Chapter Text
Draco rubs at the skin of his left wrist and reminds himself to breathe, soothing away the feeling of burnt flesh as best he can. He’s thankful that the curse snagged his left arm rather than his right, at least.
“And where shall we sit?” He asks gravely, well aware of the bite in his voice, the stain left by his own annoyance. At everything.
“I guess we, we could-uh, switch off?”
Draco sighs, and frowns, but nods his agreement, nonetheless. He hates this, he hates all of it. But then again, he’s pretty much been hating his circumstances since Fifth Year and has so far found that all his hating has done nothing to change anything.
“So, where should we go first? Mine? Or…err, or yours?”
Draco finally brings his eyes over to meet Potter’s bright green. There’s resignation clouding Potter’s expression, as well as a lot of uncertainty. This has been a bit surprising for Draco to discover. He kind of figures if he’d gone about killing the most powerful Dark wizard of a generation, he’d go through life with a lot more confidence.
But it’s been nearly a week since this nightmare began, and this just seems to be how Potter genuinely is. Uncertain.
“We’ll start with mine,” Draco says finally, tiredly, just because someone has to approach this ridiculous situation with authority.
Potter nods easily on a noisy exhale, and if Draco didn’t know it was completely daft, he’d go ahead and swear that Wonder Boy looks grateful.
Whatever.
He resists rolling his eyes.
Draco takes a fortifying breath and reaches out to the massive set of doors, pushing them open on their ornate, silent hinges. He marches into the Great Hall with his head held just a little bit high, a silent defense, with Harry Potter a dark, sulking shadow at his back.
A hush descends on the student body and head table alike.
Draco doesn’t acknowledge anyone or anything as he leads Wonder Boy to the Slytherin long table, only vaguely registering Weasley’s attempt to stand and Granger tugging him down, until he turns to his table, relieved that the very end has empty space on both sides.
Potter throws himself down onto the bench with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his muggle jeans, while Draco takes pains to settle himself more gracefully onto the bench opposite, smoothing the front of his robes down with great care.
When Draco tries to bring his hands into his lap, however, the burning hot tug to his left wrist flares up again, and he is forced to lay his arm down onto the table, stretched out toward Potter. He spares a thought for his poor Mother’s lessons on table etiquette, but really, curses trump manners any day of the week.
They begin to fill their plates in silence, Draco again grateful he’s free to reach for things with his right hand unhindered, while Potter switches off between clumsily scooping dishes with his left hand or moving painfully slowly and carefully with his right.
They’re just finishing getting their dinners onto their plates when Draco’s housemates arrive in the Great Hall.
Potter has his back to the door, so can’t see who is entering, but Draco witnesses the group as they spot the pair of them. He recognizes their smug satisfaction the moment they spy Potter’s signature wild locks. Since the other students were sensibly giving the cursed Eighth Years space, there are empty seats on both sides of the bench onto which his friends immediately descend.
“Potter,” Blaise announces loudly, grandly, as he settles onto the bench next to Potter with entirely too much satisfaction. “Harry Potter. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the esteemed House of Slytherin.”
Potter flashes Blaise a look that’s as unimpressed as it is withering, icy enough to make even Blaise hesitate. Draco suppresses a snort, amused, despite himself. As rotten as this curse is, and it truly is rotten, it does put him and Wonder Boy on the same side for the first time (not counting a few desperate situations during the war), which is bound to be interesting.
“When did Pomfrey set you free, then?” Greg asks while he loads up his own plate. Potter eyes him quickly with distrust, but Draco knows his housemates well enough to know that Greg is the least likely to find pleasure in harassing them.
“Just now,” Draco says.
They’d spent five days wasting away in Pomfrey’s hospital ward, with nothing to do and no one else to talk to. They’d griped, argued, fought, and quite nearly come to blows until all their animosity had separated each of them beyond the limits of the curse a couple times apiece.
It was like taking a crash course in empathy.
You couldn’t feel this curse pain, terrible as it is, and then see it reflected on another’s face and not feel bad for them.
Even when it’s Harry Potter.
At times Draco had been grateful for the privacy as he and Potter worked out the limitations of their curse and begrudgingly learned to tolerate one another, but mostly he’d thought his boredom would consume him. In retrospect, he should have enjoyed the solitude more.
It’s a bit of a relief to be back with the student body, sure, but now he’s realizing it’s also a bit of a nightmare.
“And?” Pansy cuts in, her face alight with glee. Nothing, honestly nothing gets Pansy going more than fresh gossip.
Draco just sniffs, arching a brow, and turning to his plate as deliberately as he can.
Potter shrugs and also stays silent.
“It was a Hufflepuff,” Pansy continues, undeterred. “Draco, darling, you and Potter got yourselves cursed by a hufflepuff!” Draco hears the unique combination of horror and glee in her voice. “McGonagall had her expelled.”
Draco wisely ignores her. Potter shrugs again.
“We weren’t allowed into the Hospital Wing,” Pansy continues, “Of course. But the rest of Potter’s Great and Noble Trio were.”
Draco’s insides freeze up at the triumph in her tone.
“They told Ginny Weasley, who confessed to Longbottom, who shared with Lovegood who announced it to the entire Seventh Year charms classroom yesterday- you two are stuck this way!”
Draco exhales as Pansy’s manicured nail pokes his chest. He can feel the heat gathering in his cheeks but does his best to project an air of unbothered superiority. It’s never very effective on Pansy, though, who knows him far too well.
“It’ll wear off on its own,” Potter mumbles.
“Oh good.” She says with false innocence. “When?”
Potter blushes. His skin tone might be significantly darker than Draco’s own, but it surprisingly does very little to hide the hue settling into his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
Potter mumbles something unintelligible.
“Come again?” Pansy asks, that false sweetness still tinging her words.
“They reckon about a month,” Potter grounds out, again with enough fight to make Pansy shrink back.
Greg winces in actual sympathy. The rest of his classmates, however, laugh openly.
“How will that work?” Greg asks, and because it’s Greg and no one else Draco huffs his irritation but answers his friend.
“They’ve switched our schedules to match,” he says.
Greg nods, accepting what he’s told. The brute really should have been in Hufflepuff, Draco thinks, and not for the first time.
“And?” Blaise cuts in, the mischievous spark back in his eyes. “What happens at night?”
Potter reddens some more, but Draco, who has known Blaise far too long to find him in any way impressive, is able to gather himself enough to give Blaise a haughty sneer.
“We’ve been put up in a guest suite for the duration of the curse, Blaise,” he explains in childlike tones.
Blaise sneers back, of course, but Pansy lets loose with a girlish squeal.
“How… private,” she comments, implication heavy in her tone.
This time Potter seems to have learned, and so Pansy doesn’t receive any responses as the pair of them turn away to focus on their meals and ignore the other Slytherins for the remainder of dinner.