Finally Me

26

Harry and Draco stood quietly at the entrance of the Hufflepuff common room under the invisibility cloak. They had arrived early to make sure the coast was clear for Oliver to sneak out. The red head quietly cast a tempest and saw that it was 9:10, Oliver had 5 minutes left, and Draco assured him the little Hufflepuff would be there. Roughly two minutes later Oliver scurried out of the portrait and quietly thanked it. He looked around a bit lost before Harry removed the cloak off of himself and Draco. Oliver smiled wild before quickly walking over to them.

"I didn't know you had an invisibility cloak Hazza!" He said in an excited whisper as he squeezed between Draco and Harry to fit under the cloak. Harry gave him a small smile before responding.

"Most people don't Oli, you think you can keep that a secret?" The redhead asked as he pulled the cloak over them and they started walking. Oliver nodded fiercely and grabbed onto Draco's robe so he could keep up as they made their way to the Slytherin Common Room. They were mostly quiet on the walk until Draco spoke up.

"Now Oli I know we've asked you to keep a lot of secrets, would you be willing to keep one for us?" Draco asked tentatively as he looked down at Oli.

"Yeah huh! It's like I'm a super secret spy!!" He replied quickly. Another sad smile crossed Harry's face. He was still completely torn about dragging Oliver into this. Merlin's sake the boy was just twelve, on the other hand though. Wouldn't it be safer for him to know everything they were planning if he already thought the old goat was a bad person? Harry shook his head and sighed quietly. They were just going to have to do a helluva job of protecting the little ray of sunshine.

Draco smiled at Oliver before he spoke. "Yeah! You'll be like a super secret spy. Well the secret that I'm gonna ask you to keep is the fact that you meet with us. I don't think it would be the best if people knew you were meeting with us in our Common Room." Draco said slowly, choosing his words carefully so Oliver wouldn't think he was in danger.

"Course I can!! All of my housemates would be super jealous if they knew and we can't have that!" He said with a cheek splitting grin on his face. Harry was almost mystified by the pure amount of wonder in the little Hufflepuffs voice. He didn't think he could recall a time where he was that happy to just be alive and make friends.

"Yes, that's exactly right." He spoke with his own grin. "Everyone would be extremely jealous of you." Oliver beamed at him before nodding to himself. They were descending the stairs to the dungeon at the time, so Harry wordlessly cast a heating charm on Oliver's cloak. He didn't want him getting cold, he wasn't used to the dank coldness of the dungeons. Draco gave him a look that clearly read 'you're getting soft' and Harry just stuck his tongue out at him.

They made their way deeper into the dungeon and Oliver clutched Draco's robe tighter. He had never been past the potions classroom, he didn't know what to expect. If he was really honest with himself he was a little scared. Everything he had heard about the Slytherin Common Room was from other houses, and they said downright awful things about them. He knew better than to believe people who were clearly biased, but couldn't help still being a tad bit afraid. Harry noticed how tight his grip had become on Draco's robe and reached down to ruffle Oliver's hair. He looked up to Harry and smiled, that had definitely helped.

They made it to a very large grand portrait of Salazar Slytherin, and Harry removed the cloak off of the three of them. He walked up to the portrait and hissed at it. Oliver's jaw almost hit the floor when the portrait responded and then opened. Harry could speak Parseltongue! That was probably the coolest thing he had ever seen in his entire life! Draco looked down to see the gob smacked expression on Oliver's face and stifled a chuckle in his fist. That was absolutely the most adorable thing he had ever seen Oliver do if you asked him.