His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 30: The Headmaster's trick

He sighed in relief as he closed the main door behind him.

"Mister Malfoy," said the headmaster quietly.

Draco jumped far enough he thought he'd end up on the ceiling, freezing with a pale face and hand over his mouth.

"I think I must ask you to accompany me to the hospital wing, Draco. You're shaking."

Draco attempted to make his hands stop shaking, thank you. It did not really work. At all.

Still, he managed to walk next to the headmaster in a semblance of calm, hands firmly in his pockets.

"Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew are believed to both no longer be at Hogwarts," the headmaster said, as if talking about the weather. "Sirius Black stole a hippogriff to make his escape in most dramatic fashion. Hagrid cannot decide whether to be overjoyed or angry."

Draco grunted.

"The hippogriff was named Buckbeak. His appeal was going to be slated for a week and a half from now. I did not hold out much hope."

Draco tried to summon up venom past the buzzing in his mind and managed, "I hope the hippogriff eats him."

"It seems unlikely. Humans are not his primary diet, and when not provoked into violence, hippogriffs are rather gentle."

"They're giant murderbirds, professor," Draco informed him.

The headmaster was surprised into a laugh.

"I believe," the headmaster said after a short pause, "I understand everything that happened here today except for the hippogriff."

Could blood freeze? Draco felt like his blood was freezing. They walked in deepening silence up another flight of stairs.

"Perhaps I should inform your father of events today?"

"No- that is, that is, I'm sure he'll be informed in due time."

"He would want to know that his heir is-"

"I'm fine," Draco snarled.

"I can see that," the headmaster continued, very mildly. "But for my own comfort, I would like Madame Pomfrey to check. And a night in the hospital wing will explain where you have been most adequately, don't you agree? It might be better for everyone that everything tonight is adequately explained."

"You can't be happy with how things have turned out tonight."

"I am an old man, and I very seldom get everything I want in life. None of my students were hurt, and more than one innocent life may have been spared."

"And the guilty?" Draco asked in morbid curiosity.

"I would rather spare the guilty with the innocent than strike down the innocent with the guilty."

Draco shot his headmaster a tired look, because all of those words made sense and the grammar was correct and yet he'd managed to say complete nonsense.

"Mercy, my boy, is not weakness."

They walked in silence for a little while.

"No one seems to understand that I don't care about the hippogriff," Draco said. "It's not even human. Whether it lives or dies truly makes no difference to me, even if I think it shouldn't ever be allowed around children again."

He glanced over at the headmaster, who twinkled at him as he met Draco's eyes.

"But you count Harry as a friend, and Harry cares about the hippogriff," the headmaster observed. "Your prank went a little too far, and you didn't know how to stop it without drastic measures."

Draco physically recoiled, and only a hand on his arm kept him from falling down the stairwell.

"Friendship is a delightful thing," the headmaster continued happily.

"I know you're delighted. You would be delighted."

"Not to worry, Draco. I believe everything will work out for the best."

Draco was in an absolutely miserable mood when he was delivered to the hospital wing, and Madame Pomfrey's fussing only went so far to sooth it. He dozed off to daydreams of how to make Harry's life really miserable. He could definitely come up with something good and humbling....

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Short chapter, my bad :/