complimentary colours • drarry •

3: hogsmeade

Saturday 3th October 1998

Harry and Malfoy seemed to have come to a silent agreement, in the few weeks that they had been sharing a room, that they would avoid each other as much as possible. Ron and Hermione were getting on well with their roommates. Hermione was sharing a room with Hannah Abbot and Ron with Terry Boot. They had both been in Dumbledore's Army so they were kind of friends already.

Harry was jealous. He wanted a roommate he could talk to. Malfoy had barely spoken to him, ignoring all of his attempts at conversation, which Harry found infuriating. He'd rather get a rude response than nothing at all. He would ask him simple questions like have you seen my Charm's textbook? and all he'd get in response was a shrug or a gesture towards the book where it would be hidden under a pile of clothes. He was certain this was Malfoy's way of pissing him off without getting himself in trouble. Harry couldn't exactly complain to McGonagall about how Malfoy wasn't insulting him enough.

He spent most of his free time, between and after classes, with Hermione and Ron in the common room. They'd play wizard's chess or Hermione would nag them into doing their homework or sometimes they'd just sit in silence, doing their own thing and enjoying each other's company. He liked spending so much time with his friends again, but he often found himself feeling restless, like he should be doing something.

When sitting around became unbearable, Harry started to wander around the castle or the grounds, sometimes visiting Hagrid. But the problem with walking through Hogwarts alone, was that the other students wouldn't leave him alone. People seemed to think it was ok to approach him and start conversations like they were friends. Sometimes they would come up to him and thank him or in some embarrassing cases, ask for an autograph, like he was a celebrity. Though, Harry supposed, he kind of was. And if they weren't coming up to him, they were staring at him, which he wasn't sure he actually preferred.

So one day, when the it all got a bit too much, he dug through his trunk until he found his invisibility cloak and the crumpled old parchment of the Marauder's Map.

He'd packed them just in case, thinking they would stay at the bottom of his trunk for the rest of the year, unused. But he'd forgotten how freeing it was to be able to walk through the castle unseen. With the cloak around his shoulders and the map in his hands, he found secret passageways to cut through, undisturbed.

It was while he was looking for one of these passageways that he'd ended up accidentally following Malfoy through the halls. At first, he'd been curious as to where Malfoy was going. He wanted to know where Malfoy went when he wasn't hogging their room. He thought he might be aimlessly walking the halls like him, but to Harry's surprise, he stopped at the doors of the library and went inside. Only then did Harry realise he was nowhere near where he wanted to be and had to walk back the way he'd come; glad no one could see him under his cloak.

It wasn't Malfoy's destination that caught Harry's attention, but the looks he was getting from other students. As he walked past, people would glare and mutter to their friends. Sometimes people would purposely bump into him, almost knocking him over. Harry was surprised by how openly they expressed their dislike for Malfoy.

Yes, he had been a Death Eater, but Harry thought it was obvious that he had hated Voldemort just as much as everyone else. The only reason he'd joined the Death Eaters in the first place was because he was scared. He had been miserable ever since Voldemort had branded his arm with that damn mark. Malfoy was an asshole sometimes but most of the time it was harmless.

Harry knew he shouldn't feel bad for him but he couldn't help it. The way he kept his head down and his shoulders hunched was so un-Malfoy like that Harry hardly recognised him. The Malfoy he knew was so confident that no one dared stand up to him.