It’s almost Christmas now   von Ryuuzaki
                      (a drarry christmas.. developement)
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                          Kapitel 15: December, 15th
                          --------------------------


The morning had started surprisingly well, despite having another double Potions
lesson first thing. 

Harry actually understood, while not everything, a lot more than in all of his
other years taking this subject before. Even with the prince’s instructions,
he’d just been a follower. Now he in fact understood the leads. At least
better than before.

His essay also turned out quite well. Malfoy and he had parted ways for dinner
after their studying, agreeing on a different date for the Patronus practise
(because Harry insisted they needed to practise together, of course.)

And when Harry sat down next to Malfoy again for the lessons, the blond greeted
him with the obligatory scowl, but at least didn’t complain anymore. Harry
took it as a good sign.

They actually had to work together today, needing to share a cauldron.
The antidote to Veritaserum needed to simmer for half a month and Slughorn
announced they’d receive marks for the current state of their potion, but only
half of the potions would be brought to an end after the estimated time. For
that they will have to work in pairs as well.
Then the jovial Professor emptied half the cauldrons so they could work in pairs
on the new potion for now.

Harry was especially thrilled when the blond Slytherin explained things he
questioned him about, despite doing so with a lot of annoyed huffs and
underlining it with the rolling of his silver eyes. 

As astonishingly good double Potions went, as bad had been the following Defence
class.  

The ravenette did have the intention to walk with Malfoy to the next class,
since Slytherins and Gryffindors took it together, but the blond had cleaned up
his place and left so swiftly that Harry lost sight off him. Instead he walked
with Ron and Hermione and Harry had the remote impression Ron only didn’t
comment on his sudden need to work with Malfoy, because his girlfriend had him
on a short leash. But maybe the redhead said something and the Man Who Lived
Twice just didn’t notice, since he was scanning the crowd for a flash of
white-blond hair. When they entered the classroom he looked around with a frown;
Malfoy wasn’t there yet.

Harry chuckled to himself as he took his seat, the thought occurring that the
blond had been in such a hurry because he needed to use the bathroom. 
But his humour quickly dissipated when the lesson started and his most wanted
Slytherin still didn’t show up. The missing presence of the blond distracted
Harry so much that when they had to cast a Patronus against Professor
Carbuncle’s charm that weakly imitated the Dementors effects, he failed
embarrassingly twice before managing his Patronus. 

In fact, potions had been the last time that day he had seen the bloke. 
At lunch Harry once again looked out for him in vain. History of Magic, a
subject that didn’t have the ability to catch his attention on a good day,
passed in a blur leaving him with no clue what the ghostly Professor had been
talking about. 
Harry couldn’t concentrate for the life of him, too concerned that maybe
something had happened to the blond. He hoped not, but he couldn’t eliminate
the possibility of one of the students’ pranks against him escalating. 

After his last class of the day he quickly walked by the Hospital Wing, but none
of the beds were occupied. Then he searched in every corner of the library for a
hint of the blond, but to no avail. Harry spent another anxious hour in the
library, sitting on a table in plain sight of the entrance, pretending to read
and looking up every time somebody entered or left. But Malfoy never was one of
them. 
As he finally left, feeling defeated, he decided to go back to the common room
first, where he met Ron and Hermione.

“Harry, where have you been?” His concerned friend asked.

“Library…” He muttered, earning a surprised raise of eyebrows from one and
an incredulous look from the other.

“Again?!” Ron sounded bemused and confused at the same time. “You’re not
turning into Hermione, are y- ouf!” The redhead couldn’t finish the sentence
thanks to the sharp elbow that suddenly met his rips.

“At least Harry finally realized how important studying is, right Harry?”
Hermione said as if she hadn’t just manhandled her boyfriend. Harry pressed
his lips together and didn’t meet her eyes as he nodded.

“Alright, why don’t you just tell us next time when you go, then we can all
study together again?”
Harry nodded once more, wondering if ‘all’ would include Malfoy as well.

Dinner had been as Malfoy-less as the rest of the week’s meal times and Harry
barely ate anything. His stomach was already filled with a nagging feeling of
worry. 

Later as they were back in the Gryffindor common room, Harry had enough of not
knowing what was going on and fell back into an old habit. He entrenched himself
and the marauder’s map behind his bed curtains in the boy’s dorm, casting a
silencing charm and activating the map.

Harry watched as the thin ink lines spread out before him, drawing the castle
and revealing the whereabouts of its inhabits in form of tiny moving or unmoving
dots. 
He wished he had thought of the map earlier today as his eyes flickered over its
surface, searching for a specific name. 
Checking the Hospital Wing again, there only was the name of the nurse Madam
Pomfrey, but neither the Slytherin common room not the dormitories showed Draco
Malfoy as well. Looking at the grounds also didn’t reveal him and so Harry
looked tediously from dot to dot in hopes of stumbling over the right one. He
grew bored of that task quickly and went back to attempting to conclude where
the blond could be.

His eyes shifted to the place where the Room of Requirement was located on the
map. Would Malfoy go in there, if the room still worked? That would explain why
he didn’t see him on the map.
Then something caught his eye close to the room and Harry would have face-palmed
if the feeling of relief didn’t make him feel so giddy.

The owlery! Of course the git was in the owlery! Why hadn’t that been the
first place Harry had looked? How long had the Slytherin been there? Did Harry
have time to rush over and confront him? But what would he say… 

Deciding to concern himself about words when he faced the blond, Harry hurriedly
pushed the curtains aside and scrambled out of bed. After he shoved his feet
back in his shoes he ran down the stairs and threw another confirming glance at
the map before he reached the bottom. He abruptly stopped when he saw the dot of
Draco Malfoy walking away from the owlery.

“Oh no no no, you don’t!” He yelled and rushed on, jumping off the last
few steps, straight into Neville, who apparently had looked up the staircase
after hearing his shout. Both young men went down with similar groans.

“Sorry, mate…”

“It’s alright. Harry… what’s wrong?”

They helped each other up and Harry found that everyone in the common room was
staring at them, some girls even pointing and giggling as they whispered to each
other.
Harry straightened his glasses and picked up the marauder’s map that had
fluttered from his grasp as they fell. 

“Uhm…. Nothing.”

Neville gave him a concerned glance. “You sure? What were you yelling
about?”

Harry felt slightly embarrassed by his behaviour and cleared his throat, trying
to think of something yell-worthy that had nothing to do with a certain blond
Slytherin. He took a quick look at the map, spotting Malfoy almost instantly
this time and saw that he was almost back to the dungeons. Harry furrowed his
brows in frustration.

“It was nothing… really. I’ll, uhm, just gonna take this upstairs.” He
waved with the map. 

“See you later. And sorry again!” He made a fast retreat back to the
dormitory.

He spread the map out on his bed, sitting next to it and contemplated what to do
now; Malfoy was back with the Slytherins.

Suddenly a knocking on the window let him look up. A vaguely familiar looking
eagle owl pecked its beak against the glass and Harry jumped up to let it in. It
landed on his bedside table and held its leg out so the ravenette could take the
attached note. Removing it he studied the bird all the while, noticing its regal
attitude and trying to remember where he’d seen it before. He walked quickly
to Ron’s bedside, opened a drawer and took out some owl biscuits that he
offered to the bird. It eyed him distrustfully, before taking the biscuit with
dignity, but then nipped his finger sharply.

“Hey!” Harry hastily pulled his hand away with a glare at the bird. 
“What? Is this not to your tastes? Be happy you got anything at all, bloody
bird!” 

The bloody bird screeched and puffed up its feathers and Harry sucked the cut on
his finger that the sharp beak had dealt him, as he unfolded the note with his
other hand.
When he read it his heart skipped a beat and all anger was forgotten.

Potter,

I told you I’ll write a time I can spare for your unnecessary tutoring, so
here it is:

Sunday, 10 a.m.

We’ll meet at the base of the owlery and go looking for a classroom that suits
our purpose from there.

D. M.

PS: By the way this is Aeolus. He’s what you call a real owl. 


Harry looked up at the eagle owl and snorted, earning another screech and a
scowl from the bird. Now he knew where he’d seen it before. And honestly, he
could have guessed.

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