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Draco moved dizzily through the shifting staircases and winding corridors, keeping close behind the two eel-like figures ahead, one with messy black hair and the other with bright red hair.
The persistent low fever made him feel as though he were walking on cotton, and the torchlight along the stone walls seemed to waver and stretch.
He was separated from the evacuating crowd several times and had to rely on what remained of his memory of the castle layout to catch up, cursing his useless 11 years old body while anxiously praying he would not arrive too late and only be able to collect the Saviour's body.
The closer he got to the girls' lavatory, the stronger a thick, indescribable stench became. It smelled like a mixture of drains, dirty socks, and rotting cabbage, and it was sickening.
Then he heard the tremendous noise from inside, the crash of wood being smashed by brute force, the guttural grunts and roars of some creature, and the screams of children.
His heart leapt into his throat, and he quickened his pace, nearly stumbling as he rushed inside.
The lavatory was in chaos, with broken stall boards and pipe fragments everywhere, and water mixed with some strange sticky liquid covering the floor.
And the huge creature, a troll a full twelve feet tall with skin as grey and rough as granite, was clumsily swinging its massive club.
Harry Potter was dangling upside down by one leg, like a kitten held by the scruff, suspended in mid-air, and was narrowly avoiding the whooshing club by curling his body up at the last second.
Hermione Granger was huddled under a mostly intact sink, pale with terror and unable to move. Ron Weasley stood not far away, his wand raised as if he wanted to do something but was completely at a loss.
Draco gasped for breath and, without thinking, raised his own wand. Ignoring the weakness from the fever and the trembling of his arm, he aimed quickly at the troll's broad back and shouted the spell with all his strength.
"Flipendo!"
A jet of red light shot from the tip of his wand and struck the troll.
But the expected sight of the troll being hurled backwards did not happen. The spell's power was clearly greatly reduced by his weakened state.
The troll merely lurched forward as if hit in the back by a large stone, let out a confused and angry roar, then sat down hard on the floor with a thud that shook the entire lavatory.
I can't even handle a troll!
Draco thought bitterly, frustrated and angry. How had the three of them managed it in his previous life?
"Draco!"
Harry heard Draco's voice and struggled to lift his head while hanging upside down. His green eyes flashed with surprise, but when he saw Draco's paper-white face and unsteady form, the surprise turned to worry.
The tremor caused by the troll sitting down sent a pile of already precarious broken stall boards crashing down toward Hermione's hiding place.
"Look out!" Ron shouted. While the troll was still distracted by Draco and had not yet fully got back up, Ron stumbled over and frantically tore at the broken wood with his hands, grabbing Hermione's trembling wrist and pulling her out.
"Come on, get out!" He used almost all his strength to drag Hermione out from under the wreckage and push her toward a relatively safe spot.
Meanwhile, the stupid troll had shaken its head and was trying to get back to its feet, its dull little eyes burning with rage. It raised the terrible club again.
"This time... stay down!" Draco gritted his teeth, feeling his temples throbbing, and forced himself to focus.
He raised his wand again and aimed at the troll's rather unintelligent-looking head.
"Stupefy!"
This time the spell's light was clearly brighter. The red beam struck the troll squarely between the eyes. Its huge body went rigid, the arm holding the club frozen in mid-air, then it toppled backwards like a felled tree and crashed heavily to the wet floor, completely still.
"BANG!"
After the loud crash, an eerie silence fell over the lavatory, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
Harry finally freed himself and dropped into the water, but he scrambled up at once. His first thought was not to check himself but to hurry over to Draco.
"Are you all right, Draco?" Then he turned to the shaken Hermione and the blank-faced Ron. "Are you two okay? Are any of you hurt?"
Once he was sure they were all right, Harry finally remembered his own wand.
He walked over to the troll's head, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and carefully pulled his wand out of the troll's nostril, covered in a slimy, grey-green goo.
Draco's stomach churned at the sight, and he stepped back weakly, nearly tripping over the debris.
Harry, however, shook his wand carelessly to get the slime off, even wearing a silly, relieved smile on his face.
At that moment, Ron took a deep breath and turned to Hermione, his voice a little stammering. "I... I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have said those things."
Hermione's brown eyes widened, as if she had not expected an apology. She sniffed and did not speak at once.
Ron then looked at Harry with a complicated expression. "I'm sorry too, Harry. I... I shouldn't have let the house thing get to me..."
Finally, his gaze flickered awkwardly and briefly over Draco Malfoy's pale face, and his voice was as low as a mosquito's hum.
Before Ron could finish, hurried footsteps approached.
Professor McGonagall was the first to rush in. Her face went livid at the sight of the fallen troll and the wrecked lavatory.
Professor Snape followed, along with Professor Quirrell, who looked ready to faint again. Snape's black eyes swept the room quickly, lingering for a moment on Harry, who was holding the slime-covered wand, his gaze unreadable.
Professor McGonagall's voice trembled with anger. "I hope you have a good explanation for this!"
Hermione Granger stepped forward. Her voice still shook, but her words were remarkably clear and steady.
"Professor, please don't blame them! It was my fault. I thought I could handle the troll on my own... I was too proud and too stupid. They came looking for me, to save me."
Professor McGonagall's stern gaze swept over the four students. Hermione's words clearly made her even angrier, but there was also a hint of disbelief in her expression.
"Miss Granger, I expected you to be a witch of considerable intelligence." She took a deep breath, as if struggling to keep her composure. "For your astonishingly foolish and reckless behaviour, five points will be taken from Gryffindor!"
Hermione lowered her head and hunched her shoulders.
Professor McGonagall turned to the other three. "As for you, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, and... Mr Malfoy."
There was the slightest pause when she said Draco's name. "I must say, the courage you showed in the face of danger to your friend... is commendable. Five points will be awarded to each of your houses."
Ron's face lit up with disbelief and delight, and Harry let out a breath of relief.
Draco merely closed his eyes wearily. House points meant nothing to a forty-year-old Malfoy. He just wanted to go back and rest.
"Wait."
Professor McGonagall stepped forward and pressed her hand to Draco's forehead before he could react. "You have a fever, Mr Malfoy! Potter," she turned to Harry, her tone brooking no argument, "don't go back to the common room. Take him to Madam Pomfrey."
Harry nodded and reached out to support Draco.
"No need, Potter!" Draco stepped back quickly. "Thank you, but don't touch me with that robe after it's been wiped with troll snot. I can walk on my own."
With that, Draco stepped over the rubble and wood chips at the lavatory entrance and headed toward the hospital wing.
"You look worse than the troll," Harry retorted as he caught up. "If you don't get treatment soon, you'll be dripping snot like a troll yourself."
Draco wanted to snap back, but it suddenly felt childish.
He was actually having this pointless back-and-forth with Potter, like two real eleven-year-olds? Was this body starting to erode his mind as well?
Despite Draco's refusal, Harry did not insist, nor did he leave. He walked silently beside Draco like a stubborn shadow. The two made their way slowly down the quiet corridor, their footsteps echoing in the empty space.
"Why did you come?" Harry asked as he walked alongside him. "I mean, you were feeling so unwell. When the troll was announced, why didn't you just go back to the dormitory with the prefects? Madam Pomfrey said if you had listened to her earlier..."
"What else? Should I have gone to sleep in the dormitory and then read in tomorrow's Daily Prophet headline that the Saviour, Mr Potter, died gloriously in the girls' lavatory less than two months into the school year, covered in troll snot?" Draco said weakly.
"You came to save me?"
Harry's green eyes widened suddenly, full of disbelief.
Just as they were about to reach the corner leading to the hospital wing, the sound of hurried, familiar footsteps reached them.
"I knew I shouldn't have let you go so easily!"
Madam Pomfrey's tall figure appeared at the end of the corridor like a guardian. Her sharp eyes immediately locked onto the unsteady Draco and the equally dishevelled but concerned Harry Potter beside him.
"Mr Malfoy, I told you that a fever requires rest!" She came over without waiting for an answer and placed her hand on Draco's forehead, frowning deeply. "You're hotter than this morning! Inside now. You need to stay for observation!"
After being put to bed in the hospital wing, with its white sheets smelling of sunlight and disinfectant, and being forced to drink the awful-tasting Pepperup Potion by Madam Pomfrey, Draco felt as though all the strength had been drained from his body.
He vaguely heard Madam Pomfrey telling Harry, "...You may go back now, Mr Potter. He needs complete quiet..." Then Harry's footsteps faded away.
The potion took effect, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Some time later, he woke in the dark. His throat was dry and sore. Outside the window it was pitch black, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering through the curtains.
The hospital wing was quiet. It had been a calm stretch lately. Apart from him, there were only two students in the far beds, apparently injured during Quidditch practice, already fast asleep.
He propped himself up and reached for the water glass on the bedside table. As he drank, a very faint but unmistakable feeling crawled up his spine.
It was the feeling of being watched. A feeling he knew all too well.
The feeling of being watched lingered, and he could not help thinking of his sixth year in his previous life.
Back then, Harry Potter had been like a ghost that would not leave him alone, on the Hogwarts Express, outside the Room of Requirement, staring at him with that infuriating gaze. He could always feel that undisguised, scrutinising look from the Saviour.
Draco frowned, thinking he was probably delirious from the fever and starting to imagine things. The white curtain separated him from the rest of the ward, creating a private but slightly unsettling space.
Everything looked normal.
"Draco, how are you?"
A very low, childlike whisper came from the gap in the curtain.
Draco started violently and nearly dropped the glass.
Sure enough...
Draco watched as a corner of the curtain was lifted, the fabric slipped aside, and a messy black head poked through. Those green eyes, still bright in the dark, looked at him with concern.
Maybe he should pretend to be surprised.
Draco widened his grey eyes and opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, Harry reached out with astonishing speed and clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Mmph!"
This time it was not an act. Draco was genuinely startled. He frowned in annoyance and tried to shake his head free, but Harry pressed harder, pushing him back onto the pillow like a troll.
"Shh, shh." Harry leaned in close, pressing a finger to his own lips, his breath almost hissing into Draco's ear.
"I sneaked out! If Madam Pomfrey catches me, Slytherin will definitely lose points!"
Draco cursed inwardly but finally nodded in surrender.
Harry carefully took his hand away, his palm a little sweaty.
"Have you washed?" That was the first thing Draco asked, wrinkling his nose, once he was free.
Harry blinked, clearly not expecting that question. He looked both amused and exasperated. "I thought you'd be... a little pleased that I risked losing points to come and see you." He lowered his head and sniffed his sleeve. "Seems your nose is still blocked."
"I came to see if you were feeling better," Harry explained, his eyes searching Draco's face as if checking his condition.
Draco did not answer at once. His gaze fell on Harry's empty lap. There should have been nothing there, but now, in the moonlight, he could see a piece of fabric shimmering with a strange silver-grey sheen, like flowing mercury.
Harry had got this thing so early! No wonder he had been able to get away with so much mischief at school in his previous life without being caught. He had had this cheat of a tool with him all along.
"I don't know who sent it to me," Harry said, stroking the soft, silky fabric, his voice full of nostalgia and confusion. "There was no signature. Just a note saying it was left to me by my father and that I should 'use it well'."
"'Use it well'?" Draco sneered. "And this is how you use it, Potter? Breaking into the hospital wing at night?"
After spending this time together, Harry seemed to have gradually got used to Draco's way of saying one thing and meaning another, and had even learned to fire back. He shrugged. "Better than using it to spy on people, isn't it? I'm using it to check on a patient."
Spy?
The expression on Draco's face instantly became extremely complicated and hard to describe.
He almost laughed in sheer disbelief. You would! Potter! Of course you would!
His thoughts drifted uncontrollably back to that nightmare of a sixth year, when the impossible task had crushed him, his spirit near breaking, and he could only hide in the abandoned girls' lavatory and cry.
And that scarhead! That damned, haunting scarhead! Wearing this exact same Invisibility Cloak, like a ghost he could not shake, following him again and again, watching him, trying to catch him out!
Back then, every time he turned around, he felt as if he could see through the silver fabric and meet those stubborn, suspicious green eyes.
And now, this former "stalker" who had driven him to the edge, wearing the same Invisibility Cloak, was telling him with a straight face that he would not spy on people?
This was simply the darkest joke he had ever heard in two lifetimes.
"I figured you barely ate anything at the feast this afternoon, so you must be hungry. I got this from the kitchens."
Harry pulled a small parcel wrapped in a clean napkin from under the Invisibility Cloak like a magician, a soft-looking slice of butter cake dusted with icing sugar.
"Not just night wandering, but petty theft as well..." Before Draco could finish, Harry swiftly shoved a small piece of cake into his mouth, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
"Just eat, Draco."
The sweet, soft texture melted on his tongue, easing some of the soreness in his throat and the coldness in his heart.
Draco chewed slowly, looking at the boy wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak, his hair still sticking up everywhere, and for the first time felt that perhaps this forcibly twisted fate was not entirely without its merits.