Friendly Competition

[17] Insufferable Poltergeists

Harry jolted awake to the sound of sharp knocking, and groaned. He did not want to be awake at whatever hour this was. Classes had just started up again, and he was exhausted. Behind him, he could feel Draco breathing evenly, clearly not having woken. Maybe if he just ignored it and tried to go back to sleep...

The knocking continued, and Saphronia gave a disgruntled hoot and huffily rearranged herself on her perch.

Fine, it was likely important anyway, as he was pretty sure Minerva was the only one who even knew where this room was.

"Right, right, I'm going," he placated the owl softly. "Just stay quiet."

He checked the time — just past two, fantastic — and slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Draco. He looked down at himself, and quickly grabbed his dressing gown. Greeting the headmistress in only his pants somehow did not seem advisable.

"Minerva? What is it?" He pushed the pillar that served as the entrance to his rooms open, only to find three seventh year prefects staring back at him, rather than the headmistress. Even better, he thought sarcastically. Why in Merlin's name were they here?

"It's Peeves, sir, he's wrecked the Potions classroom. We were on patrol when we heard all this crashing, and when we went to go investigate, well...it's a complete mess."

"Why did you come to me then, and not your head of house?" He recognised dimly that two of them were Slytherin, although the other was a Gryffindor. But still, there was no reason they should've been here. This was exactly why he would never accept the responsibility of that role. Horrid.

"Well, we wanted to tell Professor Malfoy, sir, but we didn't know where his rooms were."

"And you came here?" He raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't aware students knew about the location of this room either," he muttered, then he sighed. "Alright, go back to your dorms or patrol or whatever, he will be made aware of the situation."

Draco was not going to be happy about this.

Harry turned back inside the room to go wake him, but when he let go of the hinged pillar, it stayed somewhat ajar.

As they heard him walking away, the three students crowded closer to listen.

"Come on love, get up." Harry shook Draco's shoulder gently.

Draco gave a disgruntled groan. "What?"

"Apparently some of the prefects were patrolling and they heard crashing sounds from your classroom and...Peeves sort of...wrecked it."

"You're joking. Please tell me you woke me up in the middle of the night to play a joke so I can castrate you instead."

"Draco. Really."

"Bloody Merlin." Draco's expression darkened, apparently becoming more awake. "I swear if that little meddling piece of shite poltergeist messed up my Veritaserum brew, I am going to find a way to murder him."

"Go fix your classroom so you can come back and get some sleep before breakfast."

"Ugh." Draco hauled himself up and pulled on one of Harry's pairs of ridiculous Muggle sweatpants and his slippers. He swore this was the only occasion Harry's habit of leaving random articles of clothing all over the floor would ever be helpful.

He snatched his wand and stalked out into the corridor, nearly colliding with someone. Draco caught himself and looked around. His jaw tightened. Great, students. Fuck. He turned straight around and slammed the pillar behind him.

Harry had just curled back under the blankets, feeling a little bad that he was sleeping whilst Draco had to clean up the dungeons of the surely extensive havoc Peeves had wreaked, when he heard a slam and Draco stomped back into the room.