A/N: Okay, here's the fourth chapter. It's only three sections, but still it's.. extremely large. So sue me. I'm really fond of this story but it's really hard to write, that's why this took so long. The next chapter will be up soon, I promise. Okay, um, in this chapter, we have the hospital wing and Transfiguration class.. Harry blackmails Draco… et cetera. No snogging here, sorry guys. Just didn't fit. Next chapter, I promise some, if only one for a cliffy. Now get to reading, this chapter's already huge..
Truces mended and broken
Draco Malfoy
I awoke in complete and utter pain. I heard a groan and was surprised to find it wasn't coming from my lungs. I glanced first to my left--meriting a flash of pain from my left arm--and then to the right I saw Potter laying in a bed. This cost me so much pain I decided not to move at all.
The hospital wing. Of course. The Quidditch game.
Bastard hit me with his damn broom. Only--the match, who won?
I felt his gaze on me, though I couldn't see him anymore. "Malfoy," he said. "You're awake."
"Amazingly," I said. "Considering how hard you hit me, I should be dead right now. Think you're clever, do you? Killing both of us to try to catch the damn Snitch?"
His tone got much sharper and I could just imagine those strange green eyes of his narrowed. "You twit," he snapped. "I can't even move right now. My kneecap is shattered and my elbow might be, too. You think I'd do that on purpose?"
"I can't fathom your mind, Potter. All I know is that you've only lost a Quidditch game once. God knows what you'd do to not lose again."
"Did you ever think I was just lucky? Unlucky, in this case, you realize. Listen, I'm not a complete idiot." I heard the sheets move as he jerked in irritation and he let out a cry that made some part of my mind protest, want to help. I shoved that away.
Madame Pomfrey stepped in. "I told you not to move, Harry," she said. "We'll get to work on you later. You'll have to wait a moment. Do you mind?"
He just grunted. Apparently he didn't realize that the same pain was going through me even if I lay bolt still.
"Do you mind going first, Draco?" Madame Pomfrey said. "Your back injury is quite bad so I believe we should heal you first."
"Anything to stop the pain right now," I said with total honesty. "Please, do it." In my peripheral vision I saw her move towards me with her wand. "I suppose Wonderboy wouldn't mind skipping a few more classes lounging around in here. Won't be the first time."
Being an intolerable git is a full time job that I'm quite willing to fill, but it does become quite hard when your back is screaming agony at you in every moment. I was doing everything I could to not cry in front of Potter.
"Shut it, Malfoy," Potter said. I cried out as Madame Pomfrey stuck her wand under my back.
To think of it, I didn't get the chance to ask.. "Who won the match?" I asked, somewhat muffled because my teeth were clenched.
Madame Pomfrey looked down at me in surprise. "Gryffindor. He caught it as the broom bucked, at least that's what Professor Snape said he saw on his Omnioculars."
"What a shock," I said, but didn't have the energy to smirk.
Madame Pomfrey murmured a spell, another wretched cry broke from my lungs as the healing magic burned and spread; I fell back onto the bed, panting. "I hate Quidditch," I panted, tears pinpricking my eyes with the pain.
"You two need to keep out of trouble," Madame Pomfrey said, her lips pursed in such a way I couldn't help but laugh, partly in relief.
"I try," Potter said. "But it follows me." Now that the major pain was gone, I felt his eyes on me. His gaze was very intent and very intense, so much that the sheets should have been scorching.
"Stop staring at me, Potter."
"There's not much else to do but watch this," he said. "Besides, I might learn something. Why, am I making you nervous?" he said in a parody of my drawl. I scowled at him.
"In fact, you are." Madame Pomfrey lifted my knee and my teeth gritted of their own volition. "This is difficult enough," I managed to say.
"It'll only be a moment, Draco," she said, comforting. "Just one moment." She held my knee with one hand, her wand touched it with the other, and I watched her lips move as she spoke another spell; I couldn't hear it. There was a cracking sound that I barely heard as I arched and fell back. Madame Pomfrey released my knee. "I warn you, it'll hurt, but not nearly as much as before." I sat up, clutched my back, then looked around, testing my back muscles. Medicinal magic is a wonder, I must admit, even as a Pureblood.
"Thank God," I said, sinking back into the bed. "Thank you, Madame Pomfrey."
She smiled. "It's my job." She looked at Potter with a disapproving smile. "It's your turn, Harry."
"Joy," he said. I stood, tested my back again and glanced up at Potter. He looked at me. We looked away from one another and I started to leave. "Draco--" I heard him say.
I turned, tensed. "Yes?"
"Despite the, um, crash and all... that was a good game." At the look on his face, so serious and yet shocked, I flushed. He might have noticed, because a faint smile appeared on his face.
"Thanks," I managed to say.
I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I just turned and started to leave. The last thing I heard was Madame Pomfrey saying to Harry as she hovered over him, "Now it's your turn."
Harry Potter
They were working on turning chairs into chickens when I got to Transfiguration. I had gotten in right after McGonagall had explained the spell and how to use it, so Ron and Hermione (Okay, mainly Hermione) had to explain it to me.
"So you're all right?" Ron said. He didn't seem thrilled to start work, but that wasn't unusual. I nodded. Hermione was shaking her head disapprovingly at me.
"A shattered kneecap?" she said. "Quidditch is nothing but trouble for you. Why do you play it?"
"'Mione!" Ron stared at her. "'Why does he play it'--honestly!" He shrugged at me. "She just doesn't understand."
"No, I don't," she said. "Why a person would continue playing a sport that got them injured nearly every time they play it, I don't understand that."
"You'd rather see Malfoy win and win the House championship, would you?" I said. I attempted the spell and winced at the result. It looked like a chair upholstered with feathers. "Besides, it's one of the rare things I'm good at." I did the counterspell and sat down in the chair. "Unlike this class."
"Rare?" Ron said. Hermione let out a sound of assent. "You were in the Triwizard Tournament last year and won the bloody thing, I'd say you're talented."
Malfoy was staring at me. He had been the whole time since I had come in. It was making me very, very nervous. He had this way of intensely leering that I didn't think could be possible until I saw him do it.
"What's that bruise on your face?" Hermione asked. I dropped my wand. I can't believe she missed the bruise. Oh, God. I quickly grabbed my wand up again.
"Madame Pomfrey must have missed it," I said diffidently. "I shatter my kneecap and you worry about a bruise, Hermione?"
"It's just odd. Madame Pomfrey should have healed it. Plus, you crashed onto your elbow, how could you get a bruise on your face from that?" Damn Hermione and her logical mind. I shook my head.
"I don't know, Hermione. Does it matter?"
Hermione touched my cheek. I jerked back; it was still tender. Considering that Malfoy and I got in that fight about the same time yesterday, that made sense. "What happened?" she asked. "You're lying. You're covering up something."
Ron leaned forward, quite interested. "Come on, Harry, you can tell us." What's so damn interesting about a bruise, anyway?
"Listen, you guys, it's no big deal," I said. I paused as McGonagall came over and I silently sighed. Thank God. "Um, Professor McGonagall? Where's my Firebolt?"
She looked at the chair I was supposed to be transfiguring, and I quickly jerked out of it. The movement mildly aggravated my knee, but I quickly got over it.
"It's being stripped," McGonagall said.
"Stripped?" I looked up at her, panicked. I'd heard that before, when I first got the broom from Sirius and they checked it for hexes. "Why?"
"We want to know why it bucked and--ahem--injured you and Draco Malfoy. So we are stripping it to check for the usual signs." She gave me a severe look. "You'll have it back before the match against Ravenclaw, don't worry. I like the Gryffindor House winning streak as much as you do. But safety is important, no matter what you may think."
She left, and I looked over at Hermione and Ron. "What, does she think I enjoy lounging in the hospital wing? The place smells like lacewings rotting in formaldehyde."
Ron snorted. "Enough of that," he said. "Back to the bruise. What happened? Did you get in a fight?"
"Nothing major." I rethought that statement. "Er--" I coughed. "Really, it's nothing." This is why I am not known as the most suave person; I am also not the greatest liar in the world.
"You're lying," Hermione said. She was grinning. "It's funny, watching you lie. You're an awful liar." She changed her perfect chicken back into a chair and slumped into it. "So, what really happened?"
There was no way I could win. I sighed, lowered my voice. "All right, I did get in a fight, but no one knows and I definitely don't want McGonagall to know. So keep quiet, all right?"
"Fantastic," Ron whispered. He was grinning. "A real fight. Who was it? A Slytherin, I reckon. Was it Malfoy?" He glanced over at Malfoy. "It must have been, he's giving you a death glare. A real fight," he said again.
"Shut it for a second, Ron," Hermione said. She looked quite disapproving, somewhat like McGonagall. "I want to hear."
"Yeah, it was Malfoy," I said. "He was skulking about the hallway by the Gryffindor changing rooms before the match. We--well, we exchanged words, and he got uppity, and well, I kind of punched him."
"Kind of?" Hermione said, shocked. "How do you 'kind of' punch somebody? Try to punch them in the face and hit their ear or something?"
I sighed. "Okay, I did punch him, right on in the jaw, and he punched me back. Thus, I have the bruise. That's the story."
"Wow," Ron said. "This thing with Malfoy is getting bad. He's never even touched you before. And the only one of us who's ever hit him is, well--" He grinned at Hermione.
"Oh, quiet," Hermione said. She rolled her eyes at me. "That Time-Turner drove me mad, and Hagrid and all of that, I just couldn't stand him any longer. I bet Harry just couldn't take him any more, either. Isn't that right, Harry?"
You have no idea, Hermione.. "Something like that," I said. "He said a few things."
"Like what?" Ron said. Telling him that would require me to tell him about everything, and even though he's my best friend, I couldn't.
He wouldn't believe me anyway.
"The usual. Told me that he was a pawn of evil and all that, et cetera." I stood, pointed my wand at the chair and said "Chiaronus!" There was a puff of smoke and a chicken clucked away. I grinned at Hermione and Ron.
"Pretty good," Hermione said. "Even though it's brown."
I have never been good at Transfiguration, and even to this very day I cannot turn a match into a needle.
Draco Malfoy
I'm usually known as the king, or at least duke or baron of subtlety. But I have the feeling that at that moment in that Transfiguration class, sneaking glances at Potter like some lovesick schoolgirl--okay, bad comparison--some shifty spy, I would have lost that title.
It wasn't just fascination. It wasn't. It was… it was partially worry. Had he seen me on the Quidditch field after the fight? Wouldn't he have mentioned it in the hospital wing, or did he mean to torture me later? What were they whispering about over there, and why was Weasley looking over at me?
Class ended, and McGonagall didn't even take a second look at my perfect chicken, while she praised Granger to no end. And they said Snape did favoritism.
I couldn't take it much longer. Weasley was staring at me with a death glare. I stood, calmly walked over to him and said: "Yes?"
"What?" he said innocently.
"You were staring at me."
"I was not."
"Liar. But I suppose that's a skill needed for a beggar." Weasley flinched. "I suppose they don't give you pence if they know you're begging for money for Chudley Cannons merchandise."
He stood and got right in my face. "Another comment about my family, Malfoy, and I'll beat you senseless," he whispered.
"Bring it on," I said. And it looked as though he would have if Harry hadn't jerked him back.
"Ron, you're going to get yourself expelled," Harry snapped at him. He looked back at me with a look that was almost hurt, that said: "I thought we had a truce."
"What do you want?" I said. "My business is with him." I shot a look at Weasley. He glared back.
He gently pushed me a few steps back. "I have to talk to you, Malfoy. There's something you have to know." What? What is he talking about?
"What is this?"
He leaned over--uncomfortably close, may I add?--and whispered, "I saw you, Malfoy. On the Quidditch field." I flinched, and was unhappy for it. How could he have seen? "That's right, Malfoy. I saw you crying like a baby on the Quidditch field."
I tried to put on a smirk, but terror rocked through me. They would believe him. I couldn't have my reputation ruined… I put up a huge front. "How funny this is," I said. "I was saying the same thing yesterday to you."
I backed up, and hit the wall. I avoided his eyes. "What do you want," I said.
"Just lay off Ron and Hermione."
"As long as your Mudblood and Muggle-lover buddies stay away from me," I said, trying to sound calm, "I won't say a word."
"Then we have an understanding." He stepped away, grinning. "This blackmail thing is handy."
"Don't get used to it." I beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle and tried not to storm away. That would mean he won.
"Don't forget, Malfoy," he said.
"I won't," I said.
And I didn't. It kept me up all of that night.
Who says who the good guys and the bad guys are?
