Chapter 1: How to Save a Life
"It is a great honor to be called upon by the Dark Lord, Draco. Remember what I have taught you."
Draco nodded, tightening his lips and doing his best to remain in control. It wouldn't do to shake with fear in the Dark Lord's presence.
His father's expensive dragon-hide-gloved fingers squeezed his shoulders and the doors to one of the more opulent of Malfoy Mansion's lounge rooms opened. Draco stepped past the threshold and swallowed, his head held high. He could only see the back of a large chair that sat in front of the large, intricately carved marble fireplace, but Draco was in no doubt of who occupied it. His fingers clenched into a fist as he waited with baited breath.
"Young Draco." The sibilant voice floated about the room as if bodiless, and a swath of goose-pimples rose upon Draco's skin.
His father placed a gentle hand against the small of his back and Draco remembered himself, bowing down on one knee and erasing any emotion from his features. "My Lord."
The chair rotated and Draco kept his eyes down, a convenient sign of respect that allowed him to avoid the Dark Lord's face.
The Dark Lord laughed, a high, piercing thing that cut through Draco's ear canals and made him wish he was deaf. "Lucius has taught you well, young Malfoy, but I require you to look at me."
Draco hesitated minutely before he obeyed and stared into glowing red eyes.
"Good," the Dark Lord smiled, revealing gleaming reptilian teeth. "You may be of some use to me yet. Be prepared for my summons in future."
Draco nodded, holding his breath, and bowed again. "My Lord."
The moment Draco exited the room and the doors clicked closed behind him, he felt as if a stifling weight had lifted from his shoulders. He took in a shaky breath.
"You have done well, Draco," his father commended, a hint of pride lacing his tone. "The Dark Lord favors you."
Draco knew he should feel proud as well, but all he felt was ill. The moment he entered his bedroom alone, he fell back upon his bed and stared unseeingly up at his vaulted ceiling with its intricate gold-inlaid patterns, his heart racing. He felt like one of the beautiful flightless peacocks roaming the gardens of the Manor.
He was privileged to live in a place of such opulence, but he was merely ornamental, and utterly trapped.
...
"And Malfoy spies the Snitch!"
The crowd roared, and Harry whipped his head round to spot Malfoy dashing after something on the other side of the pitch. Panic gripped him and he raced in that direction, daring his broom to go faster than it ever had before.
He knew it was cutting it close, but he refused to lose to Malfoy. Not this time. Not ever.
Malfoy's hand shot out and Harry grit his teeth. The Slytherin was reaching for something, but Harry was still too far away to get a good look at what it was, although he could guess. Adrenalin pumping through his veins, he flattened himself onto his broom handle in order to go faster, but then he saw the glint of gold hovering at the edge of Malfoy's fingertips and his hope plummeted. Malfoy was grasping for the winged ball with a single-minded determination, his arm stretching as far as it could go as he struggled to keep his broom level in the wind.
Harry was horrifyingly certain that Malfoy would capture the snitch and win the game for Slytherin, but then something large and brown whipped across the horizon and collided into the boy with a loud crack. In an instant, Malfoy was flung off of his broom and sent weightless into the sky. Harry tensed as the crowd in the stands gasped in horror, and his eyes followed Malfoy's body plummeting, as if in slow-motion, unhindered toward the earth. Once Malfoy's limp form fell past the first tower of onlookers, many in the stands below stood up with a spate of horrified screams.
No one else on a broom was even near Malfoy as he descended, and Harry cursed. He tucked in, willing his broom fast enough.
Harry plummeted, wind whipping through his hair and burning his watery eyes behind his glasses. The wind resistance made him slow but he flattened himself further against his broom to lessen the friction. Only seconds passed before his eyes caught upon a swirling green cape and he reached his hand out, straining.
The earth rushed toward him, but his fingers grasped the cloth. He tugged, nearly losing balance on his broom in an attempt to swoop upward, and strained with the new weight practically pulling his shoulder out of its socket. He roared with the effort, but he was still losing altitude. Wind whipped in his face and nearly blinded him as the ground mercilessly rushed up to meet him. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he pulled at his broom handle with all of his might in a last ditch effort, and sighed with relief when he just managed to gain some height. But just as he thought the bulk of the danger had passed, the green cape in his fist caught on something, and he flipped over his broom and slammed against solid earth with his back.
Harry groaned and blearily looked up at the iron-gray sky, his glasses no longer on his face. His hand was twisted painfully around Malfoy's cape, and when he tried to take in a breath, he wheezed instead, all the air having been knocked out of him.
He gasped shallowly, panicked as blackness crept into his vision, but suddenly his lungs opened up and he gratefully gulped in the air. People were shouting, Quidditch players dropping from the sky and landing in the soil all around him, but Harry turned on his side to check on Malfoy.
The boy was sprawled out, completely unconscious, beside him, part of his cape still twisted in Harry's fist. Harry stared at him stupidly for a moment before scrambling over to him, placing a thumb against the pulse point beneath Malfoy's jaw. Harry just felt a heart beat flutter beneath his touch and he let out a breath of relief before shadows fell over them both and someone's hand landed on his back.
"Are you two in one piece?"
Harry looked up to see Madam Hooch, Snape, and McGonagall standing over him. The Quidditch players of both the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams stood grouped around them, shifting anxiously. Madam Hooch was blowing her whistle and telling the students to get back as Snape glowered at him before kneeling beside Malfoy to look him over. Harry felt McGonagall's hand pull away from his back and he switched his gaze to her expectant one.
Harry nodded. "I'm fine, but Malfoy's unconscious."
The burly Slytherin captain shoved through the pack of onlookers, looking fit to kill.
"I demand punishment against Gryffindor for their egregious foul!" He roared, spit flying from his mouth. "That bludger almost killed my seeker!"
The Gryffindor players bristled. Especially Ron, who was nearly frothing at the mouth as Ginny held him back with a firm grip on his upper arm. "It's not our fault you Slytherin ponces can't defend your players worth bugger all!"
"Contain yourselves, both of you!" Madam Hooch snapped, and both boys glowered at each other but reluctantly stood down, the tension between the rival teams crackling in the air forebodingly. "Gryffindor's use of the bludger was perfectly within the rules."
The Gryffindors murmured their approval and many of the Slytherins moved to protest, but Madam Hooch raised her voice. "The match is suspended. I will take Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital Wing. You should come along too, Mr. Potter."
Harry nodded begrudgingly and tested the strength of his legs, but a few hands grasped him beneath the armpits and lifted him into a standing position. He looked back at Ron and Dean and nodded his thanks.
"Nice save, Captain." Dean smiled.
"Don't do that to me, Harry!" Ron whinged. "You nearly offed it, and all to save Malfoy! You're mad. We ought to cart you off to the Janus Thickey ward."
"I'm not mental," Harry retorted and pushed a trembling hand through his hair, the aftermath of the adrenaline pumping through his veins making him shaky and lightheaded.
"Whatever you say," Ron replied. "But you'd better not make a habit of that. No one's life is worth one of Malfoy's."
"I'll keep that in mind," Harry grinned, although the strength in his limbs nearly left him as he watched Madam Hooch levitate Malfoy's limp body into the air. "Sorry about that."
"It's alright," Ron cuffed him on the side of the head with a grin of his own. "I reckon Hermione's right about your saving-people-thing. I just didn't know it extended to ferrety-prats."
"Next thing you know, he'll be saving You-Know-Who," Seamus quipped with a grin as he and Hermione popped in between Ron and Dean.
"Oh, Harry, are you all right? I thought for sure when you and Malfoy hit the ground you wouldn't get up again," Hermione stated with concern, pressing a hand onto the side of his cheek before pulling it back to gaze at the blood on her fingertips. "You're bleeding."
Harry gingerly pressed his fingers against the cut on his cheek. It felt shallow, but left blood on his fingertips as well. "I don't think it's too bad. It doesn't hurt."
Hermione still looked concerned and she opened her mouth to say something, but then she nodded reluctantly. McGonagall chose that moment to tap Harry on the shoulder.
"Off to Madam Pomfrey with you, Mr. Potter. You gave us all quite a fright," McGonagall stated sternly, but then her voice lowered and she leaned in conspiratorially. "Twenty points to Gryffindor for saving a fellow student's life."
"Er...thanks, Professor." Harry nodded, a bit embarrassed. He hadn't set out to save Malfoy's life. He'd simply acted on instinct.
She smiled tightly at him, before waving him in the direction of Madam Hooch. The Quidditch coach was walking toward the castle, levitating Malfoy's prone form behind her as Snape took up the rear.
Despite Harry's protests that he was perfectly fine, Madam Pomfrey set him up in a bed and ordered him to stay the night with the reasoning that the healing potions she had forced him to swallow would do their work on any internal injuries she might have missed.
He found himself in a bed beside Malfoy, who was still unnervingly unconscious even as the clock struck midnight and the lamp light dimmed. Harry absently watched Malfoy's unmoving, pointed profile in the dim light for a long time until his eyelids grew heavy with sleep, and fatigue overtook him.
When he dreamed, he was falling through the air in a snow storm, a familiar blond-haired boy watching him disinterestedly from atop a high tower as the ground transformed into a silver dragon with glowing green eyes and swooped up to swallow him whole.
When he awoke the next morning, Harry had forgotten the dream but shook his head of an unsettling feeling before wiping blearily at his eyes. He reached for his glasses and put them on, searching around the room. He momentarily forgot where he was until his gaze caught upon Malfoy who was still sleeping in the bed beside his, although he had apparently moved onto his side during the night.
Harry sat up, no longer aching anywhere, and Madam Pomfrey bustled in. She immediately pulled out her wand and scanned him with it.
"Well, I suppose you're fit to go, Mr. Potter," she stated brusquely after she shined bright lights into both of his eyes, leaving him momentarily blind. "I don't want to see you in here after the next match. Quidditch is a ghastly sport."
Harry blinked rapidly and nodded, not wanting to debate Madam Pomfrey over the merits of the game as she moved over to scan Malfoy. Harry, still in the underclothes of his Quidditch uniform, slipped out of bed. He spared one last glance at Madam Pomfrey and Malfoy before picking up the rest of his uniform, which had been draped across a chair, and taking his leave.
When he made it back to the Gryffindor common room, he found Ron playing a round of Wizarding chess against himself and Hermione curled beside him on the couch, her nose buried in a massive tome. Both of them greeted him warmly when he plopped down beside them in a crimson chintz chair. Predictably, Ron asked him with a hopeful expression if Malfoy had managed to die in his sleep, but Harry only smiled and shook his head. Hermione sent Ron an exasperated look, but Ron grinned at her goofily and her hard expression melted into a blush. Harry rolled his eyes at them, having witnessed enough of his best mates' mooning ever since they had finally seen sense the summer previous and confessed their feelings to one another.
"But now because of the ferrety-git, we have to hold a rematch," Ron informed Harry when he managed to pull his infatuated attention away from Hermione.
Harry wanted to point out that it wasn't exactly Malfoy's fault that the match had ended abruptly, but he promptly bit his tongue. It was no use arguing with Ron about Malfoy, and it was not as if Harry had much reason to defend the arrogant Slytherin anyway.
"When is it?" Harry asked, mentally checking through his schedule for the near future, thinking of when he could fit in practices for the team.
"In a month," Ron replied a bit bitterly. "We'd better think up some new tactics. The Slytherins know all the ones we have now."
Harry nodded. "I'll count on you for that."
"Of course." Ron grinned as he used his thumb to stroke a struggling rook chess piece in one of his hands.
"We'll have to practice on weekends as well then," Harry concluded.
Ron nodded and smiled. "We'll beat those Slytherins into the ground."
Hermione merely rolled her eyes and turned a page in her book.
Due to the fact that it was still early in their sixth year, Hermione had not yet confined them to studying in the library for their year-end exams. So Harry joined Ron's chess game as Hermione buried herself deeper in her reading. The common room filled up with other Gryffindors spending a leisurely Sunday studying or chatting with friends. Occasionally, old DA-hands like Seamus, Dean, Neville, and Ginny would greet them on their way out of the tower, and Harry, Ron and Hermione would smile back. As the hours wiled away, Harry was completely content.
Malfoy didn't even cross Harry's mind until dinner rolled around and he absently noted, with a small twinge of concern, that the boy was not present in the Great Hall. He shook his head against the very idea of worrying over Draco Malfoy and then promptly forgot about it, shoving some sherpherd's pie into his mouth and listening with amused interest to Seamus's story about the last time he'd visited Dean's house in muggle Manchester and had used all his strange muggle appliances to disastrous effect.
The next morning, Harry was surprised to find himself marginally relieved when Malfoy entered the Great Hall for breakfast, the boy's head held high with arrogant smirk in place. Although that good feeling dissipated rapidly the moment he entered the dungeons with Ron and Hermione for their potions lesson, greeted by half a room full of scowling Slytherins. Hermione quickly made her way to her seat and started pulling out her supplies, clearly not wanting to get involved, but Ron remained standing beside Harry, glowering fiercely.
"Look who the trolls dragged in," Blaise sneered.
Seamus and Dean entered the classroom just at that moment, and Seamus grinned. "What's the matter dungeon-dwellers, unwilling to thank our knight in shining armor for saving your damsel in distress?"
It took a while for Harry to realize Seamus was referring to him and Malfoy, but Malfoy appeared to have understood the comparison right away, because he scowled in response, his glare glimmering amidst a crowd of mutinous looking Slytherins.
"I was hardly in distress, Finnigan," Malfoy sneered pompously. "In fact, I was just about to catch the Snitch, before you and your muggle-loving friends brutishly knocked me off my broom."
Ron growled in disbelief. "You were falling from at least fifty meters in the air, Malfoy. You would have died if you'd hit the ground from that height. I'd call that distress! And if you Slytherins can't handle blocking a bludger during a Quidditch match, then you deserved what you got!"
"Overconfident, aren't we, Weasel?" Malfoy's cold gaze slid toward Ron. "You just don't fancy the fact that I would have beaten your precious Potter if you hadn't resorted to unsavory tactics."
"In your dreams, ferret!" Ron retorted heatedly. "Harry would have beaten you with his hands tied behind his back with or without our help, right Harry?"
Everyone's eyes turned toward Harry, including Draco Malfoy's, and Harry bristled at Malfoy's pinched look of distaste. However, a memory of Malfoy's finger tips brushing the golden snitch skittered through his mind, and he replied without thinking, much to his best mate's detriment. "Actually, I think Malfoy would have caught it."
Ron stiffened in shock and even some of the Slytherins' eyes went wide. Malfoy's glare softened into an expression of slight surprise, and he eyed Harry suspiciously. He didn't seem to know how to respond. So he kept his mouth shut.
Harry belatedly realized the error of his words, and he sent Ron an apologetic look, but that didn't stop Ron from looking at him as though he had betrayed his sister to Voldemort.
Harry moved to correct the damage, and he sent a hard look in Malfoy's direction for good measure, but even he knew his timing was a bit lame. "But next time, you can be sure, I won't let you capture the Snitch, Malfoy!"
"Spoken like a true captain of Gryffindor," Dean muttered, and Harry had a hard time figuring out if that was meant to be a compliment.
Malfoy stared at him with that calculating gaze, before smirking. "Rest assured, I'll beat you, Potter, and when you inevitably fall off your broom I won't be swooping in to save you."
Harry scowled as the Slytherins laughed, but he wasn't given the chance to retort when Snape finally stalked in and the remaining stragglers scrambled to their seats.
The rest of the lesson passed by uneventfully, except for the moments in which Ron sent Harry betrayed looks while he mashed their carefully measured serving of beetle eyes. Hermione rolled her eyes at her boyfriend exasperatedly from her seat beside Neville behind them.
As the following weeks passed, tension between the Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses rose. Scuffles occurred regularly in the halls and, once, a particularly heated argument between two third year girls disrupted a lesson and Professor McGonagall was forced to put both participants in detention for a month with a penalty of fifty points from each house.
After that, the fights still occurred, but they were consciously kept hidden from the professors. This led to an outbreak of anonymous pranks, where neither side could quite pin down who the guilty party was so neither house could be properly punished for the crime. Every day the Great Hall was filled with tales of a Gryffindor girl's hair turning blue or a Slytherin boy's book bag exploding with a shower of fireworks from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Filch seemed to be beside himself; at one point, running through the halls and screaming 'off with their heads!' at the top of his lungs.
Harry, as planned, was running the Gryffindor team through the ground. He and Ron shared a smirk when the Slytherin team had failed to book the pitch before Gryffindor for the same prime weekend time-slots.
Harry had expected Malfoy to milk the tension for all it was worth and taunt Harry and his teammates anytime they happened to be in the vicinity, but instead the boy ignored him in every lesson and in the halls – acting as if nothing of any importance was occurring between their two houses. Harry found it all irritating and confusing, suspicious that Malfoy was up to something, but he forced himself not to think on it too much as the rest of the school population, including members of the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses, frothed with the competitive spirit.
The only other person who seemed unaffected by the goings-on was Hermione, which she handily demonstrated by pulling Harry aside one day after Transfiguration and asking him to start up the DA again.
"I'm kind of busy, Hermione," Harry muttered, feeling tired just thinking about the DA, much less working on it now that he had the fortunes of Gryffindor House resting upon his shoulders.
"I know, Harry, but..." Hermione began, and Harry tensed up at the determined look in her eyes. "Our instruction in Defense Against the Dark Arts is lacking this year, and I've already been approached by Ginny, Luna, Zacharias Smith and a couple of Ravenclaws, asking when the DA is going to be restarted."
Harry had to agree that their DADA instruction this year was less than spectacular, given that Dumbledore had yet to find a professor to fill the role. He supposed that word of the position's curse had finally spread enough throughout the wizarding world to properly discourage any would-be applicants. But at the same time, he really didn't want to be responsible for providing that instruction himself. Even though the DA had been a relative success last year, it was still tainted for him by what had happened with Umbridge. He still didn't quite see himself as qualified to teach Defense, given what had happened at the Department of Mysteries either.
He didn't want to deal with any of that this year.
Harry shook his head. "I can't, Hermione. Maybe you can find someone else."
"Who else?" Hermione questioned. "No other student has fought against You-Kno...V-Voldemort, but you. That makes you the most qualified for the position until Dumbledore can find a replacement."
"Hermione..."
"Harry, please," Hermione interrupted, placing a hand on his shoulder as she clutched a stack of books against her chest with the other. "At least think about it."
Harry stared at her, trying to think of a way out of it. He relented only when no route for escape became readily apparent. "All right. I'll think about it."
"Good," Hermione replied, and she smiled. "That's all I can ask for."
Then she left for the library. Harry could only watch her retreating back with a shake of his head. He didn't even want to think about the DA, but he'd promised. Although, he was certain his answer would be the same the next time she asked. He'd acquired enough responsibilities as Quidditch captain to be getting on with, and that was something he actually enjoyed worrying about.
Much to his dismay, however, that night he awoke for the first time since the end of last year to his scar burning and someone screaming for mercy in his head. He was sweating and shaking as he sat up in his four-poster, his heart beating wildly in his chest, before he could calm himself enough to lie back down and close his eyes, wishing for sleep. He finally fell into a restless sleep hours later.
The next morning at breakfast, he was absolutely exhausted, and he'd made the mistake of telling Hermione and Ron about his nightmare after she'd showed them an article in that morning's Daily Prophet about Death Eater activity in Norfolk. Hermione had given Harry a long, hard look of concern, before she had gotten Ron in on nagging him about the DA. Harry had scowled at Ron for his betrayal before he eventually complied, just to get them both off his back. Obviously not feeling sorry for Harry's plight in the slightest, Hermione promptly agreed to inform the masses of the DA's imminent re-opening and she tasked Harry with making sure that the Room of Requirement was still serviceable for the club.
That was how Harry found himself in the Seventh Floor corridor, standing in front of the portrait of Barnabus the Barmy teaching trolls ballet, and staring at the invisible door to the Room of Requirement. It was the middle of the night, so Harry was wrapped in his invisibility cloak.
He tried to think of what he should wish for when he walked three times in front of the door. The first vague thought that popped into his sleep-deprived head was that he needed something for Defense, and that was the thought he clung to as he walked back and forth three times.
The moment Harry stopped pacing, an old wooden door appeared in the stone wall. He had never seen a door like this before, and as he stepped closer he could just make out torchlight flickering through the cracks in the wood. Curiosity piqued, Harry pushed and the door swung open with an un-oiled creak. A stone spiral staircase climbing up a narrow passage was revealed beyond it.
Harry stepped cautiously onto the first step, noting the grid-iron torches bolted into the stone walls every few meters. Just then, a cold breeze swept down from above and the torch flames flickered violently. It felt like he was outside and not in a room deep inside the castle, but Harry stared up where the breeze originated and he couldn't see an opening at the end.
Closing the wooden door behind him, Harry pulled off his invisibility cloak and made his way up the steps. The stairs wound up into a spiral about three times before Harry could see an end to them, and it wasn't long before he stepped out into a small pentagonal room, each wall sporting an open archway. Harry's eyes widened and he walked toward one of the archways to look out at the view beyond. It looked like the grounds of Hogwarts far below, as if he was in a real tower with the outdoor winds swirling around him.
Just then something pressed against his neck and he stiffened in alarm.
"Tell me what you're doing here, Potter."
Harry's eyes widened, recognizing that voice anywhere, and realizing quite quickly that it was Malfoy's wand digging into his neck as the boy stood behind him. "Malfoy?"
"Obviously," the boy drawled exasperatedly. "Now answer me, Potter."
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked instead, and he managed to turn his head just enough so that he could see Malfoy scowling at him.
"I asked first," Malfoy snapped, and the tip of his wand dug a little further into the flesh of Harry's throat.
Harry bit his lip, wondering if he could get his wand out in time to hex Malfoy before the boy hexed him, but he quickly realized that logistically wasn't possible. He admonished himself for letting his guard down in the first place. "I'm looking for the right room."
"Well, as you can see, this is the wrong one," Malfoy sneered. "How in Merlin's name did the Room of Requirement allow you in?"
Harry was wondering about that too. He shouldn't have been able to get into the Room of Requirement while it was occupied unless he had known exactly what it was being used for. "Have you been looking for a room for Defense?"
Malfoy's cold gray eyes narrowed. "No."
"Strange," Harry replied, not as concerned about the wand lodged against his throat or Malfoy's presence in general as he pondered their situation.
There was a long silence in which Harry could feel Malfoy glaring at him, before the boy finally broke it. "Is that what you required? Defense?"
"Yeah," Harry nodded. "And if you didn't, then it should be impossible for us to be in the Room together."
"Hm." And Malfoy sounded thoughtful as well.
"What did you require?" Harry questioned. "A tower?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Malfoy snapped. "If I had wanted something so plebeian I could have just made my way up to the Astronomy Tower, couldn't I?"
"Then what was it?" Harry asked with a tinge of frustration.
"Like I'd tell you," the boy drawled.
Harry rolled his eyes. He wondered if Malfoy was doing something sinister here, but something in his gut told him that was preposterous. It didn't look like there was anything particularly sinister one could get up to in a barren tower. His gaze switched out to the grounds as Malfoy's wand remained unmoving against his neck. "Are you going to hex me, or not?"
"Depends," Malfoy replied.
"On what?" Harry asked, turning his head as much as he could to look back at the boy again.
"On whether or not you're planning on hexing me," Malfoy replied after only a moment's hesitation.
"I'm not going to hex you, Malfoy," Harry stated honestly, although with a note of exasperation. "I only hex in self-defense."
"How very Gryffindor of you," Malfoy sneered.
"It's called being a decent human being, Malfoy," Harry retorted. "You should try it some time."
Malfoy's cold expression tightened, but the tip of his wand pulled away and Harry was free to turn around and face him.
Harry stared at him, a bit surprised by Malfoy's acquiescence, and Malfoy scowled, watching him warily. The gnawing silence between them grew, until it became downright uncomfortable. So Harry opted to survey their surroundings instead. "I had no idea the Room of Requirement could create a room that was outside."
"Apparently, it can," Malfoy observed unhelpfully, still watching Harry cautiously as if expecting Harry to pull out his wand and try to disarm him at any moment.
Harry sent Malfoy a look, the boy's usually gray eyes glowed back at him, silver in the moonlight. "Right."
"Are you planning on leaving at any point?" Malfoy blurted rudely. Harry could tell Malfoy had wanted to ask that ever since the tip of his wand had parted with the flesh of Harry's throat.
"I don't know," Harry replied airily, wanting to make the prat squirm, and he leaned back against the wall behind him. "It's quite comfortable here."
Malfoy scowled.
"How often have you come here?" Harry asked, curious despite himself.
Malfoy just gave him a look.
Harry let out a frustrated breath. He shouldn't have expected Malfoy to fall into an easy conversation with him. The Slytherin hated him, after all, and really, the feeling was mutual.
He walked back to the impost beneath the archway and looked out at the moonlit grounds. After a long time of staring out at the lake and Hagrid's hut as smoke billowed out of the chimney, Harry began to wonder how it was they weren't actually outside. It was almost as if he had been transported by the Room of Requirement to the Astronomy Tower.
Then a thought struck Harry, and he grinned.
"Did you require a snog, Malfoy?"
Malfoy, who was still standing quite a ways behind him in the middle of the tower, scowled at Harry when he turned back around to regard him. "What are you on about, Potter?"
"It's just that it looks like we're in the Astronomy Tower," Harry explained, a smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. "At night."
"Absolutely not," Malfoy snapped, and to Harry's disappointment he looked to be telling the truth. "I could get that anywhere. I don't need an enchanted room for it."
Harry frowned disbelievingly. After all, from his point of view, Malfoy wasn't attractive in the least. His face was pointy and his personality was abhorrent. Who in the school, excluding perhaps Pansy Parkinson, would want to snog that?
Malfoy glared at him. "You doubt me, Potter?"
Harry remained silent, but his expression clearly told Malfoy all he needed to know.
Malfoy huffed. "I'll have you know I have quite the line-up of pureblood Slytherins pining for me."
"That's great, Malfoy," Harry replied drily, trying really hard not to envision the boy sitting on a throne in the Slytherin dungeons turning away love-struck witches as they attempted to molest him.
"Fuck you, Potter," Malfoy spat and then he stomped over to the archway Harry was leaning against and stared out at the grounds unseeingly, his pale face pinched. "It's not like you've got a lot of luck with snogging, yourself."
Harry glared at him, because the comment hit the mark. "I've been a bit busy."
"Oh right," Malfoy drawled testily. "Defeating dark wizards and saving the wizarding world. How's that going, Potter?"
"Shut it, Malfoy," Harry snapped, and for the first time since he'd entered the Room of Requirement he felt truly irritated.
"But it seems you missed a spot," Draco continued spitefully. "You couldn't save that Godfather of yours."
Harry pulled his wand out and dug it into Draco's sternum before he'd even consciously thought about doing it. Malfoy merely smirked back at him.
"Shut up about that Malfoy or I'll –"
"Or what?" Malfoy interrupted him. "You'll hex me? That won't bring him back. My dear Aunt made sure of that."
Harry punched the boy before he'd even known his fist was moving, his knuckles connecting with Malfoy's cheek and sending him sprawling onto the stone ground. Harry's fingers ached as he watched Malfoy put a hand to his face and sit up to glare at him.
Malfoy spat something that could have been blood onto the stone floor, and even though Harry was still angry, he began to feel a sickening amount of guilt.
"Just like a mudblood-lover," Draco spat, his left eye swelling conspicuously. "Attacking with your fists instead of your wand."
Harry glared down at him, breathing heavily to control his anger. Malfoy stood up and wiped at his bleeding nose ineffectually, leaving a long crimson swath across his cheek.
"Fuck you, Malfoy," Harry stated lowly, almost under his breath, and he wished he had never gotten into this gods-forsaken Room of Requirement.
"The feeling's mutual," Malfoy sneered, his eyes flashing in the dark.
Harry's fists clenched and then he turned around and left, hating the Slytherin bastard more than he had in ages. As the door to the Room of Requirement closed behind him, he vowed with more passion than ever before that he would beat Malfoy into the ground on the Quidditch pitch.
That night, Harry fell into an uneasy sleep, plagued by nightmares of high towers and Sirius passing through the veil.
The next morning, he informed Hermione in no uncertain terms that he would not be instructing the DA. She'd argued with him, but he wouldn't back down, and eventually she had to relent, giving him a frustrated and quizzical look. Harry then told Ron that the Quidditch team was going to practice more during the week, and Ron, while clearly surprised, didn't seem to disagree with the general principle.
For the first time since the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry had risen to extraordinary levels of hostility within the castle walls, Harry found his own feelings matching the fervor of his house mates. His Quidditch team mates seemed to notice this right away, because even though he worked them every other evening after lessons until they no longer had the strength to hang onto their brooms, they barely complained. By that point, they were all caught up in such a frenzy that beating Slytherin had become their ultimate life's ambition.
Once again, with only a week to go before the rematch, fights between Gryffindors and Slytherins broke out in the halls, their participants no longer concerned with avoiding punishment. At the center of it all, Harry and Draco circled each other like rival werewolves every time they came in contact, Ron and Blaise baiting them on as they snapped and threatened each other. They even went so far as to take out their wands before a Professor passed by and forced them to desist.
Malfoy had refused to let Madam Pomfrey heal his black eye as if it was a badge of honor, and he went around telling grander and even more preposterous stories about how some random Gryffindor had attacked him, never revealing exactly who specifically his assailant was. He claimed that it was done in the dead of night, when he couldn't see the perpetrator's face, but he was certain they were a Gryffindor and a mudblood because they hadn't used their wand in favor of brute muggle force.
Harry hadn't bothered to out himself, preferring to stay anonymous to a deed that he, despite his anger with Malfoy, still found shameful. Malfoy's tales, however, only heightened the Gryffindors' ire and by the end of the week, both houses had effectively lost two-hundred points each, placing them well below Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. However, by that point, the Gryffindors and Slytherins couldn't have cared less.
By the day of the match, both teams were out for blood. The tension in the Great Hall at breakfast could easily be cut with a butter knife as the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams ate at their respective tables in an unnerving silence. Not even Seamus dared to break it as the rest of the student body buzzed with anticipation. Hermione was watching them all with an expression of deep disapproval, but no one, not even Ron, paid much attention to her.
Harry was the first to stand up after taking one last swallow of his pumpkin juice, forcing it down despite the lump in his throat. The rest of the team followed him while three-fourths of the student body cheered as they walked out of the Great Hall. Only the Slytherins predictably jeered in their wake.
The roar that greeted them from the stands once he and the Gryffindor team stepped onto the pitch was deafening, and Harry was grateful to get on his broom and rise above it as he faced off with the Slytherin captain across from him. When they moved forward to shake, it immediately became a competition to see how tightly they could grip each other's hands before one of them cried mercy. Thankfully, Madam Hooch blew the whistle for play to start before either of them could reach that point.
Harry pulled his broom upward and immediately spotted Malfoy hovering on the other side of the pitch, surveying the grounds for the snitch. Harry looked for it as well, in between observing the match below. He just caught sight of Ginny as she got hold of the quaffle and attempted to slam it through one of the Slytherin hoops. However, at the last second she was thwarted by a bulky Slytherin beater, who rammed into her side and forced the quaffle out of her hands. Harry scowled as one of the Slytherin chasers caught it and put it in play for the other side.
Harry glanced at Malfoy to make sure that he hadn't seen the Snitch yet either, making an effort to ignore the match below and look for it himself, but just as he hovered and spied what he thought was a conspicuous glint of gold near one of the goal hoop's posts, someone, possibly Ron, shouted his name and he was forced to flip over just as a stray bludger skimmed his cheek.
The crowd below gasped as he made himself right again and glared at the Slytherin beaters who were snarling at him as if he'd stomped on their mums' graves. One of the Gryffindor beaters sent a bludger back at them and they were forced to dodge it themselves. Harry nodded to his team mate gratefully, and he flew farther away down the pitch, his eyes once again scanning for the golden snitch.
Half an hour passed without a sign of the Snitch, and the fouls on the pitch mounted as Gryffindors and Slytherins alike bashed each other and got hit by bludgers. Ginny was the only player who seemed unscathed as she swerved past obstacles and made amazing goals with Dean backing her up. In the end, however, that didn't matter much because the total scores were neck and neck, 90 to 80 Gryffindor.
Harry became more frantic in his search, not having seen anything snitch-like in quite some time. He looked up to see Malfoy searching with an equally frenzied pace on the opposite side of the pitch, his gray eyes feverishly scanning the surrounding area for anything gold that would glint in the sunlight. Minutes seemed to stretch into hours, the match becoming more and more heated as it tied 120 to 120.
When Harry finally saw it, his eyes were scanning the pitch so feverishly that he'd had to back track, but there it was, hovering down by a Slytherin chaser's boot. Glancing over quickly to see that Malfoy hadn't yet discovered what he had, Harry took a deep breath and plunged.
"And it looks like Potter's found the Snitch!"
Harry could barely hear the crowd's reaction as wind blew into his ears. The Slytherin chaser he was plunging toward stared up at him wide-eyed and darted out of the way, making the Snitch dart out in the opposite direction. Harry cursed and violently changed his trajectory, feeling his broom vibrate warningly beneath him as he made a hard turn.
"Malfoy's chasing after him, but can he catch up in time?"
A shadow fell upon him and Harry didn't have to look up to know that Malfoy was there. Harry pushed forward until his chest was resting on the handle of his broom, the weaving Snitch never escaping his sight as he dodged other players and stray bludgers. The Snitch dropped perilously close to the ground and the crowd gasped as Harry followed it, straining his fingers forward toward the golden ball as his knees and the toes of his boots skimmed the grass of the pitch.
With a sense of clarity, Harry knew he would catch it. Malfoy wasn't nearly close enough to get around him from behind. However, his fingertips just brushed the cold metal plating of its form when something slammed into him from behind, pushing him forward and off of his broom to crash into the hard earth below. He barely felt something whoosh past him, blowing a harsh wind through the hair at the nape of his neck, before he groaned with pain into the dirt beneath him. Malfoy tumbled to a stop beside him, barely staying upright on his feet as he scowled, and Harry realized that the prat must have been the one to push him off his broom.
However, it was to no avail.
Harry turned over gingerly and grinned triumphantly, the Snitch beating its wings helplessly in his hand.
"And Potter has the Snitch! Congratulations, Gryffindor!"
The stands erupted and Gryffindors fell out of the sky all around him, roaring and cheering and pumping their fists into the air. Malfoy stumbled back, obscured by the crowd of celebratory Gryffindors. Hands came down to pull Harry up onto his feet, and he raised his hand into the air, letting the Snitch glint in the sunlight above their heads. The crowd roared its approval, washing out the inevitable boos of the Slytherins as Gryffindor fans spilled out onto the pitch.
Dean pat Harry on the back, tears of joy running down his face. Ron pushed his way through the crowd until he was by Harry's side.
"That was bloody brilliant, mate!" Ron roared in his ear over all of the cheers. "I thought that bludger was going to get you for sure!"
"Bludger?" Harry shouted back, confused.
"The one aimed at your head just before you caught the Snitch!" Ron yelled back. "If Malfoy hadn't pushed you, it would have bashed your skull in! Sodding bugger probably didn't realize he was saving your life! Did you see the look on his face?" And then Ron laughed.
Harry stood there shocked. He hadn't even seen a bludger, but he realized that it must have been what he'd felt blow past the nape of his neck just after Malfoy had slammed into him.
Ron and Dean lifted him onto their shoulders and Harry laughed, but then his gaze caught upon the sullen Slytherin team making their way back into the changing rooms. He couldn't help honing in on one particular figure with platinum blond hair who was trudging back fairly separate from the pack. Harry's smile fell away and he wondered.
As expected, the celebration in the Gryffindor tower that night was spectacularly loud and disorderly. Harry was forced to regale a series of housemates, ending with a gaggle of Gryffindor girls, with the tale of how he had caught the snitch before they would leave him alone.
Exhausted, he finally plopped down beside Hermione on a couch and they both watched a nearly legless Ron sing Weasley is our King at the top of his lungs as other Gryffindor seventh and sixth years, including Seamus and Dean who were also pissed on smuggled firewhiskey, egged him on.
"I'm so happy all this nonsense is going to be over and done with," Hermione stated ruefully as Ron giggled rather effeminately between the lyrics.
Harry smiled. "I enjoyed it."
"Did you?" Hermione asked disbelievingly, sending him a quizzical look. "You seemed a bit angry for the past two weeks."
"I wasn't angry," Harry replied quickly. Hermione looked dubious. "I just didn't want Slytherin to win."
Hermione watched him and Harry avoided her gaze. She sighed.
"I will never understand Quidditch." Hermione shook her head with a frown. "It further divides the houses and nearly kills the players. I was afraid for your life. I nearly hexed Pansy."
"You nearly hexed Pansy?" Harry repeated incredulously.
"She was mooning over Malfoy the entire match," Hermione informed him defensively. "And by the point you'd very nearly gotten yourself decapitated by that bludger, I'd had enough."
Harry grimaced. "I hadn't even known there was a bludger, until Ron told me about it."
"I don't imagine you did. Otherwise you would have had the sense to move out of the way," Hermione replied. "Thank Merlin, Malfoy pushed you. If he wasn't such an abhorrent twat and Pansy wasn't so fond of him, I would have run down to the pitch and kissed him straight on the mouth."
Harry struggled between gagging and chuckling at the image of Malfoy getting bowled over by a crazed Hermione determined for a snog. Although, ultimately, it reminded him of his earlier confusion about Malfoy. He'd been thinking about him off and on ever since the game had ended, wondering each time he recounted the match to his housemates what Malfoy had been doing and why he had done it.
"You should get some rest, Harry," Hermione observed with concern. "You look exhausted."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but closed it abruptly and nodded when he realized she was right. Saying goodnight to her, he stood to make his way up to his dorm room, just noticing Ron as the boy toppled off of the table he'd been standing on to be caught by a laughing Seamus. Harry really must have been exhausted, because the moment his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep and dreamed of a hidden tower.
The next morning at breakfast the tower was all Harry could think about as he absently chewed on some toast. He wondered how often Malfoy had gone there before Harry had found it and if the boy still frequented it now. In fact, it distracted him so thoroughly later while studying with Hermione and Ron in the common room that he hadn't realized both of his friends were trying to get his attention until Ron poked him in the arm with the tip of his quill.
"What's on your mind, mate?" Ron asked with concern, looking relieved to find a distraction from writing his transfiguration essay.
Harry just shook his head and smiled. "Nothing. I'm just a bit tired."
"From the match yesterday?" Hermione asked with surprise. "You didn't sleep well last night?"
"I slept fine, Hermione," Harry replied earnestly, not wanting them to worry. There was nothing wrong with him, and it's not like he could explain to them what was actually on his mind.
"It was a difficult match," Ron observed, and he stretched his arms behind his chair. "I've still got all these kinks in my muscles from the practices, but it was worth it!"
Harry nodded and tried his best to at least appear as though he was concentrating on his work after that. Both Ron and Hermione had become extra attentive to him since the turmoil of the year before, and while he appreciated it, he also found it right overbearing at times.
In this manner, he managed to get a meter of parchment written for transfiguration that might have amounted to a load of rubbish for all he knew. Then they all packed up their things and went down to the Great Hall for dinner.
Malfoy was there and Harry absently followed him with his gaze before Hermione plopped some mince pie onto his plate and told him to eat.
"It will help you recover," she stated helpfully.
Hastening to avoid any sort of altercation with the stubborn girl, Harry pushed the food into his mouth obediently.
That night, Harry stood on the Seventh Floor in front of Barnabus the Barmy and took a deep breath. Making sure the corridor on either side of him was satisfactorily empty, Harry wrapped his invisibility cloak tighter around himself and walked back and forth three times, thinking about Defense. Only when the familiar old wooden door appeared before him, torchlight flickering warmly through the cracks, did he wonder if the Room wasn't, in fact, malfunctioning, but giving him something to help with Defense. The thought of it made Harry shiver as he looked up the spiral staircase, memories from the end of yesterday's match racing through his mind.
Harry doubted if Malfoy was actually there, but the moment his foot landed on the top step, he saw the boy sitting casually on the impost beneath an archway, looking out at the grounds as it lightly drizzled outside.
Harry watched him for a bit. Malfoy hadn't seemed to notice him yet and he suddenly doubted whether he should intrude, but then he shook his head of the thought. He had questions he had to know the answers to. Otherwise he'd just continue to wonder about it all until he was driven mad.
He slipped out of his invisibility cloak and stepped forward, joining Malfoy at the impost. Malfoy's head whipped around quickly in his direction, his pale eyes wide with incredulity.
"Potter?"
"Malfoy." Harry nodded, looking back at him squarely to hide his own nerves. "You come here often?"
Malfoy sent him an odd look, and Harry was suddenly uncomfortable as he realized his question had sounded a lot like a muggle pick-up line.
However, Malfoy sneered, avoiding the issue, if he had noticed it at all. "So the Room is truly broken then, letting in riff-raff like you not just once but twice."
"Riff-raff who beat you to the Snitch," Harry rejoined, stepping further into the room and sending Malfoy one of his own smirks.
"That was pure luck," Malfoy tossed back, one eye brow raised imperiously. "You've got an uncanny amount of it, but sooner or later it will run out and everyone will learn about the talentless, attention-seeker you are."
Harry frowned with irritation. He knew what Malfoy thought of him – The Boy-Who-Lived, Chosen-One of the press, and love of the wizarding world who reveled in all of the attention. None of this was a surprise, given that the sentiment had colored Malfoy's taunts ever since they'd entered Hogwarts. He found he didn't care much about that anymore, but he did want to know something else. "Did you push me out of the way of that bludger?"
"Why would I do that?" Malfoy drawled, but it sounded like an evasion, and Harry was unconvinced.
"I don't know, Malfoy," Harry replied carefully. "You tell me."
"Well, since I didn't do it to save you, if that's what you're implying," Malfoy sneered. "Then I'm sure I couldn't tell you why I would do something so ridiculous."
"So you pushed me toward the Snitch and away from a bludger that likely would have killed me, entirely by accident," Harry clarified, and he leaned forward against the ledge, looking at Malfoy squarely. "If that's the case, then I don't need much luck, just your amazing lack of competence."
Malfoy bristled and glared. "I'm an incredibly competent Seeker, Potter, unlike you."
"Doesn't seem that way," Harry retorted. "You practically handed me the Snitch."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything, before he ripped his gaze away and glared out at the rain-soaked grounds instead.
"Is it that hard for you to admit that you saved my life?" Harry muttered lowly, and Malfoy's pale features twitched.
"I didn't," Malfoy denied stubbornly, and he looked over and caught Harry's gaze. "At least not on purpose."
Harry didn't believe Malfoy for a second, but he let it go. "All right. Fine. You saved me entirely by accident and won the game for Gryffindor. Congratulations."
Malfoy scowled. "Are you going to make a habit of this?"
"Of what?" Harry asked, bemused.
"Coming up into this Tower and bothering me?"
Harry stared at Malfoy's scowling face, wondering why the prospect of visiting Malfoy more often in the Room of Requirement actually sounded quite fun.
"Maybe." He shrugged noncommittally. Then he made a show of looking around. "I like it up here."
Malfoy let out a huff, and his next comment was long-suffering and sarcastic. "Brilliant. And here I thought I'd been rid of you."
Harry realized he was referring to their previous encounter, and then, much against his best judgment, he genuinely smiled. "It would seem accidentally saving a bloke's life automatically negates any hard feelings. No matter how awful you are."
"I'll keep that in mind," Malfoy muttered sarcastically.
Malfoy looked quite put upon, staring back out at the grounds as the rain fell. Harry looked out as well, breathing in the smell of wet limestone as his gaze caught upon a line of smoke eschewing out of Hagrid's roof.
"So, do you come here every night?" Harry asked again, his voice soft.
A long silence answered him, but Harry turned his gaze toward Malfoy, watching him expectantly and knowing how uncomfortable he was making the Slytherin with his staring.
Eventually, Malfoy turned his head and glared at him. His voice was rough with frustration. "I come here when I can. Although, now, I may severely cut my visits."
"Why?" Harry asked.
Malfoy looked at him as if he was daft. "Because I don't fancy the company, Potter, and –"
"No, I meant," Harry shook his head and looked up at the ceiling of the tower for patience. "Why have you been coming here?"
"As if I'd tell you," Malfoy drawled, clearly thinking that should be obvious.
Harry frowned, but then he rolled his eyes and let out a breath. "Fine."
They both fell into silence after that, watching the grounds as wind and rain whipped across the grass and interrupted the placid surface of the lake. Eventually, Harry sat down on the opposite side of the ledge and found his body relaxing.
He watched gusts of wind push rain drops onto Draco's face as the boy remained still and stoically ignored the weather along with his unwelcome companion. It wasn't long before Harry's eyelids grew heavy.
When he next opened them, he was alone and the rain had stopped. Harry looked around blearily but he couldn't see Malfoy anywhere. He must have fallen asleep before the boy left. Sliding off the ledge tiredly, Harry wrapped himself in his invisibility cloak and made his way back to Gryffindor Tower. He quietly snuck back into his dorm room and fell onto his four-poster, too tired to change out of his clothes before falling back to sleep.