It's No Great Mystery (Drarry)

Chapter Four

Despite the protest, Harry attended the Ball that night. He didn't think that it would reset the timeline, or make a difference to anything much at all, but he had no reason not to go and he thought he may as well. While the unhappiness of the people he let down wouldn't last when the day reset, they would still feel it in the moment, and Harry had had enough of doing that to others.

Even if those people included Pansy Parkinson.

He sought Pansy and Draco out in the afternoon, finding them sequestered away in one of the Potions classrooms near the dungeon. They were whispering together when he arrived, but stopped the second they saw him.

Draco blanched, which was odd, but Harry pressed on. "Hey Pansy, Draco," he said, ignoring the flinches that met his casual use of their first names. "McGonagall said you were looking for me. Did you want to go to the Ball together tonight?"

Pansy gaped at him.

"Great," Harry said, sensing impending doom. "I'll meet you at the entrance doors at seven."

He turned to leave, but Pansy's drawl followed him. "Not so fast, Potter."

Sighing, he turned back and tried to convey that he was an important person with somewhere important to be. Pansy smirked.

"How much did you hear?" she asked.

Harry frowned. "What—of your conversation? Nothing."

The two of them eyed him suspiciously for a moment. Harry, thinking of the time loop, returned the gesture in kind.

"Why?" he asked slowly. "What were you saying?"

"Nothing important," Draco said airily.

"You know, you've never been a good liar," Harry pointed out. Draco's face twisted, but before he could sneer something rude, Harry added, "It's a compliment."

The two stared at him, and Harry had quite suddenly had enough of Slytherins. "Right," he said. "Seven it is. Great talk."

He left before they could call him back.

*

The Ball itself was as glamorous and perfect as always, and Harry wondered briefly why he hadn't taken the opportunity to completely decimate it during one of these loops. It wouldn't have achieved anything, but nothing else he did achieved anything either, and it would have felt good.

Until he saw the wounded expression on Professor McGonagall's face, he supposed. That was probably why he hadn't done it.

He scuffed his shoe along the floor outside the Great Hall, keeping mostly to the shadow as various couples passed by him. His dress robes were neatly pressed, his hair as styled as he could get it, and he'd even dug out the new glasses Ginny had badgered him into trying over the summer. He agreed with her that they looked better; they just made him feel like a knob. Why, exactly, looking good made him feel like a knob was probably something he should unpack at some point in the near future, but Harry rather felt he had enough on his plate right now.

"There he is!"

He turned, trying to place the jovial tone and failing—until he saw George.

"Hey!" he said in surprise, trying not to flush at the low whistle of approval that met his robes and glasses.

"New look," George commented, tweaking Harry's glasses. "Be careful there, young Harry. You'll ruin a dozen merchandise lines if you change your specs right at Christmas."

"I'll take that risk," Harry said, biting back a grin. "What are you still doing here?"

"You weren't at breakfast," George said lightly. "I thought I should stick around."