Harry tried to wipe the stupid smile off his face as quickly as possible.
Ron grinned when he saw the plate, and exclaimed, "Nice going, Harry! Managed to get food out of the Hall?"
Then, after a second, the red-haired boy's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Wait," he said slowly, "Gryffindor Tower isn't this way…"
Harry, although he didn't think he was up to no good, felt as though he had been caught in a scandal. He felt himself turning slightly red, and wasn't sure how to reply.
"Um…" he faltered, "No…"
Thankfully, Hermione came to his rescue.
"Ron," she pointed out, "he's going to the Hospital Wing."
Ron bristled as his suspicion was confirmed.
"And why should he be doing that?" he demanded, turning to Hermione.
Now his turn to save her, Harry spoke up, "I just feel a bit bad that they lost by default after Malfoy took that fall."
Ron wasn't satisfied by that answer.
"Harry," he insisted, "he harassed you before the match, and tried to wrestle you around while you fell so you'd hit the ground hardest! We all saw it! He got what he deserved, if you ask me."
Harry knew Ron had great reason to dislike Malfoy. In fact, they all did. Still he knew deep down that what his friend was saying wasn't true.
"Actually…" Harry hesitated, not wanting to put Ron off too much, "I would have hit the ground first, but Malfoy spun me round so I didn't. And, yeah, he tried to intimidate me a bit before the match, but…" he trailed off.
Ron looked shocked at the claim. "No way, Harry!" he insisted. "You don't really think he would help you out, do you?"
As Harry remained quiet, avoiding his friend's eyes, Ron turned to Hermione insistently, as if silently asking for backup. The curly-haired girl looked back at Ron bashfully, then over to Harry, blushing. Clearly not wanting to be in the middle of the exchange, yet used to speaking her mind, she quietly answered.
"Where I was in the stands, I was actually quite close when they fell…" she started slowly. "And… I can see how what Harry is saying might be true."
After letting this confirmation from his girlfriend sink in, Ron grudgingly accepted the possibility that the boy he hated might have saved his best friend from yet another Quidditch accident.
"Fine," he replied solemnly, "we'll see you soon then?"
Harry nodded vigorously, in an attempt to reassure Ron that he didn't exactly want to be hanging out with Malfoy just for the fun of it.
"Definitely," he said, as he started walking past again.
As he left, he thought he heard Hermione say something to Ron, but couldn't quite make out what it was. Putting it all out of his mind, Harry quickly hurried down the corridor and up the stairs to the doors – with which he was far too familiar – to the Hospital Wing.
As he entered, he heard Madam Pomfrey's stern voice shout from behind a curtain.
"Only ten minutes of visiting hours left!"
When she shuffled out to see who it was, her expression and tone softened, and she smiled in greeting.
"Harry, dear," she said warmly, "I heard what happened, are you quite alright?"
Harry nodded, and held the plate of food up.
"I was just hoping I could drop this off," he admitted.
"With Mr. Malfoy?" she asked, hiding her surprise well. "Certainly, he has had just the smallest bit of Skele-gro to mend some cracks, so it shouldn't interfere."
She walked a small distance down the line of beds, and pulled a curtain back slightly, gesturing for Harry to come over. Moving a chair to the side of the bed, she said pleasantly, "Mr. Malfoy, you have a visitor."
Harry didn't hear a reply, but Madam Pomfrey retreated to her office out of sight from the rows of beds to leave them to talk. She was always respectful of the visitors' privacy, so long as she didn't think the patient they were visiting needed more rest than visitors may allow.
Harry stepped around the curtain and looked at the blond boy sitting up in the bed. He had bandages wrapped around his head, pushing his hair up higher than normal. There was a pillow behind him, but he wasn't leaning on it. Harry assumed this meant the impact to the back of his head had in fact left a painful split there that was uncomfortable to put any pressure on. The Gryffindor also noticed Draco had a cast from over his left elbow right up to his neck to keep his shoulder from being able to move. The cast wrapped all the way around his chest for extra support, making him unable to wear a shirt over the solid mound of plaster. Just as Harry was thinking he would be cold in the rather chilly room without all his layers, he thought he saw Draco shiver.
"Are you cold?" Harry asked, moving his eyes to Draco's face.
Draco was looking at the shorter boy rather suspiciously, as if he couldn't believe Harry was here just to visit.
"What do you want, Potter?" he asked rather distantly.
"Um…" Harry started, reminding himself not to get offended regardless of what happened. "Well, I wasn't sure if you might want this."
Harry set the plate down on the table next to the bed, and he saw Draco look at its contents. For a second, it seemed as though the blond wanted to smile but thought better of it and gave the plate a cynical look instead. Then again, Harry could certainly have imagined it. Draco turned that cynical look back to his visitor, and as he opened his mouth to reply Harry quickly cut him off.
"Sorry," he said hastily, "I really don't know what you like. You don't have to take it."
The other boy shut his mouth again, as though his reply had been taken care of by Harry's apology. Harry watched grey eyes move cryptically over his face for a few moments, until he could have sworn he saw Draco shiver again. Glancing around, Harry found a thick blanket on the edge of an unused bed, and walked over to grab it.
"I'm fine, Potter," he heard the Slytherin protest.
Ignoring it altogether, Harry unfolded the blanket as he walked back over to the side of the bed. He took it upon himself to sit on the very edge near Draco's thigh, and lifted the blanket up to cover the boy's chest. As he did, Draco snapped at him yet again.
"Get off me," he snarled, "don't patronize me!"
Draco raised his right arm in an attempt to push the blanket, and Harry, away. Harry rolled his eyes at his would-be-rival and scoffed.
"You're cold, just take the bloody blanket."
"I don't need your help," the blond insisted as he struggled harder.
If Harry hadn't felt guilty about being uninjured because of what the Slytherin had done to himself, he would have given up. Yet, because he knew Draco was lying and would be more comfortable warm, he persisted.
"Malfoy, cut it out," Harry chastised him firmly, "it's no big deal, just let me help—"
Harry was cut off as the larger boy began flailing his right arm even harder and quicker than before. Suddenly, Harry had taken another a hit to his bruise. As he felt the familiar momentary pain, the sting in his face was accompanied by an odd sense of calm and reassurance.
"I swear, Potter!" came Draco's ambiguous threat. Still being hit in the arm and chest by the blond boy's one functional hand, Harry dropped the blanket. Instinctively, he caught Malfoy's wrist as a fist shot at his face yet again.
Harry gripped Draco's right wrist firmly and, in a mirrored version of their pre-match interaction, did not let it go when the Slytherin attempted to tug his arm back.
He raised his green eyes to Draco's grey ones, which almost seemed to shine with the moonlight coming in through the window, and leveled him with a deeply serious look. This time, he noticed, it was Draco who stopped breathing for a moment. Deciding it would be enjoyably dramatic to further follow the trend of their earlier encounter, Harry leaned in towards Draco's face and stopped only a handful of inches away. Again the two were separated by only their arms folded between them.
"Why," Harry said, low and barely above a whisper, "did you help me?"
The eyes he was looking into startled for a moment, then shone perhaps even brighter with defiance. Aggressively, but equally quietly, the Slytherin growled back.
"I didn't, Potter. Believe me, I wouldn't have wanted to."
After a few seconds of silence, Draco added, "And don't you dare tell anyone I did."
Harry laughed under his breath, supposing he would have to tell Ron and Hermione he had been proven wrong during his visit when he got back to the common room. Not that Harry believed what he was hearing; he knew what happened when he fell, and he could tell Draco was now being careful to put on a convincing act.
For a while, their faces still close, neither seemed to know what to say. Harry attempted to see if the other boy's expression showed any signs of some emotion he would finally be able to recognize. He wished he could find a way to read the blond like a book and be done with the ambiguity. Was Draco a friend, or an enemy? Maybe both. Or, most likely, neither.
Malfoy must have known he was under Harry's scrutiny, as he looked anywhere else but into the emerald eyes studying him. Draco was breathing much harder than Harry, due to his attempt at pushing the Gryffindor away, and was still fidgeting as much as he could given how his upper body had been constricted. As Harry watched him, he eventually resigned himself to the fact that he was not going to get honesty from Malfoy.
"Fine," Harry agreed, "since I know otherwise you'll be a right pain about it."
Draco's features softened, but still held their reservations. The blond looked back at him again, as Harry pulled back and sat upright. He stood to leave, nodding at Draco as he turned away. Pulling the curtain next to the bed back to the position which allowed the most privacy, the Gryffindor stepped away from the bed and towards the door.
"Thanks, Malfoy," he said over his shoulder as he left, not wanting to seem to sincere in front of the Slytherin boy.
He heard Draco scoff rather loudly back at him in disregard. Once he was on the other side of the curtain and had taken a few paces away, however, he heard what he believed was a small grunt of effort, and the scraping of a metal fork against a ceramic plate. Smiling to himself, Harry supposed Malfoy must like pumpkin pie.
When he finally climbed back through the portrait hole, Hermione and Ron were in their usual positions by the fireplace. They waved in greeting, and Harry took his typical seat with his friends.
"What did he have to say?" Hermione asked, interested. Harry sighed and rubbed his bruise lightly.
"Well, when I tried to thank him for helping me, he hit me," Harry laughed half-truthfully.
Hermione's eyebrows shot up and Ron's jaw dropped. Keeping his tone light and casual, Harry continued.
"He said he'd tried to turn us around so I'd hit first, but he dislocated his shoulder in the process and couldn't pull it off."
It was a blatant lie, but it was what he knew Draco would prefer everyone believed. Both his friends frowned, clearly not happy with the news.
"Well," Hermione huffed, clearly disappointed, "I suppose that'll be the last time he gets sympathy from any of us."
"That's for bloody sure," Ron agreed, sounding grumpy. "I told you, mate."
The Weasley boy shook his head and ran a hand through his red hair as he stared, still frowning, into the fire. Harry nodded, which was likely invisible to both of the others, though he was still unconvinced.
They spoke on and off for an hour or two by the fire, Harry and Ron struggling with a few assignments while Hermione read something that was undoubtedly not a required part of any course. Not for the first time that day, Harry found himself feeling grateful for the simplicity of having only his friends and his studies to worry about… and Malfoy, too, he thought.