Accidentally in Love / drarry

November, 1999

Think about it every time
I think about it
Can't stop thinking 'bout it

***

While the chilly October days slid tediously into the near glacial temperatures of November in the Scottish Highlands, classes at Hogwarts dragged on. Harry was mostly trying to keep his head down, whether it was to evade Slughorn's evaluative gaze during Potions, trying not to notice the curious glances he still received from the younger students, or avoiding any conflict whatsoever that would land him in the headmistress' office again. Speaking of: since Corner's detention with Filch had concluded, he'd been at liberty to sit around the common room once again, spewing whatever anti-Slytherin hogwash he'd come up with that day to anyone willing to listen. Curiously, nearly everyone had developed a habit of discreetly withdrawing from the conversation as soon as the topic started slipping in an unwanted direction. Outside of the common room, Corner seemed to have adopted a strategy of keeping his opinions to himself, possibly in the fears of another strongly worded letter to his parents, or drain duty switched to Hippogriff pen maintenance – if there was one thing the beasts could do it was poop – or even being sent down. For now, both Malfoy and Corner seemed to be keeping to themselves, allowing for blissful peace for their schoolmates.

Harry was still upset about not being able to join the Quidditch team this year, and sometimes he felt the emotion especially strongly, like when he was sitting at the library, trying to cram brewing techniques into his head, seeing the Quidditch pitch lit up for practice, tiny dots of colour swooping around the hoops. Those were the times when he seriously considered just quitting school and... well, he'd figure something out. He was the Chosen One for Merlin's sake. But right after thinking that, every time without fail, he felt guilty – he'd done things that were far worse than reading a school book, far more dangerous. The thing was though, that duelling an evil maniac or searching the country for hidden pieces of his cursed soul was simply much less tedious than reading this fucking book. The death at least was quicker. He often wondered if Libatius Borage was proud of his legacy, proud to be tormenting thousands of students with his never-ending rambling.

That being said, Harry went to the library almost every night to study. Even Hermione was surprised by his perseverance, and that encouraged him to keep going more than anything. For the first time in his school career, he was actually doing the reading, trying to take notes during classes, and he even started his assignments on time. All of the other eighth-years were busy too, with their literature and assignments, stressed about the final exams that were looming distant but unyielding. The first side-effect of this was Ron's extremely unenthusiastic company to the library, when he wasn't at Quidditch practice, that was.

Another side-effect of actually putting in the work – and truth be told, the reason Harry started doing it in the first place – was that Malfoy couldn't scold him anymore. Being told off by Malfoy had been one of the truly embarrassing yet stirring experiences of Harry's life, still he had no intention of reliving it. So, he made sure to read whatever Malfoy had him read each week, and last time he had even gone a little further and shown up with notes and elaborative questions. The quick expression of astonishment on Malfoy's face before being composed back to indifference had been enough of an incentive to repeat the effort the following week.

But right as Harry, along with his fellow eighth-years, and the whole school, really, had settled into the mind-numbing day-to-day of being a student, something started creating buzz. It started as a rumour from a student who had been serving detention with a professor and had overheard a conversation. Soon it was all anyone talked about – every corner you took in the castle you heard someone mention it to someone else. McGonagall made the announcement in the first week of November: there was to be a New Year's celebration at Hogwarts to welcome the new millennium. All students were welcome to join, and an additional train connection from London to Hogsmeade would run on December 30th.