A/N: So! I'm probably not going to update this fic as quick as I have been updating it right now (this was supposed to be uploaded two days ago, but the site was down for me for some odd reason). I need to start going to sleep at a normal time and not at...five or six in the morning, especially when I have college the next day. I'm going to try and start going to sleep at a normal time, meaning that I'm not going to be able to update as much as I have been. Plus when I get home from college, I always end up going for a nap, so I won't have time to upate it when I get back either. ;w;
However!
Just like I said I was going to do in one of the other chapters, I'm going to work on the start of the chapter on a Wednesday, finish it on a Thursday when I get home from college (and after my nap), or the Friday. And then I'll hopefully have another one up by Sunday because it'll be the weekend. And I'll try my best to work on this as much as I can during the weekends!
But thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
When they were pushed out of the way, both Harry and Hermione turned to watch Draco walk away before then looking back to the Great Hall and the Gryffindor table. Of course, Hermione was the first to walk over very quickly, the students from the other houses leaving.
Harry soon walked over, immediately noticing the letters on the table - they weren't that hard to miss anyway. He raised an eyebrow and picked up one up, seeing it was addressed to Draco, he then looked to Ron - who was currently getting an earful off of Hermione.
"What did I tell you about taking things too far?"
"It was just a joke, Hermione. I'm sure even Malfoy knows that-"
"It didn't look like he knew that!" She said quickly, eyebrows knitting together. "Besides, taking someone else's letters is not a joke, Ron! Yes, he might have deserved a few harmless pranks, but this has just taken things too far and you need to stop." She looked at their friends, frowning. "All of you."
Since everyone was getting scolded by Hermione, no one noticed Harry sneaking out of the Great Hall in order to look for Draco. He had been searching for a while before he finally decided to check the Marauder's Map. He had an idea where the older Slytherin student might be, but he just wanted to make sure. Once he had checked the map, he sighed and then went to where Draco was.
The Astronomy Tower.
Once there, he slowly walked up the steps, then stopped when he saw Draco sitting on the ground near the balcony. He had just been about to speak up when Draco beat him to it.
"What do you want?"
"...to talk."
Draco scoffed, standing up. "I don't want to talk, especially not to you."
"Listen, Malfoy. Taking your letters - it wasn't my idea, I didn't take part in it." At least, he didn't take part in the taking of Draco's letter, but he took part in everything else. "I mean, I did think you deserved some of the stuff that happened to you. But doing something like that, it's just taking things too far-" Another scoff stopped Harry from talking any further, and he just stared at the other, eyebrows raised.
"What are you trying to do, Potter? Why did you come here?"
"I told you, to talk."
"And I told you I don't want to talk, so why are you still here?"
The funny thing was, even Harry didn't know the answer to that.
He had went after Draco to let him know that he had no part in what had happened, and then he had planned on leaving. So...why didn't he? Why was he still there, and why was he trying to get a conversation out of Draco?
He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't even realized that the other had left until it was too late, and he wasn't exactly going to go after him because well...that would just look weird.
Sighing, Harry made his way down the steps and headed back to the Great Hall, seeing his friends were all still sitting at the table, all of them staring at the letters. Harry walked over and sat down next to Ginny, giving her a small smile before then looking to Ron. "You know, when we spoke to Moaning Myrtle, I didn't think you were going to use the information to do this-"
"Wait," Hermione stared at her friend. "You got information from Moaning Myrtle? What kind of information?"
Harry knew there was no point in lying to her now, it would only make her even more angry. "About Malfoy. We used the truth serum on Pansy, who then told us that Malfoy had been talking to Moaning Myrtle almost every night about things. So Ron and I went to her to find out what he had been talking about."
"I can't believe you."
"We were curious-"
"So you decide to find out personal things? Would you like it if Draco done it with either of you?"
"Well, he wouldn't have to do it with me, everyone knows everything about me." Harry muttered, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. He then glanced down to the letters, and he had just been about to pick one up when McGonagall walked into the Great Hall and over to them. "Well, I'm surprised that Professor Slughorn was correct. He said he saw all of you taking letters from a Slytherin student." She reached down to pick one of them up to find out which Slytherin student they had been addressed to, then just stared at it when she saw it was addressed to Draco.
She looked to the Gryffindor students, then over to the Slytherin students, motioning Pansy over. When she had walked over, though reluctantly, she was asked to take the letters back to Draco, which she gladly done. McGonagall then turned to the Gryffindor students again. "50 points from Gryffindor for this little stunt of yours."
"But-"
"There will be no discussion about it." She said quickly before then leaving the Great Hall again.
"At this rate we're going to be tied in last place with Slytherin." Ron muttered, not thinking anyone had heard him. However, he thought wrong, because then Hermione was hitting the back of his head. "Maybe next time you won't be so stupid!"
Harry wasn't paying attention to his friends, still trying to think of why he had stayed in the Astronomy Tower with Malfoy longer than he should have. It wasn't like he exactly wanted to be friends with him. But...during the war, he did help, and he did say that he hadn't recognized Harry. At some point, he must have had a change of heart. He must have realized all of the mistakes he had made and decided to stop when he could.
But Harry wasn't exactly going to go up and ask him. He'd just have to...somehow start off slow.
Or, he could just forget about it all together.
That sounded like the better plan. What Malfoy was going through wasn't any of his business and Harry didn't have to help him.
.
.
.
Surprisingly, Malfoy hadn't shown up to any of the classes. Not even potions class, and that was definitely his favorite class. Or at least it had been.
There had been a few whispers about him not showing up to any of the classes, some of them wondering if what they had done had actually upset the Slytherin student that much, then they came to the conclusion that they didn't really care and he deserved it. And Harry tried to tell himself the same thing, he really did. But in the back of his mind, he wanted to search for him after class and he wanted to try and talk to him.
Talking was the best thing anyone could do.
Though, it was understandable if Malfoy didn't want to talk or open up to anyone after what had happened with both Pansy and Moaning Myrtle.
So Harry didn't search for him after class, trying to believe his own thoughts as he told himself over and over again that he didn't care and that Malfoy was old enough to look out for himself.
However, that night after classes and during dinner, Harry found himself looking over to the Slytherin table much more than he should have. Eventually, his friends noticed.
"Who are you looking for, Harry?" Ginny asked after a while, looking behind her to also look at the Slytherin table before then looking back to Harry. who shook his head and turned his attention back to his food. "No one."
"Don't tell me you're looking for Malfoy," Ron muttered.
"Of course I'm not!" Harry looked at his friend. "I was just staring off into space and happened to be looking at the Slytherin table. Why would I be looking for Malfoy anyway, Ron?"
Ron stared at Harry and then shrugged when he couldn't find an answer, beginning to stuff his face once more, both Ginny and Hermione making a face of disgust.
"I still don't know what you see in him."
"He's much better when he's not stuffing his face." Hermione muttered, then chuckled as she looked to Ginny. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Harry looking at the Slytherin table again, but she decided not to say anything about it. Whatever Harry was thinking about, it was clear he didn't want to talk about it.
But even Harry didn't know why he was looking over at the Slytherin table every few minutes, it just...kept happening.
Eventually, he just decided to focus on eating, laughing and talking with his friends. This was the only thing that mattered to Harry - he didn't care about house points, or other students. And he definitely didn't care about Malfoy. He had everything he needed or wanted right at this table, and that was enough to make him happy after everything that had happened.
.
.
.
After dinner and when everyone was back at their own common rooms and in bed, Harry was still awake and was laying in bed with the Marauder's Map open. He had actually just been planning on going to sleep, but as he got into bed, his mind went back to Malfoy and how no one had seen him at all after what had happened this morning. So, Harry had decided to check the map just to see where he was.
At first, he had stayed in the Slytherin common room, Harry assumed he was reading something, but after an hour or so, his name on the map finally started moving and it seemed like Malfoy was just simply wandering the castle for a few hours before he finally made his way to the Astronomy Tower once again. Harry couldn't help but wonder why he kept going there - especially after what had happened.
And he had been tempted to get out of bed and go to the Astronomy Tower to talk to him, but then decided against it because he did not care about Malfoy. What he wanted to do was his own business, and Harry shouldn't be trying to find out what it was he was doing. No one should be trying to find that out.
So, with a sigh, he muttered "mischief managed" and then closed the map, setting it on the nightstand along with his glasses and wand before moving to get more comfortable so he could get to sleep. It took him longer than it should have, but he eventually fell asleep.
The next day, they had even more classes than yesterday, and both Harry and Ron would have just slept in if it hadn't of been for Neville waking them up for breakfast.
Plus, they didn't really want Hermione to yell at them for missing breakfast and classes just because they had slept in, so they were thankful Neville had woken them up.
As they walked into the Great Hall, Harry cast a glance over to the Slytherin table, seeing that Malfoy still wasn't there. He then looked away before anyone could notice him looking to the table, sitting down with his own friends, glad that Hermione wasn't as mad at them about what had happened yesterday. However, she had told all of them to apologize to Malfoy and they had to do it while she was there. She also said that it didn't matter if he didn't accept the apology, what mattered is that they apologized.
Hermione had always been like that.
So far, no one had apologized, and it did seem like no one was going to apologize - it was like the lowest of lows, apologizing to a Slytherin, and it just had to be Malfoy.
"You know, you're all going to have to apologize to him eventually." Hermione said after a while, looking between her friends, though both Seamus and Dean were missing - she assumed they were still sleeping. "It's better just to get it over and done with."
"We know that, Hermione. But it's the fact that it's Malfoy-"
"Well you should have thought things through then. Or rather, you shouldn't have done it at all."
Ron went quiet and just focused on eating when Hermione said that, and normally he would have said something in return, but the look she was giving him knew that now was not the time to talk back to his girlfriend. However, he did give Harry a look that said "it was fun, though", and Harry just smiled before beginning to eat so Hermione wouldn't see.
Angering Hermione again was not something he wanted to do. Actually, no one wanted to anger her.
Things went quiet between the group of friends after that, but the silence wasn't for long, because soon Ginny was quickly walking into the Hall and over to them. They all immediately had their attention on her. "Ginny, what's wrong?" Harry asked.
"There's a fight out in the courtyard."
"Between who?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't know, but apparently it's getting pretty bad. No one's trying to stop it."
Hermione immediately got up at that, following Ginny to the courtyard and asking her a few questions. Ron and Harry stayed at the table however, giving each other a look before they got up as quickly as they made their way to the courtyard. When it came to fights, everyone wanted to watch it and everyone wanted to see who would win. Sometimes people even tried to help.
It was just a normal thing that happend.
However, when they got there, that hadn't really expected to see a very, very large crowd there - they had just expected it to be a small group of students. But it wasn't, and the trio had to push their way past the students just to see who it was that was stupid enough to fight in school grounds. It was none other than Seamus and...well, it looked like Malfoy, but they couldn't be sure. Other students kept getting in their way whenever they tried to get a good look.
But despite that, they were the first ones to leave when they heard the voices of Professors Flitwick and Trelawney - the trio knew it was best if they were the ones to leave first after what had happened yesterday, knowing that McGonagall would be showing up soon.
"Did any of you see who Seamus was fighting?" Hermione eventually asked as they headed back to the Gryffindor common room to get a few books before classes started.
Ron shook his head. "I didn't see it, everyone else kept getting in the bloody way. But I thought I saw-"
"Malfoy?" Harry looked at his friends. "You weren't the only one. We'll just have to ask Seamus."
"Knowing him, he'll just want to talk about how he won and how he didn't feel anything."
Hermione rolled her eyes when Ron said that, looking between her friends. "All boys and men must be like that then, because the both of you were when I first met you." She said with a smile, grabbing her books from the nearby table where she had placed them earlier. Then, she left, leaving Harry and Ron to stare at where she had just stood. They then quickly followed after her, demanding to know of the times they had acted like that.
.
.
.
The trio had been right about two things.
The first thing was that Seamus did just want to talk about how he won and didn't back down. The second was that it had been Malfoy he had gotten into a fight with.
They had only just found out between their first and second class, and now Seamus was just going on about how great he had been.
"-didn't stand a chance from the beginning." Seamus said with a grin, despite having a few bruises and cuts on his face. "He should have just given up."
"You keep telling us this, Seamus, but why did you actually get into a fight with him? Who started it?"
Seamus looked at Ginny when she asked that, the youngest Weasley having tagged along on the walk with her friends. He then shrugged. "I don't know, I was talking to Dean and the next think I knew, he was standing in front of me with his wand pointed at me. Luckily, he was focusing more on using spells to do more damage, but fists work the best."
"Well he must have caught on, you look worse than you usually do." Harry joked to lighten the mood a little.
"You should see how he looks. Believe me, he looks much worse than I currently do."
"You shouldn't sound so proud of yourself," Hermione muttered.
"He deserved it-"
"Stop saying that!" Hermione abruptly stopped in front of the group, frowning. "Stop saying that he deserves certain things. He knew what he would be getting himself into if he came back here, yet he still came back and he still takes everything you give him." She looked between the group of boys. "All of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves, you're supposed to be adults now, yet you're still acting like immature children."
The group watched in silence as their brunette friend swiftly turned away from them to go to class, Ginny following at her side.
They didn't even say anything about that, instead they also just went to class. And no one of them were surprised to see that Malfoy had once again not shown up to none of the classes. Though, Seamus did mutter something about him probably still being with McGonagall - the two of them having been taken to her office when she came out to the courtyard. It was then that Seamus brought up the fact that they had lost 50 more points.
Ron seemed just slightly bothered by it, but Harry hadn't been paying attention at all.
All he could think about was what Hermione had said and just how true it was.
Why would Malfoy return if he knew what was going to happen? It didn't make any sense, and it wasn't like he could just go up and ask him. He'd have to apologize first, and that was something he would do soon.
As classes went on throughout the day, all he could think about was how he was going to apologize to Malfoy and when he was going to do it.
In the end, he decided he would do it the next time he saw Malfoy. So, when he didn't see Malfoy in any more classes or at the Great Hall after the classes, he was happy about it because he didn't have to apologize then and there. But he was also...a little upset about it too because he would have liked to apologize right there, just to get it over with.
He was sure that if he was the first to apologize, the others would then do the same. He just had to...find Malfoy first.
And eventually he did.
The group of friends had decided to go to The Three Broomsticks, which was Seamus' suggestion. At the suggestion, their group had gotten more numbers, not that Harry minded. He loved spending time with all of their friends and because of recent events, he hadn't really been able to do that as much.
They saw Draco and his group of friends at The Three Broomsticks, but they weren't going to let them ruin their fun, and they did have fun. Well, Harry did up until a certain point in the night where he was sitting at a table with just Ron and Hermione, the others were all standing over somewhere else, and Harry would have joined them...had Hermione not asked him to stay at the table.
He enjoyed spending time with just Ron and Hermione, but now that those two were dating, he tended to feel like a third wheel sometimes.
However, in order to take his mind off of his two friends, he started looking around before his eyes landed on Draco's table, watching them. And when it got later into the night, Pansy, Crabbe, Millicent, and Blaise all left - but Draco didn't. And Harry couldn't help but wonder if now would be a good time to apologize, or to even talk to the Slytherin student. From what Harry could see, he looked pretty drunk.
When Hermione and Ron weren't looking in his direction, Harry moved away from their table and slowly made his way over to where Draco was sitting at the back of the pub. He had his chin resting in the palm of his hand and his eyes closed when Harry sat down, but he still spoke up. "Unless you're going to buy me something to drink, leave me alone."
"Don't you think you've had enough to drink?" Harry asked, and he was asking a genuine question. From what he could see and hear, the other looked like he couldn't even keep his eyes open and his speech was slurred.
But all Harry could think about was how rare it was to see Draco drunk.
Actually, it wasn't so much the fact that he was drunk. It was the fact that he was vulnerable, and Draco just didn't seem to care.
Draco opened his eyes slowly to look at Harry as he leaned back in his chair, and it was then that Harry was finally able to see how he looked after the fight with Seamus. And he certainly did look a lot worse than his friend, but Harry didn't say anything about it. "What do you want, Potter?"
"To-..." He had been about to say 'to talk' but stopped himself when he remembered how Draco had gotten when he wanted to talk last time. That, and the blond looked as if he wouldn't be able to stay awake any longer. "You should go back to the castle."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Don't make me drag you back." It had left Harry's mouth before he could even try and stop it. He didn't even know where it had came from, it had just sort of slipped out. But all he could think about was if Draco stayed and passed out at the table with Harry's group of friends nearby, especially Seamus, it wouldn't end well.
Draco hadn't been thinking of how weird that sounded because what he said next was, "You wouldn't dare touch me."
But that was exactly what Harry done once he had gotten out of his chair. He had walked around to Draco, grabbed his right arm and pulled him to his feet...and then was immediately pushed away by the older male. He apologized to him and then remembered that wasn't the only thing he had to apologize for, but he would have to find the right moment to actually bring it up.
On their way back to the castle was definitely not a good time to do it because it was already awkward with Harry walking a very drunk Draco back to the castle, sometimes even having to stop because Draco kept tripping over his own feet. However, once they were back at the castle and Harry was making sure Draco got to the Slytherin common room without hurting himself more, that was when he had been planning on apologizing. And just as he had opened his mouth to apologize, Draco was already talking and all Harry could do was listen.
"You know, I didn't come back here because I wanted to. I came back because my mother wanted me to."
Harry didn't know what to say to that because it was odd having Draco talk to him as if he were...a friend.
"She said it would be good for me, but so far I've been pranked, cursed, lost my trust in my friends, had my letters stolen, been beaten up, and had my parents insulted. I don't see how this is good for me." He slurred, and Harry assumed that Seamus was the one who had insulted his family - why else would Draco have fought back?
"You know, about the letter incident, I wanted to apologize for it."
"Is that why you came over to the table? To apologize?"
"That, and you looked pretty lonely." Harry muttered when they were outside of the Slytherin dungeon and he heard Draco scoff softly, his back turned to him now.
"Being lonely is something I've gotten used to," he muttered before leaving Harry's sight as he walked into the Slytherin dungeon, and Harry just kind of stood there. He could have guessed that Draco felt lonely sometimes, but he didn't know that he was so lonely that he had gotten used to it. And Harry didn't know what to do with that information.
But that night when everyone else had returned from The Three Broomsticks and they were all in bed, Harry was still awake, looking at the map once again and staying up later than he should have because of it. He kept telling himself he was doing it just because he couldn't sleep, but in the back of his mind he knew it was because a small part of him didn't want to see Draco wandering the castle again - especially when he was drunk.
And he couldn't help but wonder that night as he finally settled down to sleep - would Draco even remember what he had said? And if he did, what was going to happen?