Aftermath (Drarry)

Chapter 16: "Alright, Harry"

A/N: Hope you like the chapter ;)

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DRACO:

As they reached the Entrance Hall, Draco's heart began to thump even harder. He could hear the sounds of lunch coming from the Great Hall and it made him nauseous. He didn't want to go in there where he knew Cleveley and his friends would be, watching him and planning their next move against him. He couldn't. The very thought made his skin crawl. Decided, he began to head towards the stairs leading to the dungeons.

"Where are you going?" Potter asked.

Draco turned to face him; he hadn't anticipated Potter even noticing him go. "Where do you think, Potter?" He tried to mask his fear but his voice came out all shaky.

Potter frowned. "Are you not having lunch?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Because of Cleveley?"

"No."

As he spoke, Draco's stomach gave him away by growling loudly. Potter raised an eyebrow at him; he had obviously heard.

"I just don't want to eat in there, okay?" Draco looked down at his feet, not wanting to show Potter his embarrassment. Get a grip, he told himself.

"Eat somewhere else, then," Potter said. Draco could feel Potter's eyes boring into him, but he refused to meet them.

"Where else could I eat? Hogwarts isn't exactly brimming with restaurants, is it Potter?"

"Come with me," Potter said, smiling slightly and heading towards the door that the Hufflepuffs always went through after dinner. Draco wondered if this was all part of some elaborate prank but followed him anyway.

Potter led him down the stairs beyond the door and into a wide stone corridor which was warm and well-lit, completely different to the dungeon corridors Draco was used to. The walls were decorated with bright paintings of food and there was a stack of barrels in a small nook on the right-hand side of the corridor. They walked up to a painting of a large bowl and Draco grew even more confused when Potter ran his finger along the pear in the painting as if to tickle it. The pear giggled and transformed into a green door handle.

"Where are we?" asked Draco. Potter opened the door and stepped through it, holding it open for Draco. If Potter was about to trick him in some way, he was hiding it very well.

"The kitchens." Draco followed Potter through the door. They were stood in an enormous room with five long tables arranged the same as in the Great Hall. The stone walls were lined with counters and stoves which were heaped with pots and pans and surrounded by house-elves.

They had barely crossed the threshold when a few of the house-elves left their bubbling pans and bustled over to them.

"Master Harry, what a pleasant surprise," said an old-looking house-elf with many folds of skin and white hair growing out of his ears.

"Hi, Kreacher," Potter said. "We've just come for some lunch."

"Of course, Master. What would Master and Draco Malfoy like to eat?" Draco was slightly unnerved by the elf knowing his name, although he was regarding him with a look that was anything but negative.

Potter looked at Draco. "Have any preference?" Draco shook his head.

"We'll just have some simple sandwiches then, please, Kreacher."

The small group of house-elves hurried away and quickly returned with a few plates filled with towering piles of ham and chicken sandwiches, a jug filled with what Draco assumed to be pumpkin juice, and two glasses. They set all this down on the counter nearest to them and then resumed their work.

"I didn't know you had a house-elf," Draco said, selecting a chicken sandwich from one of the plates and beginning to eat.

"He used to serve the Black family. Sirius left him to me. I send him to work here during term time." Potter had also selected a chicken sandwich.

They fell silent and continued eating for a few minutes, the sounds of the house-elves cooking filling the silence. Despite the awkwardness he could feel between them, Draco's heart was still beating furiously at being so close to Potter.

When Potter finished his sandwich, he picked up the jug and poured pumpkin juice into both glasses, then pushed one of them towards Draco.

"Do you spend all your time looking for secret rooms in the castle, Potter? Because that would explain your grades."

Potter rolled his eyes. "Very funny, Malfoy. And no. The Weasley twins would come here to get food for parties. They told us how to find it." Draco assumed that by 'us' he meant him, Weasley, and Granger. It was always those three; Draco heard people call them 'The Golden Trio' sometimes.

"What about the Room of Requirement? Didn't you find that for your 'Dumbledore's Army' club?"

"Dobby showed me how to find that," Potter said, selecting a second sandwich.

"Dobby? How did he know where it was? He only ever came to Hogwarts with my father."

"He worked here after I freed him. Dumbledore paid him one galleon a week. Plus"—he let out a single laugh—"he came into Hogwarts without your father an awful lot in second year. He set that bludger on me in the first match of the season."

"Really?" Draco picked a ham sandwich off the pile.

"Yeah," Potter said. "He was hoping I would get so injured that I would be sent home from Hogwarts and be safe from the Chamber of Secrets."

"I doubt that would have worked. I've never even heard of a student getting sent home because of an injury.

"Me neither. Oliver Wood told me that he once took a bludger to the head and was unconscious in the hospital wing for a whole week. I'm not sure there was anything that bludger could have done to me, besides death, that would have gotten me sent home."

"It didn't do a very good job of injuring you, did it? All it did was break your arm."

Potter nodded. "And then Lockhart went and removed all the bones in my arm. Real nice of him."

They laughed and continued to talk about Lockhart's incompetence for a while until they fell into a slightly-less-uncomfortable-than-before silence.

"You know what, Malfoy," Potter said, after finishing off a sandwich. "I can't believe I'm about to say this but"—he took a deep breath and looked directly at Draco—"I actually quite like hanging out with you."

Draco was completely taken aback and, ever the drama queen, he decided to milk his surprise. "Is that so?" he said, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side, his mouth forming a familiar smirk.

Potter rolled his eyes. "Yeah." He looked down at his hands. "Maybe if things had been different, we could've been friends."

"Things are different now." Draco tried not so sound as desperate as he was; he wasn't about to admit that what he wanted more than anything was to spend more time Potter.

"Do you want to start over, then?" Potter was looking at Draco with a strange intensity in his eyes.

"Alright, Potter." Draco held out his hand as he did on the Hogwarts Express in first year. He felt a jolt through his arm as Potter took his hand and shook it. His heart was beating impossibly fast now.

"Harry," Potter said, letting go of Draco's hand. "You have to call me Harry now that we're friends."

"Alright, Harry," Draco said. Harry grinned.