Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Learning

Harry shut his mouth then laughter poured out of it.

"You thought a person was just walking around with an extra head?" he questioned through small bursts of chuckles.

Draco furrowed his brows.

"Well, what else happened to him?"

"I—" Harry sobered up. "Mom's love protection thing again, I guess. Dumbledore never truly explained it to me. Or maybe I was just a tiny bit traumatised from seeing Voldemort on the back of a professor's head that had been teaching me for the past year. Whatever the reason, I don't really remember it now."

"Oh. So he's gone now?"

"Uhh, about that."

Draco's eyes popped open.

"So I was right! There is a professor walking around with two heads! Unless..." He gasped dramatically. "Don't tell me they...hacked it off. Right? Harry, please don't tell me they just cut this head off this man."

If Harry kept laughing like that, the beautiful sound spreading through Draco's ears, he might just lose his mind.

"No, no. They didn't just hack it off. Although that's a pretty morbid thought when you think about it." Harry shuddered and continued on. "I may have accidentally like...murdered him, or something. Again, I don't quite know. Very odd stuff, magic. Never really understood it."

He stopped. "You—you murdered him? Bloody hell, Harry. And you said that was in first year?"

"Well it was either him or me," Harry spat out. "Not much of a choice."

"No," Draco acquiesced tediously. "I guess not."

The boy nodded and sat back down in his chair from where he had shot up out of it.

The two stared at each other for a long moment that seemed to drag on and Draco felt his cheeks redden a considerable amount if the feeling of heat blooming on his face was anything to go by.

Harry cleared his throat into the silence that was only filled by the crackle pop of the fireplace burning embers into the ambient night.

"So...How was your break, aside from the fact that you 'met someone?'" He asked, air quoting what Draco had said earlier. He huffed. "Honestly, Draco, you can't just go around saying that you meant someone over the break. People are going to get the wrong idea," he retorted slyly with a smirk.

Draco's heart stuttered to a momentary stop at the sound of his name on Harry's lips. His mouth suddenly felt very dry and his hands had turned clammy from where they were resting on the armchair.

"Ya," he uttered a little breathlessly. "They might."

For some reason Harry flushed a deep crimson that got accentuated against his tan skin in the low light. His eyes seemed to flicker like the fire beside them, the green not unlike an emerald, and Draco wanted to drown in them until he ran out of breath and beyond.

"I just talked to Haisley most of the time—she's a fourth year in Hufflepuff. She kept talking about this thing called Star Wars. Did you know that the long braid on the back of her head is actually part of a movie? Also, Merlin I couldn't believe her when she told me this, but muggles have these things called movies? Apparently, you can watch them on these things called TVs and it shows you a moving picture—not unlike a portrait, but it's preplanned and everything—"

"Draco."

"Yes?" he asked, blinking out of the sudden ramble he had gone on.

Harry smiled softly at him. "As interesting as that sounds, I already know what TVs and movies are. What I'm most interested in is Haisley. You became friends with a Hufflepuff? You genuinely have to be joking. There is no way in any version of any world would Draco Malfoy willingly talk with a Hufflepuff and become friends with them. Although...I guess you have changed so drastically already..."