Lightning lit the night skies in brilliant streaks, sheets of rain smashing against any surface they came in contact with. It was supposed to be a good idea; going off to Hogsmeade, drinking butterbeer till late at night at the Three Broomsticks, just to celebrate their fourth year exams finally ending.
It had been a particularly long week- at least for Harry who is not only responsible for his passing the exams but also Niall's. Harry's lost track of how many times they've been up at night, revising till the ungodly hours and how many times Niall has fallen asleep at breakfast. To going over the ingredients of specific Potions to learning Transfiguration with Liam. To say the least, it has been exhausting. Finally, it's done now and he doesn't know what he's more grateful for- for carrying both of them through the week or actually maintaining his sanity throughout the week.
Perhaps, both. Or so he thinks when he's running with Niall, trying to rush into the Castle and away from this wet weather which is duly accompanied with the cold. As their shoes pound heavily across the ground, mud splashes up their legs. Brilliant, just brilliant.
"Can't seem to catch a fuckin' break, can ya?" Niall quips, his blonde hair dripping wet as they both dart their way past trees and bushes.
"It was your idea. We could've just stayed in, "Harry gets out and his pace quickens until steps become leaps. The wind whips his curls back from his face. He can feel his heart thudding in his chest which matches the sound of the thunder when another lightning strikes.
"And do what? Practice Quidditch with Liam? No, thanks," Niall retorts and uses his cloak to shield himself from the rain by raising it over his head. The ground blurs below them. They continue running for what seemed like longer than it should have.
Harry thinks Liam would be the only person who would go through exams and still return to the pitch for practice the next day. There is a reason why he is the most sought after Keeper in Hufflepuff, afterall. And if Liam wasn't his best friend since first year, there's not much reason why such a sensible person would be friends with Niall and him. But he figures Liam likes having them around, for Niall's carefree banter and amplified personality could turn around any atmosphere of tension and Harry did practically teach Liam Divination.
"There's plenty of things we cou-"Harry is cut off by the sight of something- or someone. He stops dead in his tracks, shoes already covered in mud and grass. Niall who was right behind him, lets out a muffled groan as he collides with Harry.
There's someone out in the rain in the night, Harry squints. There's only so much you can see in this pouring, drizzling rain and not to add, the torch flame alongside the wall of the Castle is not much of a help. Niall seems to catch the direction of Harry's gaze.
"Should we check if they need help?" Harry asks, water dripping from his chestnut curls which is still held in place with his headband.
"Fuck, no. This week was bad but I haven't completely lost my mind," the Irish lad protests, the only thing keeping their clothes from getting wet being their water resilient cloaks, thanks to Niall's knowledge of charms.
"But- let's just, let's just go look, yeah?" Harry furrows his brows and there's a slight downturn of his lips in a frown, like he wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing the person is out here. Whoever it is. And Niall knows that of all people, Harry would probably not be able to sleep. His persistence and ability to dive right into things and situations are what made Niall be so fond of him. There's times where you can clearly see why Harry was put in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff. He would've fit in both but his spontaneous stirs of action where he isn't afraid to act on his morals and his penchant to seize opportunities to make changes are what really put him in this house with Niall.
"For Gordic's sake," Niall mutters, sighing and nods as they both run towards the dark silhouette. Upon closer inspection, the lad seems to be a student, doesn't look a day older than them. He's got raven locks of hair falling on his face.
"Lumos," Niall whips out his wand and the lad moves, startling both of them. He seems to be clutching the side of his stomach with his palm, that's when it all becomes visible. The lad's arm is laden with cuts, bruises and grazes. Harry immediately looks at him. And Niall knows the look on Harry's face, he's about shake his head and say a big 'no' before Harry gives him a pleading look.
"-but Ni, he's hurt so bad. He can't even make it inside," Harry says softly, his tone laced with concern over this stranger like they just didn't meet him like, 0.4564 seconds ago.
Niall cards his fingers through his ashy blonde hair, clearly frustrated at the turn of events which took place tonight. He crouches, his wand hovering and illuminating the lad to inspect any other injuries, "Do ye want to take him to Madam Pomfrey?"
This seems to stir the lad who was otherwise curled up against the Castle's wall.
"Not the hospital," he says or more like, he groans out in pain. His chest falling and rising increasingly fast as he repeats himself again.
"Ni, could you get my Potions bag from the common room?" Harry asks urgently.
"-but Harry"
"Hurry, please," Harry looks at him adamantly. Niall sighs and quickly bolts indoors to the Gryffindor Common Room.
Meanwhile, Harry unfastens his cloak and wraps it around the stranger when he sees his hands trembling. His clothes are wet. Knuckles red, there's a large gash under his jaw and dirt on his clothes. Jesus Christ, Harry thinks. Who in the name of Merlin would do this? The boy seems to wrap his fingers around the cloak and pulls it over him properly.
"I'm going to take you inside, okay?" Harry talks to him and all he gets in response is a desperate nod. Harry takes the lad's arm and wraps it around his shoulder, the boy inhales sharply. He leans on Harry and slowly, they make their way inside. The Castle is warm, there's not many students around and Harry imagines that it is just after dinner hours when everyone must be gathered around their common rooms or heading to bed. He sits the lad under a stairway near the front door. Since the lighting is better now, he finally takes in the mess the boy's in. He's badly beaten up, cold, wet, clutching his waist and Harry thinks, maybe it's not bad that they decided to help the boy.
"Episkey," Harry mutters under his breath, waving his wand around the lad's wrist and arm. The scratches and traces of blood now dissolving into thin air, albeit slowly. Niall comes rushing within minutes, he heads for the door before catching them under the stairway, in a little nook.
"Here," Niall hands him the bag and watches as Harry rummages through it. Harry pulls out an odd, box shaped glass bottle.
"Hold his jaw up," Harry instructs Niall. He cleaned the cut with a dab of some purple liquid, whose name evades Niall, it must've smoked and stung gathering from the boy's response but he must've felt healed instantly. The gash goes away, fading into the skin perfectly as if it were never there.
"Better?" Harry asks the boy, who nods and seems to stir a bit more awake. His knees pulled close to his chest, when fall flat on the ground, Niall notices the green jumper.
"Haz," Niall calls to draw his attention to the jumper as Harry's cloak falls off his shoulders a bit. Harry takes in the green color of the crest and a snake embroidered neatly at the top left of his jumper. Slytherin. He doesn't know why that matters but the Irish lad pales beside him. He nudges him questioningly, stopping his rummaging.
Niall inhales, his blue irises stark in the light of the hallway.
He swallows, "It's Zayn Malik."
Harry exhales a sigh of relief, "Yeah, so?" He really thought Niall had something much more serious to say than the lad's name. It's good that Niall recognizes him.
"What do you mean, 'yeah, so?' It's Zayn Malik. We shouldn't- Harry, we shouldn't be caught with him," Niall tells him.
"Don't be insane, we helped him. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Haz, seriously. If Theo or Blaise see us with Zayn like this, there's no thinking of what they'll do. Maybe they'll think we did this and-"
"Ni, it's after hours. There's literally no one around. It'll be fine, alright? If it gets bad, we can call for Alexa," Harry assures him.
Alexa Chung is one of Harry's many friends who being from Slytherin herself, seems to spend an awful lot of time with her friends from other houses and Harry was no exception. However, he can also see why Niall is visibly stressed about this. The thing is, Zayn Malik is the soon-to-be prefect for Slytherin once Luke, a sixth year, finishes school. Harry's heard about them. About how cruel Luke can be, how cold and calculative his every move is.
He himself would never do anything, of course. But he is frequently accompanied with Aiden and Nick who have often been in trouble for beating students up. He's heard about Luke's distaste for muggle born wizards. It never failed to send a shiver down Harry's spine when he thinks of the things he's heard but chooses not to believe. And of course, being in the same Quidditch team, it meant that Zayn, Louis, Blaise and Theo were close to Luke, almost part of his posy, by extension.
They like to rile people up sometimes, talk back to professors and as if that wasn't enough, they also had an air of arrogance around them. Even if they're all in the same year, their little group never really bothers to talk to other people. Except for Louis Tomlinson. He seems to know everyone.
Harry's never spoken to any of them, never had to chance to because they don't even share a class together but that seems to be the general consensus about them around here, anyway.
Harry hopes Zayn is nothing like them. I mean, he got beat up, didn't he?
"So. Shall we take him to the Slytherin Common Room, then?" Harry murmurs, standing up.
"Are ye insane? It's a suicide mission," Niall scoffs mockingly, crossing his arms.
"Ferula," Harry casts the spell, tapping the lad- Zayn's arm with his wand. Bandages spun up around his arm, strapping it tightly to a splint. The corner of Harry's mouth tip up as he is satisfied with his work. And mostly relieved that he was able to help.
"We can't just leave him here. Let's just leave him outside the Common Room hallway, at least. He looks like he's had a worse night than us," Harry goes on, examining if there's anything else he could do to help Zayn.
After a few more whisper fights, Niall and Harry carry Zayn down the marble staircase, to a door on the right of the Entrance Hall.
"Harry, Niall," comes a voice behind them. Niall grimaces at being caught and slowly turns. He exhales after discovering that it's only Liam and he's standing at the opposite staircase which Niall believes, would never allow a good look Zayn's face.
Harry waves at him with the free hand which isn't supporting Zayn stand up.
"Had a fun night? Who's that?" Liam laughs, his eyes crinkling.
"Oh, just Greg. He's very drunk," Niall lets out a nervous laugh. Liam shakes his head fondly and carries on a conversation with some girl from Ravenclaw, climbing up the stairs.
Harry lets out a breath, "That was close."
"Ye don't say," Niall glares at him for a moment, repositioning himself to support Zayn's weight leaning on him.
They reach the end of the stairs; the entrance to the common room of Slytherin located behind a bare stretch of stone wall in the dungeons of the Hogwarts Castle.
"For a guy who's a Seeker, he sure is heavy," Niall mutters under his breath as they sit him down against the walls of the hallways. Zayn still hasn't spoken or even glanced at them once, probably exhausted beyond his strength. They stop to catch their breaths but suddenly, the sound of footsteps exacerbate the anxiety in the air, causing them to quickly make their way out of there, rushing back up the stairs.
They ran till they found themselves in the Gryffindor common room: a cosy, round room full of splashes of red banners and mahogany furniture.
"Jesus, Harry," Niall takes his shoes off and exhales once he's plopped down on his bed.
"What?" Harry frowns, taking his now dry clothes and slipping into something warmer like his beige jumper and some sweats and slips under the duvet, stretching his frame over the bed.
"What a night, right?" Niall's voice comes from the side of the bed as he laughs over their antics that night.
........................
"Zayn?"
Zayn hums at the sound of his name. He gently turns from being on his side to laying on his back. His eyes open up to see the lush, dark green drape spread across the bed posts. He takes a moment to wake up, slowly gathering his whereabouts when a very concerned Louis looks at him from his bed side.
"Mate, what the fuck happened?" He says a tad louder than Zayn's liking who only scrunches his note to deliver his disapproval.
"What do you mean?" Zayn croaks out, voice hoarse. He lifts his hand to rub his eye, brows furrowing when he sees bandages on his arm.
And that's when it hits him. Memories of last night come flooding.
"Don't play daft, Malik. Aiden found you right outside the common room, looking like hell," his tone is still so, so loud. The sharp cadence of his voice never stung Zayn more than now.
Zayn groans and tries to sit up but winces as he feels pain on his left side. With some help from Louis, he sits up causing the sheets to pool in his lap.
Zayn's jaw clenches when he looks at himself, taking in every cut and scratch which was too deep to heal completely till now. Even with the fucking spells. And the bandages. He swears his body wills itself to get better at this point, now that Zayn is completely conscious.
He stands up, walking around the lavish room which is laden with a big mirror framed with golden specks of metal, a portrait of a serpent and some art; giving the room a grand atmosphere but also a cold one.
He takes a white shirt and pulls it over his torso, shoulders covering immediately and the shirt growing tighter around his toned frame as he buttons it from the end.
"Some fuckers- came out of nowhere, Louis. Disarmed me of my wand," Zayn faces the huge window, his amber eyes gazing right ahead to the lake. Even if his tone was calm, his body was not. Blood coursed through his veins in a hurry, jaw still clenched as if his body cannot fucking accept what happened. As if it was fucking challenging the circumstances of the past.
He continues, "Fucked me up all proper, didn't even get a chance to see who it was," he eyes the meadows, his wrist leaning on the wall and he lounges on the triangle his arm folds in, thinking over the events of last night.
The events, surprisingly, don't seem to anger Louis who gets up and stands beside him. Zayn is shaken from his thoughts when he feels a hand on his back and is met with an equally concerned gaze which is usually cold or reflecting of cerulean mischief.
"But someone helped you, yeah?" his chin raises as he supplies.
Zayn shrugs. Yeah, he remembers someone or maybe more people helping him but he was too fucked to remember anything or even look at them. Zayn pulls out his Slytherin tie from the drawers next to the window, laying it flat beneath his collar.
As he wears his silver ring on which a skull is engraved, Louis continues, "I know you're more interested about finding out who dared to touch you," Louis pins his snake badge on his tie, "but it wouldn't hurt to thank those who saved you."
Zayn's breath evens out as he looks down then at Louis who walks over to the pool of clothes which were thrown at the corner of the room. Zayn's clothes from last night. Louis brings him a black material and when he opens his fist, it reveals a red emblem. Gryffindor.
There's a knock on the door. Aiden.
"Glad to see you're alive, after all" he says swiftly, hands folded behind his back as he walks towards them. Aiden is a year older than both of them, best mates with Luke, the prefect of the House of Slytherin. Zayn always considered him someone to look up to. They all did. Aiden has the Midas' Touch. He's a greater Seeker in Quidditch, an even better wizard. He had this staggering clairvoyance that Zayn was always envious of.
Zayn scoffs, "No one can kill me in a way that matters."
Aiden smirks, bringing in the Slytherin robe and holding it open for Zayn to wear.
"What is that doing here?" Aiden scowls, looking at the Gryffindor cloak.
Louis sighs and shakes his head, "Incorrigible. Both of you."
Zayn rolls his eyes, "Yeah, yeah. Gratitude and whatnot."
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Author's note: Hi, I'm taking prompts now!
Comment any prompts you'd like me to write on here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30675350 And I'll try to get them done in a week. Thank you for reading!