but rather important for the next. Thanks to all the reviewers out there! You guys make writing all the more worthwhile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 2 iStars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desiresi
- - Macbeth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Three AM.
Cold moonlight slanted through the windows of Griffindor Tower, reflecting off the glasses of one Harry Potter slouched on the windowsill. Three days had passed since the notorious Potter-Malfoy detention, though the entire school seemed intent on making the biggest fuss they could about it.
But gossip was the farthest thing from Harry's mind at that moment. He had been robbed of sleep for nearly a week by nightmares, and that night had been a regular hell. Twisted, demented images of Voldemort's face, his parent's death, Cedric's lifeless body, snakes and fire floated in his mind through a foggy haze. And the screaming. That was the worst part of all. His head was still ringing for those terrible cries, though they were no more than a memory now.
He shifted off of the sill and padded over to his four-poster, eyeing Ron's snoring form with envy. Sleep was out of the question, but there were plenty of other things that could occupy the time of a raging insomniac. He shuffled around under his bed in search of the Invisibility Cloak, and ignoring his lack of footwear or proper clothing completely, he walked out the portrait hole and out into the halls of Hogwarts.
Harry let his mind wander and his legs carry him wherever they pleased. Leaving the dormitories helped clear his brain, and he was freer to think of pleasant things. He wondered how Sirius was doing, what tomorrow would hold, how the upcoming Quidditch game would turn out, and on and on. He found himself climbing the spiral stairs to the Astronomy Tower, and vaguely considered bunking down on one of the couches in there, as he was starting to feel a little fatigued again.
He continued up the stairs until a small, insistent sound caught his attention. A soft tapping echoed through the spiral stairway.
*Thump, thump. Thump thump. *
Harry froze, poised on the next step. He backed against the wall that would be the outside of the tower, his wand already out. The noise came again, muffled thumps, two in a row like a heartbeat from deep within the tower, this time in a constant rhythm. He stepped up one stair, and the noise ceased. His feet touched the previous stair, and the noise returned. The next stair down had the same effect. He could only hear the thumping when standing on that particular step.
Harry leaned in towards the inner wall, his wand held before his face. He tapped a stone with his wand tip, and nearly fell back in shock when a shimmer of blue light rippled across the surface of the stone where he touched it. The light spread outwards and settled into an outline of a rectangle whose side lines ran down to connect with the stair.
The thumping increased in volume.
Harry placed a tentative hand on the glowing blue rectangle, and with just a light push, the outlined block slid backwards and sideways into the darkness, revealing a narrow hole in the wall.
Like Neo in the Matrix, all Harry could think was, //Whoa.//
Tucking the Invisibility Cloak around him, Harry wriggled sideways through the opening to find himself in a spacious, but dimly lit passageway.
"Lumos," He murmured, and started down the tunnel, his feet cold on the stones. A solid oak door loomed in his sight, left slightly open by whoever (or whatever) had last been there. Harry's heart seemed to be trying to flee his ribcage as he peered around the doorjamb, extinguishing his wand light. A strange sight met his eyes.
It was a large, circular room with no windows save a skylight nearly five stories up at the top of the tower. Warm candlelight soaked into burgundy rugs and furnishings, and shed light on the best thing about the room. The walls were shelved all the way to the ceiling with books. An entire section of a secret library tucked into the center of the Astronomy Tower, with two platforms on vertical tracks set into the wall for the apparent reason of getting a person to volumes on higher shelves. The thumping had stopped for a few moments, and Harry pushed into the room.
It was there he saw the person he would have least expected to run across at this time of night.
//Malfoy?!//
The blond boy was perched on one of the moving platforms by the bookcases, holding something in his fist.
At this moment of realization, a dark blue blur, about the size of a golf ball hurtled out of the darkness and collided into Harry's temple, knocking him onto the ground and out of consciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry swam upwards through murky, shifting sensations and opened his eyes cautiously. The room was a warm maroon haze due to the apparent fact that his glasses had flown off. He rolled over and searched blindly for his missing eyewear. A voice stopped him abruptly.
"Were you following me, Potter?" came the familiar sneer.
Harry groaned and shifted to his knees, squinting to see Malfoy standing over him. His head throbbed with every move and his words were sluggish.
"Wha- what the heck did you do to me?" He slurred.
"You haven't answered my question. And I didn't do it on purpose. After all I couldn't see you," Draco replied with a shrug, and bounced a dark blue racquetball idly against the floor.
//Ah, hence the thumping noise.// Thought Harry. He gathered this was also what had laid him low when he entered the room.
Harry struggled to his feet, reeling a little as the room spun. The Invisibility Cloak slid to the floor while Harry tried to focus on the angry Slytherin. "What is this place?"
"I found it during third year. Great for being alone, unless buffoons like you happen to stumble onto it. Or, follow you into it," Draco added with a hiss.
"Look, I didn't follow you here. I just, kind of--"
"Decided to spy on someone who obviously wants to be left alone?" Draco offered sarcastically. He picked up Harry's glasses from the desk near him and turned them over in his hands idly.
"No. I just found the door, alright? And I'd appreciate my glasses back, please."
Harry hated how pitiful he sounded, but there wasn't much helping it. But surprisingly, Draco walked over to him, and held out his glasses at arms distance. Harry hesitated before accepting them, but quickly rammed them onto his face. The two boys faced each other in a silence which could be described as "awkward" at best. Harry rubbed the back of his neck, and studied his bare toes.
"Uh, I guess I should be going, or something," He tired to be casual, and failed.
Draco couldn't help but smirk a little at the other boy's ungainliness. "So since you're here, maybe you'd like to enlighten me as to why you've decided to pay a visit?" He questioned.
"I --I couldn't sleep." Harry said.
"That's it?" Draco seemed almost amused. He placed a hand on the desk, causing a loose parchment to flutter from its surface and land at Harry's feet. Naturally, the other boy stooped to pick it up.
"What's this-?" Harry began.
Draco's eyes widened in horror. "Nothing, Potter. At least, nothing quite comprehensible to you." He added icily, striding over and snatching the parchment back.
"Looks like a letter," Harry raised one eyebrow. "A letter you couldn't read over the breakfast table?"
" I'll thank you to stop playing nanny for me. Personal business should stay that way," He replied with a sidestep.
Harry tensed a little. After all, if it was personal, then he didn't really have the right to go barging in. "Er, sorry then." Without thinking, a thought flew from Harry's lips.
"I saw you in the lake the other day," He blurted.
"And couldn't help staring, could you?" Draco's voice was a little colder than a tease.
"No! I mean, you were- I was just wondering- No.," Harry broke off, looking rather pained.
"You mean you wanted to know why?" Draco suggested.
"Yeah."
Draco shrugged, and set the parchment that he had been tightly clutching back on the desk. "Why not? It keeps me in shape, and isn't such a bad skill to have."
Harry scoffed, "Not that you'd need any extra exercise!"
"Been checking me out?" Draco asked sardonically.
"I meant since you do Quidditch." Harry was ready for him this time.
"Of course," Draco replied coolly, "But it never hurts to have a bit of an edge over the enemy."
"Hah! You'll never be on any sort of edge, Malfoy. Unless you mean a cliff's edge and plan to do us all a favor."
"We'll see about that in the Quidditch game tomorrow," Draco's voice held a good measure of intensity.
Harry seemed to relax into the familiar volley of insults. "I'm sure we will. But if either of us is to do any good tomorrow we should sleep." He started for the door, the paused, looking back at Draco.
"Well, for crying out loud Potter, you know the way out. And I'm not about to walk you back to your dormitory." Draco said.
Harry looked surprised for a millisecond, then resumed his nonchalant attitude, saying, "I never once expected you to. Just get some rest. When I beat you tomorrow, it should at least be a fair win."
With that, he exited and shut the door firmly behind him.
Draco stood wavering for a few seconds after he left, then collapsed into a nearby armchair.
//Oh God, what if Potter had read that letter?// Draco raked nervous fingers through his hair. He leaned over and picked up the parchment off the desk, reading it again. He drew his wand slowly from the folds of his robes, and whispering a spell set the frail document ablaze. He let it smolder gently on the desk and crossed to one of the moving platforms attached to the wall. He let it rush past five stories all the way to the top of the tower to hover beneath a large skylight.
Draco stared upwards out the window, wishing he could disappear for a while. The Quidditch match was tomorrow, and he knew quite well what Lucius had asked, nay, commanded that he do. Not only did he have to win, oh no. He had another mission tomorrow, but not one that he wanted to carry out.
He reached into his pocket for the parchment that had come with the letter.
//a tracking spell. Very subtle, excruciatingly complex.//
Draco had to marvel at his father's skill with magic. Such a spell could monitor every detail about a person, even their emotions, without being noticed. Such a spell could give anyone gradual control over said person, and eventually opportunity to have them conveniently disappear. Here Draco frowned. This was * not* his job. He had always followed his father's directions before, but this time something held him back. He didn't want to do Daddy's gruntwork. It would have been so easy to nail Potter with the spell as he lay comatose on the floor, yet Draco had stayed his hand.
It just wouldn't have seemed *right. * Not that morals had ever stopped him before.
Draco pulled a book off a nearby shelf and slowly tore the first page out, as if to prove to himself just how bad he was. But now he had been sent like hell's missionary to perform another rite for all that is Dark and Unholy, and he didn't want to. He was a Malfoy, dammit! Malfoys don't piddle around when there's work to be done. He unconsciously tore the page into increasingly smaller pieces, becoming steadily more angry. Whatever it was that was making him feel so merciful towards Potter would have to fix itself. But the annoying part of his brain that was usually right kept insisting that maybe there was more to Harry Potter than it seemed. He remembered their detention together, and how easy it was to let his guard slide down. He felt a twinge of nervousness in his fingertips, and tried to banish the thought of Potter lying on the floor of this very room, defenseless as a newborn, hair in his eyes and a bruise on his temple. This was exactly the sort of thought that should have made Draco crow with triumph; but now he only felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, like he had destroyed something beautiful.
Beautiful? //Teenage boys are not beautiful. Period.// Draco thought with a shake of his head. It was almost like for a moment, he had cared for him. Cared! Ridiculous. That sap deserved everything he got, walking in and acting like he owned the place. He looked at the spell again, and put it back in his pocket, resolving himself for the day ahead.
//Family before feelings,// Draco thought grimly, and tapped the side of the platform twice, signaling it to return to ground level.
During his return trip to the floor, he decided to catch a few hours of sleep in the tower rather than go back to Slytherin, and was just about to settle into a large armchair when he noticed something wadded up next to the desk. Potter's Invisibility Cloak. He walked over and picked up the cloak, which was surprisingly lightweight for its size. Honestly, Potter. You're determined to make this difficult, aren't you? Draco tried not to think any more of it, and settled down to go to sleep, unconsciously wrapping the cloak around him. It was a cold night, after all.