The Enemy's Ball

32. Stick Around and Find Out

The rumors didn't stop circulating. And the Prophet didn't stop printing nonsense about the trial. Draco supposed that he should be bothered by it, Harry was, and Ron and Hermione. But he was a little preoccupied with trying to be a model student. And of course, the slightly more pressing matter of figuring out how on Merlin he was going to prove himself to the Ministry. He sighed, resting his forehead on the potion's textbook in front of him.

He glanced to the left at his unused bed and then back to the open book before him. His bed looked awfully comfortable, mind you not as comfortable as Harry's was, but they only shared at night. And only because if they didn't, Draco would wake Harry up in the middle of the night anyway because of nightmares, so it was just more practical to be close.

At least, that was what Draco told himself to avoid getting too attached. They hadn't woken up tangled again since the first night, but Harry always held him before they fell asleep. Draco tried not to think about that because thinking was quite stressful. Though if he was being honest, it was a very welcome stress-inducer. He sighed again, who was he kidding? Even if he did decide to take a nap, there was no way he would fall asleep, not with the threat of nightmares, and the significant lack of Harry Potter.

It had only been four days, since the trial. That meant three nights of sharing a bed with Harry, and Draco was almost completely sure that he was becoming addicted to the Gryffindor's warmth. Honestly, why was Harry so warm all the time? It wasn't fair, especially when Draco was always so cold. It was infuriating.

Just, not as infuriating as the books before him. He thought that reading more about potions would help him have an epiphany, but for the last few days, all that this book had done for him was get him a lecture from Hermione, Hermione, about spending too much time not studying the "right stuff". He argued that studying about a potion that would be his ticket to bloody Azkaban was exactly the "right stuff". She'd huffed and walked away. They weren't really speaking at the moment. Draco found, regretfully, that he kind of missed her nagging, even if they had only been friends for a month.

He slammed the book shut and reached into his bag for the next one. He'd already read this book at least three times, it didn't have anything useful in it. There was a quiet voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him that reading more about potions was useless without having a test subject. He knew it was right, but who was going to allow him to use a potion on them? The person would have to be really sick on top of it, otherwise the Ministry wouldn't take it as proof. He sighed again and closed his bag, deciding not to try and research anymore at the moment. He had until the holidays to figure out something, so for now, he was going to go to lunch.

He sat down at the eighth year table, appreciating the almost-empty hall. He made a sandwich, and then another, and then another, and then two more. One for him. He set it on his plate. One for Hermione. He set it on the plate across from him. One for Harry. He set it on the plate next to him. And two for Ronald. He set them on the plate next to Hermione's.

Either he or Hermione were going to have to apologize at some point so he figured he might start. And besides, apologizing first made him the bigger person, right? He smirked a bit and waited for his friends to arrive at the table. As expected, they all sat in their usual seats.

Hermione looked down at her plate and smiled. Ron just grinned and dug into the sandwiches. Harry smiled and pressed his arm to Draco's. Draco nudged him, hoping it was enough of a nudge to say, "Yeah, and what about it?" Harry grinned and scooted away a little, so he assumed it worked.

After lunch, Hermione caught his arm. "Thank you," she said, " and I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have said you needed to prioritize different things, because you really are focusing on the right stuff. I'm just so used to Ron and Harry never doing school work that it's kind of a usual thing for me to nag my friends. I'll try to be better about it."