Notes: Sorry for the delay. My beta has somewhat disappeared on me. As such, this chapter is un-beta'd, but I felt bad about it just sitting on my computer. Apologies for the formatting.
In All His Quidditch Glory
Chapter 5
The soon to be luggage was laid out neatly on Draco's bed. Quidditch clothing next to the case, two Hogwarts uniforms folded one on the other, toiletries resting on top of a very small pile of casual and dressy clothing. He took out his wand and Wingardium Leviosa'd his items one by one, in an ordered arrangement.
"Very good Draco," a voice echoed from behind him. Recognising it, Draco straightened his back.
The voice continued matter of fact, "You've never wanted House Elves to do this work."
"They never place things in the right place." Draco turned to face his father. Looking at his subtly expectant face he added, "A Malfoy should never trust any other creature with his private belongings."
The curves of Lucius's lips curled upwards a little. Draco internally rolled his eyes but didn't show it on his face. Old habits, old sayings, old customs, there was always a lesson to be learnt around his father.
"I hadn't known you would be coming here first," Draco said.
"I just thought I'd pay you a visit before you left." Lucius came into the room to stand in front of his son. "You do remember what we talked about, don't you Draco?"
He watched as his son nodded. "Good. Everything will be set up once you get there."
Draco was slightly confused. "Aren't you coming?"
"I will be," Lucius replied slowly, surveying Draco's section of the room. He had seen it many times before and Draco hadn't changed it very much. Yet, he always eyed his son's belongings; searching for some kind of twisted truth, Draco suspected. "I'll be attending your first match, but I will be unavoidably detained before then."
Draco nodded. He understood what that meant. Apparently a year in Azkaban had hardened his father instead of breaking him. He was reminded of it every time he looked in the mirror and at those features that he couldn't call only his own.
He waited until his father turned on his heel and left, though not before doing one more sweep of the room with his eyes. Almost as if he suspected Draco was hiding Harry Potter in there somewhere. How ironic, Draco snorted.
Harry stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection. He was slightly nervous by the fact that they were to play their first match in Beauxbaton in just three days. Oliver had been pounding this into them for weeks now, through their rigorous training. Professor McGonagall had to step in at one point and take the seventh years out of practice as they were missing too many classes.
It wasn't so bad, Harry felt, except for the days that Lucius Malfoy came to watch them practice. Harry hated the sight of him. The audacity to look into his face when those same eyes had stared at him through the slits of a Death Eater's mask.
He hadn't been so surprised though, when they released him from Azkaban after only a year. With everyone in fear of Voldemort's return they had been on high alert, expecting an attack again in Harry's sixth year. When it hadn't happened people began to suspect that Harry was simply trying to put himself in the spotlight again. They forgot about the significance of the happenings at the Ministry quickly and appeals from the other pureblood families came up to free Lucius Malfoy as they could find no more reason for his being locked up, he had obviously just been a victim in Harry Potter's cry for more fame. No one truly believed this though, as Harry himself was never called into question.
He sighed resignedly before picking up his comb and other items and stuffing them into a small traveling bag. He turned and dropped it unceremoniously into the open suitcase on his bed. He looked at the clothes strewn over the sides of it.
Ron was sitting near the window looking out, obviously not thinking about what he was seeing. Harry began to try and say something to him but hesitated. The idea of being a reserve and not in the final team cut was making Ron somewhat depressed yet again now that they were finally about to leave for Beauxbaton in the morning. He was about to return to packing when he heard a knock on the door.
He opened it to see Oliver, dressed like a professor, in his black robes. He smiled at Harry and came into the room.
"I was hoping we'd be able to go over the final strategies before dinner," Oliver said as Harry stared, taken aback a little.
Harry had been made Captain of the team, as most expected since he was the most experienced, and so Oliver had been practically hounding him with new moves and strategies for the team to implement.
"Uh – yeah, of course," Harry said as Oliver surveyed the room.
"Haven't finished packing yet?" he asked, staring at the mess with strong distaste evident in his face. "Have you always been this disorganised?"
Oliver turned to face Harry who nodded.
"This is going to take you the rest of the night." Oliver tsked. "I'll talk to you in morning then, on the train. We can't afford things like this."
Harry nodded again looking slightly embarrassed. Oliver took one more look at the room and added, "Order, Potter… and discipline."
Harry sighed as he closed the door behind him and Ron laughed, mocking Oliver. He shook himself out of it and realised he didn't feel like finishing packing just yet.
"I think I'm going to go down and uh, see Karé before we go to dinner," said Harry, trying to be as casual as possible. "You know, just to see how she's going with her – uh - "
"Packing?" Ron supplied.
Harry almost blushed. "Yeah."
His friend grinned knowingly.
"Besides, I have to put that knowledge of secret entrances into their common room to good use." Harry now joked.
Ron groaned. "I think you've put them to enough use in the past, Harry."
"You know I have a thing for Slytherins." Harry winked as he left the room.
"Only one of them," Ron said under his breath and grimaced after Harry had left.
The staircase shuddered as it began to disconnect from the level it was attached to and moved down a few. At least I won't be early to the Great Hall, Oliver thought as he leaned against the banister and waited for the stairs to stop moving, which seemed to take forever.
He walked through the corridors, noticing the large number of Slytherin students using this passage to get to the Great Hall for dinner. He saw Draco emerge out from behind a painting that he knew was not the entrance to the Slytherin dungeon. He didn't ask, however, as Draco hadn't noticed that he had seen him.
"Draco," he called out, catching up to the boy as he stopped and turned. "Just the person I wanted to see."
"And why is that?" Draco said, looking as if he had somewhere better to be.
"Well, I haven't had a chance to talk to you before with the amount of training that we've been doing, but as we're leaving tomorrow…" Oliver stopped.
"What's your point, Wood?" Draco had been acting this way for weeks, ever since that argument about his father. Although, Oliver hadn't exactly tried to make any friendly advances, he was too preoccupied with the team. Surprisingly enough, after that incident Lucius Malfoy had stopped threatening to cut off funding. He had a strong suspicion that Dumbledore had a lot to do with it but he didn't want to get mixed up in that business.
"It's about your attitude," Oliver said bluntly.
Draco looked at Oliver as if he was an insect. "What about my attitude?"
Oliver smiled to himself, he could tell Draco was just putting up a show; he had dealt with worse players in his time.
"You're a great player, you know that and it shows when you're in the air. The only thing that's holding the team back from being absolutely perfect is that you refuse to play fair with Potter and Ginny Weasely," Oliver said authoritatively.
Draco snorted. "I can't help it if Potter and Weasley can't watch where they're going."
"Draco, you can't be that daft," Oliver said.
Draco shook his head and looked away. Oliver could see the slight lines of amusement on his face. He hadn't lost his touch just yet.
"Just keep that in mind." Oliver ended the conversation. "Going to the Great Hall?"
The next morning, the team was ready to go, bags at their feet, waiting outside the main gate. Hermione was hugging Ron as they, and Ginny stood outside one of the carriages that would take them to the train.
"I wish I could go and see you play the first match," she said, moving to say goodbye to Ginny. "And don't forget that you still have to do the work that the professors have set you. You don't want to come back and be behind the rest of the class."
She stopped speaking momentarily as she realised something and looked around. "Where's Harry?"
Ron pointed over to one of the carriages. Harry was talking to a Slytherin girl whom Hermione recognised as Karé Benscik, a sixth year Slytherin on the team. She stared back at Ron open mouthed while he nodded and pursed his lips.
"Honestly," said Hermione. "Does Harry even realise what he's doing?"
Ginny just shrugged and hugged Hermione.
"Leave it," she said, "he'll get over the whole thing soon enough."
"I don't know," Ron said, drawing their attention back to the carriage where Harry was.
Draco had walked up to Harry and Karé and it was obvious that the usual exchange of tense words was taking place. It continued until Harry realised that Karé had left half way through. Harry began trudging back to his friends, ignoring Draco now that he had no reason to be there anymore.
Oliver, who just came outside with Dumbledore, had noticed the short argument between Draco and Harry. He only sighed and hoped that his words with Draco the night before had sunk in properly. He didn't hold out much hope for it.
Everyone said their last goodbyes and began getting into the carriages.
"Have a safe journey, Mr. Wood," Dumbledore said to Oliver finally.
Dumbledore had already told him and the team that he would be there to attend the first match and would apparate there. The rest of the team would be journeying through the underground and underwater train system that linked the Hogwarts Express to the other schools and places in Europe.
"See you soon, Professor." Oliver nodded and carried his luggage into Harry's carriage to discuss those strategies on the way to the train.
The platform for the Hogwarts Express looked scarily empty as the team unloaded from the carriages and began to board the train. Draco walked with Karé and they took a compartment for themselves, even though Draco could tell she wanted to leave and talk to the other team members. He inwardly rolled his eyes and announced he was going to the bathroom, allowing her the opportunity to leave after he walked out without feeling uncomfortable.
He walked down the passage between the compartments and noticed Oliver in one with the door still open. He was lifting his suitcase onto the rack above the seats. Draco stopped when he saw the obvious strain on Oliver's face as he heaved it upwards and tried to push it so that it would fit; it fell.
"Bugger," Oliver cursed and rolled his shoulders, an arm coming up to slightly massage his right shoulder.
He turned around, still rolling his shoulders slightly and noticed Draco staring at him in slight shock.
"Uh – sorry," Draco said quickly and began to turn around.
Oliver stopped him. "No, no, it's ok. Just... could you give me a hand?"
Draco turned back and nodded.
He came into the compartment and picked up the fallen suitcase, it was heavy. "What have you got in this thing?"
"Nothing really," Oliver replied noncommittally.
Draco pushed it into place and faced Oliver. "Is your shoulder ok?"
"Yeah, yeah, nothing to worry about." He tried to shrug it off and Draco could still see that Oliver still winced slightly when he went to sit down.
Draco sat down opposite him, he had nowhere else to go, he convinced himself. "How bad is it?"
Oliver sighed and looked out the window for a moment. "Enough to stop me from playing."
Draco nodded. "I heard about it all. The newspapers didn't let go of it for weeks. Heard it was your coach that did it."
"Nah. It was my own fault. I didn't tell him soon enough just how bad the strain was," Oliver said quickly.
"But I thought he made you practice despite that," Draco said, genuinely curious.
"Yeah, that's what The Daily Prophet said," Oliver replied, obviously not wanting to have this conversation. "It's not true. I just let it get worse and worse, eventually I couldn't throw the quaffle anymore." Oliver sighed again.
Draco didn't bother to ask if they had tried to heal it, he had learnt from an early age that the Muggle-like stupidity of not turning to magic from the outset caused incurable consequences.
"There was just too much damage done," Oliver said finally and looked at Draco again.
Oliver stood up and faced the window, rubbing his shoulder again.
"Do you want me to – " Draco began.
Oliver looked at him through his reflection on the glass and raised his eyebrow.
Draco stumbled slightly. "I just meant…" He stood up and walked over to stand next to Oliver. "Don't worry about it."
He stared at the face of the boy next to him as Oliver continued to gaze out of the window. He placed his hand on his arm, which Oliver didn't seem to notice. He trailed his arm upwards, causing Oliver to turn and face him. Draco leaned in closer and cupped his hand around Oliver's neck. Oliver seemed to raise a hand to push him away, but Draco only felt the palm rest on his chest. He noticed Oliver's eyes close as their lips came to being just centimeters apart.
Oliver's eyes flew open suddenly and he took a step back from Draco, regaining his senses.
"What are you doing?" Oliver asked unthinkingly.
Draco spluttered. "What do you mean 'what am I doing'? What are you doing?"
Oliver laughed incredulously. "This isn't happening, Draco. I'm – I mean, I'm your coach."
"I noticed," Draco said through his teeth.
They stood in the compartment for a moment longer before Oliver spoke again. "It's unethical."
Draco looked at him and tilted his head. He grinned. "Yes. It is."