Chapter Text
People were laughing. His classmates were laughing at the ridiculous things that the others came up with to fight the Boggart. Harry was frozen in fear, watching the number of students in front of him dwindle rapidly. He was not prepared to fight his nightmares, not prepared to see him inside Hogwarts. This was supposed to be his safe heaven. No one was supposed to hurt him here.
As the last student in front of him walked off, Harry swallowed heavily. Behind him, he could hear Malfoy joking about Harry’s Boggart being a goblin taking away all his money, Slytherins were laughing.
Harry just held his wand tighter until the Boggart finally changed. His knuckles were white, as he held up his wand towards Uncle Vernon. He trembled, as blood was rushing through his ears making it almost impossible to hear what others were saying. Almost.
“Look at that walrus!” someone shouted, laughter following.
“That is what Potter’s most afraid of?” Malfoy called out, though he seemed less pleased. Still, people laughed about it.
Harry swallowed hardly, his throat was dry as he licked his lips and inhaled. “Rid-ri-ri…” his voice died as Uncle Vernon tilted his head slowly.
“Speak up, boy!” he said, venom in his voice.
Trembling in fear, Harry tried everything in his power to not openly freak out. He held his wand up, higher. “Ridik…” the word didn’t come out as Uncle Vernon’s eyes found the wand pointed at him. His expression turned dangerous.
“Magic?” he asked, voice thundering through the room. Harry tried his hardest to keep his hand from trembling, as he cleared his throat, trying again to find anything funny with the vision in front of him. “You freak, you…” Uncle Vernon raised his hands and Harry stumbled back.
He turned and ran. Like a coward.
Running through the halls, he heard Hermione and Ron calling after him, but he didn’t stop. Not even as eventually the voice of Professor Lupin joined.
No. He couldn’t stop. He had just shown his biggest secret. He was weak. Tears streamed down Harry’s face as he finally stopped in the middle of the hallway. Classes were about to finish, he couldn’t stay here and be found by everyone. He had already shown others how weak he was.
So, he turned and ran towards one of the side-doors to the castle, slipping through and moving alongside the castle walls. No one could find him here. If they looked outside the windows, they wouldn’t see him as he was so close to the walls and everyone believed he was still inside.
Sliding down along the wall, Harry moved the tears out of his face. Angry at himself for being so weak, at Hogwarts for allowing something like that into the curriculum and angry at that creature that put him on the spot. Nobody was going to believe him now, nobody was going to want to be his friend anymore.
He startled as he heard steps and pulled his legs up, protecting his stomach as he placed his arms around his legs. Looking at his right, he saw… Malfoy?
“Hey” the Slytherin said softly. “Are you alright?” He stood there, rather awkwardly, while Harry stared at him. He finally shook his head and looked away. “Sorry about earlier” Malfoy continued. He sat down next to Harry and they looked at the high grass, moving softly in the wind.
Harry finally looked at him again. “What do you want?” he asked roughly, though he didn’t really have much strength left after he had tried to hide it for so long and basically gone through his worst nightmare.
“To apologize.”
Frowning, Harry looked at the Slytherin who was copying his body language, pulling his legs up as well. “You want to apologize? Or you want me to apologize?”
Malfoy shook his head. “No. I want to apologize. My behavior wasn’t really… nice for the past few years.” He was silent again. “I’m sorry.”
Harry hummed and leaned his head against the wall. Malfoy was apologizing? Wonders never ceased to exist.
“Who was that?” Harry startled again and he quickly shook his head. Malfoy didn’t seem to have registered it. “And why did he call you a freak?”
“I’d rather talk about anything else than that” Harry whispered and placed his head on his hands. He looked at a bird, flying towards the Whomping Willow in the background and fleeing as it started hitting it.
Malfoy nodded. “The upcoming Quidditch season will be interesting” he said, stretching out one leg as he leaned against the wall. Harry frowned and looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Talking about anything else.”
Hearing that, Harry smirked weakly and nodded. He turned his gaze back to the tree. “Okay. With Duckstein gone, Ravenclaw doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Unless they find an even better seeker. Last I heard Cho Chang was considering it. Her whole family is made up of Quidditch fanatics. We might have to train even harder this year” Malfoy said shrugging his shoulders. “Of course with the Dementors around, that might be a bit harder to do.”
Harry snorted and shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. Was he actually having a somewhat civilized conversation with Malfoy? They sat there in silence, until Malfoy grabbed his wand and performed a tempus cast.
“You’re staying here?” he asked as he got up. Harry nodded slightly. “Alright. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Looking at the Slytherin a little side-ways, Harry shook his head. “Like what? There’s nothing out here that should be hurting me, right?”
Malfoy just nodded. “I’ll be back, then. I’ll bring you something from dinner.”
“Thanks, Malfoy.”
“Sure thing, Potter.”