What If? -Drarry

Part Two: Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fouteen

It was dinner time, and the entire school was buzzing. Harry Potter had fainted in divination. Could it have been a vision? A premonition? Was just as Rita Skeeter had said: he was an attention seeking prat with a love for publicity?

Draco didn't actually care because he was too busy worrying about Harry. It seemed he was spending more and more time doing that these days, but that evening it seemed he was going positively mad. Harry was nowhere to be seen in the Great Hall - though Granger and Weasley conversed in low whispers at the Gryffindor table - and according to the Slytherins sitting opposite from him at the dining table, no one had even glimpsed him since Divination. To make matters worse, Draco had to act like he was happy about the whole thing, to keep his 'friends' under his carefully constructed spell. Only Blaise knew anything otherwise (though, thankfully, he was more concerned about Draco's safety than he was about Draco's choice in partner), and, at any rate, there was very little he could do about anything. Blaise had his own status to uphold, even if it was less pronounced than Draco's.

Usually, it was at this point, in the run-up to the Summer Holidays, that Draco would almost double the amount of food he ate. He had started doing this during second year when he realised that he could make his Summer much more bearable by putting on a few extra pounds in the month beforehand, and thus avoid looking quite so emaciated by the time he came back to school. However, tonight he couldn't bring himself to touch a morsel of food, worry making him feel sick and causing a dull ache to resonate in his temples and behind his eyes. His lips were painfully dry and chapped. He chewed at them and forced a laugh between his teeth as Theo made a joke. Time was passing unbearably slowly and the meal dragged out longer and longer until... finally... the food disappeared from the plates and the students began, as one, to push towards the exit. Draco's headache had become all consumingly painful. He stumbled out of the hall with the rest of the group, nerves the only thing in his stomach.

Through the dull pounding in his mind, Draco wondered if he should go back to the dorm or go and look for Harry. Luckily, the decision was made for him when Blaise grabbed his arm and led him firmly to the dorm, saying words Draco didn't quite catch to the other Slytherins before pulling Draco into the fourth-year's shared bathroom and locking the door. Wincing at the brightness of the bathroom lights, Draco felt himself sitting numbly on the closed lid of the toilet and peering at Blaise.

"What do you want, Zabini?"

"Draco, you've gone very pale. Are you alright?"

"These lights are too fucking bright," Draco slurred, grimacing unevenly, "My head hurts."

"Where do we keep the headache potions?"

"Check my cupboard. Bottom shelf."

The boys all had their own bathroom cupboards within the large washroom, and it took Blaise only a moment to locate and search through Draco's cabinet (which was mostly filled with potions of his own creation, all in coloured phials) and find the milky headache potion. He handed it to Draco, who took the phial and downed it in three large gulps, almost doubling the recommended dosage. The effect was instantaneous: a feeling like warm water splashed through his brain and the aching loosened. Without the pain, Draco's worry intensified.

"Harry. I need to know if he's okay. I'll go and-"

"No, you won't." Blaise caught Draco's arm again and Draco allowed himself to be pulled unceremoniously back onto the toilet seat from where he'd started making to the door. Blaise continued. "You're in no fit state to look for him. Even without that headache, you've quite clearly made yourself ill with worry. Honestly, you are so impulsive! He's probably with Dumbledore or something, and he'll be fine, okay? Just stop for a minute and think before you act."