Drarry One Shots

Firewhisky and Cigarettes and 'Truth or Dare'

A/N Okay, I've done something I don't usually do and Harry is smoking, it's part of where he is in this story. It's a bit of a low one, a bit introspective and angsty, fluffy in the end. The above image is relevant to later.

'Do you want anything, Dray?' Pansy shouted across the year-eight common room as she pulled on her coat.

Malfoy didn't look up from near the window where he was curled up in a huge comfy armchair with his nose in a book and his back to the furore that was going on but Harry was fairly certain he heard Malfoy mutter pitifully, 'to come with you...'

'Dray?'

'No, nothing,' he replied, not turning around to look at his friend.

It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the term and the entire year were making the excursion. Malfoy, of course, couldn't go. House arrest and his compulsory attendance at Hogwarts to finish his schooling came with certain restrictions, like not leaving the school grounds.

Harry debated staying behind too. He wasn't exactly enamoured with it all but Hermione was insisting and Blaise was threatening copious amounts of Butterbeer and Ron was going on about George's new shop in Hogsmeade and Daphne was going on about the new patisserie. He didn't see that he had any choice amongst the fuss and excitement of his fellow year mates as they got ready to leave. Harry thought he was just going to end up being a third wheel, or maybe fifth, stuck between Hermione and Ron and Blaise and Pansy.

He frowned to himself. Plus, there was the fact that he couldn't go anywhere in public these days without people hassling him and asking him questions or wanting autographs and photographs. Around the school was bad enough. He shuddered and checked his coat pocket for his invisibility cloak because he was intending to do a runner at the first opportunity. Preferably after he'd brought a bottle of Firewhisky and stocked up on cigarettes.

He straightened his beanie because Neville had knocked him with his bag as he heaved it over his shoulder. Then thrust his hands deeper into his coat pockets as Theo ushered him out through the door.

That was the one thing he was pleased about since they came back, perhaps the only thing. That the year had pulled together and included the Slytherins into their ranks straight away. The past was in the past. Well, some of it was anyway.

Hermione started it, the first night as they sat awkwardly in their new shared space not knowing how to talk to one another. She just stood up and cleared her throat and said, 'right! I'd like to say something.' She sounded all business-like and scarily like McGonagall. They'd all looked at her in deathly silence, there were some concerned faces too. 'I want to say sorry,' she said.

They certainly weren't expecting that. None of them.

'Who, why? stuttered Ron.

'To everyone in Slytherin House.'

That raised some eyebrows.

'I've been doing a lot of thinking over the summer and I want to say sorry for lumping you together into one big awful stereotype and not seeing you as individuals caught up in the same mess. I'm sorry for not seeing that some of you didn't have a choice or were placed in a really hard position where to speak out might have meant going against your parents or families. I'm sorry I didn't see that. I'm sorry if I perpetuated any of your troubles or bad reputations by not having any empathy for your situation. I'm sorry for seeing you as different just because you were Sorted into a different House based on a lot of arbitrary attributes decided upon when we were eleven years old...'

She faltered there and Harry could see she was shaking slightly.

'It was really shit, wasn't it?' she said quietly.