Tempus, Chapter Thirteen

[ravenna_c_tan]

Title:Tempus, Chapter Thirteen
Author: Ravenna C. Tan ravenna_c_tan
House: Ravenclaw
Word Count: 5414 (just this chapter)
Challenge: The "Old Cliches, New Tricks" Fest at hp_cliche
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: More plot! More angst! (I promise to get back to more sex later!)
Pairing:H/D
Beta Reader Thanks To: miraba
Cliche: Time-travel, but that isn't Snarry.
Disclaimer: Harry, Draco, Hogwarts, and the rest all belong to JK Rowling. I'm just having fun, doing it for the love, not any money.
Summary: Students at Hogwarts have always been warned about corridors that appear and disappear. Did you ever wonder where they go? Or when? Harry thinks he is late to his seventh year potions class, but he turns out to be more than seventy years early.

(The Archive of previous chapters is available Right Here)



Harry woke up Saturday morning alone in bed. Not that he had expected Malfoy to be both released from the infirmary and also over whatever had caused him to fly into such a snit yesterday, but... Harry opened the curtains and looked over to Malfoy's bed just the same. Empty. And snit was probably an unfair word to use. Something had Draco upset enough that he had shattered a glass magically and ...

Harry's throat tightened as he thought about the possibility that Draco's eyesight might be permanently damaged. Windows on the soul. Harry reached for his glasses and slipped them onto his face. He looked again. Draco's bed was still empty.

There was no one there to help him look through that day's gifts. He remembered Draco's admonishing that they--well, Harry really--should not miss breakfast with the others today. But once he got up to the Great Hall he fervently wished he had stayed downstairs. Quidditch seemed trivial in comparison to the turmoil roiling in Harry's insides. But at table, there were hearty wishes to accept, a smile and a confident act to put on.

Not that Harry wasn't confident. The Slytherin team flew as well as any he'd ever seen, and attacked with the relentlessness of sharks. The Gryffindors, from what he could tell, had lost most of their top players from the year before to graduation, and they were a young, eager bunch. Their captain, a sixth year named Roberts, seemed more of a cheerleader than a tactician. In fact, right now he was leading one end of the Gryffindor table in a fight song. Every student at the Slytherin table wore a ribbon or sash of green, but the looks they were giving the Gryffindors indicated that this group of Slytherins considered it beneath them to chant at table.

Whittington slid into the bench next to him. "Can you believe that racket? I can't believe the headmaster hasn't put a stop to it." She glared at the Gryffindors. Harry merely nodded.

"Catch the snitch, Potter," a boy who couldn't have been much more than third or fourth year said to Harry, looking positively terrified and yet proud to be speaking to the Seeker that way. "For Draco!"

"Er, you bet," Harry said, then turned back to his still full plate since he didn't know what else to say. He chewed a piece of bacon thoughtfully.

"Um, Harry?" Behind him now was Anisette Fogg. He turned and she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Catch the snitch, Harry. For Draco."

Then she was gone, and Harry raised an eyebrow in Whittington's direction.

"Eat," she prompted him, then shouted "Practice in your own Common Room, you cretins!"

Harry touched her arm lightly to get her attention back. "A little touchy this morning, aren't you?" She didn't answer right away, so he went on. "It's okay, Whittington. We'll beat them."

"How can you sound so sure?"

Before Harry could answer, there was another underclass girl, wishing him luck, and telling him to win it for Draco. When she moved on, Harry answered. "They're overeager. They're going to go after us hard and heavy and burn themselves out fast. We'll be able to divide their ranks and pick them apart, as long as we keep cool ourselves. Courage and bluster will only get them so far. They're young enough that they want to make a good showing of it more than they want to win. They think a stroke of luck is their only chance to beat us. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Whittington laughed into her hand. "That's the most I've ever heard you say at once."

"Oh, uh...Well, it's all true." Harry shrugged.

"How do you know all that?"

Harry looked over at the happy-go-lucky Gryffindors and did not answer. Then he received another handshake. "For Draco," he echoed. You'd think it was a Gryffindor who put him in hospital, Harry thought. But he realized that didn't matter. Their leader was injured and they rallied around that, no?

But the steady stream of supporters who approached Harry personally began to seem like something else after a dozen or so. Not every one mentioned Draco. Only certain ones. Maybe he was reading things wrong, but he began to get the distinct feeling that this was not a general rallying cry, but one that was for him alone.

They knew. Harry was certain of it. They knew and this was their way, those who said it, of saying they accepted it. He could see it now in their eyes and he began to feel a bit better. Perhaps Quidditch could be counted as pretty important after all.

If only he felt as sure that things were solid between him and Draco as the Slytherins did.

Harry got up from the table to head down to the pitch a little early, get in a few minutes flying to check out the Cleansweep's response to the morning wind off the lake. He had only gone a few steps toward the doors though when he was stopped by a glare of hate.

Timothy Frost walked stiffly, as though he were trying to keep his clothes from touching his back--which in fact he was. "Potter," he said, equally stiff.

"Frost." Harry gave him a nod and then made as if to walk past him.

Frost grabbed his wrist. "Don't think I've forgotten what you said. If you don't catch the snitch..."

"I keep my promises, Frost." Harry was aware that many eyes from the table were on them. He clapped his hand on Frost's shoulder. "Remember that."

Out on the pitch, the October sun was thin but bright, the breeze chilly but not strong. Harry rubbed his gloved palms together and gripped the handle of his Cleansweep as he took a leisurely lap around the stands. His arms were still a bit stiff but they no longer hurt, thanks to Heather's gift, and he stretched them a bit as the broom carried him in a wide circle. As usual, the entire world seemed more peaceful when he had the wind whistling through his ears, and Harry passed the next half hour almost in a trance.

When he came to, the stands were filling up and Barnie was waving him down. Harry swept down by the Slytherin broom shed where the others were just finishing suiting up. Harry shook hands with his teammates, Barnie made a speech in which he said he didn't need to give a speech because they all knew what to do. And then they were emerging as a team, brooms in hand, to the cheers of the Slytherin contingent and the boos of the rest. And then they were off with the first whistle.

Harry detached himself from the action as usual, scanning for the snitch and trying to be aware of his teammates' actions without being distracted by them. He had one disorienting moment when he saw someone in maroon and gold snatch the quaffle from Phillips--inwardly he cheered for half a moment before he shook himself. We're in the green, he scolded himself fiercely. Six years of playing for Gryffindor had trained his eyes. He blinked. The color wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that Crabbe had just saved Phillips from a nasty bludger attack, sending the ball soaring away, and that Phillips had passed the quaffle to Whittington, who zipped neatly past the Gryffindor keeper and scored with a firm toss through the center hoop.

Harry did not make that mistake again. He began paying more attention to the Gryffindor seeker, but the boy was absorbed in watching the game. Things were proceeding much as Harry had expected they would. The Gryffindors had scored a few times early, but now for every one they scored, the Slytherins got one, or two.

But still no sign of the snitch. Harry let his eyes drift over the stands. There was Professor LeStrange, wearing a ribbon on his robes that was so large it looked rather like someone had pinned a head of broccoli to him. Harry couldn't help but notice Professor Gullwing on the opposite end of the bench from him.

It was turning out to be a rather high-scoring affair. The Gryffindor defense was no match for Slytherin tactics, and the Slytherins realized that if they kept outscoring them two to one, in another hour it wouldn't even matter if they caught the snitch.

Harry, however, was quite determined to catch the snitch anyway, for a multitude of reasons. To shut Frost up, for one thing, and "for Draco," of course.

And for the sheer joy of it. There it was, weaving directly across the pitch in lazy arcs, right in the hot zone the chasers kept crossing. Harry angled downward, trying not to alert the other Seeker that he had seen it. He was perhaps twenty yards from it, and about to pick up speed when one of the Gryffindor beaters nearly collided with it. The snitch was charmed of course to keep any player from actually being able to collide with it in midair, but for a few moments the little flying ball was dragged along in the broom's wake before speeding off in the opposite direction.

Harry gave chase, and it was only a few seconds later he heard the sound of the other Seeker closing from his right side, robes flapping in the wind. Then they were shoulder to shoulder, the snitch still flying faster than either of them, climbing now in a spiral. There were gasps from the crowd as it became clear the two Seekers were neck and neck.

Then suddenly the snitch began to fall. No, not fall, fly straight down, shooting past the two wizards in pursuit. Harry braked and flipped in midair at the zenith of his ascent and began dropping like a stone. The other Seeker arced into his dive and fell behind by several yards.

I know this snitch, Harry thought, thinking of his "tryout." Using gravity and as much speed as the Cleansweep would give him, Harry knew he could overtake it. The only question was, would the ground come up first? The grass was indeed approaching quickly...

The snitch made another sudden change of direction, flying parallel to the ground and then once again climbing in a spiral. Harry stayed with it but he stretching out his arm he was still two feet short of being able to grasp it. And the higher the snitch went, it seemed the slower his broom climbed. Harry hooked his feet atop the twigs and shimmied forward on his broomstick, a move Barnie had taught him... just one more foot. He stretched. Six more inches!

And Harry kicked forward, grabbed the snitch, and then began to fall.

Really fall. He had dived right off his broomstick and with his heart in his throat he flailed his arms.

"Ipsum leviosa!" he shouted, Now he was still falling, but his descent slowed enough that his heart fell back into his chest. "Ipsum leviosa!" he said again, clenching both fists (one still holding the snitch) and concentrating on the feeling that he was holding onto his magic. The ground was still coming up at him too fast, but as he neared it, he slowed even more, until he practically floated the final four or five feet as if he were light as a feather.

The moment his feet touched down he heard a tremendous cheer. Perhaps they had been cheering all along, but he had been concentrating on the spell so hard he had not heard them. Now he held he snitch aloft, the wings buzzing, and was quickly engulfed by his teammates. An instant later, they had him up on their shoulders, and the rest of the Slytherins joined the parade all the way up to the castle, while Harry's broom, charmed to hover if it ever lost its rider, followed along.

In the Common Room, the party began the moment the team began spilling through the hidden door. Whittington spelled up two magic fiddles for music and the girls began to jig, while Barnie and Phillips produced a store of butterbeer from somewhere. Harry soon found himself in the chair by the hearth, though, being peppered with questions and compliments alike.

"Potter, you bloody maniac! Leaped right off your broom, did you?" Crabbe was there, sitting next to him. "I missed it at first, busy with a bludger, you know, but when I saw you flapping your arms I thought you were a goner!"

"Well, I..."

Anisette Fogg was near beside herself with glee. "Did you do that on purpose, Harry? Did you plan it that way?"

Harry wasn't sure how to answer. "Not exactly..."

"That was some levitation charm!"

"Better than the Chudley Cannons in '89..."

"Crazy, I tell you! But brilliant...!"

"Takes unbelievable guts..."

Harry quickly realized that the story told itself. All he had to do was nod and put in a word from time to time, and everyone there told what they had seen again and again. After a while the group around him and Crabbe thinned a bit and Harry said to Crabbe, "I'm starved. Haven't we got any food for this party?"

Crabbe chewed his lips. "Um, Malfoy usually arranges that sort of thing."

Harry nodded. Of course. He wondered if Draco was still in the infirmary and if he'd be allowed in to see him if he was. Well, he would ask LeStrange after things died down here. "Crabbe, you know where the Hufflepuff dormitory is?"

"I know which direction to go, anyway," Hector said.

"Listen, take a couple of underclassmen and see what you can get." Harry gave Crabbe directions to the painting of the fruit Fred and George had told him about years ago. "At least, I sure hope the painting is there," Harry said. "Who wants to go?"

"I'll go!" Anisette raised her hand. Crabbe took her, and Phillips, and a fourth year Harry didn't know.

If Harry thought he felt like a hero after catching the snitch, he felt doubly so when the raiding party returned well-laden with cream pies, treacle tarts, candied figs, and much more, armloads of the stuff. No one went up to lunch in the Great Hall and the party lasted all afternoon.

Harry slipped away as early as he could, but it was two in the afternoon by the time he stepped into the corridor, the sounds of the Slytherin revelry silenced as the door's camouflage charm kicked in.

Harry took a deep breath. It would have been a great day, a perfect day, if Draco had been there. But if there was one thing Harry knew by this stage of his life, it was that happiness was rarely simple.

LeStrange answered the knock on his office door dressed in just his waist coat and trousers--his robes were flung over the back of the chair at his desk, Harry saw as they took their seats. Well, it was Saturday for professors, too.

"I was just wondering if you had heard any more about Malfoy," Harry said, after absorbing several minutes of praise from the head of house about his performance in the match.

LeStrange blew a long breath out of his nostrils as he pursed his lips. "They say he's much better, but he wasn't ready for the poultice to come off his eyes just yet this morning. He was very agitated so I believe they knocked him out with a sleeping draught. He ought to be up and about by dinner, though, I would think."

Harry nodded, a miserable feeling in his gut. "Is there anything I can do...?"

"Mr. Potter, Harry, you mustn't blame yourself for what happened."

"He was upset. We were arguing..."

LeStrange held up a hand. "I've known Draco most of his life, you know, and he has always had a volatile streak."

"But..."

"And there may be circumstances you don't know about."

Harry's ears perked up at that. I'll bet there are... he thought, but kept silent, hoping that LeStrange would say more.

"Did you know he had a letter from his parents the other day?" LeStrange toyed with the quill on his desk. "You wouldn't have seen it delivered by owl in the Great Hall, no. It came to me first and I passed it to him."

"A letter?" Harry said, trying to guess what direction LeStrange was taking them.

"Yes. One that I suppose might ... upset a young man in his circumstances." LeStrange coughed, and Harry knew that the circumstances being alluded to were probably to do with Harry himself. "His parents have arranged a match for him, you see."

Perhaps it was all the talk of Quidditch, or perhaps it was a touch of disbelief, but at first Harry could not parse what the professor had said. "A match...?" Then his cheeks colored as he realized what kind of match was meant. "Oh. But he was expecting that. Sort of."

LeStrange hummed in agreement. "In the back of his mind, no doubt. To be confronted with it now, though, so soon after..." The professor looked up suddenly, catching himself. The look in his eye said he clearly should not be speaking of these things to a student. To Harry.

"So soon after Regulus ... left," Harry finished for him.

"I... yes," LeStrange said in a defeated tone. "Draco is an only child and the continuation of the Malfoy line depends on him."

"So, who's the lucky girl?" Harry's voice came out more miserable than he intended, drawing another look of conspiratorial sympathy from LeStrange.

"Mirabille Frost," LeStrange said. "Graduated last year."

"Is she related to...?"

"Your friend Timothy Frost? Yes. His older sister. Two magically powerful families, the Frosts and the Malfoys." The professor stood and Harry started to get to his feet as well. "No, no, I'm not dismissing you. Some tea?"

Harry looked up. "Um, yes, please."

LeStrange nodded at that, fished his wand out of his robes on the back of the chair, summoned tea and biscuits, and then sat back down. "As I was saying, two powerfully magical families."

"Pureblood families," Harry said. "If what Frost says is true."

"True enough," LeStrange replied, pouring for them both. "For what is 'pure' blood? How far back does one have to go in human history to find the branching of Wizardkind from Mugglekind? Far enough back that we do not know the answer."

Harry sipped his tea. He had never thought about it that way before. "I don't understand why it's such a big deal. Isn't magic magic? I mean, if someone is born with magic, whether they had magical parents or not, how can it possibly matter?"

LeStrange gave a nod to Harry over his teacup. "You have the crux of the matter there, Mr. Potter. Indeed, we have no evidence that Muggleborn witches or wizards are any less powerful than those with long magical lineages. But how much of that is magic itself insuring a strong root stock on which to grow?"

"Are there more Muggleborns now than there used to be?"

"An excellent question, my boy. Excellent question. I can tell you that here at Hogwarts, the number of acceptance letters sent to Muggle homes has crept up year by year. In the records from two hundred and three hundred years ago there were perhaps one or two students per year who came from the Muggle world. Now there are two or three per class in every house."

"Um," Harry wasn't sure how many Muggleborn students there were in his time at Hogwarts. And he couldn't tell LeStrange one way or the other.

"The Ministry does a pretty thorough job finding children with magical ability. They comb the papers for suspicious accidents and the like, for one thing."

Harry was fairly certain that in his day they had a magical quill which detected the birth of any magical child in Britain and wrote his or her name into a ledger to receive a letter upon reaching the age of eleven. But the geas would never let him say that. Even without the quill, though, he could think of a reason why the number might be higher now that in, say, 1492. "But professor, two or three hundred years ago, might there have been more Muggleborns that the Ministry just didn't find? I mean, I know Muggle newspapers go back a long time, but not that many people could read then, could they? Perhaps it was just harder to identify them."

LeStrange set down his cup, as if thinking and holding his tea were too much to accomplish at once. "You know, I had not considered that idea before, but it seems perfectly obvious, doesn't it?" He frowned. "My theory about the intentions of magic itself may need some adjustment."

Harry sipped again--it was a strong earl grey to complement the orange-flavored biscuits. "The intentions, sir?"

"My theory is that if the so-called pure blood lines are dying out, then magic will find others to carry it forward."

"Dying out?"

LeStrange picked up a biscuit but he seemed more interested in toying with it than eating it. "Many of the pure blood families seem to be having fewer and fewer children. It isn't as if we haven't already seen this happen with the royal houses of old Europe, of course; wizards aren't so stupid as to fail to realize that inbreeding is eventually a losing game."

"Then why are the pure bloods like Frost so stuck on their pure-bloodedness?"

"It has far more to do with social power and prestige than it does with magical strength or ability," LeStrange said. "And though we are wizards, we are still subject to human nature. Pure blood is just another thing that one group can use to make themselves seem better than the other."

"Even when they lie about it." Harry said, thinking of Voldemort, and Snape.

"Hmm, now I think you have skipped ahead of me, Harry."

"Sorry. Thinking about the situation in..." He felt his throat begin to tighten. "Sorry, can't talk about it."

LeStrange nodded. "Anyway, Harry, I'm sure you've come to the conclusion yourself long since that the purest bloods are not always the strongest wizards. And as you've already told me you're only half-blooded yourself, may I point out that your feat today on the pitch was exceptional in the extreme."

"So you said."

"I don't mean this as fannish praise now or mere house enthusiasm." LeStrange finally bit into the biscuit and sat forward so the crumbs would not fall on his waistcoat. "That was both quick thinking and took an amount of raw power that would have left some wizards half-dead by the time they hit the ground, that is assuming that it worked well enough that the fall didn't kill them. Don't tell me they are teaching that sort of thing at Hogwarts in the future?"

"No, sir. I ... invented that myself."

"You must really be the top of your class."

"Actually, I'm not," Harry said.

LeStrange's eyebrows flew up in surprise. "How can that be?"

"Well, I... er... I have a lot of priorities competing for my attention," Harry said. "It's hard to concentrate on schoolwork when..."--an evil madman is trying to kill you and all your friends--"...there's a lot of trouble and turmoil to deal with."

LeStrange nodded as if he understood. "I see. So your little jaunt to our era has been good for you. Allowing you to reach your potential undisturbed by the exigencies of your normal life."

Harry sat up a bit straighter. Was that true? He certainly had done many things differently here... It probably was true. Maybe, in a weird way, this whole thing is part of the prophecy, Harry thought. Maybe the things I am learning here will be what makes me a match for Voldemort when the time comes. "I... I have learned a lot... about myself since coming here," he said.

LeStrange gave him that conspiratorial smile again. "I take it you'd never met someone like Draco before."

Harry almost sputtered his tea at that. "Not exactly," he managed. He put down the cup to prevent any further accident. "Professor, can I ask you something a bit... personal?" He took a deep breath, even while part of him was thinking he was a fool for bringing this up with LeStrange, when he still didn't know what happened to Draco whenever he set foot in this very room. But who else could he talk to about this?

"Of course, anything." LeStrange spread his hands. "We're quite safe here, you know," he added.

"Right." Harry rubbed his palms together. "I know you know about me and Draco."

LeStrange gave a blink of acknowledgement.

"I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about him." Harry's heart gave a leap and began to pound. "But I know he's in love with Regulus Black. And now he's betrothed to Frost's sister. And..." Harry had to swallow hard to go on. "And on top of it all, I know he's angry with me, professor. I don't know why, but right before he shattered that glass..." Harry thought back to the transfiguration lesson. Malfoy had refused to speak to him all through lunch, then practically put his eye out with his wand, not to mention the 'wine' he had transfigured for Harry to drink. All the while refusing to say what had upset him so. "We had a fight," he finished. "And I don't know what to do."

LeStrange poured some fresh tea into Harry's cup, shaking his head sadly. "You wonder what's to become of you and whether Mr. Malfoy will have any room left in his heart for you. But, Harry, surely you realize, if you are to return to your own time, your feelings for him can only be... temporary."

Harry folded his hands and dropped his head. Of course. He knew that. He knew it and yet until he heard the professor say it that way, it hadn't seemed real. It didn't matter how he felt about Draco, or how Draco felt about him. It was only a matter of time before they would have to part.

And only a matter of time before Harry had to return to fight Voldemort. Maybe even to fight Snape again, and the Draco Malfoy he knew. He forced the fluttering feeling in his stomach down. He was much better at nonverbal spells now, he accessed his magic more easily. The next time he faced Snape would be easier than it had been. The prospect of avenging Dumbledore suddenly seemed more real, more possible.

Harry realized he had been sitting there thinking for some time, while LeStrange merely watched him. "Um, thanks for the tea, professor. I think I had best go now."

"Of course, my boy. Of course." LeStrange stood and saw Harry to the door. "If you see Mr. Malfoy, if he's quite recovered, could you let him know I would appreciate his help with something tomorrow night? If he is up to it, of course. If not, perhaps Monday."

"Yes. Certainly, professor," Harry said, his veins suddenly running cold. Tomorrow or Monday. So soon...

Harry walked to the branching of the corridors and wondered what to do next. One direction lay the Common Room and the party probably still going on. The other, the stairs. He could go up to the library to write Hermione another letter. Or he could slip his cloak on and try to sneak up to see how Draco was doing in the infirmary--if he was still there.

After the sobering conversation he had just had with Professor LeStrange, Harry could not imagine going back to the Slytherin party. And Draco was probably about to be released, anyway, So, the library then.

He climbed the stairs, shielding his eyes a bit as the afternoon sun shone bright into the entrance hall at the top. He was halfway across to the stairwell up to the library when he saw someone else coming down the stairs on the other side.

Someone with short blond hair, silver-grey eyes, and a bitter expression on his face.

Malfoy?

Harry reached for his wand, his mind racing. How did he get here? Could he have returned to Hogwarts secretly, Crabbe told him about the alcove, and he followed Harry back in time? Harry's mouth was dry but his wand hand was steady.

Malfoy stood at the bottom of the stairs, his cold with anger. "You're afraid of me," he said, his voice laced with contempt.

"I'm not afraid of you," Harry replied. Dumbledore wasn't afraid of you and neither am I.

"So, that's the way it's going to be then, is it, Potter?" Malfoy crossed his arms and leaned against the stone balustrade.

"Draw your wand," Harry said.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at that. "You want to duel me?"

"It's only fair," Harry said, his teeth gritted. In truth, he wanted to see if sectumsempra would work again, and this time there would be no Snape to heal the wounds. But he wouldn't attack a wandless wizard, even one as underhanded and evil as Malfoy. "You don't belong here."

"Want to displace me, as well?" Malfoy resolutely did not reach for his wand. "I hear you threw quite a party downstairs. Is this your way of repaying me? I suppose you're the prince of the Slytherins now?"

"What?" Harry jerked his head to the side, as if he hadn't heard what Malfoy said. But he had heard, he just hadn't understood a word of it.

"Don't gape, Potter, it doesn't become you. And besides, have you forgotten? You've got my wand."

"I've what?" Harry's heart was beating so hard he could hardly hear his own voice.

"They told me you picked it up after you shattered that glass in my face."

"Draco?" Harry took a step forward, then one back in confusion. He held up his other hand, the one not holding his wand, as if trying to tell the world to halt. "I... I thought you were someone else..." he managed weakly. "I mean..." He lowered his wand.

Draco pushed off from the steps and swaggered toward Harry. "Accio wand," he purred, and his wand flew from where Harry had tucked it in his bag into his hand. He slid it into the inside pocket of his robe with a sigh.

"But Draco," Harry said, aware that he was still sputtering. "Your hair, your eyes..."

"Feeling sorry about that glass now, are you?" He was close enough to touch Harry now and he gripped the collar of Harry's robe with one hand. "A little side effect of the poultice, which, by the way, burned and itched like holy hell. In my eyes. They had to cut my hair to get the bandages tight enough."

"Tight enough for what?" Harry said, his voice small.

"So that I wouldn't claw my own eyes out in my sleep," Draco hissed. "Happy now?"

"No, I'm bloody well not happy...!" Harry began trying to pull away. "I didn't do it! I've been worried sick about you!"

For a moment, Draco's eyes wavered. But then he pushed Harry back and swept past him. He was halfway down the stairs before Harry could turn around.

"Draco... Draco!" Harry shouted, but the tall Slytherin did not look back.

[Next Chapter: More suspicion and angst. Harry gets some answers, but even more questions...]

Continue to Chapter Fourteen