An Accidental Alliance

chapter 13

Waking up Friday morning was not nearly as pleasant as the kisses he had received the day before, and was a lot more reminiscent of the foot digging into his ribs of Wednesday.

"Harry, wake the fuck up."

He groaned and rolled over, pulling the blankets over his head.

"Harry!" The blankets were yanked off him and Harry yelped. "We've already missed breakfast, for the thirdday in a row, and I am not going to show up late to Potions with you again, it's humiliating."

Harry was not enamored with this side of Draco, especially because he was right. He dressed quickly, gathered his things that had been strewn around the room, and they half-ran to the classroom. They weren't late per se, but they were still the last two to arrive, and looking disheveled at that. Ron and Hermione were staring at them, Ron's eyes bugging out, and while Harry was more focused on his own friends, he was well aware they were definitely getting looks from the Slytherins as well.

"And now that the last of our students have chose to grace us with their presence, we shall begin," Slughorn said. Harry glanced at the clock. Five minutes past. Ah, so they were late. Brilliant.

In an attempt to make up for any suspected camaraderie Malfoy was being exceptionally unpleasant. He had Harry redo the bat spleens eight times, a record even for him, because they were too "mushy", which didn't even make sense, because they were spleens. The ginger wasn't chopped finely enough, the honey needed to be thickened, the cockroaches still had bits of leg attached, the list went on and on. They had barely started brewing when class ended, and the look of annoyance Harry shot Draco as they parted was all too real.

"God, he's such a bloody prat," Harry muttered as they walked to their next class. "Eight spleens. Eight. Slughorn said he was going to charge me for the last five. Any idea how much bat spleens cost?"

"Not a clue," Ron said. "Y'know what else I haven't got a clue about?"

"What's that?" Harry replied tersely.

"Why you haven't slept in the dorms for the past three nights," Ron said. "Why you've been sneaking out with your cloak. Or why you keep showing up with Malfoy."

"I've been going for walks," Harry said. "It keeps my mind off-well, you know." It was sinking very low indeed to use the war as an excuse when he was off snogging Malfoy, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

"I thought you said you were working on a project with Malfoy," Hermione said. "Wandering the castle all night together instead?"

"No," Harry replied irritably. "Both. Project with Malfoy, a quick nap on enchanted cushions on the floor, and then walking the halls. I'm sleep short; can't you tell by how I completely mangled every single ingredient?"

"You have been awfully temperamental lately," Hermione said. "I suppose that could be caused by a lack of sleep."

"Or by trying to hide a secret relationship with Malfoy," Ron added. "If you napped at Malfoy's and then went for a walk, you'd hardly be arriving together, now would you?"

Harry glared at him. "I left my bag in his room. And what, exactly, makes you think we're together? How brilliantly he treated me in class? How he follows me around like a simpering schoolgirl? How I'm clearly head over heels for my sworn enemy?"

Ron had the decency to look abashed, and Harry was really not looking forward to telling him the truth, whenever that would be. If that would be, he reminded himself. They were on a trial run. Harry knew they had agreed to act normally during the day, but it couldn't be good for their relationship to fight all the time, even if it was a show. But it would be okay, it would have to be, their date tomorrow night would be perfect and then, well, after that would be even more perfect, and everything was going to be fine and there was nothing to worry about and he might even believe it if he could just get Malfoy's cantankerous voice out of his head telling him once again to redo those bloody bat spleens.

It was going to be okay.

Really.

Ok, I feel like this is a bit unreasonable but if we get to 1k reads I will do a Q and A for the readers and a face reveal for me. I feel like this will never happen but I guess we can try. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!
-Isabella