The Cowardly Lion (Book 1)

15: Of Detention and Unicorns

Over the next few weeks, it soon became clear that Gryffindor as a whole refused to speak to either Draco or Harry, and Slytherin was congratulating the both of them on losing so many points in one night. The boys couldn't blame them; at first, Gryffindors passing the enormous hourglasses that recorded the House points the morning after they had sent Norbert off had thought there had been a mistake.

But then the Hogwarts gossip mill worked its magic, and the story spread that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had cost them so many points, and although Harry still got it bad, it was Draco who took the brunt of it. Although the Gryffindors had finally begun to accept the young Malfoy, this fueled a popular rumor - no doubt spread by Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson - that this had been his plan all along. Only Ron and Hermione knew otherwise.

After one particularly bad day in which Draco had received loud applause from the Slytherins wherever he went, and loud thank yous to their "man on the inside," he didn't want to go back to Gryffindor Tower; however, he didn't dare risk staying out at night again.

"It'll pass, Draco, they'll all forget this in a few weeks," Ron comforted, finally rid of Norbert's poisonous venom and out of the hospital wing. "Fred and George have lost loads of points in all the time they've been here, and people still like them!"

Fred and George chose that moment to blatantly ignore Draco and ask Harry why on earth he was friends with such a Slytherin. Harry, who was sitting right beside Draco and rubbing his back, stood up angrily, furious with the twins, but Draco pulled him back down.

"There's no need to fight on my behalf," he muttered. "And as for your brothers, they've never lost one hundred points in one go, have they?"

"Well - no," Ron had to admit.

Harry left for Quidditch practice not long after that, and came back looking incredibly depressed. "They wouldn't even talk to me," he told Draco sadly. "And if they had to talk about me, they called me 'the Seeker.'"

Needless to say, the two boys were almost glad that the exams weren't far away, as studying in the library, where people had to be quiet, was the only thing they could do to keep their minds off of their misery. Draco hardly ever left it; in fact, if Harry hadn't brought him food, which Madam Pince would have normally yelled at him about, but seeing how thin Draco had gotten, she didn't, Draco probably would have starved.

They worked late into the night, Draco helping Harry to try and remember the ingredients in complicated potions; learning charms and spells by heart, memorizing the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions...

"I'm not interfering with anybody else's business, ever again," Draco stated to Harry one night in the library, tears in his eyes after a particularly loud afternoon of Slytherin congratulations. "I hate Slytherin, I really do, Crabbe even wrote to my father and he sent me a congratulations letter on how I was finally living up to my name...he knew it would hurt me, he did..."

"Crabbe, or your father?" Harry asked him sympathetically.

"Yes," muttered Draco, struggling not to cry.

"Come on, let's just go back up to the dormitories," Harry decided. "We studied the Silencing Charm enough, you can cry up there and nobody will make fun of you."

But this decision put Draco's resolution to not interfere to the test, as they passed a seemingly empty classroom and heard whimpering. The boys drew closer, only to hear Quirrell's voice.

"No - no - not again, please - " Quirrell whimpered. Harry and Draco looked at each other; it sounded as though somebody was threatening him.

"All right - all right - " Quirrell sobbed, and quickly came hurrying out of the classroom, walking right past Harry and Draco - the two boys didn't even think that he'd noticed them. After he'd gone out of sight, Harry looked in the classroom, and turned to Draco with a sigh.