Draco sat back in his chair, his silver eyes gleaming as he nodded.
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By Friday morning, Harry was feeling exasperated. All he'd heard since the day before was how they ought to spend the summer redecorating Draco's house. My house, Draco liked to call it. Which was all right, Harry supposed, even if it was a little bit hard to hear. To him, number 12 Grimmauld Place would always be Sirius' house.
Maybe that was why he was finding Draco's chatter about it so annoying. It was going to be their very first summer together! You'd think they could talk about that, a little bit at least.
Draco, oblivious to Harry's mood, turned to him at the doors of the Great Hall. "So, what do you think?"
You did ask, Harry thought.
"I don't think redecorating sounds like fun at all. And you know Dad will say we have more important things to be doing. And besides, even if he didn't say no, the house is sort of being used right now, right? I don't think the . . . uh, old crowd would appreciate your charming everything in sight Slytherin green."
Draco raised his chin a little bit. "Oh, please. Just because I exhibit a little house pride in my dÈcor at school doesn't mean I plan to live my entire life surrounded by silver and green. And the, er, people using the house ought to be thrilled to have the place spruced up. It's like a mausoleum in there--an out-of-date one at that. And--"
All at once, Harry felt prickly all over. Sirius had once said something like that about Grimmauld Place. Harry sucked in a breath, a sense of dÈj‡ vu spinning through him as tears pricked his eyes. What had happened to yesterday's feeling that he was finally moving past his mourning?
"Are you all right, Harry?" Draco more-or-less dragged him into a side corridor. "I'll stop talking about the house if it bothers you so much. I mean, I didn't ever really know the man, but I do understand that the two of you were . . . close."
"We never had a chance to be, really," said Harry, blinking. "Not like I wanted. But I'm all right. Let's just go get breakfast with everybody."
Draco didn't move, though he did lower his voice. "Maybe you should give me all your quills, Harry. You can borrow one from somebody in classó"
"Huh?"
"You did say they were sharp enough to--"
Harry pushed off from the wall he'd been leaning against. "I'm fine, and a quill wouldn't do, anyway. Trust me on that."
Draco was still eyeing Harry's school bag. "If you're sure . . ."
Instead of answering that, Harry walked past him and on towards the Great Hall. Draco caught up with him and looked about to say something else, but just as they stepped through the doorway, Hermione appeared out of nowhere and shoved a book and a thick roll of parchment into Draco's hands.
"I've been playing around with some charms to change the arrangement of letters and words and such," she said, speaking so fast her words tumbled over one another. "I think that might work to counteract Greg's dyslexia, but I'm not quite sure of exactly how he tends to see things. Do you think you could get him to explain it to you? Maybe write out some examples for me to test?"
"Good morning to you, too, Hermione," Draco drawled, slinging his school bag over his shoulder so he could put his hands in his pockets. "No, of course you're not rudely interrupting a private conversation with my brother."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, the two of you can talk anytime! I've only got one week left to solve this problem for Goyle!"
"Who asked you to solve a thing?" Draco demanded, his voice pitched just slightly high. "He's my friend, not yours. I might have asked you to tutor him while I was going to be away, but I'm back now and I'll be the one to help him."
Hermione sniffed and tossed her head. "Well, what have you been doing to help him, then?"
"More than you'll ever know," sneered Draco. "Besides, this Mugglish method of flipping letters around on parchment is just . . . rubbish! Why not determine the problem with his brain chemistry and then brew a potion to fix it?"
"Why take weeks or months or years developing a potion?" retorted Hermione. "He needs help now. Actually, he needed it years ago, butó"
Draco suddenly looked past Hermione's shoulder. "Ron, can't you entertain your girlfriend in the evenings so she doesn't spend all her time making life more difficult for the rest of us?"
While Ron turned a predictable shade of red, Hermione looked ready to launch into a tirade, herself. Draco nudged Harry with his shoulder and politely bid his brother good day, smirking a little as he left Harry with the problem he'd created.
Just like a Slytherin.
"Don't mind Draco," Harry said as he headed for the Gryffindor table. "He's just miffed that you're the one who figured out Goyle's problem. He's been helping him for years and never noticed. But then, how could he? He'd never heard of dyslexia."
"Well if the Wizarding world would simply keep abreast of Muggle breakthroughs in the sciences and whatnot, I'm sure they'd discover a plethora of problems they could solve."
Hoping to head off another lecture, Harry asked Ron about the Chudley Cannons as they sat down and began loading their plates with the usual breakfast fare. The boys were still talking Quidditch when the owl post arrived. After washing some beans down with pumpkin juice, Ron said, "Hermione, hand me the Prophet, would you? We need to see the latest scores."
When Harry glanced over expectantly, he saw Hermione staring at the paper aghast, her hand covering her mouth.
"What is it?" Harry asked, the back of his neck prickling. At least it wasn't his scar, but still . . . "Voldemort? An attack?"
He reached for the paper but Hermione merely hugged it closer to herself. That was when Harry began to hear the whispering. Looking up, he saw something that made his bones go chill. All over the Great Hall, everywhere that a student had a copy of the paper, other students were gathered around whispering furiously as they read over shoulders.
In between sentences or paragraphs, almost all of those students were turning to scan the Gryffindor table, but their gazes would stop when they found him.
He ought to be used to the whole school staring at him, Harry thought. But he wasn't. His entire breakfast seemed to turn to rocks inside his stomach. Someone's found out about my needle! Oh Merlin, what if Skeeter or someone else was lurking about when I thought I was alone?
"Let me see that paper, Hermione--"
He never got to find out if she would have handed it over. Just at that moment, Warren Worthington, a seventh year, came up beside Harry. He shoved a copy of the paper into Harry's hands as he clapped him on the shoulders. Harry couldn't help but flinch, though he didn't know if the reflex was caused by the unexpected jostling or the glaring headline that seemed to leap off the page to meet his eyes.
Harry Potter: Dark Wizard? Boy-who-Lived Openly Using Dark Arts at Hogwarts
The minute he saw the headline, Harry's arms began to itch like mad. Someone has figured it out, he thought. Someone knows that my magic is dark and now they'll all turn against me again.
He dropped the paper as if it had burned him.
Worthington squeezed Harry's shoulder. "Don't you worry, mate. We've been down this road before, and this time the House'll stand behind you to a man." He gestured toward the paper atop Harry's plate. "As for this rubbish? Stupid git's just peeved he's getting sacked. Article ought to mention that, you think? I've half a mind to owl in a letter to the editor, mentioning as much!"
"Thanks, Warren," said Harry weakly.
The older boy nodded and went on his way.
Dreading it, but knowing he had to, Harry looked down at the Prophet. Without him even trying, his hands found their way up inside either sleeve of his school robes so he could scratch at his arms as he read.