Chapter 31
Harry had eventually fallen asleep again that night, but he was woken up by the other boys after what felt like only a few minutes of sleep. He dragged himself down to breakfast, already dreaming of classes being over so he could go back to bed. He seated himself at the Gryffindor table with Ron and Hermione. Hermione was complaining about how behind she was on homework, talking about assignments that Harry had forgotten even existed and had no chance what so ever of getting finished on time.
"Why do you care?" he snapped at her. "You get top marks on everything whether you do the work or not, and it's not like homework is the most important thing we have to worry about at the moment."
She raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed.
"Well you're in a bad mood," she said.
Harry leaned towards her.
"I'm just saying, if you want to complain about what we're spending our time on, then how about you just tell us instead of pretending this is about school."
"Watch your tone, Harry," said Ron coldly. "I think you're starting to take after your favourite Slytherin."
"Oh, is that what this is?" said Hermione. "You two are fighting again?"
"We're not," said Harry, shooting Ron an angry look. "I thought we finished this yesterday."
"Finished what?"
"Harry thinks we're still taking Ferret-face with us."
Hermione sighed.
"Yeah," she said. "We'll probably have to."
"Are you pals with him too now?"
"I'm not," she said firmly, then added more quietly: "And we shouldn't be talking about this here, so save it for later. Harry will you pass me the pumpkin juice?"
He reached for the pitcher.
"Speaking of ferrets, look who's coming down late today," said Ron.
Harry looked up to see Malfoy entering the great hall. He was alone again. He made for the Slytherin table but then, before he reached it, he glanced toward the Gryffindors and his eyes found Harry's, and for a fraction of a second they held each other's gaze, and Harry's heart surged.
"Harry!" exclaimed Parvati, and Harry started and realized he had accidentally tilted the pitcher, spilling a sea of pumpkin juice on the table.
"Sorry," he said, hastily putting it back down and reaching for napkins to throw in the puddle and soak up the mess.
When he glanced up again, Draco was seated at the Slytherin table, no longer looking in Harry's direction.
Harry finished cleaning up the spilled juice and pushed the soggy napkins together in an orange lump on the table. He ate the rest of his breakfast as fast as he could and finished before any of his friends. His heart was still thrumming when he left the Great Hall.
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The rest of Harry's day was just as awful as his morning had been. He continued being tired and irritable. Flitwick assigned another paper that Harry wouldn't have time for. And not once was he allowed to forget about his meeting with Malfoy that evening. They had two classes with the Slytherins that day, so Harry had to spend all of transfiguration staring at the back of his blond head, and was forced to listen to him and Parkinson talking over their cauldrons all through potions. And even when Malfoy wasn't there, Harry couldn't stop thinking about him.
He couldn't even look at Neville the whole day.
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Harry was seriously considering not going that evening. It would be so much easier to just pretend he had forgotten. He could talk to Malfoy later, when he was able to look at his face without thinking about kissing him.
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"Why do you keep checking your watch?" asked Hermione. "Are you going somewhere?"
They were doing homework in the Gryffindor common room. Harry had been checking his watch every thirty seconds or so for the past five minutes. He was supposed to meet with Malfoy two minutes ago. He still hadn't decided if he was going or not.
"What?" he said, looking up at her. "Oh, no reason."
He looked down at his essay. It had his name and the date at the top, and a sorry-looking, half finished sentence beneath. He couldn't remember what he had just read or what he had been meaning to write. He put down his quill.
"Actually, I'm meeting with Malfoy," he said.
"Now?"
"Yeah, patronus work. So I'll have to do this later."
He stood up. His limbs felt disjointed. Something fluttered anxiously in his gut.
"Alright," said Hermione. "See you later, then."
Ron wasn't looking up from his book, but he wasn't turning the pages either.
"See you later," said Harry.