Warm But Tainted Blood (Drarry)

chapter six

The world goes on.

Even as a child disappears from the school every four days and the dragon population trying to break past the wards grows, the world goes on. The mystery of the dragons who are behind wards, trying to get into Hogwarts when it should appear invisible to them does not stop the sun from setting and rising. Children live in fear that they may be next, but that does not stop classes from coming and going.

Fred and George have set up large scale betting pools where people guess who's going to disappear next. It takes some of the weight off the situation, this light hearted gambling, but not enough. Harry, though, is not at all worried about getting chosen.

"If it's gunna happen, it's gunna happen. In the meantime we need to get on with our lives," he said simply.

The world goes on.

Harry has begun to think about his future– who he is to become, but everytime he lets his mind wander it comes up empty. He doesn't want to be anything but loved, he thinks. He knows he can keep playing saviour, the public loves him for it and love is love, right? But he doesn't want to fight, has never wanted to fight, and deep down he knows that what the public is feeling is not real love; it is a ghostly imitation.

Harry tries not to sweat his lack of ambition and want toward a career. He has years to think about it, after all.

He is working on homework one day while sitting in the grass by the Quidditch field. He is sitting with Fred and George, the pranksters that know when not to press Harry to chatter. The twins who treat Harry as Harry, not as the Boy Who Lived or the Golden Dragon-Slayer. They are so unlike their brother (who is still pleasant company in class, but no so much during free time anymore) and Harry finds himself spending more and more time with the boys. Fred and George are silent most of the time with Harry, and it is peaceful existing in silence yet knowing someone is there.

Harry hears footsteps smush lightly against the grass, and Harry vaguely registers them as belonging to one Draco Malfoy. Fred and George tense beside him, but Harry isn't worried. Malfoy still thinks of him his saviour; he is not a threat. Draco takes to the sky, riding an expensive broomstick his father got him.

Harry finishes his worksheet (it is an essay on charms, which he had difficulty with. Word got around to McGonagall and everytime Harry catches her looking at him, he notes the look of thinly veiled disappointment on her face. He heard his mother was good at charms; he isn't. He guesses that it has something to do with the sadness in Mcgonagall's eyes when they met his. For whatever reason, this makes Harry furious. He is not his mother. To expect him to be like her in any way is infuriating) and Harry sets the paper aside to watch Malfoy. He is flying through the air, his usually gelled down hair flapping loosely in the wind.

He is beautiful, Harry decides.

Draco noticed he has caught Harry's attention, and a grin breaks accross his face. He starts doing high twists and turns, impressive in nature, and Harry's main thought is that this boy belongs in the sky. Even Fred and George seem more relaxed, more okay with the boy being near them.

Harry almost cheers, but then remembers that he does not exactly like Draco, so he holds himself back.

Draco hovers at a high height for  moment, trying to decide something it seems, before he suddenly aims his brook downward, heading straight for the ground. It is obvious what he is trying to do; shoot up at the last second, to show off his reflexes and such.

But he is a second (if only a second) too late, and Harry winces as Draco crashes into the ground with a bang. Harry shoots up, being reminded of a boy who was pushed off the swing set and cried for half an hour before realizing that no one in the crowded park was going to help him.

Draco's mostly alright, if you ignore the state of his leg, which was bent at the knee in a way it was Not Supposed To Be. Harry kneels beside him, barely aware of Fred and George's following. Harry levitated Draco, who is wisely silent, his face twisted in an expression of pain.

"Doing stupid shit to impress me is, you guessed it, stupid," Harry says with a sigh. "And it won't get me to be friends with you. But whatever. I'll take you to the infirmary. You two can be off. I'll meet you at the dorms." The last part is addressed to Fred and George, who looked like they did not want to be around Malfoy, injured or not.

"Alright, Harry. We'll–"

"–see you there! Don't get attacked by a dragon while we're gone!"

Harry gave a small wave before starting to float Malfoy to the infirmary. Malfoy was quiet for the majority of the ride, but when they arrive at the Hospital Wing and Harry sets him down on the closest bed, he speaks: "Thank you."

Harry nods, making to leave. As he does, Malfoy utters, "My offer still stands."

Harry ignores him. (Or so he tells himself.)

∆¶∆

Harry stands amongst peers much older than him and stares at Olivier Wood, the heavy feeling of regret sunk in deep. He knows he shouldn't be here– he wasn't planning to, and could see the glares from the other Gryffindors pericing him like their eyes can physically hurt him– but Draco's flying on the broom had inspired him. Harry hadn't been flying much– he'd been getting nightmares, a normal occurance, but these ones he can't quite ever recall and soon learned that not flying helped lessen them. Draco had flown magnificently, even if he did end up fucking up around the end.

So Harry stood at the Quidditch tryouts, armed with a school broom in hand and only a vague understanding of the game.

He doesn't pay attention to the other tryouts. He tries to– trust him, he tries– but his mind is preoccupied with a certian Slytherin and the potential of friendship. Sure, Malfoy was a git at first, but he'd only known the boy for a few weeks before he changed. There's the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it'd be good to have another person on his side and Draco would be perfect for that role. But there's always the possiblity that he's not and is Harry really willing to risk it?

His anxious rambling is cut short by Oliver Wood announcing, too loudly for Harry's taste, that the Seeker tryouts are beginning. There's three other Gryffindors trying out, all of them older than Harry and all of them giving the boy a slight glare. The two may or may not be related.

The tryouts will go as such: twenty snitches will be released into the pit. All potential Seekers will be released and are to catch as many as they can. Once caught, the snitches deactivate. Rinse and repeat until all snitches are caught. Whoever has the most in the end gets the position.

Harry and the other Gryffindors, who Harry dubs Freckles (for her freckled face), Beaver (for his two large front teeth), and Shiny (for his shimmering long silver hair. He's beautiful, too; part veela), because Harry does not know their names, all mount their brooms. The snitches are released and short after, they are, too.

At first, it's easy work: Harry leaves his competition in the dust. He captures the first one, hearing distant sounds of disapproval from Freckles, which are ignored in favour of Oliver Wood's small cheer. He's chasing what is to be his second snitch, hovering three or four feet off the group, when everything goes to shit.

One minute, he's there and on a broom on the Quidditch field and the next he's in a memory (the dream he'd been having without remembering it) and it's almost midnight and Draco's getting held down by a dragon and he's flying over the lake, he's hovering over the lake and there's a fucking dragon—

Harry falls off his broom.

Luckily, isn't only a three feet crash and he's not that physically hurt, but when Oliver approaches his shaking form, he's found sobbing. There's large rivers of tears flowing down his face, and normally Harry wouldn't like anyone to see them, but now he can't bring himself to care. He's barely there. He's distantly aware of Oliver calling his name and shaking his shoulder, but for the most part he's back at the lake forcing himself to think and act fast and play the hero and he's seconds from death and Malfoy could've and would've died–

There's a voice in his ear, a little clearer than the rest, that Harry can hear say:

"He needs a Calming Draught. Take him to Professor Snape."