The Secret's In The Telling by Sakuri

chapter 39

Oh yes, now he recalled the Suicidal Saviour from earlier this year. Well, he'd made his unwelcome reappearance, and Draco didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do to make it better. He was hardly the comforting type, after all...

Besides, what did one do or say to comfort someone like Harry?

The boy took 'troubled' to a new level. With anyone else, Draco would have long given up and condemned them to their own melodrama. He was sick of running into a panicked Granger half an hour before curfew, only to realise that between them they'd once again lost track of the git. And then – oh, the fun part – he got to spend his late evenings scouring castle grounds, usually to find the Gryffindor out by the lake – the lake! – sodden and freezing and ridden with teenage angst.

And then there were the flashes of temper that came when Draco was least expecting them. It occurred to him, during the second vicious round of name-calling that broke out between them sometime around Thursday, in which Potter informed him that he was a cold-hearted prick with the emotional range of a rock, and he retaliated by calmly suggesting the Wizarding Hero go cut his wrists and be done – it occurred to him that perhaps he wasn't quite as equipped to be a one-man support system as he might have liked.

Which had led him here.

Merlin help him, if this didn't speak volumes of his commitment to the ungrateful bastard, he didn't know what would...

Directly across from him, Weasley glared gormlessly. God. Even with his promise to be civil, he couldn't help sneering at the moronic expression of the other wizard. Granger cleared her throat sharply, obviously a reprimand, but he ignored her and looked away, disdainful.

The three had taken seats at the back of the library, fairly inconspicuous to anyone who might pass by. Draco still couldn't believe he'd agreed to this, yet here he sat, finally a member of the infamous Trio, and how he hated it...

"I trust you left him somewhere your housemates can keep an eye on him?" he drawled at length, glancing at Granger.

It was Weasley who spoke up – uninvited, he might add. "He's not a mental case, Malfoy. The way you say it, anyone'd think he's ready to jump off the Astronomy Tower..."

Grey eyes narrowed. "I know you can be excessively slow on the uptake, but hasn't it dawned on you yet that Harry exhibits classic signs of depression –?"

The witch among them leaned forward, cutting across him. "Stop it, both of you," she hissed. Then, calming, she continued, "I left him with Ginny, Neville and Luna, and he's got Quidditch practice in a little while. Ron will be with him then, and this evening I'll –"

"I don't believe you're scheduling this," Ron muttered, his chin resting heavily in his palm.

"I don't believe we're depending on you," Draco retorted snidely, earning himself an insulting hand gesture, to which he raised a dismissive eyebrow.

Hermione sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Okay. The thing is... I think we're going to have to face the fact that... well, it's very possible Remus won't be coming back."

The Slytherin fought not to show any reaction, even as the wolf in him pricked up its ears and whined, grieving the loss of its pack leader.

"None of us were as close to him as Harry," she went on, oblivious to the werewolf's darkening mood, "but it's obvious he's taking this as hard as he did Sirius's death. Ron, you saw him last time..."

The redhead slumped. "Yeah... But we didn't know how to pull him out of it then. What makes it any different now?" He snorted in cynical amusement. "Hope you're not counting on Malfoy's healing presence..."