Hate You || Drarry

9 Offering

It was the oddest two weeks Harry Potter had ever experienced in his life. He was happy, of course, and it was weird enough when who brought him that euphoria was Draco Malfoy.

The two of them shared fair laughs during the Hols and worked together decorating the castle with Hagrid and Professor Flitwick during mornings, Flitwick who was, by the way, surprised but pleased with Malfoy's willingness to be with Harry (Being amongst the few teachers who had the chance of issuing dozens of detention slips for Harry and Draco, it was natural for him to be shocked). Although it resulted in Harry in laughing fit and embarrassed, rose-tinted Draco during that particular morning the professor mentioned it (that he really shouldn't have since Malfoy didn't talk to Harry until dusk for that). In afternoons they played chess - both of them terrible at it so no one had won properly, then, they helped Hagrid feed his creatures and sometimes they skimmed some interesting stuffs at the library. At nights, they flew their brooms like the usual, then talked about their favorite professional Quidditch teams and school-related opinions but never about something personal or sensitive. Harry got the feeling they were both avoiding topics related to their rivalry and unwavering hatred towards each other's families and friends so Harry didn't pursue to discuss it. He didn't want to ruin his progress at least. He had gotten this far with Draco.

But that said progress went straight to the abyss of misery in a blink of an eye because everything that happened between them during the break, like a fever dream, was forgotten a week after being out of their vacation, horribly flooded with second term's requirements with their Malfoy-Potter Relationship back to how it used to be. Malfoy didn't look at him when Harry greeted him, nor showed fondness when Harry attempted to slip in a small talk when Malfoy walked the same direction as him to any of their classes they shared. He also attempted to join Malfoy and Pansy the other day in a casual conversation about how their classes had been but Draco only pretended Harry wasn't there and he felt so mad for it. He has the right to – Harry was betrayed.

Admittedly, it was Harry's fault for expecting in the first place. He never knew Malfoy in a very intimate level before. He might've played Harry for a fool and Harry didn't know that. He didn't know what horror did Malfoy think in every way possible.

Harry, angry again with the world and the blonds and the Slytherins altogether, stabbed his own portion of shepherd's pie with a fork harder than intended, creating an unpleasant screeching noise across the Great Hall full of food-deprived students barely surviving the welcoming term. Their classes were done for the day and Harry was supposed to be hungry, gnawing at his pie and talking heartily of his break but he wasn't doing just that. He talked to Ron and Hermione instead about what dreadful of a thing happened to him during their break and the two of them made lots of faces in response to Harry's story. They mostly were horrified why Harry asked Malfoy to spend time with him, but they didn't make it a topic for the whole meal and shrugged it off.

Throughout that week, Harry realized that Draco Malfoy just had a way of smoothly forfending his Great Interrogation. As if like a radar, he would easily sense if Harry was stalking him or not and so he was quick to vanish from his sight. This made Harry's mission ten times more impossible knowing Malfoy was aware how desperate Harry wanted to talk to him and to how far could Harry stretch that desperation. It went on and on for days but Harry still had no luck with Malfoy. His desperation was slowly converting to a very concentrated anger and he might resort to binding Malfoy to a chair and shoving a vial of Veritaserum all the way down his throat anytime soon.

"Use a different tactic, Harry," Pansy said that morning, at the desperate time he was in his lowest of his mission and asked for Pansy's help during their Care of Magical Creatures class. "Draco isn't easy. He'd always been complicated and unpredictable like we said."