𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒

Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Letter

Harry found himself trekking the long journey to the Hospital Wing the next night, as he knew he would. During the day, his thoughts kept drifting from his studies to Malfoy. He wasn't sure why, and it bothered him. Perhaps bothered wasn't the correct word, perhaps there was no word for it. It was just, Malfoy, sitting there alone in the hospital wing, seemed to call out somehow.

He shrugged his thoughts away as he approached the Infirmary's door. His fingers felt out for the cool metal knob, and grasping them about its worn and tarnished edges, he turned it with deliberate slowness, careful not to make a sound. There was still a great possibility that Madame Pompfrey could enter at any moment, and without his trust invisibility cloak hanging off his shoulders, he felt almost naked. His eyes immediately rested on the other boy in the darkened room, and he instantly knew something was different – wrong.

Something was wrong. Even the weak moonlight from the waning moon seemed not to penetrate the room. A frown creased his features and he made his way to the chair that had somehow found its regular position some three feet away from the bed. The fact that the chair was even out in the first place did not even register in his concern-clouded mind—he did not have time to think of it, nor the concern.

"What's wrong?" He asked, his voice soft, his green eyes traveling down the length of Malfoy's form. It was not as though he wanted to be concerned. Malfoy was his rival...and yet, somehow, he always found himself here, night after night. The beginning had not been so bad, but now...he didn't know if he could control his emotions much anymore. It was becoming harder and harder not to care.

"I have a name, you know," the frail boy responded with a scowl. His knees were pulled up to his chest with his arms wrapped tightly around them, as though clutching on for dear life. His voice was muffled because his head was buried fatalistically in-between his knees, making it very hard for Harry to understand what the silver-haired boy was saying.

"What?" Harry questioned, slightly confused by what the invalid said. Of course he had a name, and Harry knew it oh, all too well.

"I have a name. You could try calling me it," the Slytherin restated tersely, looking up, his thin pink lips pursed tightly together. Harry could just imagine Malfoy looking up at him with those same grey eyes he remembered so well.

"Oh," Harry commented horribly. Hadn't he even called Malfoy by his name once? Thinking back to all the nights, already clouded in his memories, he supposed he hadn't.

"Draco," Draco prompted sourly, his voice already betraying his inner turmoil, when the boy failed to respond. "Draco Malfoy. It's my name."

"I know your name." Harry sighed annoyed. Did Malfoy take him for such a fool? It was impossible not to know Malfoy's name. Massaging his temples, Harry decided not to say anything. Something was wrong with Malfoy, and the boy was already walking on a thin and dangerous wire as it was.

"Then call me it. Call me Draco," he said. He raised his head his head again, his bandages looked wet and his face was flushed. It looked as if he had been crying. But for Malfoy to cry? No, such a thing would be impossible...

"Fine. Draco." Harry spat, rather nervously. It felt odd, saying Malfoy's first name. It was Draco now, but soon, perhaps all too soon enough, this temporarily world of first names would die, and once again they would be 'Potter' and 'Malfoy'. And that was that.

Draco nodded and buried his face back into his knees, as though slipping back into a shelter that he had created for himself. A world in which Harry couldn't enter, and Harry wasn't particularly sure he wanted to know what existed in Malfoy's world.