Leo stared at Quirrell as he taught.
Taught was maybe not the best word to describe what he was doing.
He was a quivering mess of nerves that spent every class shaking at the front of the room, and she did her best to focus past the garlic as he stuttered about Verdimillious and its uses. She didn't understand why he was stuttering now, here in his class, when he hadn't been then, there in the corridor. There was nothing scary about green sparks. And none of them would be able to do more than that, yet. So she didn't understand the way he flinched when they all took out their wands when he told them to.
Leo flicked her green sparks out easily the moment Quirrell told them to start practicing. She sought out Regulus's gaze. "There's something wrong," she insisted, voice croaking from a lack of sleep. "Please talk to me."
Regulus stared at where the green had been and didn't answer her.
There were a lot of empty seats in the classroom since Defence at this level was only ever one House at a time, so there was no one else sitting around her. She always tried to pay attention—it wouldn't do to miss something even though nothing so far from Quirrell was new—but it was also so easy to get distracted with practicing her own things. Like now, at the very end of class when she started casting a flickering Protego around one of the vacant chairs a couple desks away. Quirrell either didn't notice or simply didn't want to comment.
Draco, however, was watching her with one eyebrow raised. He sat directly across from her in the half-circle of desks, flicking his own wand absently in a shower of green sparks. When she met his gaze, he smiled. As Quirrell started wrapping up and the students started getting their things together, Draco nodded towards Goyle. His smile fell into a smirk.
She could recognize a challenge when it was issued.
She flicked her wand carefully and said the spell under her breath. The shield was weak, but it was enough to catch up Goyle's feet as he moved and send him tumbling to the ground. The spell shattered. She tucked her wand away, already matching Draco's grin. For a moment, she could focus on that and Quirrell's frantic fretting instead of how her tiredness dragged on her bones.
"Miss Malfoy, you've given me the wrong papers."
Leo blinked at the textbook she was hunched over. "What?" she asked it, frowning at the illustration of a dove animagus mid-transformation. "You were on Professor McGonagall's list," she reminded the book.
"Miss Malfoy."
Oh, well, of course it wasn't the book talking. She looked up at Regulus, but he'd been absolutely useless in the week since they'd learned Quirrell had two voices. She needed him to be loud again; it was too quiet in her own head, and she needed him.
"Miss Malfoy!"
"Mister Weasley," Madam Pince hissed from across the library. "Quiet."
Percy twisted in his seat to send a polite apology her way, and Leo finally looked at him.
"Oh," she managed. "Sorry. What were you saying?"
"These papers." He set said pages atop the open book. "These notes are about Incendio, not Confundo."
"Oh." She stared at her own sketch of the wand movement. "I'm sorry. I don't know how that happened." The paragraph she'd written on the dangers of performing fire spells was missing a comma. She hadn't noticed that before.
"Do you have the confundus charm notes?"
"Yes." She pulled her satchel into her lap and started looking through it. She found the other pages, folded up in her journal, and handed them over. "Sorry," she said again.
Percy took the papers. "You were a lot more attentive in the last three study sessions."
"Sorry." There was half a fingerprint just on the edge his left lens, and she couldn't stop looking at it. "I'm not sure I understand what you have to do outside of an intention change to shift the effect from one to another. Being unaware versus being impressionable, for example."
Percy didn't response to that. Instead, he was frowning at her again. Even though he had her notes in hand, he hadn't looked at them. "Have you been to see Madam Pomfrey? You aren't . . . looking well," he finished awkwardly.
Was she not? Draco hadn't mentioned anything, although he very rarely commented on her appearance in the first place. The last time he had, they'd been eight, and he'd asked her why they looked so different from each other. Besides, he'd been pretty distracted that morning by Blaise talking about his mother and newest step-father's plans to visit Venice for the holidays. The other Slytherins mostly kept silent when faced with her, though Daphne never complained about pairing with her for class assignments, and Theodore was silent when faced with most people. Although . . . Neville had asked during Potions if she was alright, and it was a question he'd never asked her before.
"Miss Malfoy?"
"I didn't sleep much last night," she admitted. "But I'll sleep plenty tonight," she lied.
"Hmm. See that you do. Otherwise, my mother always says a good bowl of soup does a sick body well."
"I'm not sick," she said immediately. "I'm—" She paused, realizing she didn't really have much of anything she could say she was instead. "Me," she finished painfully. She hummed. She didn't quite like how she'd said that, and she especially didn't like how Regulus was floating nearby with his eyes screwed closed instead of mocking her for it.
Percy looked startled, his mouth falling open just enough to make a small o. Then his teeth clicked when he gave her a tight lipped not-quite-a-smile. He looked down at the papers he had in hand, finally unfolding them. "Right, well," he said after a long silence. "I think soup would still do you well. You've just given me your Herbology homework."
"Oh, have I?" She frowned down into her satchel. "Sorry," she said for the fourth time.
He held the papers back out to her. "Did you skip dinner again? They served soup tonight."
She squinted, trying to remember. If he was speaking to her, Regulus would have known.
"You don't remember," Percy concluded. "Oh, my mother would love to feed you," he muttered. He got to his feet. "Right. We've got two hours until curfew. You should eat something before then. It will help you sleep properly. And I can fit you in tomorrow for a rescheduled tutoring session, I'm sure. Perhaps during the match?" He pushed in his chair and started walking away from the table. "Come with me."
"What?" she asked uselessly. Then she scrambled to her feet, putting her returned papers in the animagus book, snapping it shut, and putting it away in her bag as she hurried to follow. "I can't during the match," she managed once they were out of the library and heading down the hall. "I'm playing." Belatedly, she remember that she and the rest of the team had done a good job with that secret. Draco was the only other student who knew.
Percy paused in surprise, glancing over at her. "Really? Oliver must not know; he definitely would have mentioned a new Slytherin player."
Oliver Wood was the Gryffindor captain, and a moment of thought made her realize that he was in the same year as Percy and, therefore, in the same dorm. "No on is supposed to know," she said, looking down at the floor. "I didn't mean to share that."
"Oh." And then he interrupted whatever thought he might have voiced next by saying, "This way," and leading her into the school's entrance hall. "It's important that you understand that the kitchens are not strictly off limits, but that's not knowledge that is exactly . . . encouraged to be shared. Many students would abuse access to the kitchens, and the Headmaster hardly wants it to serve as a post-curfew temptation." He opened a door in the entrance hall that she'd never gone through before. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," she said. She understood what he'd said, just not why he was saying it.
"Good." He started down the stairwell past the door. "After the match, then. Here we are."
She peered about the brightly lit corridor full of doors and paintings of delicious looking food. "This is near the Common Room."
"The same level," he confirmed. "Don't come here after curfew," he said as a final warning, stopping before a large artwork of a silver bowl of fruit. He danced his fingers on the pear. The green paint morphed and stretched into a large door handle. A door handle that he used to then open the painting like a door. "Well?" he asked, frowning down at her. "Inside. It's not curfew yet, and you need soup."
She stepped in ahead of him, looking around the large, bustling kitchens. Dinner had just finished, so it made sense that the house-elves were rushing about with dishes to clean and the next day's breakfast to prepare. The still life swung closed behind them, and Percy came to stand beside her.
"Master Weasley," one house-elf said, stopping and peering up at them with large, yellow eyes. "You've brought a guest!"
"Mopsy," Percy greeted, smiling and puffing out his chest in a way that made his prefect badge shine. "This is Leonis Malfoy. She's in need of some soup after missing dinner."
"Missing dinner? Oh, no, Mistress Malfoy," Mopsy said, tsk-tsking at her. "That does not do! Mopsy has soup this way, Mistress Malfoy." She turned, leading them both to a long table in the middle of the lengthy room. "Mistress Malfoy and Master Weasley sit, now," she directed. "Mopsy gets food."
Percy started talking about how he'd been shown to the kitchens at the beginning of the year when the Head Boy had introduced him to his patrols. Leo sat, nodding when it made sense and motioning for him to continue whenever he paused. She focused as he started talking about preparing for his O.W.L.s, listening to him being the only thing that was keeping her from nodding off or throwing up her empty stomach.
"Pumpkin pear soup!" Mopsy announced as she returned, setting a steaming bowl of soup before them both. She then accompanied each soup dish with a half-loaf of garlic bread, a salad, and a bowl of apple crisp with ice cream. She watched them eagerly, eyes wide.
"Thank you, Mopsy," Leo said, picking up a spoon. "Do you want to sit and eat with us?"
Mopsy's wide eyes widened further. "Oh, Mistress Malfoy is very kind! No, no, Mopsy has already eaten. Does Mistress Malfoy and Master Weasley like?"
Percy was already giving his thanks, assuring her that the food was good. Leo sipped at the hot soup and wished it could make her warm. "It's excellent. Thank you."
And then Percy was talking again, this time about Professor Babbling, and she turned her attention to him to soak up everything he had to say about Ancient Runes.