The Secret's In The Telling by Sakuri

chapter 18

Harry woke.

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And so the last night of the full moon passed by, signalling the end of their waiting, but by then the collective dread among them had never been so strong.

Horrified by his own dreams and still more than a little unnerved by the way he'd been woken up twice now, Harry had no idea how he was going to pull off this upheaval of the DA with Malfoy as a partner if he couldn't even look the blond in the eye anymore. The nice, uncomplicated rivalry they'd shared seemed a thing of the past to him. It was something he longed for, instead of this unspecified, apparently one-sided awkwardness that now existed.

The Gryffindor was even beginning to wonder if he should just cancel the whole idea concerning the DA. After all, he'd told no one yet but Malfoy. And he just knew how much effort he'd have to put in if he was ever going to convince his friends to go along with the plan. Was he up to that fight? Did he even have good enough reasons for starting it?

And besides, what was it all for, anyway, other than to end up spending hour after hour in unbearably close quarters with Malfoy…? Merlin, maybe he really was a masochist…

Shaking his head in exasperation at that thought, he sighed resignedly. No, this was ridiculous. He'd started this for a reason, so he'd damn well go through with it. And as for the Slytherin… Well, it was just one dream, probably brought on by how disturbed he'd been to find Malfoy sleeping on top of him that morning.

Yah. That was it.

Meanwhile, oblivious to all of this, Draco sulked. He wasn't aware of sulking, not really, but he did. In fact, he'd been sulking ever since Harry sodding Potter had had the audacity to… to ditch him! The indignity was unreal.

It wasn't that he'd particularly wanted the Gryffindor around. No, it was that he hadn't ditched him first. This set the standard! This implied that Draco was the one seeking the company of Boy Wonder – and had been rejected! It was unacceptable.

He'd stayed in his room for the third night of the moon, telling himself firmly that he'd decided to stay in even before Potter's presumptuous note. What really annoyed him, though, was that he'd spent the long night hours prowling around his empty rooms, chafed by the enclosure. It killed him to admit he wanted to be outside with Lupin and Potter. And that bloody dog. So, in true Malfoy fashion, he didn't admit it, instead deciding to set up camp on the west bank of denial.

Even when he heard the sharp burst of a wolfish howl some time after midnight, and found himself resting his front paws up on the windowsill, scratching open the curtain to stare out at the black outline of the forest – even then, Draco convinced himself that he preferred his precious isolation.

Around the same time, alone in his private quarters near the Potions lab, Severus sat wakeful, eyeing the thick textbook open before him and the pile of similar books stacked up beside it on his desk.

Sleep didn't seem to be coming – not that he'd tried very hard – so the alternative was research. Research on this ridiculous farce of a plan.

Each of the books in front of him contained detailed information on the intricacies of mental magic, including Occlumency, Legilimency and even some of the more obscure talents. He'd gone so far as to look into wandless magic, but hadn't found anything useful for their specific purpose.

Sighing, he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, absently pressing his hand lightly against his ribs, which were still sore, despite the copious amounts of Skelegrow he'd forced down. Poppy accused him of being a hypochondriac, still complaining about injuries that had been healed days ago. Hmph. What did that woman know…