Chapter 30

Malfoy disappeared through the door and Harry was left there staring at it and feeling like an idiot. His head was a huge, confused mess. That stupid boggart. And what had he been thinking dragging him down here without warning? And why had he thought it was a good idea to hold his hand? And the bloody kiss. He had no idea what the hell that had been. A joke? Except that didn't seem like Malfoy at all, and it hadn't seemed like a joke.

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He took a deep breath. He should head up to the Great Hall. He was late for dinner. They had been in the dungeon much longer than he had planned. Nothing had really gone as planned.

The Great Hall was half empty when he got there. His eyes skipped quickly to the Slytherins, but Malfoy wasn't among them, which was a relief. He couldn't see any of his friends at the Gryffindor table either, but Luna was sitting by herself at the Ravenclaw table, reading The Quibbler while she ate.

He headed over there and sat down across from her. She looked up.

"Hi, Harry," she said airily.

"Hi."

"What's wrong?" she asked.

She was staring at him. He reached for the Shepherd's pie even though he wasn't hungry.

"Nothing," he said, not looking at her.

"You look very disturbed."

"Do I?"

He didn't sound very calm either. If this had been about anyone else, he would have gone to talk to Ron or Hermione immediately; Hermione was much better at this sort thing than he was, and Ron was usually just as clueless as himself, but then at least they could share the confusion. But he couldn't tell them about this, and knowing that only made him feel more bothered by it.

"Yes," said Luna. "You do. But you don't have to tell me what it is if you don't want to."

He shrugged. He wasn't sure he would even be able to say it aloud.

"It's just really weird. Really far out and strange."

"I'm good with strange things, you know," she said with a gentle smile that made him think that she might already know.

Which of course she couldn't, but despite all her oddness there was a sense of omniscience about Luna. She wasn't smart in the sharp, scalpel-like way that Hermione was, the way Malfoy was too, but she seemed to understand things on a different level than other people. And there was something very comforting about that.

"It isn't that kind of strange," he said.

But really it would be easier to tell her than any of the others. He kind of wanted to. Just to sort himself out a bit.

"I won't tell anyone."

He nodded.

"Right, yeah, please don't do that."

She smiled. He took a deep breath.

"You know I've been teaching Malfoy the patronus charm, right?"

"Yes. Is it going badly?"

"No. No, he's doing really well," he said, though after that afternoon's failure it didn't feel entirely true. "It became corporeal yesterday, so we could have just stopped, but…"

He shrugged. He took a bite of his pie but didn't taste it.

"I had this idea," he said, not looking at Luna.

He reached for the pumpkin juice and poured himself a glass.

"That he should try casting it with an actual dementor there. That's what I did when Lupin taught me. Except it wasn't really a dementor, it was just a boggart, since my boggart is a dementor. And I'd found a boggart in this old classroom, so that's how I got the idea, and – sorry, no, none of that's really important. Anyway, so we were in that old classroom down in the dungeons, right before I came up here, and it… It didn't go well. I mean, it worked at first, but then everything went wrong, which seems to be how everything in my life generally goes. I hadn't warned him what we would be doing, and apparently the dementors hit him really hard, so even though it wasn't a real one, it was still pretty bad. And I panicked a bit, so instead of casting ridikkulus, I cast my patronus, because I'm an idiot, and of course that didn't help, so the boggart just went past me. And then it turned into Voldemort."

"Oh," said Luna quietly.

He nodded down at his plate.

"Yeah. We got it back in the wardrobe, but he was really pissed, you know? And he was really freaked out. He looked completely shaken, so I – this is the weird part. You can laugh if you want to."

He was picking his pie apart, dissecting it on his plate with his fork while he spoke.

"I just wanted to, I don't know, to say sorry, I guess. And make sure he was okay. I know how you all feel about him – I know how I used to feel about him, but he looked completely wrong, so I sort of… held his hand. Because Hermione said this thing that wizards are different about that. Blokes and blokes and such, so I didn't think it would mean anything, I could hold Hermione's hand if she were upset and that wouldn't mean anything either. It's hard to explain, it just seemed right at the moment."

He laughed nervously. It felt ridiculous saying it aloud. He shouldn't have told her. But Luna didn't laugh. She watched him with a puzzled expression and that slightly glassy look in her eyes that she always had.

"Was he okay, then?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"I don't know. I'm not sure."

"You should ask him, if that's what you're worried about."

Harry shook his head.

"I can't. I mean… the handholding thing, that wasn't all of it. He got angry about it. At first he didn't seem to mind, but then suddenly he was all in a twist and was about to leave, so I grabbed him, because I wanted to know what he was angry about, right? And then-"

He interrupted himself and groaned, hiding his face in his hands. Luna was still watching him curiously when he looked up.

"He said he wasn't angry about anything," he said quietly. "And when I pressed him about it – because he obviously was angry, and I don't know why he couldn't just tell me what his problem was… but then he kissed me. And then he laughed about it like it was just a joke, and then he just left."

"Well, that is strange."

"Right?"

"Do you think he fancies you?"

Harry froze with an empty fork halfway between his plate and his mouth. He lowered it.

"What?" he said slowly.

Luna stabbed a Brussels sprout on her plate.

"Do you think he fancies you?" she asked again as if he just hadn't heard her the first time.

"No. I don't. He doesn't."

She put the sprout in her mouth and chewed it carefully.

"Why would I think that?"

"Because he kissed you," she said.

"As a joke."

Luna shrugged.

"Well it was just a thought. Kissing is the sort of thing you do when you fancy someone."

"Yes, but this is Malfoy, he was probably just being an idiot. It was obviously a joke."

"I thought it wasn't obvious? Wasn't that why you were confused?"

Harry squirmed.

"Well," he said. "Well, it… wasn't the first time."

"That he kissed you?" she said.

"Look, you can't tell Ron or Hermione or anyone else about this, okay?"

"Of course."

Harry took a deep breath. He glanced down the table, but it was close to empty now and the closest people were almost at the other end.

"Okay," he said. "So when Malfoy found out he was going to Azkaban he decided to get himself pissed up in the astronomy tower – remember I mentioned that? He got his hands on some firewhisky, I've no idea how. And I was with him. He asked me to come, so I went up there. I got sort of drunk with him, and he erh… kissed me that time too. He said he was just fooling around, so I thought after today that maybe it was… the same thing. Maybe he's just very casual about that sort of thing. Maybe it's just something he does? I mean, I don't actually know him very well..."

She nodded.

"Could be," she said. "You could ask Pansy Parkinson about it, I suppose she would know."

"I'm not going to ask Parkinson."

"I talked to her the other day. She came up to me after Herbology and said that she was very sorry for making up names about me and that she wouldn't be mean to me while we were in the DA together, but if I didn't like having her around, she would do her best to avoid me."

"Wow, that's… That doesn't sound like her," he said, surprised.

Lune fiddled with the turquoise glass pendant dangling from her left earring.

"I told her I didn't mind much and that it was nice of her to apologize. I don't think she hates me, actually, even if she doesn't like me very much. She hates Ginny, which is sad, but I suppose it's not very hard to understand."

Harry frowned.

"But you like Ginny?"

"Yes. But she is very pretty and she's really good at quidditch, and people like her a lot because she's funny and strong and she cares a lot about everyone. She's very smart too, and all the boys like her. I think it's very understandable why other girls might be jealous of her."

"Right," said Harry.

He used to be one of those boys.

"That's probably how Malfoy feels about you, too. Except he doesn't hate you for it anymore."

"Honestly, I'm not even sure about that…"

"He doesn't hate you."

"How do you know?"

"I can tell. And if you want my advice, I think you should talk to him. People don't do that nearly as much as they should, and it almost always helps."

She stabbed at another Brussels sprout. Harry tried to imagine that conversation and couldn't think of anything he could say that wasn't likely to end with Malfoy cursing him.

"Yeah, alright," he said. "Thanks, Luna."

"You're welcome."

She put down her fork.

"I suppose I should go back to Ravenclaw now," she said. "I'll see you later, Harry. Enjoy your pie."

She stood up.

"See you," he said.

She smiled at him and left. Harry looked down at his atomized shepherd's pie. Luna was probably right about how talking to people helped, but he wasn't sure talking to her had really cleared anything up. In fact, he decided, he still had absolutely no clue what was going on. And he wasn't very keen on talking to Malfoy about it.

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He went back to his dormitory to try and get some homework done. Since the mission of Azkaban had started, he had actually managed to get behind on schoolwork again. But he struggled to keep focus, he kept forgetting his place and had to start over again, so he hadn't read more than a few pages when Ron showed up. He came up the stairs and seemed surprised to find Harry in their dorm.

"Hi," he said, coming over to Harry's bed.

He leaned against one of the posts at the end of it and watched him.

"I didn't see you at dinner?"

"I was with Malfoy. We're still working on his patronus charm."

"You're spending a lot of time with him, aren't you? I feel like I've hardly seen you lately."

"Really? It's just been a couple of nights."

"He's pretty slow at picking it up. Seems it's taking him longer than it did Neville, considering it's all private lessons from you."

"He managed it yesterday, actually."

Ron frowned.

"Then why did you meet today if he's already figured it out?"

Harry hesitated.

"I'd found a boggart in this old Defence against the dark arts-classroom down in the dungeons," he said.

He could tell Ron that much.

"So I thought it might be a good idea to see if he could still cast it when there was actually a dementor there. To make sure he's ready when we go to Azkaban."

"What, you still think we're bringing him?" said Ron.

"You think we aren't?"

"That's what Hermione said. We could allow him in on it and all, get him to tell us what he knew and see if this was something we still thought needed to be done, and then if it was, we could see if we trusted him enough to bring him along. And we don't."

"I trust him."

Ron gave him a look.

"I do. He's really different from-"

"But we know he's a coward! He has proved that about a thousand times by now."

"He's trying to make up for what he did."

"Why does that make a difference?"

"Doesn't the fact that he wants to go back to Azkaban prove that he's not as much of a coward as he used to be? The place scares him shitless, but he still wants to come, even though he could just have pulled a Pansy by now and pulled out."

"Blimey, Hermione's right about you."

"What?"

"She says you like him, that's what it's all about."

Harry's stomach did an uncomfortable flip. He knew that wasn't what Ron meant, but it still sounded too much like what Luna had said. He continued:

"I didn't believe her, said you knew Malfoy was a bastard, but she's right, isn't she?"

"Come off it, Ron."

"You've been defending him an awful lot too."

"He has changed, that's all," said Harry defensively. "I think we ought to give him a chance."

"I'll believe that when he apologizes for all the shit he's done."

"You'd punch him in the face if he tried."

For a second Ron looked like he was the one who had been punched, and Harry felt immediately bad for saying it. Then Ron shrugged.

"I probably would. He'd deserve it too."

Harry grimaced.

"He would."

And then after a moments hesitation he added:

"I think we're becoming friends."

Ron stared at him disbelievingly and Harry looked away. He hadn't wanted to tell Ron, but it had started to feel like a secret more than something he just hadn't bothered to mention. And that just made it all worse, the kisses and the talks, made it feel much more illicit than it actually was. Luna had to be wrong, Harry had just misread the situation, and the only reason he felt bad about it was because he was keeping it from his friends. And the only reason he kept it from them was because he worried about their anger, but really there was nothing wrong with what he was doing with Malfoy, at least not with most of it, and since the kisses didn't mean anything they didn't concern his friends in the first place.

"Are you serious?" asked Ron.

"Yeah."

Ron didn't say anything. It was hard to read the look on his face.

"Look, I know why we all hated him," said Harry. "I'm not an idiot. But a lot of the things he did during the war, he really didn't have much of a choice. He was seriously misguided, and I know the fact that he feels bad about it and is trying to make up for it doesn't actually help, he knows that too, but-"

"But it's not just what he did during the war! We hated him long before that. You know, before he was letting Death Eaters into the school or trying to assassinate Dumbledore, when he was carefree and unmarked and could spend his calling Hermione a you-know-what and making fun of my family and trying to convince everyone you were barmy."

"I know!" Harry said. "He was such a prick. He still is, but he's also not. I think maybe he just took a really long time to grow up."
Ron snorted.

"So what, you want all of us to be pals now? I can deal with him during the DA-meetings, or whatever they are, but I won't pretend I like him."

Ron was bristling, Harry could hear himself speaking too loud and the whole conversation was starting to feel like a fight.

"I'm not asking you to do anything," said Harry. "I just wanted to tell you. So you'd know. I feel awful about it, like I'm betraying you and Hermione, but I'm not… I don't think I'm doing that. By being friends with him. I don't think it works like that, so I don't think I should feel awful."

"Harry, you can't trust him, even if he suddenly seems like a nice guy-"

"Yeah, I used to think that too. I've been talking to him for a while, Ron, and like I said, I'm not an idiot-"

"You sound like an idiot."

"I kept expecting him to pull some shit on me, or to start with you or Hermione or do something like what Parkinson did, but he didn't, and I'm starting to think he's really just a mess in the same way we are – the way we all are."

Ron gave him a long look.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he said finally.

"You can just say what you think. That's what I'm trying to do."

"Alright," he said. "I think you're being a right idiot. I don't think we can trust Malfoy, and I don't want him coming with us to Azkaban. But if you want to be friends with him, then that's your business, and I won't pretend I like it, but it's not like there's much I can do about it."

Harry nodded.

"Alright," he said.

He supposed that was all the approval he could have hoped for.

"And about what you said, about betraying us, then you're right, I suppose it doesn't work like that. Unless your newfound friendship means you'll just let it slide when he starts talking shit about all of us, of course."

"You actually think I would do that?"

Ron shrugged.

"Of course not. But I never thought you'd be friends with Malfoy either."

"Are you angry with me?"

"No. But I hope you come to your senses soon. As soon as this whole thing with Azkaban is over, I would like it if we never have to deal with him again"

Harry nodded. Not because he agreed with Ron, he wouldn't mind if he could still talk to Malfoy when it was all over. But he thought it was very like that they would never deal with him again when they had finished with Azkaban. He would probably just slip away when there was no longer an excuse for them to keep seeing each other, and even though Harry had told Ron they were friends, he wasn't sure how permanent that was.

"It's kind of nice to have the DA going again, though," he said.

Harry felt a rush of relief. Changing the subject was Ron's way of being conciliatory.

"Really?" he said.

Ron shrugged.

"I liked the peace and quiet in the beginning, but school gets boring in the long run."

Harry grinned.

"It's probably not a good sign that we need to be putting ourselves in mortal danger to avoid getting bored."

"We're not in mortal danger yet, just planning to get there. If Hermione ever figures out what to do about the dementors. It's driving her crazy."

"Maybe we should help out?"

"Nah, she doesn't want us to. I think she just finds it distracting. I noticed you and Gin have been talking a bit more since this whole thing started."

"A bit."

"Are you getting back together or something?"

"No," said Harry, a bit too forcefully.

Ron looked away.

"Right, no, I suppose not," he muttered.

Then Dean and Seamus came in and Ron turned to them instead, and Harry didn't try to explain the thing with him and Ginny again. They all began talking about something else and Harry got off his bed to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth.

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"What, are you going to sleep in there?!" called Ron loudly just as Harry came back.

Dean stood by Seamus' bed with his pillow under his arm and Ron was pointing accusingly at him.

"I was planning on it," he said, unperturbed by Ron's loudness.

Neville had shown up too. He was by his own bed and was messing with some things in his trunk with his back to the whole scene like it wasn't happening.

"Don't you think you could at least keep it to when you're by yourself?" Ron continued.

"I said I was going to sleep in there, Ron. Get your mind out of the gutter."

"From the look on his face I'd say he's thinking the same thing I was."

Dean turned to look at Seamus, who was already in the bed and was grinning rather smugly at them. Dean threw his pillow at him.

"Ignore him," he said to Ron.

"Yeah, ignore me," said Seamus. "I'm really good with silencing charms, you won't hear a thing, I promise."

Ron groaned in agony.

"Back me up here, Harry," he said. "They're being fucking indecent."

"Like you're one to talk, you're being indecent with Hermione all over the common room and nobody ever complains about that."

Ron went completely red – it was incredible how touchy he still was about that considering how long he and Hermione had been together by now.

"That's different!" he sputtered. "That's- we're not- Besides, boys can't even get into the girls' dormitories, the stairs turn into a slide!"

Both Dean and Seamus collapsed into laughter. Dean let himself fall onto the bed. Neville had stood up and was headed for the bathroom. He pulled the curtain on Seamus' bed shut as he passed it.

"I hope you're serious about the silencing spells, Seamus," he said.

Seamus was still laughing too hard to answer.

"It's bloody unfair is what it is," said Ron, turning to Harry. "Why don't they have a ward to keep the blokes out of each other's beds too?"

Harry shrugged.

"Don't know," he muttered.

"We're not going to be indecent, Ron," said Dean, who had reached up to pull the curtains out on the other two sides. "Don't worry."

"Goodnight," said Ron.

"Goodnight. You too Harry."

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It took a while before they were all in bed and quiet and the lights could be turned off. Harry could hear the others settling in and falling asleep. He lay awake in his bed with eyes open in the darkness. He didn't feel tired at all. He couldn't stop thinking.

Dean and Seamus for example. It was so strange that they were a couple. It was even more strange that no one cared. Maybe Dean did, he had grown up in the muggle world just as Harry had, even if he did seem pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

And then there was Ron. It felt right to Harry that he had finally talked to him about Malfoy and he was glad that they hadn't had a row about it. He knew Ron and Hermione weren't being unreasonable, but he was starting to think that maybe he wasn't either. It only made sense that things would be different now, after the war. All the other houses had become closer; Slytherin was the only one that was really cut off. And of course that made sense after the role they had played, it was hard for everyone to forgive them, but Harry was pretty much on his way to forgiving Malfoy, wasn't he? And Malfoy had been the worst of them.

Ron had started snoring loudly. Harry pulled his wand from under his pillow and pointed it to the curtains around his bed, muttering a silencing spell to keep the sound out.

Malfoy was an entirely different issue. A whole area of issues that was taking up more and more space in Harry's brain.

It was easy to be with him now, he supposed. They had found a way of talking to each other so that they could joke and be friendly while steering clear of all the mess that was still there. But whenever he left after talking to him, he was always confused, always frustrated, like the whole time there was something he had been missing. Like he had thought when they were together that one thing was going on, that they were practicing the patronus charm for example, and then when he left he had the sense that it wasn't about that at all. Something else had been going on, and he should have noticed it. It wasn't that he suspected Malfoy of anything. He thought maybe it had more to do with himself. It was just a feeling.

And then Luna had suggested that Malfoy liked him. The idea was sort of flattering. Or it would have been if it hadn't been completely impossible.

He turned over in his bed, the rustling of the sheets seeming loud in the magically enhanced silence. He regretted casting the spell. On other nights when he had been awake, the sounds of the others sleeping had given him a sense of where he was. It was too dark to see anything and when the only sounds he could hear were his own, it made him feel detached from the world.

He closed his eyes and tried to empty his head. Instead came the memory of Malfoy talking about the dark mark. That had definitely been a breach of their pattern. He had plunged head first into the mess instead of going around it. It reminded Harry a bit of some of their first talks this year. The ones that had started it all, the ones where all of Malfoy's façade had cracked with hardly any warning and he had seemed an entirely different person, had seemed raw and real.

I really wanted to take the mark, he had said and sounded absolutely disgusted. It should have been painful to hear anyone talk about themselves in that tone, and still he couldn't help feeling a bit relieved. The things Hermione had said had still been haunting him. Despite what he had told his friends, he had worried that he was wrong after all, that he was misreading Malfoy because he wanted to believe that he had changed, that he was better. Now he felt like this had finally proved him right. They could trust him. He could trust him. There was something left in him that was worth saving and forgiving. Part of him wanted to tell her. But he knew how dumb that was, so he pushed the thought away.

He felt sleep coming. He drifted off.

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He was only halfway asleep and it was only halfway a dream: the icy, feathery touch of Malfoy's fingers on his skin. The strange look in his eyes when he leaned towards him. The soft press of his lips against Harry's. The way the kiss had trickled through him. The violent burst of want that had seized him – Harry started awake, the jolt of being tripped and falling. His heart was pounding. He breathed deeply. He stared up into the darkness for a couple of seconds as the euphoria ebbed out of him and was replaced by slow, sinking worry. He felt the sheets beneath him. He sat up slowly and reached out to draw back the curtains. He welcomed the uncomfortable brush of cold air as he slipped out of the covers. A bit of moonlight fell through the windows and he could see the dark outlines of the other four poster beds as he made his way to the bathroom.

The light was still on out there and he squinted in the brightness. The tiles felt like ice on his feet. He still hadn't quite adjusted to the light when he leaned against one of the sinks and turned on the cold tap. He cupped his hands under it and splashed water in his face. It was too cold, like a bite against his skin. He did it again. Then turned the water off. He stood with his hands resting on the porcelain and watched a drop of water drip from his nose and into the sink. There was a creak behind him and he started, spun round and reached for his wand that wasn't there, because he had left it in his bed. Neville stood in the doorway looking startled too, like he had been half asleep a second ago.

"Hi, Harry," he said.

"Hi."

Harry wiped his face with his sleeve to dry the water off.

Neville frowned.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Harry nodded.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just couldn't sleep."

"Nightmares?"

Harry shook his head.

"No. I just… I'm fine."

He walked past Neville and reached for the door.

"You know, Seamus has something that helps with sleeping."

"I don't want to wake them up," said Harry.

"It's fine, I know where he keeps it. He won't mind."

Harry shook his head again.

"No thanks, Neville."

Neville nodded.

"Alright. But there's no shame in it, you know. We all… It's not easy for anyone."

"Yeah, I know. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Harry slipped out the door and back into bed. If Neville hadn't been awake he might have taken his Firebolt and gone flying for a bit, that would have calmed him down.

He didn't need a potion to help him sleep. Of course there was no shame in needing one, as Neville had said. Except he had thought Harry couldn't sleep because of the war. He had thought Harry was awake because of nightmares. And Neville was wrong. And Harry was ashamed, it coiled and twisted in his gut. He was never going to sleep again.