A Birthday of Potions and Three Broomsticks Invites

4th June, 1996
9:47 pm

"Fine, Hermione! I'll just do it myself!" Harry shouted as he strode out of the Gryffindor common room, absolutely sick of the curly-haired bookworm lecturing him on and on about how he 'ought to finish studying a month before the exams, and not on the last day!'
   Well, that's funny, he thought, there are twelve hours left for the Potions exam to begin, and I haven't even begun. Great work, Harry.

   "I'm just going to have to face it, now," he muttered to himself as he opened the doors to the Hogwarts Library.
   Madam Pince gave him a dirty look as he sluggishly walked into the library's open arms, blinking his way through the bookshelves that held years worth of information that he couldn't care less about at the moment, and landed himself into the Potions section.

   Sighing, the tired boy plopped his armful worth of books on the desk, sat down whilst taking off his glasses, and placed his palms over his eyes.
   He took a deep breath, and wanting to scream, opened his eyes and got to work.

And he worked.

And worked.

And worked.

   Every so often, he'd pluck off his glasses, put his head in his hands and take a few deep breaths, and start again.
   And all this while, unknown to Harry, a pair of curious, pale grey eyes watched him toil.

** ** **
4th June, 1996
10:29 pm

   Pre-birthday reading, as he termed it, was a Draco Malfoy tradition he'd carried out throughout the years. He remembered starting it at age seven, when he had sneaked out to go scare Mother and Father at twelve midnight sharp but somehow ended up in the manor's Grand Library, the entire night consisting of nothing but books and security.

   That was the sort of atmosphere he was planning to create right now, sitting in the secluded Potions section of the Hogwarts Library, catching up on some battered novels he'd found.
   What he hadn't planned though, was a stressed out Boy Who Lived crashing his solo reading party plans.

   Draco had always found Potter to be a rather interesting human.
   Sure, mutual disrespect and all had gotten into the way of them becoming BFFLs, but had still proven ineffective in holding back Draco's interest and curiosity about the green-eyed wizard.

   Nevertheless, this curiosity of his did in no way stop his immense annoyance over the git from ruining his solo reading party and his escaping-the-stresses-of-life-by-which-he-meant-Pansy evening. He ruefully thought of the relaxing time he would have had, with no one to bother him, peacefully reading off to sleep.
  But no! Saint Potter had to come up here, with his emerald green eyes, jet black hair, and glasses and dark circles-
Wait, dark circles?

   Now that Draco looked closely, Potter did seem to look rather -scratch that, incredibly- tired, what with the constant sighing and rubbing of his eyes that he was doing.
  
   He moved up to go to Potter and taunt him a little, asking where his precious Weaselbee and Granger were, but the previously noted tired look on Potter's face stopped the blond.
Not only did he look tired, but he seemed so ... so DONE, as if all he wanted to do was throw his Potions book down from the astronomy tower and sleep for an entire fortnight.

   After what seemed to be Potter's hundredth sigh, Draco had had enough. He slammed his novel down on the table, marched up to the messy haired teen's desk, and aggressively stated, "Potter, you better stop doing that or I swear on Merlin's bloody name I will -"

   "Sod off, Malfoy," Harry looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and interrupted wearily, his heart seeming not even a little into the comment, as he delved back into memorising the ingredients of the Draught Of Living Death.