Aspen in the Sunlight - A Year Like None Other

Ron grimaced. "That we were prefects and ought to put others ahead of ourselves. That you weren't to walk the halls alone and we knew it, and if we left you again to conduct our pitiful little love-lives, he knew a hex that would shove our tongues down our throats and glue them there."

Harry just about gaped. "He didn't!"

"He sure as shite did. So Hermione and I are walking you to Charms and that's that."

"Draco can walk me to class before he heads to Transfiguration, all right? I have to talk to him about something."

Ron hesitated a moment. "Yeah, all right," he finally grumbled.

Draco raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything until he'd followed Harry out of the Great Hall and down the corridor. "What?"

"Just a second." Harry pulled open a door and glanced into a dusty storage room hung with cobwebs. Toward the back there was a huge freestanding mirror so coated in grime that Harry could barely see his own reflection. He wondered for a second if it was like the Mirror of Erised, but then Draco followed him in and more pressing problems surged to the forefront of his mind.

Sighing, he warded the room and then shoved up the sleeves of his robe. He wished he'd worn a long-sleeved shirt today; it would have been that much harder to get under cloth to skin.

Draco drew in a tight breath when he saw the furious red scratches covering both Harry's forearms. Long lines of scratched-raw skin had formed angry red welts flecked with an occasional dot of blood. One small spot in particular was gouged all the way through and was still oozing.

"I can't go to Charms looking like this, not with all the casting we do in there. So . . . er, would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Um . . . heal them? My own spells . . . well, I can't really do it myself."

Draco's arms were crossed, Harry noticed. "And why is that? Have you given it any thought?"

Oh, God. Draco was going to make this difficult. "Look, I know why it is. Dad and I had a long talk about it."

"Good. Because if you think I'm going to be your . . . your enabler on this, then you can just--"

"Enabler!"

Draco's chin lifted a fraction. "Marsha uses the word all the time. It means people who help you do things that aren't actually very good for you."

"I'm not asking you to help me do-- look, I just don't want everybody in class to see, all right?"

"I should make you go ask Severus."

"Draco--"

"Oh, all right," drawled the other boy. "This once."

Harry blew out a breath in relief. "Good."

Draco wasn't finished. "But I'm telling Severus all about it, first chance I get."

Harry felt his fists clenching. He'd rather his father thought he was mostly over his problem. It had been almost a week since he'd flooed down to talk to him, and in all that time, he hadn't once conjured a needle! Snape was proud of him for that; Harry just knew it. And Draco was going to ruin things! "That's just nasty, it is."

"It's not. I have to. If you were on my broom, you'd know why."

"You just want to be the good son for once!"

"Like I'm ever going to be that," muttered Draco. His eyes were blazing when he looked at Harry. "I'm not trying to get you in trouble, so don't be a total prat. I just can't have you thinking you can hurt yourself and I'll help you hide it."

"Just get on with it," said Harry, stretching out his arms. He could tell by then that Draco wasn't going to change his mind.

Draco's wand touched the ugly red marks, very gently. And then he cast a cleaning charm across Harry's fingers. The blood under his nails disappeared, but Harry still felt irritated by the whole situation. He felt like saying, thanks for nothing , but it wouldn't be exactly true, so instead he just slammed out of the storage closet and stomped down the hall.

Draco ran to catch up with him and walk at his side, but Harry didn't speak to him until they were at the Charms classroom. And even then, all he did was mutter a good-bye.

In Charms that day, they ended up having what Flitwick liked to call an open-ended review, which basically meant they were allowed to pair off however they liked and practice anything they'd learned. Or just chat, actually, as long as they kept waving their wands every so often.

Barely ten minutes in, however, the classroom door opened to admit Snape. "Might I have a word with my son?" he asked without preamble.

Harry's arms started itching. So Draco had gone to Snape already, had he? Nice!

The Ravenclaws and Gryffindors made sort of an awed noise as Snape stepped inside the classroom. And no wonder, considering what they'd just seen at breakfast.

Flitwick nodded his head enthusiastically as he bounced on his heels. "A real duel here at Hogwarts! Jolly exciting, isn't it? I'm sure you'll put on a rousing good show!"

Snape's lips looked very thin. "I'll do my best," he said dryly. "Now, if I might speak with Harry for a moment?"

"Certainly, certainly." Flitwick motioned for Harry to go.

Snape didn't say much as they walked back down to the Great Hall and flooed to his office. And Harry was fuming too much to make small talk. Once they were alone in the Potions office, it was Snape who opened the conversation.

"I wanted to speak to you before breakfast ended, but it seemed best to wait until we could have some privacy. That article was nothing short of vicious. You didn't take it seriously, did you?"

Oh, no, no , Harry wanted to say. Of course not.

But he couldn't claim that, could he? Not considering that Draco was going to tell Snape what Harry had done to his own arms. Clearly, Snape didn't already know. Which meant Draco hadn't ratted him out. Yet.

But he would; Harry didn't have a single doubt about that. So the best thing to do was probably tell Snape himself, before Draco got a chance to. "Um, well, I sort of did take it seriously, actually."

Snape leaned forward across his desk. "Harry," he said, his voice dark and chiding all at once. "You aren't evil. Aran is."

Harry blinked. "He's petty and small-minded, but I don't know that I'd actually call him evil."

"His is a self-serving, pedestrian sort of evil." Snape shrugged. "I've offended him and his way of getting back at me was to strike out at my children. No doubt he didn't expect a challenge in return."

Harry couldn't help but snort a bit at that. He wondered whether Snape looked at this as some sort of atonement for the way he'd treated Harry for years. He almost said so, but since they'd more or less agreed to put all that behind him during their talk out in Devon, Harry held his tongue and commented on his other epiphany. "You've been angling to duel with Aran all along," he said, a little surprised that his voice came out sounding almost accusing. "That's why you were being so obnoxious while you supervised his classes!"

"Why I suggested supervising his classes to begin with." Snape's dark eyes glimmered. "Albus had in mind to simply sack him, but I wanted more satisfaction than that. I was trying to get Aran to challenge me."

"He's scared to death of you!"

"Yes, I did notice that," drawled Snape. "And so he took a coward's revenge in venting his spleen to Skeeter. But enough of Aran, Harry. I'll take care of him tomorrow. What concerns me now is you. How much did the article bother you?"

Harry knew what that question really meant. "Well, I didn't conjure a needle, but . . ." He sighed, loud and long. "I'm worried everybody'll think I am going dark, now. Parseltongue really isn't very well thought of, you know. I wasn't trying to hurt myself, but I, er, scratched my arms up something awful."

"With?"

"Huh? Oh. My fingernails."

"Let me see your arms."

"If you want, but Draco healed them for me before class so there's not much to see--"