𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen: To be Alone

It was awkward. Harry didn't know how to react to his last conversation with Draco. He hadn't listened to Ron's suggestion of telling Malfoy that it was all one of his nightmares and chose to instead ignore the blonde. Three days after the altercation, he hadn't worked up the courage to go through that locked door at the end of the hallway. A part of him (the majority of him, actually) felt horrible that he'd more or less abandoned Malfoy at his time of need but at the same time, he was still pissed that Malfoy thought he could do something so low. Harry guessed Malfoy had every right to believe this, given their history, but it still hurt.

Luckily for Harry, he had Ron and Hermione and the impending battle with Voldemort to keep his mind off Malfoy. There was training to be done and after his two best friends caught on to his depressed attitude, they pushed him harder to train than he'd ever thought they would. He was quickly thrown into a world of curses flying at him left, right and centre. There were simple curses he could heal with a thought and others that would send him straight to Madam Pomfrey's medical wing and he welcomed every colourful flash of it. When he was fighting for his life, he didn't have time to think about the suffering blonde stuck up in the Tower.

Unfortunately, by thinking about how he wasn't meant to be thinking about Malfoy, Harry was distracted and caught by an Expelliarmus. His wand went flying across the training room but he focused his magic and quickly returned the spell to Remus, successfully performing it wordlessly and without a wand. He then blocked the stinging hex that Kingsley shot at him — his attempt to deflect it back towards a defenceless Remus failed, falling short by nearly three metres. That was when Ron, who'd been ordered to randomly switch sides during the training battle, turned on Harry with a full-body-bind curse. This time, when Harry reflected it, it landed, freezing Ron just as Kingsley summoned Remus' wand his way, returning it to its rightful owner. Hermione was there to provide support for Remus, Ron and Kingsley so Harry took her out with a simple binding curse, hopefully sending the twosome out of the battle. However, he still had the two more experienced duellers to disable before they got the better of him.

Harry dodged the next blue flash Kingsley sent his way but in doing so, he more or less stepped into Remus' Stunner and was sent flying back into the padded wall behind him. A body-bind followed that as they effectively destroyed him in the battle.

Both Kingsley and Remus chose to enervate Hermione and Ron first and even gave them a hand to get up off the ground. The four of them made sure that everything was alright between them before finally heading over to Harry, who hadn't been able to move the entire time. And before they even considered letting Harry out of the bind, both Remus and Kingsley squatted around him.

"Where do you think you went wrong today?" Kingsley asked with a deep voice. From what Harry could see (his glasses were askew, so most of Kingsley's face was blurry to him), he was sweating a little, as if Harry had actually tested him somewhere along the lines. Funny; Harry couldn't remember when he would have worked up a sweat. Defeating Harry appeared to be quite an easy task.

Harry wanted to answer with a 'dunno', but even his lips were too frozen to move. So Remus spoke next. "It looked as if you lost your concentration after I cast the Expelliarmus on you."

Just thinking about Malfoy's making him lose his battles (be them physical, mental or emotional…). He had no doubt that the Slytherin would actually be quite proud about that.

"What were you thinking about? It had nothing to do with our training," Kingsley continued. "If you don't have an answer when I unbind you, I'll recast it and you can have another minute to think it over. Enervate."

Harry blinked for a moment and sat up, fixing his glasses along the way. "It's personal."

Remus gave him a knowing look before sighing."You can't let those thoughts get in the way, Harry. Defeating Voldemort is more important…"