Veritas Vos Liberabit [Drarry Fanfiction]

Choices

Harry woke up to a massive headache and sore throat, the only thing he wanted to do is to bury himself back under the covers and stay there forever. He wasn't ready to face the world after what happened, his mind too shy and too scandalized to replay the events. The boy's dorm room was blessedly empty and Harry contemplated drifting back to sleep until he felt the edge of his bed dip a little and saw somebody in Gryffindor robes sit next to him.

"Pepper up," Ginny smiled passing him a cup of steaming potion, "for your cold. Ron told me you didn't sleep well at night... My fault, we shouldn't have sat for so long in that courtyard."

"What are you doing here... aren't you supposed to be in class?" he mumbled, horrified to see her so oblivious to what actually transpired after she had left that wretched courtyard.

"I had a free period, besides I wanted to make sure you were okay," she said simply, pressing her lips to his forehead to feel for fever. Ginny noticed a hickey on his neck and smirked, "Didn't know I left it there."

You didn't, Harry thought, mortified.

"Are we good, Harry?" she asked him earnestly. "I am sorry if I seemed a bit off the rails recently... It's just a lot of things going on..."

"Yeah, tell me about it," he agreed. "We're fine, Gin."

She leaned to kiss him, her long ginger hair tickling his face, smelling like flowery girly shampoo and it was weird and wrong and mechanic for some reason. It sure was different from the way Malfoy had kissed him, the sort of inevitable and demanding domination he possessed over him.

"You'll catch my cold like that," Harry tried to joke, unable to respond to her advancements properly.

"Alright, Potter," she said teasingly. "but you need to get out of your bed soon. Unless you want me to climb in and catch that cold?"

He was taken aback by this shameless flirting and his treacherous body's lack of reaction towards it. He grumbled something inaudible and got up.

No more hiding from the world now.

"What's a Painless Poppy Philtre, Hermione?" Harry asked when the three of them were sitting together once again in the Potions' classroom. Malfoy hadn't shown up for the class that morning, so Hermione was leafing through some brewing books and trying to find a suitable potion for Ron and him to make.

Both of his friend looked at him like he had suddenly grown a second head.

"You're not planning on brewing that one, are you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Why not?"

"It's highly regulated, Harry. Look here," the girl pointed at the page in one of the textbooks. There weren't any instructions on how to cook it up, only general information. "The Painless Poppy Philtre is a strong Opium-based sedative, muscle relaxant, and anesthetic potion. Due to its highly addictive nature and various side-effects only a family physician or apothecary can prescribe it."

"Pureblood Bane, my mom used to call it," Ron added, "A lot of wizarding families were bonkers over that stuff, back in the day. She said Blacks had liked it too. I kept them from going mad."

"What do you mean, Ron?" Harry asked.

"It sort of makes you let go a bit... I would want to forget too if I were stuck in an arranged marriage with my cousin or something," the ginger snickered.

No wonder Malfoy wanted to let go with so many people giving him grief and constantly trying to watch his back with the probation. He remembered those muggle snapshots that were in his godfather's old school trunk, he was wondering if he too had been trying to forget his family like this and to live freely, do what he wanted... kiss who he wanted.