Draco Malfoy, Broken

Chapter 35 - Waiting

"So, it was a childhood... memory?" Harry asked, quietly probing.

Draco broke eye contact to pick a piece of lint off Harry's dirty shirt. "No... it wasn't."

"Was it about what happened last night?"

Draco winced, remembering the dementor and then the memory that it had strip-mined out of his brain.

"Why were you out there, anyway?" Harry asked as Draco did not confirm or deny it.

"Blaise didn't tell you?" Draco asked, surprised. He thought that they were gossiping behind his back. Was he wrong?

"No, he only said that you were hiding under your bed when he came to get me."

"I had my probation meeting last night in Hogsmeade," he breathed, trying not to think about that bitch any more than necessary.

Harry straightened, anger brewing. "Are you okay? What happened? Is he a dick?"

Yes, she is, Draco thought. "No, it's not that... on the way back... that d-dementor showed up and chased me back to Hogwarts.... I barely made it to the gates. McGonagall knows."

Harry went from red to pale green in seconds. "Oh, shit! Are you alright?"

He nodded grimly. "But the dream was leftovers from that."

"Fuck... why didn't you say something? I could have walked you to your meeting."

"I didn't want to bother you. I had to go alone, anyway."

"Still.... But it attacked you, again? This is bad. Maybe I should teach you the Patronus Charm?"

"Another day..." Draco muttered, wishing to get off the topic. He couldn't cast a Patronus. His wand sucked, he was strong enough to do it wandlessly without killing himself from the effort, and he never had a pleasant moment in his whole life, much less a happy one. "How long does it take to go get food, anyway?"

"Don't know," Harry said, getting up and attempting to unlock the charms on the door. Draco took them down for him.

Harry opened the door and Blaise and Theo were outside holding a full plate of food.

"How long have you guys been out here?"

"Not that long," Blaise said, and they came in and relocked the door.

"We didn't want to explain why we had two plates. We piled up it up. Should be enough," Theo said, smiling, passing Harry the plate.

Draco gave him a look. The assholes only brought one set of silverware, too. Crafty shits. Harry either didn't notice or didn't care. He sat back on the bed with the plate and forked a bite of potatoes. Then he cut a mouth-size piece of pancake and speared it.

"Pancake?" Harry said, brandishing that fork like a wand for Draco.

Draco went a little red. "They're don't taste like...."

"True. But you have to eat something and I'm not finishing this stack," Harry said, wiggling the fork closer to Draco's face.

Draco took the bite of pancake, eyeing Potter as his lips wrapped around the fork he still held. Harry smirked victoriously watching him. Harry had figured out what the Slytherins had plotted. Draco was actually impressed by Potter's shrewd observations. He wasn't as oblivious as he had thought.

"It's not as good as yours," Potter said, taking a bite of his own, before offering another to Draco.

"I did learn from the best," Draco said, accepting it, again.