Harry stepped back quickly when the door to the office opened and Draco emerged looking even whiter than usual.
Under the cloak Harry breathed silently, watching Draco take a few steps down the hall and then turn back, his eyes moving all around him, as if searching for an invisible helping hand to swoop in and save him. He looked panic-stricken.
"Think, you idiot, think! Tell him any excuse!" he hissed to himself, still clutching the note Fred had given him in his fist. Harry eyed the boy for a moment without sympathy and then heard the voices of Lucius and Delores drifting out to him faintly. He turned and resumed his position at the door, straining to hear. He was aware of Draco pacing behind him, but knew that if he remained perfectly still he would not be discovered.
"The Potter brat and my son should not be compared, ever. Understood?" came Lucius' cutting voice. There was a long pause of silence in which the sounds of Draco's frantic mutterings distracted Harry. He licked his lips and blocked them out.
"He must not repeat what he knows to anyone Lucius." Umbridge said finally. "If the Minister finds out that I sent Dementors after Potter, everything will be ruined and we will both have to answer for it."
Harry's Adam's apple slipped down into his stomach and he could feel himself going numb all over. So! It had been that evil bitch that sent those Dementors to Privet Drive! To what? To kill him? To incapacitate him and drag him away from his fat cousin off to Azkaban to rot while she and the Minister ousted Dumbledore and corrupted Hogwarts as they pleased? The numbness burned hot and Harry thought about punching a hole in the door, but he did not wish to be discovered eavesdropping just then, so he decided against it.
"Since it was I that arranged their cooperation with you, I dare say I am well aware of the consequences…" Lucius was saying silkily. Harry heard Draco moving about again and turned carefully to watch him.
Your father and you are a rotten pair of scum, he thought bitterly, staring at Draco and loving the petrified look on his pale face. A second later he heard Lucius utter 'Goodnight' and the door was opening. Again Harry stepped back quickly, his heart thumping mercilessly with an odd mixture of anger, excitement, and apprehension. Draco's eyes were wide and shining; his body went rigid as a board when he saw his father emerge slowly from the office, closing the door behind him without any hurry. Harry watched, standing dangerously close to the pair, trying to block out the loud drumming of his heart.
"Draco…" Lucius uttered; the softness of his voice so much more terrifying than all the yelling Uncle Vernon had ever done. "You've embarrassed me."
"Father," Draco's voice was not nearly as snide or superior as it usually was. "I-I didn't mean to-"
"Silence!" Harry jumped at the sudden stab of anger elder Malfoy's voice delivered. The cloak fluttered but neither father nor son seemed to notice. "Need I remind you that your stupidity could cost us everything? Do you have any idea what could happen if anyone found out that I had anything to do with that Dementor attack? Do you?"
"I was never going to tell! I just wanted-"
"Wanted what, exactly, my idiot son?" Lucius sneered menacingly. "Hmmm? Do you think this is a silly little game? Do you think threatening people to gain some meaningless authority at this disgrace for a wizarding school is worth risking our livelihood?"
"But it's Potter, Father! He's in my face all the time and I wanted to shut him up!" Draco almost whined. Harry was sweating and his arms were growing tired from holding the cloak away from his eyes so he could see clearly. The sight of Draco sniveling at his father's reproach was almost too much for him to handle.
Lucius grimaced with disgust, apparently feeling the same way. "Stop your whining, you useless boy! Potter is nothing more than a brat, and he's got a mark on him that will soon end his pitiful existence, do you understand? You waste your time playing childish games! If you want to do something useful, you watch me and learn what it means to truly matter! Because in the long run, none of these fools will live to see-!"
"You mean working for You-Know-Who?" Draco interrupted nervously. "Am I going to be a…a…?"
"You stammer, Draco." Lucius only said coldly. "No wonder Potter feels he can bully you."
"He does not bully me! I'm the one with the upper hand here!" The boy had finally gotten angry and was now glaring at his father, despite his trembling fists at his sides. Harry felt like he was trapped between a snake and a rat and the rat was about to get eaten...
"Oh?" Lucius' eyebrows rose up with amusement. "And how is that? You obviously felt you needed help from a teacher to get to him. That doesn't sound like the action of one who has the 'upper hand' as you put it. It sounds marvelously like he's backed you into a corner and you ran to Umbridge like the child you are."
"I am not a child!"
"Then prove it and stop your excuses! You are a Malfoy! Act as such!" Again, they glared at each other for a long moment. Harry knew that he should be going—he had to get to the D.A. meeting. But it was so hard for him to turn away. He was eating it up. The twins were geniuses; this was playing out exactly as they had planned it; almost too perfectly. Then suddenly and to Harry's horror, Draco thrust the crumpled note at his father, his eyes blazing with defiance. "What is this, boy?"
"He's challenged me to a duel." Draco growled. Lucius opened the note and read over it quickly, his lips curling up into one of those trademark Malfoy smiles. Harry felt as if his blood were frozen. This could not be good. They were standing a little ways off from the office, but Umbridge could still come out at any moment and then what? Would they show her the note? He tried to ease his hand down to this pocket, where the chew #307 was tucked. He didn't have any clue what he was going to do with it but he had to think of something. He was about to close his fingers around it when he saw Lucius hand the note back to Draco, still smiling.
"You will accept, of course."
Harry's mouth fell open.
Draco hesitated for a moment, his chest rising and falling still from the yelling he had done. "O-Of course."
"You stammered again. I'm afraid with that sort of resolve you cannot hope to redeem yourself, Draco."
"Father, I said I will accept the damned challenge." Draco uttered quietly, his voice echoing some of his father's earlier menace.
Lucius regarded his son much the same as he had done Umbridge's office for a moment, his blue eyes glinting in the small light of the torches lining the hall. Then abruptly he stepped forward and slapped the boy across the face, hard. Draco faltered under the blow, but stood still again quickly, his expression filled with restrained animosity. "I used my hand...but next time I will use my wand and it will hurt far worse." Draco did not look up at his father, but stared right through Harry down the dark corridor, his hand rubbing his rapidly flushing cheek. "Do not ever attempt something so idiotic again, am I making myself clear?"
"Yes, father."
"You will submit to that horrid woman's punishment without a word, and when you return to the estate for the holidays you will find me a very poor host. I trust you understand that this doesn't end here. In order to keep the sort of company that I do on a daily basis, you must learn your place."
"Yes, sir..." Draco's gaze, if made of fire, would have burnt Harry's cloak to ash at this point. Lucius clicked his tongue disappointedly at his son and gathered his robes to walk off again. "Are you going to tell Uncle Severus what I did?" Draco asked quietly.
Lucius paused on the steps near Harry, his back to them both. "You are too old to still be using that nickname, and this is hardly the place for it." He lifted his head and turned slightly to regard Draco again. "Do not be foolish. If I told Severus, he would ask questions and questions are never good. You'll apologize to him for me, but I am not stopping to speak with him."
Both Harry and Draco silently watched Lucius leave their midst without another word.
Then Draco did something that alarmed Harry: he turned and stared directly at him. The boy's gaze did burn through the cloak and he uttered bitterly: "Did you enjoy that, then?"
Harry was about to retreat, his disbelief so strong that Draco knew he was there, but then he realized that Draco wasn't looking at him, but through him at someone behind him in the dark corridor. He turned around as carefully and silently as he could and saw a figure draped in shadow. The figure stood there silently for a long pause, and then finally spoke.
"Like father, like son I see."
Harry froze. It was Angelina speaking, and her voice was trembling so, so slightly…it disturbed him even more than the shock of seeing her there. She stepped under the light of one of the torches, looking every bit as grave and intense as she had been the day she told them that her playbook was stolen. He didn't know what to do with himself. Many, many questions swarmed about inside his head. Why was she here? Did she follow him? Had she been eavesdropping? Why wasn't she at the meeting with the others?
Draco's hostile voice shattered his thoughts. "Piss off, Johnson. Run, go tell your boyfriend I accept his stupid challenge. He'll be sorry he ever messed with me."
"What challenge?" Harry backed up and flattened himself against a wall as Draco extended the arm holding the note in her direction. She squinted at it uncertainly, but then stepped forward several paces until she was close enough to reach out and take it. Harry held his breath, reeling from so many emotions coursing through him as he watched his girlfriend; who was supposed to be at the D.A. meeting and who was now talking to Draco Malfoy of all people as if they shared a secret; read over the note the twins had written. She was standing inches from him and he saw her eyes narrow in the dim light. "A duel? On the Quidditch pitch. This isn't serious."
"Guess he didn't tell you." Draco reached out for the note, but she withdrew it from him, her gaze burrowing into him hard. "I'll have it back now…" he said, matching her look.
"Explain to me first why you told Harry that you and I have been having fun together," she whispered malevolently. Draco's arm was still reaching out for the note, and he stared at her but said nothing. "Explain to me, Malfoy, why I have been having dreams about you-"
"Ha!" He laughed nervously, lowering his hand and adopting a look of arrogance. "It's not my fault you're having dreams about me, Johnson. Perhaps you should tell your little Pottykins; bet he'd love to hear that!"
Harry did not like hearing this. His jaw felt as if it was made of steel.
"Do not play games with me!" Angelina shouted, her chest heaving. "I've been having dreams, and seeing things, and remembering you—you pointing your wand at me! And nothing else! Now what did you do to me?"
"Who says I did anything?" Malfoy looked perhaps a bit too stiff and guilty just then. Harry wanted to grab him by his neck and squeeze, but he had to hear. He had to find out what they would say next.
Angelina narrowed her eyes at him. "You did. Bragging to Harry was not smart. He came straight to me. He wanted to kill you, and I would have let him if I weren't afraid…"
"Afraid of what?" Draco's smile broke through his apprehensive expression and he stepped forward, towards Angelina. It was all Harry could do not to throw the cloak off of himself. "Afraid that you liked it as much as I did?"
"What…?" Angelina gasped.
Just then the door to Umbridge's office creaked and Draco grabbed Angelina and pulled her back around the same corner that Harry had hidden behind when he overheard the blackmail attempt. Harry remained where he was, though his mind screamed at him to follow them, until Umbridge had come out. She closed the door and locked it, turning to go in the opposite direction from him as she'd done last time. He waited until she was around another far away corner before he removed himself from the wall and followed Draco and Angelina.
He found them mere feet away when he turned the corner again. They had been waiting for Umbridge, too, he could see. His insides boiled as he surveyed Draco pressed against her, listening.
"She's gone…" the other boy confirmed, and seconds later Angelina had pushed him off of her.
"Spill it, Malfoy!" she hissed.
"Give me that back." Draco ignored her demand and reached out again for the note in her hand. She balled it up and threw it at him. Draco flinched; the motion was barely visible in the dim light but Harry saw it. Harry also saw that Angelina's slight tremble was becoming rather visible shaking. She swallowed and looked around; her eyes passing over him for a fleeting second; as though trying to make sure that they would not be overheard. Draco merely stood there, watching her.
"Listen to me," she began. "I know you did something. Denying it won't do any good, Malfoy, so just tell me now."
"Why?" he spat. "So you can run to McGonagall and get me expelled? You don't remember anything, do you?"
"I remember enough!"
Again, Draco stepped towards her and despite himself Harry took a step, too. He had momentarily forgotten that he was under the cloak and was therefore invisible to both of them but he swore to himself that if Malfoy touched her again the cloak would not matter. His brain was acting funny – on the one hand he wanted nothing more than to blast Malfoy's fingers off one by one with his wand, but on the other his curiosity was stronger than ever and it was working furiously to piece things together. Done something to her—done something? "You think he raped me?" Angelina had gasped to him in that little corridor. These things blinked in his brain like flickering candlelight, and Harry's heart thump-thump-thumped in his chest like a hammer trying to break through. He stood there listening, waiting. All Malfoy had to do was say it and it would be all over for him. Harry might just end up in Azkaban after all.
"You used a Memory Charm on me, didn't you, you little snake?" Her eyes were glistening with retrained emotion. "What did you do? Follow me when I was alone after Quidditch practice? Were you looking for my playbook?"
"No, I wasn't looking for your playbook…" Draco whispered, looking very intense and not at all as snide as he should have.
"But you did put your hands on me, didn't you?"
"No…"
"Then explain my wrists! Explain why I was dirty, and w-why I had to wash the leaves out of my hair, a-and…" Angelina's glistening eyes were spilling over, now, her face stricken with confused anger. Harry couldn't move, he couldn't think. He could only listen. And watch—like Muggles stop to watch people being rescued from a burning building or slow their cars down at the scene of an accident to crane their necks. "Draco…did you…did you r-ra-?"
"No!" Malfoy looked as if he'd been slapped again. Harry had never seen him so vulnerable-looking; not even in the presence of his father. He had no sympathy. "Don't you say that! Don't you say that to anyone, you hear?"
A single tear ran slowly down her soft cheek, catching the light from the torch a few feet away from her. Angelina wiped it away and breathed in deeply, staring him down. "The Memory Charm. It backfired on you…"
"What?" He grimaced at her cold statement, watching her apprehensively for a split second before masking his face again with his usual expression of malevolence. "What do you mean?"
"I told you—I've been having dreams. Little things are starting to come back to me, Malfoy. There was a tree…do you remember that? You had me pinned against a tree." She was advancing on him, backing him up to the other end of the hall. They were almost to the wall. "Do you remember?"
"Angelina…" Draco said her first name for the first time in Harry's recollection. "Listen. I don't think you get it. Okay, I did not mean to hurt you. I like you. I-I really-"
"What else did you do to me?" she hissed.
"Wouldn't you like to know…" he uttered nastily, all traces of remorse vanishing.
"Your lies won't stop me from knowing the truth eventually, Malfoy." Angelina, ignoring his last statement, had backed him against the wall and was now poking him in the shoulder threateningly. "When I finally piece this together I'm going to find a way to nail you, and you will get what you deserve!"
She was on the point of turning around and leaving him standing there when he grabbed her and spun her back towards him with such swift force that it made Harry start. "Oh you think so? You just try it, then Johnson!"
But she was quick, as well, and her hands were all over him hitting and pushing as she beat him about the head, ruffling his white-blond hair. "I will! I hope Harry blasts you to dust!"
Harry had seen enough. He wanted—but he couldn't let Malfoy know about the Invisibility Cloak. Quick as lightening he backed around a corner and whipped off the cloak. He had pulled his wand out of his pocket as he rounded it again, just as Angelina tore herself from Draco's hold on her. She was walking away, now, but when she spotted him standing there she froze, her eyes going wide and her mouth dropping open. Draco stopped too, staring at Harry coldly and without much surprise.
"Potter."
Harry, despite the overwhelming anger pulsing through him, took the time to speak clearly and evenly. "Angelina," he said, not taking his eyes off of Malfoy. "Get out of here. Go back." He didn't have to say "…to the Room of Requirement."
She looked as if she wanted to protest, her eyes glistening again as she took a shaky step towards him, but his gaze landed on her and she closed her mouth. Angelina backed away slowly for a few paces, then turned on her heel and ran. He watched her go feeling so, so hot all over.
"I told you…" Malfoy was leering, now. "We have fun."
Harry's red light turned on again behind his eyes and he drove himself bodily into the other boy, knocking him against the wall. Draco slipped off his feet and fell on his bum; Harry heaving like an enraged troll above him, his wand pointed. "You say another word and I'll kill you!"
Draco glared up at him for a moment. Then as if he could not help himself from testing Harry's threat, he opened his mouth to speak—that smile was playing at his lips again. "She's quite the-"
Harry forgot his wand and shot his fist out, abruptly putting an end to Draco's words. When the other boy's head came up again his lip was stained with blood. Harry breathed at him, rage welling up and up inside him, shaking his head slightly as if to say come on…
Draco considered the look in Harry's eyes with his fingers held to his bleeding lip, and then he propelled himself up from the floor, tackling Harry with brutal force and surprising strength. The two boys fell to the slippery floor in a heap of struggling limbs; Harry's wand was knocked out of his hand but that only freed it for punching. They rolled around for a bit on the smooth surface, grunting roughly in the quiet of the dark corridor as each tried to gain the upper hand over the other. Nothing moved but the two lumpy shadows of these boys as they twisted each other's arms back and kneed each other in the stomach and pulled each other's hair and punched each other. Harry's glasses went sliding away, and he twirled himself around on his belly to retrieve them, receiving an elbow in the back for the trouble.
He snarled and whipped his hand back wildly. It landed right across Draco's now thrice-abused cheek and the boy collapsed on his butt again, allowing Harry to grab up his glasses and jump to his feet. He reached down immediately and took hold of Draco by the collar, pulling him up roughly and slamming him against the wall again.
Draco slapped his hand away and tried to punch him, but Harry ducked out of the way. He ran for his wand and picked it up, reeling around just in time to find that Draco had whipped his out as well. They stood aiming at each other, their chests rising and falling heavily, their hair wild on their heads. Draco's cloak was hanging sloppily off of himself. Harry had stuffed his as far as it would go in his back pocket, but it had been loosened in the fight and was now somewhere on the floor. He did not care just then. Draco licked the blood from his aching lip and scoffed. "Shall we duel here, then Potter?"
"I'm going to fucking murder you, Malfoy!" Harry spat furiously.
"Why?" Draco was doing a marvelous job of hiding his fear behind a sly smile. "Because your girlfriend has dreams about me? Jealous, Pott-?"
"Diffindo!" Harry's wand shot forth a jet of yellow light that narrowly missed Draco's head. The curtains on the window behind him fluttered violently and tore in the middle as the spell bounced off them and hit the polished floor, making a small dent in the unblemished surface.
"Reducto!" Draco countered, and Harry ducked out of the way, just in time to see the banister on the staircase behind him explode to dust, leaving a giant gap. He was on his feet again in a flash, about to hit Draco with another spell, but just then he heard shuffling feet and keys jangling.
"I'll hang ya by yer thumbs, you little beasts!" It was Filch. "I'll skin ya alive!"
While Harry was distracted by Filch's angry rasping, Draco made a run for it, dodging up the set of stairs on his end of the hall and out of sight. Harry felt his anger propel him forward as he broke into a run after the other boy. He skidded around the banister and shot up two steps at a time on Draco's heels. He caught up to Draco easily and aimed his wand, shooting a spell at his head that narrowly missed and instead reduced a nearby marble bust to chunky gray fragments on its perch. Draco aimed a spell behind him and Harry ducked out of the way, hearing the floor crack open as he pumped his legs harder in the chase. He caught up to Draco and slapped him across the back of the head. Draco shoved Harry sideways into a wall and headed for another set of stairs. Harry followed, and the chase went on with them shooting hastily aimed spells at each other, not stopping until they were both two floors up, still hearing Filch's faint cursing. They stood in the darkness of an empty classroom, panting as they caught their breath. Draco wiped irritably at the cut on his lip from Harry's earlier blow, spitting blood on the floor and growling under his breath.
"This is going to cost you Potter," he whispered, still wary of Filch.
"Shut your filthy mouth." Harry stood from his leaning position holding his knees, having caught his breath and fully remembering his anger. "If anybody's gonna pay for anything, it'll be you Malfoy."
"Did you hear everything we were saying?" Draco asked, suddenly, ignoring Harry's threat.
"Every—fucking—word." Harry's jaw had gone stiff again and his hand tightened around his wand, itching for the fight.
Draco raised his eyebrows at his enemy. "Wonder why she kept it from you?" This question threw Harry off a bit, but he quickly recovered.
"Keep talking. I don't care about Filch; I'll blow a hole right through you!"
"So touchy, Potter!" And the boy actually smiled at him with amusement. "I was only asking. But, I expect you two can work it out, eh?" He shook his head with mock sympathy. "Well maybe not…you're so violent."
Harry reached out and pushed Draco into a desk, nearly toppling the boy over backwards. Draco faltered but regained his balance and pushed Harry right back. They were on the point of starting up their wrestling again when they heard Filch yelling: "Dueling in the halls! Just wait till I bring ya to the Inquisitor! I'll-I'll…!" it seemed he had run out of punishments to yell out, but he was closer, nonetheless, and he would discover them if they stayed.
Harry needed to leave—he needed to get to the Room of Requirement before the others started to worry. And he needed to see Angelina right away. Harry stepped up to Draco, so close that his breath disturbed the other boy's eyelashes. "Tomorrow night, Malfoy. Midnight. On the pitch."
"I'll be there." Draco managed a great deal of menace that would have impressed anyone other than Harry.
This confirmed, Harry backed up and reached out to grasp the doorknob. He was on the point of stepping out when a thought came to him and he turned his scathing gaze back to the pale boy that he loathed with every fiber of his being. "And if you touch my girlfriend again I'll break your fucking neck."
Without another word Harry left him, slipping out of the classroom silently and sprinting away down the hall.