Well, it was to say that this Christmas was one of the best that Harry had ever experienced. He wasn't as alone as the thought. Even if it was only mum and Remus, but two was already more than he had ever had.
Moreover, it seemed like someone was finally considering him, remembering what he wanted and liked. Because the things under the Christmas tree this year weren't just atrociously tasteless gifts or gifts that were unintentionally given away, they were gifts that actually suited him.
He had gotten the books he picked out with his mum. And she also had gone back to the bookstore a second time and bought him a great bookmark that would magnify and/or read the highlighted lines out loud if his eyes got tired. A small spark of hope welled in him. Maybe this thing with his mum might actually work out after all.
Remus's presents were wonderful, he had given Harry: an apple (upon which Jerry commented something rude) and two books. One of the books was on how to become an Animagus and the other was a potions text. Well, at least that's what everyone thought, but Remus subtly showed him that the front cover on the book was charmed to be a false cover and the book was actually: "Misconceptions about Werewolves."
Harry gave Remus a sly grin as he held the book close to him.
Sirius and James had gotten Harry some Quidditch gear, but then they had gotten the same thing for Jerry…
Harry's grandparents, on his mother's side, had sent him a new knapsack fill with holiday nuts and candy. And his grandparents on his father's side had sent something that looked like a Muggle snow globe, but it was charmed so that the village inside the globe was moving. It was actually a bit like the moving paintings and photos, but more three dimensional.
Later that night, James, Remus and Sirius had gone out for some Christmas drinking and Jerry was already upstairs sleeping. Harry had just come down for a glass of water when he saw his mother sitting in the dark, in front of the warm and slowly fading fire. Harry walked over so that he was standing behind the back of the sofa.
Lily sleepily looked up and smiled, "Hey, you like your presents?"
Harry gave a content grin and nodded. Lily held he arms open, "Come over here and give your mum a hug."
Harry nodded and ran around to the other side to hug her. Lily gave a satisfied hum and then let him go, "So, what are you doing up so late?"
"… was just gettin' a drink."
Lily got up from the couch and trod over to the kitchen with him. And then came back to the kitchen table with two glasses of water.
The two of them were silent for a while, just enjoying the quiet company of one another when Harry murmured, "Been thinking… if you said that you noticed that I wasn't so 'involved' this summer. How come you didn't do anything about it till now?"
Harry then let out a huge yawn and sleepily smacked his lips.
"Well," Lily started. "I guess, I wasn't thinking about doing anything about it. You were always independent and I knew you didn't really need me. I was considering on letting things go on the way they were. But I guess when I picked you up from the Hogwarts station and saw how tired and gloomy you were, I figured that you needed someone. Even if you do try to cover it up most of the time…I mean, it doesn't hurt to have your mum here to help you through your worst times, right?"
Lily's hand stretched out and lightly ruffled Harry's hair.
Harry gave a small grin and a tiny nod and walked over to put the cup into the sink. Then, as he turned around to head back to his room, Lily said, "Harry. Are we okay?"
Harry turned to her and gave her a rare brilliant smile, "Yeah."
The night before Harry went back to Hogwarts, he found Jerry sprawled out on the couch watching the muggle television his mother purchased.
Harry looked at the empty spot next to where his trunk was, "Where's your stuff."
Jerry shrugged, "I'm stayin' home."
Harry blinked a few times, "What?"
"Mom said she can home school me for the rest of the year and I just have to go to local wizarding testing place and do a short exam to pass my second year." Jerry said lazily.
Harry stared. At first, he was considering on calling his brother an idiot for not going back to school, but then … if Jerry didn't go back, it mean there was one less person Harry had to worry about.
Jerry glared, "You have a problem?"
Harry quickly shook his head, "No, hope you have fun."
Harry was about to leave when Jerry said, "You know you owe me."
Harry froze, turned around, and said slowly, "Owe …you…"
"For not telling mom and dad 'what' you can do" Jerry replied with a unkind smirk.
"What?! I don't…"
Then Jerry raised a brow and mouthed the word, 'parseltongue'.
Harry felt a shiver down his spine and stared.
Jerry shot Harry an amused look and returned to watching the program, "Just thought you'd like to know."
"You look better Potter." Draco commented blandly as he joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione in one of the train compartments.
Harry gave Draco a wary glance and his lips thinned to a line. He was about to retort in a nasty manner, but he reconsidered. He really didn't want to live through the worse half of last month, so he unwillingly nodded and scooted over.
The trip seemed longer this time, and it probably was because of the snow slowing down the train. But it was also probably because none of them said a word. Hermione was busy studying up on work for the upcoming weeks. Ron was letting his mind wander off and suitably scaring himself to death. Harry guessed that he was thinking about the basilisk.
And Draco was doing his usual staring out the window. Sometimes Harry wondered why Draco even bothered to sit with him on the train when the other Slytherins would have more then welcomed him and chatted him up for the rest of the ride.
As Harry got off the train, he finally said something, "Jerry stayed at home, mum was considering on not letting me come back for the rest of the year. The whole petrified children thing is making her paranoid."
Draco snorted in a derogatory manner, but he didn't say anything. Harry figured that Draco thought that since they were Slytherins, they weren't prone to being petrified.
There were no signs of any more students being petrified for the rest of the winter.
It seemed almost as if everything had quieted down.
Harry told himself –well, hoped- that whatever monster that had appeared, had just as quickly disappeared. Maybe everything would be fine, the students that were petrified would be revived and everything would be back to normal again…
Well, as normal as could be…
Harry worked hard to not show it, but after the incident with Draco, his paranoia had increased ten-folds. When Draco asked to borrow things, Harry would hesitate and consider lying that he didn't have such an item, whereas, in the past, Harry wouldn't even have given it a second thought.
As much as Harry disliked this uneasy tension when he was around Draco, he was somewhat… well, glad, because now he knew the reality of the situation. He knew Draco better… and he knew he couldn't count on Draco as much as he did before.
Harry mentally scolded himself. What was he thinking? Or was he even thinking at all? The Malfoys had a bad reputation for a reason… But… But he had thought Draco wasn't as bad. He was hoping, willing to blindly ignore his instincts to give the blonde the benefit of the doubt. And now, seeing how wrong he had been, Harry wondered whether he should always second guess himself when it came to judging people.
Harry clutched the Charms text closer to him as he glanced up at the Slytherins hanging about the common room from under the fringe of his bangs.
Maybe he did have to.
But to what extent?
"I bribed one of the Ravenclaws for the questions on the Charms test later today." Draco casually mentioned at dinner.
Harry nodded in an uninteresting way.
"You want to…" Draco started.
Harry shrugged, "Its okay. I've already studied up."
"Yeah Potter. But the rest of the Slytherins will know the test questions and have an advantage over you. If you at least know the questions you'll be on level playing gr- "
Harry slammed his fork down and snapped, "I'm fine Draco!"
The Slytherin table looked up and stared at him. Harry gave them a weak shrugs and shook his head as he tried to reign in on his temper. Harry made a face as he lowered his voice and muttered jerkily, "Its okay, I don't really… need them…"
Harry shook his head and quickly got up from his chair, "Uh… I … I'm not hungry anymore."
Harry walked out of the Great Hall, but he never noticed the panicked look on Draco's face.
Harry breathed heavily and unevenly as he leaned back against a pillar in the deserted hallway.
What was that about?
Harry swallowed to ease his dried throat and he scrounged up his face.
Why did he just throw a tantrum in there? He usually had a lot of control over his emotions. He wasn't rash and temperamental like Jerry and his father.
Harry closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.
That couldn't have been him. He didn't do things like that. Okay, so he was related to his dad and Jerry, but he never made a scene like that. It was so odd. It felt like something was welling up and crawling under his skin and he just wanted to scream.
Maybe he was losing it.
(That night)
"I'm sorry!"
"Would you stop saying that?!" Harry yelled from behind the curtain of his bed. Draco had been at it for at least twenty minutes already. The blonde had burst into the room right before Harry drifted off to sleep and started to ramble about being sorry for whatever the hell made Harry mad.
"Well I am!"
"There's nothing to be sorry for!"
"Then why did you yell at me?"
"Why are you sounding like an annoying, stupid child? I yelled because I was having a bad day. End of story."
"That can't have been it. I mean you were…"
"I'm fine!"
"Would you two shut up?!" Nott yelled from his bed, "We're trying to get some sleep here and we don't want to hear the two of you squabble like an old married couple."
Crabbe and Goyle grunted in agreement.
Blaise cut in, "Nott's right. You can save it for morning… errr, preferably outside in the common room."
Draco looked like he was going to argue with them, but he finally gave up and went to go prepare for bed.
However, later that night when Draco had finally fallen asleep, Harry had stayed awake trying to figure out why Draco was acting so strangely.
'Right, I can't believe that I totally forgot about this. Okay, so Draco makes a one eighty after the dueling incident… where I spoke parseltongue. Okay, so it's probably that. The parseltongue scared him… because parseltongue is spoken by dark lords? No, that doesn't make sense, him and his stupid 'it would be my honor to jump off a bridge for Voldemort' rant proved that. Oh! But wait, Draco had acting like a complete prat to me before… Which means, he thinks that I'm a dark lord of some sort?..."
And finally after that last thought, Harry was satisfied enough to fall asleep.
The next morning, Harry slipped out before the rest of his house and Draco woke up and walked around the halls.
Later that day, he pulled Ron aside and asked, "Okay, I really need to know. What do the kids think about me being a parseltongue?"
Ron hesitated, "Well, they're just rumors."
"Come on Ron, I need to know."
Ron gave a defeated sigh as he looked around to make sure no one was listening, "Okay, there's some theories flying around. One is that you're like a potential dark lord."
"And…"
"And the other one is …"
"Come on Ron. Just like you said, they're rumors right?"
"They think that you've been possessed by You-Know-Who." Replied uneasily.
"What?!"
"Yeah. I mean, I thought that was a pretty dumb one… but quite a number of the kids believe that, actually." Ron then lean to whisper, "Well, I guess it's also because of the whole parseltongue and the Chamber of Secrets thing and all of the kids who keep getting petrified are all Muggle born kids. A big part of You-Know-Who's campaign was all about wiping out the Muggle born wizards."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to clear his mind, "I know I asked you guys to stop investigating the basilisk thing. But, now that I think of it, I think we need to continue."
"Actually, we never really stopped… Hermione and I. We couldn't really figure out why you did though…" Ron trailed off.
"Draco…" Harry muttered. "He… let's just say the time before winter break was pretty bad for me…"
Ron scowled, "Look, I know he's sort of your friend. But he's a Malfoy and they can … well, actually, they are bad news. I just never said anything because he seemed to be the only guy nice to you in the whole house. But I mean, even though there is nothing on record, Malfoy is rumored to have been in You-Know-Who's inner circle."
Harry nodded. "We stopped because we learned that Tom Riddle is Vol-… You-Know-Who."
"Wait, you mean the head boy who framed Hagrid?"
"Yeah."
"That makes sense." Ron muttered.
"So, you and Hermione find out anything?"
Ron looked up, "Yeah, after talking to Moaning Mrytle that one time. Hermione sort of brainstormed for a bit and she had theory about how the basilisk gets around."
"How?"
"The bathroom pipes."
"But… they're so small. I mean… you know with the sinks and the …toilets… You can't possibly fit anything in there unless you charm or hex it."
Ron shrugged, "She says that main sewer pipes are usually quite large."
"Okay, so assuming that it's using sewer pipes to get around the school. It has to come out of the pipes somewhere right?
"Right… Hermione thought of that too. Actually, today, after class she's going to go ask the Headmaster for an architectural map of the school."
"I don't think she'll get it." Harry said quietly, "Hogwarts had a lot of protection spells around it and they're all based on the keystones under the school. He can't give her the map because it'd give away those locations."
"Oh… we didn't think of that… "Ron said dejectedly. "Should I tell her…"
"Not, let her try. Nothing to lose right? And if she does end up getting it, all the better."
"Right, so we'll talk to you later?"
"Yeah."
"Here." Draco said, suddenly thrusting a gaily wrapped rectangular object at Harry.
Harry held the object dumbly and then looked up, "What's this?"
Draco ran a nervous hand through his hair, "Well it's… you know…"
Harry continued to hold the present right between him and Draco, "There's nothing to apologize for. I don't…"
"Then." Draco replied quickly, "Think of it as a Christmas present."
Harry looked up and straight at Draco, who then suddenly looked away and refused to meet his eyes. Finally Harry gave a deep sigh and started to tear open the wrapping paper.
The present was a watch; a pocket watch with a sapphire dial set in silver.
"But Dumbledore said on the first day…"
"It's mechanical, winds up when you swing it or move. It doesn't use Muggle elek… uh.. el…" Draco tripped over the unfamiliar words.
"Electricity." Harry finished for him.
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Draco said and then he reached over swiftly and pointed at the watch, "I put a lot of protection charms on it. So no one would… hurt you."
Harry raised a brow, It seemed… hypocritical of Draco to do such a thing. But if Ron was right…
Harry gave a slow nod, "Right… okay…"
"I hope you like it." Draco gave a final confident reply.
Harry hid his wariness and stiffly nodded with a fake smile.
Moreover, it seemed like someone was finally considering him, remembering what he wanted and liked. Because the things under the Christmas tree this year weren't just atrociously tasteless gifts or gifts that were unintentionally given away, they were gifts that actually suited him.
He had gotten the books he picked out with his mum. And she also had gone back to the bookstore a second time and bought him a great bookmark that would magnify and/or read the highlighted lines out loud if his eyes got tired. A small spark of hope welled in him. Maybe this thing with his mum might actually work out after all.
Remus's presents were wonderful, he had given Harry: an apple (upon which Jerry commented something rude) and two books. One of the books was on how to become an Animagus and the other was a potions text. Well, at least that's what everyone thought, but Remus subtly showed him that the front cover on the book was charmed to be a false cover and the book was actually: "Misconceptions about Werewolves."
Harry gave Remus a sly grin as he held the book close to him.
Sirius and James had gotten Harry some Quidditch gear, but then they had gotten the same thing for Jerry…
Harry's grandparents, on his mother's side, had sent him a new knapsack fill with holiday nuts and candy. And his grandparents on his father's side had sent something that looked like a Muggle snow globe, but it was charmed so that the village inside the globe was moving. It was actually a bit like the moving paintings and photos, but more three dimensional.
Later that night, James, Remus and Sirius had gone out for some Christmas drinking and Jerry was already upstairs sleeping. Harry had just come down for a glass of water when he saw his mother sitting in the dark, in front of the warm and slowly fading fire. Harry walked over so that he was standing behind the back of the sofa.
Lily sleepily looked up and smiled, "Hey, you like your presents?"
Harry gave a content grin and nodded. Lily held he arms open, "Come over here and give your mum a hug."
Harry nodded and ran around to the other side to hug her. Lily gave a satisfied hum and then let him go, "So, what are you doing up so late?"
"… was just gettin' a drink."
Lily got up from the couch and trod over to the kitchen with him. And then came back to the kitchen table with two glasses of water.
The two of them were silent for a while, just enjoying the quiet company of one another when Harry murmured, "Been thinking… if you said that you noticed that I wasn't so 'involved' this summer. How come you didn't do anything about it till now?"
Harry then let out a huge yawn and sleepily smacked his lips.
"Well," Lily started. "I guess, I wasn't thinking about doing anything about it. You were always independent and I knew you didn't really need me. I was considering on letting things go on the way they were. But I guess when I picked you up from the Hogwarts station and saw how tired and gloomy you were, I figured that you needed someone. Even if you do try to cover it up most of the time…I mean, it doesn't hurt to have your mum here to help you through your worst times, right?"
Lily's hand stretched out and lightly ruffled Harry's hair.
Harry gave a small grin and a tiny nod and walked over to put the cup into the sink. Then, as he turned around to head back to his room, Lily said, "Harry. Are we okay?"
Harry turned to her and gave her a rare brilliant smile, "Yeah."
The night before Harry went back to Hogwarts, he found Jerry sprawled out on the couch watching the muggle television his mother purchased.
Harry looked at the empty spot next to where his trunk was, "Where's your stuff."
Jerry shrugged, "I'm stayin' home."
Harry blinked a few times, "What?"
"Mom said she can home school me for the rest of the year and I just have to go to local wizarding testing place and do a short exam to pass my second year." Jerry said lazily.
Harry stared. At first, he was considering on calling his brother an idiot for not going back to school, but then … if Jerry didn't go back, it mean there was one less person Harry had to worry about.
Jerry glared, "You have a problem?"
Harry quickly shook his head, "No, hope you have fun."
Harry was about to leave when Jerry said, "You know you owe me."
Harry froze, turned around, and said slowly, "Owe …you…"
"For not telling mom and dad 'what' you can do" Jerry replied with a unkind smirk.
"What?! I don't…"
Then Jerry raised a brow and mouthed the word, 'parseltongue'.
Harry felt a shiver down his spine and stared.
Jerry shot Harry an amused look and returned to watching the program, "Just thought you'd like to know."
"You look better Potter." Draco commented blandly as he joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione in one of the train compartments.
Harry gave Draco a wary glance and his lips thinned to a line. He was about to retort in a nasty manner, but he reconsidered. He really didn't want to live through the worse half of last month, so he unwillingly nodded and scooted over.
The trip seemed longer this time, and it probably was because of the snow slowing down the train. But it was also probably because none of them said a word. Hermione was busy studying up on work for the upcoming weeks. Ron was letting his mind wander off and suitably scaring himself to death. Harry guessed that he was thinking about the basilisk.
And Draco was doing his usual staring out the window. Sometimes Harry wondered why Draco even bothered to sit with him on the train when the other Slytherins would have more then welcomed him and chatted him up for the rest of the ride.
As Harry got off the train, he finally said something, "Jerry stayed at home, mum was considering on not letting me come back for the rest of the year. The whole petrified children thing is making her paranoid."
Draco snorted in a derogatory manner, but he didn't say anything. Harry figured that Draco thought that since they were Slytherins, they weren't prone to being petrified.
There were no signs of any more students being petrified for the rest of the winter.
It seemed almost as if everything had quieted down.
Harry told himself –well, hoped- that whatever monster that had appeared, had just as quickly disappeared. Maybe everything would be fine, the students that were petrified would be revived and everything would be back to normal again…
Well, as normal as could be…
Harry worked hard to not show it, but after the incident with Draco, his paranoia had increased ten-folds. When Draco asked to borrow things, Harry would hesitate and consider lying that he didn't have such an item, whereas, in the past, Harry wouldn't even have given it a second thought.
As much as Harry disliked this uneasy tension when he was around Draco, he was somewhat… well, glad, because now he knew the reality of the situation. He knew Draco better… and he knew he couldn't count on Draco as much as he did before.
Harry mentally scolded himself. What was he thinking? Or was he even thinking at all? The Malfoys had a bad reputation for a reason… But… But he had thought Draco wasn't as bad. He was hoping, willing to blindly ignore his instincts to give the blonde the benefit of the doubt. And now, seeing how wrong he had been, Harry wondered whether he should always second guess himself when it came to judging people.
Harry clutched the Charms text closer to him as he glanced up at the Slytherins hanging about the common room from under the fringe of his bangs.
Maybe he did have to.
But to what extent?
"I bribed one of the Ravenclaws for the questions on the Charms test later today." Draco casually mentioned at dinner.
Harry nodded in an uninteresting way.
"You want to…" Draco started.
Harry shrugged, "Its okay. I've already studied up."
"Yeah Potter. But the rest of the Slytherins will know the test questions and have an advantage over you. If you at least know the questions you'll be on level playing gr- "
Harry slammed his fork down and snapped, "I'm fine Draco!"
The Slytherin table looked up and stared at him. Harry gave them a weak shrugs and shook his head as he tried to reign in on his temper. Harry made a face as he lowered his voice and muttered jerkily, "Its okay, I don't really… need them…"
Harry shook his head and quickly got up from his chair, "Uh… I … I'm not hungry anymore."
Harry walked out of the Great Hall, but he never noticed the panicked look on Draco's face.
Harry breathed heavily and unevenly as he leaned back against a pillar in the deserted hallway.
What was that about?
Harry swallowed to ease his dried throat and he scrounged up his face.
Why did he just throw a tantrum in there? He usually had a lot of control over his emotions. He wasn't rash and temperamental like Jerry and his father.
Harry closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.
That couldn't have been him. He didn't do things like that. Okay, so he was related to his dad and Jerry, but he never made a scene like that. It was so odd. It felt like something was welling up and crawling under his skin and he just wanted to scream.
Maybe he was losing it.
(That night)
"I'm sorry!"
"Would you stop saying that?!" Harry yelled from behind the curtain of his bed. Draco had been at it for at least twenty minutes already. The blonde had burst into the room right before Harry drifted off to sleep and started to ramble about being sorry for whatever the hell made Harry mad.
"Well I am!"
"There's nothing to be sorry for!"
"Then why did you yell at me?"
"Why are you sounding like an annoying, stupid child? I yelled because I was having a bad day. End of story."
"That can't have been it. I mean you were…"
"I'm fine!"
"Would you two shut up?!" Nott yelled from his bed, "We're trying to get some sleep here and we don't want to hear the two of you squabble like an old married couple."
Crabbe and Goyle grunted in agreement.
Blaise cut in, "Nott's right. You can save it for morning… errr, preferably outside in the common room."
Draco looked like he was going to argue with them, but he finally gave up and went to go prepare for bed.
However, later that night when Draco had finally fallen asleep, Harry had stayed awake trying to figure out why Draco was acting so strangely.
'Right, I can't believe that I totally forgot about this. Okay, so Draco makes a one eighty after the dueling incident… where I spoke parseltongue. Okay, so it's probably that. The parseltongue scared him… because parseltongue is spoken by dark lords? No, that doesn't make sense, him and his stupid 'it would be my honor to jump off a bridge for Voldemort' rant proved that. Oh! But wait, Draco had acting like a complete prat to me before… Which means, he thinks that I'm a dark lord of some sort?..."
And finally after that last thought, Harry was satisfied enough to fall asleep.
The next morning, Harry slipped out before the rest of his house and Draco woke up and walked around the halls.
Later that day, he pulled Ron aside and asked, "Okay, I really need to know. What do the kids think about me being a parseltongue?"
Ron hesitated, "Well, they're just rumors."
"Come on Ron, I need to know."
Ron gave a defeated sigh as he looked around to make sure no one was listening, "Okay, there's some theories flying around. One is that you're like a potential dark lord."
"And…"
"And the other one is …"
"Come on Ron. Just like you said, they're rumors right?"
"They think that you've been possessed by You-Know-Who." Replied uneasily.
"What?!"
"Yeah. I mean, I thought that was a pretty dumb one… but quite a number of the kids believe that, actually." Ron then lean to whisper, "Well, I guess it's also because of the whole parseltongue and the Chamber of Secrets thing and all of the kids who keep getting petrified are all Muggle born kids. A big part of You-Know-Who's campaign was all about wiping out the Muggle born wizards."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to clear his mind, "I know I asked you guys to stop investigating the basilisk thing. But, now that I think of it, I think we need to continue."
"Actually, we never really stopped… Hermione and I. We couldn't really figure out why you did though…" Ron trailed off.
"Draco…" Harry muttered. "He… let's just say the time before winter break was pretty bad for me…"
Ron scowled, "Look, I know he's sort of your friend. But he's a Malfoy and they can … well, actually, they are bad news. I just never said anything because he seemed to be the only guy nice to you in the whole house. But I mean, even though there is nothing on record, Malfoy is rumored to have been in You-Know-Who's inner circle."
Harry nodded. "We stopped because we learned that Tom Riddle is Vol-… You-Know-Who."
"Wait, you mean the head boy who framed Hagrid?"
"Yeah."
"That makes sense." Ron muttered.
"So, you and Hermione find out anything?"
Ron looked up, "Yeah, after talking to Moaning Mrytle that one time. Hermione sort of brainstormed for a bit and she had theory about how the basilisk gets around."
"How?"
"The bathroom pipes."
"But… they're so small. I mean… you know with the sinks and the …toilets… You can't possibly fit anything in there unless you charm or hex it."
Ron shrugged, "She says that main sewer pipes are usually quite large."
"Okay, so assuming that it's using sewer pipes to get around the school. It has to come out of the pipes somewhere right?
"Right… Hermione thought of that too. Actually, today, after class she's going to go ask the Headmaster for an architectural map of the school."
"I don't think she'll get it." Harry said quietly, "Hogwarts had a lot of protection spells around it and they're all based on the keystones under the school. He can't give her the map because it'd give away those locations."
"Oh… we didn't think of that… "Ron said dejectedly. "Should I tell her…"
"Not, let her try. Nothing to lose right? And if she does end up getting it, all the better."
"Right, so we'll talk to you later?"
"Yeah."
"Here." Draco said, suddenly thrusting a gaily wrapped rectangular object at Harry.
Harry held the object dumbly and then looked up, "What's this?"
Draco ran a nervous hand through his hair, "Well it's… you know…"
Harry continued to hold the present right between him and Draco, "There's nothing to apologize for. I don't…"
"Then." Draco replied quickly, "Think of it as a Christmas present."
Harry looked up and straight at Draco, who then suddenly looked away and refused to meet his eyes. Finally Harry gave a deep sigh and started to tear open the wrapping paper.
The present was a watch; a pocket watch with a sapphire dial set in silver.
"But Dumbledore said on the first day…"
"It's mechanical, winds up when you swing it or move. It doesn't use Muggle elek… uh.. el…" Draco tripped over the unfamiliar words.
"Electricity." Harry finished for him.
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Draco said and then he reached over swiftly and pointed at the watch, "I put a lot of protection charms on it. So no one would… hurt you."
Harry raised a brow, It seemed… hypocritical of Draco to do such a thing. But if Ron was right…
Harry gave a slow nod, "Right… okay…"
"I hope you like it." Draco gave a final confident reply.
Harry hid his wariness and stiffly nodded with a fake smile.