Away Childish Things

Chapter 2

The next morning Harry woke up in a bed. A real bed, with a real pillow, and sheets, and everything.

At first, he thought the bed must be Dudley's. One time when Harry had been forgot at home he had snuck up to Dudley's bed to see what sleeping in one was like, only-this felt different. Cracking open his eyes, Harry felt around for his glasses, which were folded on a chest of drawers beside the bed. When Harry put them on, he saw a silver fox.

It had been watching him, but seeing that Harry was awake, the fox turned and trotted through the wall.

This definitely wasn't Dudley's bed.

Jumping up, Harry realized he wasn't in his own pyjamas either. He didn't even have pyjamas, just old shorts, and sometimes Dudley's castoffs-but these were real pyjamas, soft and warm and cottony. White, with blue stripes. Mister Malfoy must have done it, and panicking, Harry remembered bad old men, but he was more concerned about the bed, which he shouldn't have slept in. He'd told Mister Malfoy-Draco-that he would stay in a cupboard, and Harry didn't know how he had got to the bed, but he had definitely slept in it.

Hastily, Harry tried to straighten the sheets, fluffing the pillow. He wondered if there was a bed-making spell, then wondered if all those things he remembered from yesterday were real at all. Draco had made a magic cake, and Dudley was thirty-one years old, and Harry could do magic-his wand. Draco had told him he should always have his wand, and Harry was frantically looking for it when there was a knock at the door.

Harry looked up. He was in a smallish room with just one window. The bed was in the middle of one wall and the door being knocked on was on the wall opposite. To the right of the door stood a cabinet with a large bowl and pitcher sitting atop it; to the left was a chest of drawers and another door. He was in a bedroom, and the second door was the cupboard, Harry guessed.

"Harry?" said a voice on the other side of the door. It was muffled but it sounded like Draco.

For a moment, Harry seriously considered diving into the cupboard. "Um. Yes?" he said instead.

"Do you mind if I come in?" Draco said, and it felt odd. Harry had never had anyone ask him anything like that.

"Yes?" Harry said. "I mean, no. I mean, I don't mind."

The door opened, and all thoughts of yesterday having been imagined flew out of Harry's head. Draco stood there, looking extremely real, and Harry knew he couldn't dream up anybody who looked quite like him. "Did you sleep well, Harry?" Draco said.

"I don't know how I got in here," Harry blurted.

"I brought you," Draco said.

"I didn't mean to sleep in the bed."

"Harry." Draco's brow furrowed. "I put you in it."

"Whose bed is it?"

"It's mine. I was in the lab."

Harry's eyes went wide. Not only had Draco let him sleep in a bed, but it was his bed, and-Harry looked furtively at the rumpled sheets. He hadn't really done a good job making it. He hoped Draco didn't notice. "And . . . these?" He plucked at the pyjamas.

"I transfigured your clothes into pyjamas. Muggles . . . do wear pyjamas, don't they?" Draco asked uncertainly.

Draco hadn't carried him, Harry realized belatedly. He would've used magic. "Yes, we-they wear pyjamas," Harry said.

"Good. I didn't excel at Muggle studies, but I didn't think I had failed so dismally." Draco swung the door open further. "I've made breakfast, if you're hungry."