Summery: Draco decides to stay away from Harry for their last year at Hogwarts. But being separated from him finally makes Draco realize how much he cares for the depressed Gryffindor.
Disclaimer: As much as I would love too, I do not own anything that has been previously mentioned in The Harry Potter Books, which is very unfortunate for me.
The Tale of a Dragon
Ch2: Old Friends Are Silver, And New Ones Are Gold.
Professor Fable had long light brown curly hair, one bright sky blue eye, one bright lime green eye and a slightly round body in tie-dye robes of dark green, purple, pink, blue and yellow (also white, obviously). When she lent over to say something to Snape, Draco noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra.
Draco pointed this out to all the people around him, Blaise Zabini started staring into space and Draco could have sworn he heard Blaise mutter 'I wish my girlfriend wouldn't wear her bra.'
As the first years were sorted Draco stared wishfully at his plate, and was silently longing his plate would fill up with food when Dumbledore made his announcements. There was nothing important anyway because if there was, Draco would have heard about it from his father. Lucius always expected Draco to parade their wealth and power around.
Draco cursed himself for being too depressed to eat on the train and was about to eat his napkin in desperation, but was saved by the pales filling up and everyone at the Slytherin table sighing in relief. Draco picked up his silver cutlery and started eating like there was no tomorrow. Halfway through his second helping Blaise started talking to him, Draco looked up but was distracted by something on the other side of the room, at the Gryffindor table. Harry was sitting with his hands in his lap, his gold cutlery untouched and his eyes downcast.
Draco pushed his plate away, cursing everyone for everything; he had suddenly lost his appetite.
"Harry, what's up? You've barely eaten"
"Barely eaten! Ron, he hasn't eaten anything."
"It's the same thing."
"No it's not."
"Yes it is!"
"No it's not!"
"Yes it is!!"
"No it's not!!"
"SHUT UP!!" Ginny threw down her gold knife and fork. "Stop fighting! It's driving me insane!" She pointed her finger threateningly at Ron, "I hope you didn't act this way around Hermione's parents."
Harry slowly lifted his head to look Ron in the eyes. "Did you go over to Hermione's house?" His voice had a slight menacing edge to it. He had been left at his aunt and uncle's house the entire holidays and no one had written to him to explain what had been going on. He had been true to his word and written to The Order every second or third day, but had never gotten a word in return.
Now it was Ron's turn to look at his plate. "Umm…I…Err…"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry's voice was almost emotionless, which probably made it even more unsettling.
"Ron and I were going to tell you Harry. We're going out. He came over so my parents could 'approve' of him."
Several moments past in silence before Harry spoke again, "Why didn't anyone owl me?"
"I was going to Harry. I'm sorry" Put in Ginny. She put her hand comfortingly on his, but he pulled it away. She looked a little put out, but continued never the less. "Percy came back, almost crawling on his knees, begging for forgiveness about a week into the holidays. Apparently he felt guilty about Bill's death. It took more than a month for Dad to forgive him. We were kinda distracted. I'm so, so sorry Harry. Dumbledore said that you had enough things to think about so we shouldn't tell you." She finished with tears building up in her eyes.
Harry hadn't told any of them about the prophecy, and was not going too any time soon. Anyway, it sounded like they had 'enough things to think about'. He went back to looking at his plate as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Though it didn't seem at all possible, Harry felt more alone at that moment then he ever had. Both his 'friend' had forgotten about him because of their family and partners. He had neither. All because of a stupid prophesy.
A few people started leaving early so, not bothering to excuse himself, Harry got up and followed them out, leaving three guilty looking people behind at the Gryffindor table.
Draco watched as Harry slowly walked out of the room.
"Draco. Draco!" Blaise snapped his fingers in front of Draco's face in a desperate attempt to get his attention. "Snap out of it man. What's with you today?"
"Nothing." Snapped Draco, more then a little too quickly. "What's with you?"
"Great response Draco, great response." He clapped sarcastically. "There is something wrong. I've known you for about seven years, since before we came to Hogwarts. I've never seen you like this."
"Stop being such a bloody drama queen. There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. Get off my back about it." Draco stood up and stormed out of the hall. He didn't realize he was carrying his silver fork until he was in his private dorm, where he put it in the draw where he kept his muggle clothes.
Draco's room had light grey walls and mink fur carpet, which had been dyed dark forest green. It was elegantly furnished in black, silver and green and had snake and ivy patterns on the wardrobe, headboard, fireplace, desk, curtains and picture frames. He would never let anyone in his room, because it was his 'safety zone' where he felt safe from everything in the world surrounding it.
He was even more reluctant to let anyone in his bed (despite his reputation). His bed was just big enough to fit two people in it and was definitely not the biggest that he could afford. He would often just curl up under the blankets and think.
Draco crawled under his blankets and rested his head on his pillows. 'I shouldn't have snapped at Blaise like that. He was only trying to help, and he is my oldest friend. Only friend more like. He should really learn when not to be an arse though.' Slowly, Draco fell asleep.
"It's a good thing it's the weekend so we can get this done."
"Look, Granger." Draco leaned over the library table to intimidate Hermione, who was sitting opposite him. "I don't particularly want to be here, so I would like to get this done as quickly as possible so I can get out of here. No small talk… please." He added as an afterthought.
"Fine. But just so you know, you stuffed up on Luna's patrol times. You have her patrolling the first floor and the forth floor at the same time she's supposed to have DA." Dumbledore's Army had become an official club of the school, but everyone who wanted to join had to be interviewed by Harry, Ron and Hermione to make sure they weren't going to use their magic for dark purposes, naturally that meant that none of the Slytherins couldn't get in.
"Fine. Whatever. I'll change it." Draco scribbled something out on the piece of parchment in front of him.
"Are you ok? You seem… I don't know."
Draco's temper started coming up to the surface again. Why were people insisting that there was something wrong and that he was acting different? "Oh, halleluiah. Miss know-it-all doesn't know something for once."
"Draco, don't you think we should have a temporary truce since we're going to be head boy and girl together? It would make life so much easier."
Draco thought about it for a second. It would make everything easier and it couldn't hurt him if they actually became friends. "Sure." He held out his hand to Hermione, who looked taken back. "Truce."
They shook hands briefly before Draco saw two figures coming towards them out of the corner of his eye. He stood up quickly when they got close enough for him to see a mass or messy black hair. Draco scooped the large pile of parchments up into his arms and said quickly, "See you tomorrow." He managed a weak smile in Hermione's direction before he turned around and pushed past Harry and Ron.
"Watch where your going Malfoy." Draco chose to ignore what they had said and instead keep walking towards the library exit with his nose slightly in the air, to show he wasn't affected by what they said.
"Arrogant bastard." Muttered Ron as he sat down in Draco's empty seat. Harry pulled one up from another table and earned a look from Madam Pince when it made a screeching noise on the floor. He sat on it backwards with his hands resting on the top of the backrest and his chin on his hands.
"Ron! He may be arrogant, but I don't think he's a bastard."
"Did you just say what I though you just said? You're the one who slapped him in our third year."
"Oh, honestly." Hermione got up and left. After a few minutes of walking she found Draco crouched in a corridor with his parchments scattered across the ground. She bent down to help him pick them up. Most were covered in black coloured ink and Draco had splatters over his face and neck. "Here" She put the parchments she had picked up on top of the ones Draco had already gathered.
She pushed her sleave over her hand and wiped some of the ink off his face, when she went to wipe some off his neck he dropped all his stuff again and pinned her against the wall.
"Don't touch my neck." He had a weird thing about people touching his neck and throat, it had started when he was young and had been told about vampires for the first time. Since then the only person who had managed to touch his neck, without Draco pushing or punching them, was his father who often grabbed it in a pincer-like grip to force him to do things he didn't want to do.
"I-I'm sorry." Said Hermione in a small voice, clearly she was scared. At that moment Ron and Harry came around the corner looking for Hermione. Draco knew that him pinning Hermione to the wall would definitely give them the wrong impression.
"What F--- are you doing to her!?" Shouted Ron, his fists clenched.
'They're not going to believe me even if I told the truth.' It wasn't the first time Draco had though that. "Nothing that concerns you weasel."
Harry muttered something under his breath and it sent a violet coloured light in his direction. Draco shouted an incantation and the spell reflected off him and bounced back towards Harry.
"What's going on here?" Snape had come around the corner and stopped the spell before it hit Harry.
"It's not Harry's fault Professor." Hermione said. "Malfoy provoked him."
"Harry cast the spell first off." It sounded like Snape had made a statement, but Draco knew it really was a question.
"He provoked me!"
"Fifty points from Gryffindor." The trio looked outraged. "Mr Malfoy, I need to disguss yourunusually high potionsmark. Follow me to my office."
Snape always used Draco's father as an excuse to get Draco alone, because he refused to give detentions to Slytherins when people from other houses were around. Sure enough when the door to his office closed, Snape took points and dealt out a detention.
"Fifty points from Slytherin. And you will go into The Forbidden Forest and gather these plants for me as your detention."
"How come Potter didn't get a detention?"
"Don't question me. Because I only heard your voice saying an incantation and the spell was going towards Potter, from your direction." He handed Draco a list of plants that he had to find. "You will go to detention alone, tonight."
"Why alone and why tonight?"
"Don't question me!! It is illegal for most of these plants to be mixed in a potion, and I need to get them for The Dark Lord. It must be tonight because otherwise you would have to wait another month before that plant," he pointed to a name on the list, "will flower again. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. Now get the hell out of my office!"
redfox13 & Rtael: Thanks (grins)
manystories2lilx: It is suposed to be rated higher. I was in a hurry so I forgot. Thanks for reminding me.
MysteryMadeMe: I always have trouble with the title so thankyou. If you get rid of the 'The' in the title the initial thingy spell out Toad, I only just noticed. Yeah, it is a slash, sorry if it puts you off reading it. I like your story too, very cool.
