Crocodiles.
CHAPTER SIX.
"Do you think I'm a queer?"
Harry leaned over and scribbled a note: 'why do you care what I think?'
"That's a yes." Malfoy met his eye: "nothing that happened this week leaves this room, got that?"
'Why are you doing this?'
Malfoy shrugged. "Nothing will have changed. I still think you're a sucking up teacher's pet, and you still think I'm the Slytherin git that beat you at quidditch. The complicated stuff won't mean anything."
'You're not just queer, you're a queer git.'
Malfoy laughed. "You can insult me when you get your voice back, Potter." He picked up his books and stuck his wand in his back pocket, making his way to the door of the hospital wing. He had chosen to leave in the evening when everyone would be at dinner, and wasn't sure yet how to talk to his friends, particularly Pansy, when they met up again. He turned the handle, pausing on the threshold back to the past. "Hey Potter, get well soon."
In Malfoy language, that was as close to thanks as Harry was going to get.
Harry's throat was still very bad, because he was still screaming in his sleep, but he could whisper extremely quietly if he absolutely had to, which was apparently progress. There was a sheaf of Hermione's transfiguration notes beside him so that he could write an essay on the theory of switching spells. He struggled with it half-heartedly but was really aching to get out of the stupid bed and more importantly away from the hospital wing; he seemed to spend half his life in the place. But his head was still throbbing, and his dreams were a little strange, though now mainly of Ginny. Thank goodness –nothing else to do with Malfoy or even much of Voldemort had passed through his subconscious. However, his waking thoughts were still so full of movement that being awake was sometimes even more frustrating than the dreams that were not under his control.
Ginny had been visiting constantly, and it was becoming clear to everyone that knew them that would soon become a couple. Harry wanted it to happen and had set a date for the next Hogsmeade weekend, provided that he would be allowed out. He liked Ginny, she was smart, funny, liked him (rather important) and he also had Ron's blessing to take her out, snog her senseless, and bloody hell, marry her if the mood took him –and for Merlin's sake just prevent her from going back out with Dean, because it made him uncomfortable.
Yet again, since Malfoy had used him to …well, practically experiment on, he couldn't get those moments out of his head. He was still certain that he didn't fancy men, but the experience kept reliving itself in his head. Sometimes he wanted to touch Malfoy again, but as soon as he thought anything of the sort, his scar would fire up… as though Voldemort was thinking exactly the same thing. And recently, as that was the thing he wasn't meant to think about, it was all he could think about. Hence the headache. It wasn't him that was had attacked Draco Malfoy. It was the man inside his head.
It was Voldemort.
"Harry?"
Ginny. She'd made him jump. He grinned at her. She ambled over; dragging her school bag, which was crammed with books and quills, and juggling another pile of books under one arm. She relinquished them with a sigh of relief, onto the end of his bed.
"Bloody hell, Harry, start getting your voice back, I'm being crippled by Hermione's efforts to keep up your education!" He laughed silently, finding her hand. She sobered a little, and gave him a little peck on the cheek. All thoughts of Voldemort evaporated from his mind, and felt deliriously happy. For once, Harry Potter felt like a normal boy, getting a kiss from his soon-to-be girlfriend. She nudged him over and snuggled up a bit next to him. "So, how's it going?"
"Slowly," he whispered, painfully.
"Oy, use your parchment to write on."
'Sorry, Mother.'
Ginny laughed, flinging a sheet of red hair over her shoulder with an unconscious elegance. Harry thought it was incredibly sexy. "Well I'm worried about you. We all are. So you need to get better and give me a break …Ron's suspended quidditch practices, he's trying to come up with a new strategy, since Malfoy read our other one. He's becoming a little obsessive, so what with Hermione starting her revision –two months earlier than last year, I might add –it's a bit of a nerve centre in the tower at the moment." She nestled into his shoulder, and he rubbed his chin on the crown of her head before planting a kiss on the flaming waves. Ginny glanced up, "what's that for?"
Harry smiled and shrugged, twirling a bit of red hair around his index finger.
"Miss Weasley!" Ginny jumped off the bed. Madame Pomfrey had come round the curtain to give Harry some more throat tonic and was looking extremely formidable. "You can have Mr Potter all to yourself when he gets out of here, but right now the boy needs rest!"
Harry loved how they always talked like he couldn't hear them just because he was mute. He caught Ginny by the sleeve. "I'd better go, Harry, I've got a heap of charms to do. I'll see you tomorrow; try not to have nightmares, ok? … See you later." She pulled a few more books out of her bag, and a sheaf of notes with Hermione's handwriting on them, obviously detailing all the homework he had missed, and left the hospital wing.
Madame Pomfrey bustled over, with a measuring cup half filled with a deep midnight blue, gloopy potion that was steaming slightly. "Here we go, Potter, I had Professor Snape make this tonic up for you, now it might be a little more unpleasant to drink than the other one, but it's far more advanced. Now that you're starting to get your voice back, we have decided that this might help speed things up a little. Then you can see your friends as much as you want. Dumbledore and myself have agreed that you can get out of here in three days if you follow some vocal exercises, which I shall outline tomorrow morning once I have gauged your throat's reaction to the tonic."
Harry nodded, half listening. Once he got out of here, he'd have to see Malfoy again, and that might be weird.
Three days on, and Harry found himself disjointedly meandering down to the great hall for breakfast, wondering how easy it would be for him to sort of sneak in undetected. Everyone would be in there by now, as Madam Pomfrey has insisted on his taking three different types of throat tonic before leaving and also pressing a bottle of dreamless sleep potion into his hand, for emergencies.
He took a deep breath and raised is arm to lean into the heavy doors, only to have them open inwards. He fell spectacularly into the person on the other side. They both froze. It was Malfoy.
Malfoy pushed Harry back into the corridor behind him and shut the door quickly. He looked pale. "Hello, Malfoy," said Harry, hoarsely.
"Potter." There was a pause. Malfoy looked at him intently for a second, and wet his lips as if trying to decide what he wanted to say. Then he suddenly shoved past Harry and almost bolted down the side corridor, which Harry knew led to the dungeons.
Harry stood still for a few minutes, trying to puzzle the other boy out, wondering if he really had had anything to actually say to him. Then he registered that he was still facing the large double doors he had meant to go through.
At least Harry's pensive state as he entered the great hall distracted him from the stares and murmurs of his fellow students, particularly those from the Slytherin table, whose occupants were still speculating on what had really happened to turn the habitually superior Malfoy heir into a pale mute.
reviews please. thank you. xxxxx