Murder in the Bathroom - 162

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Aphry

At lunch the next Monday, I was not surprised that Draco was absent. I was, however, shocked when Harry Potter plopped himself across from Daphne and me. It did not take my necklace tingling for internal warnings to cross my mind. Mentally, my shields went up.

In the first moment, Daphne and I sat in awkward silence. Her eyebrow was raised in a cautiously curious expression I was sure matched mine.

Finally, he spoke. "I saw Malfoy on Saturday."

I looked toward Daphne and back to him. "Yes, he's usually around the castle during the school year. I'm sure loads of people have spotted him."

Harry huffed, annoyed by my cheeky response. "He was with a couple of girls..."

Oh. An uncontrollable snort of laughter left me. "Are you implying that he was going behind my back to cheat on me?"

He straightened, offended by my lack of seriousness in the situation. "What else am I supposed to think? That's he's up to something else?" The accusation in his voice told me all that I needed to know. If he wasn't cheating, Harry wanted to know what he was actually doing. He wasn't going to get that information from me.

I rolled my eyes dramatically before looking at him again. "I'm assuming this was before the match? Since you were taken to the hospital knocked out partway through." It really was a terrible loss for Gryffindor, but I couldn't find it in me to pity him, considering he was continuing to accuse my boyfriend.

Silently, Harry looked away from me and nodded.

"And I suspect you passed him coming from the hospital wing after visiting Weasley?" I questioned, crossing my arms on the table primly.

He bristled slightly at the rough uses of Ron's last name and again gave a silent nod.

I shook my head. "They were Slytherin girls and confided to me they weren't feeling well and needed to visit the hospital wing. I'll admit, I was feeling a bit lazy, so I begged Draco to escort them and make sure they got there alright." Thank Merlin Draco mentioned the interaction briefly during that evening's late-night common room meeting. I had something prepared if it came to question.

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion as he looked around. "But they didn't seem hurt or sick."

Somehow I knew he would press. "It was a girl issue," I said. Surely that would be explanation enough. Boys usually bowed out of the topic after that mention.

As I predicted, Harry froze slightly, his cheeks tinged pink. He stood from the table. "Fine. Just thought you should know."

A slight pang hit my chest, knowing at least part of this was genuine concern for me even though we were definitively at separate ends of the Wizarding War. I missed our friendship, and I never had time to properly process the loss, but there was too much at stake to let that show.

I lifted my chin proudly, as I'd seen Narcissa do so many times. "Thank you, Potter, but I was already well aware," I said dismissively. Then added for good measure. "And perhaps you should put a rein on your obsession with my boyfriend," I said. "It's giving people ideas. I've heard there's an entire group of girls that get together and share their fantastical thoughts about what they think is going on between you two."

His brow furrowed in anger at the crude comment, but he finally turned and walked away as if his tale were between his legs.

Daphne turned to me once he was out of earshot. "Are you sure that's what happened," she said softly.

My brow furrowed as I looked at her. "What do you mean?" I feigned hurt. Was she insinuating I was lying? Because I was, but I couldn't tell her the truth. "I saw Draco leave with them myself."

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