分卷阅读27（1 / 2）

“I fell.” Draco got up rather stiffly and brushed a few black feathers off him. “I didn’t know I had that many feathers to begin with.” He seemed mildly impressed.

Harry dropped out of Draco’s bed on the other side and brushed off the black feathers covering him as well. But what was that taste in the back of his mouth? With one finger he traced the back of his tongue and managed to dislodge…a feather.

“Should I even ask how a feather got in my mouth?” Harry muttered.

Draco looked mildly disgusted. “That would be a no.”

Harry didn’t respond to Draco’s answer, in fact he hadn’t even looked at Draco after that first time this morning. Seeing Draco was still too confusing…or brought up confusing thoughts. And it was too early in the morning to deal with confusing issues.

Harry made his way down to the Great Hall for breakfast to find that, for once, he had arrived before Ron and Hermione. He was halfway through his second piece of toast when the two arrived.

“Oh, Harry, you should have told us you were going to be here early.” Hermione told him as they sat down.

“Mate, are you feeling okay? It’s a Sunday; one sleeps in late on Sundays.” Ron reminded him, oblivious to the look of exasperation Hermione sent his way.

Other students began to filter in to breakfast, but Harry noted that there was no sign of Draco. That was rather odd. Draco was normally at breakfast around this time every day of the week. But pushing the thought out of his mind, he returned to the conversation that was happening around him.

________________________________________

The House-Elves, Draco thought, could be really annoying. The little buggers had been in his bedroom when he’d emerged from his shower, picking up feathers. They refused to leave, even to allow him privacy to get some clothing on, until they were finished. Draco almost informed them of how much time they were wasting. It was much easier for the Veriae himself to pick up his own feathers. They were still keyed to him after all. So if anyone else tried to do so, as the House-Elves were doing…well, it took a long time. So Draco started working on breaking the record for longest time wearing nothing but a towel.

When they were finally done and out of his room, Draco set about getting on some proper clothing and then pondered what to do about the rest of his day. Schoolwork eventually won over, because tomorrow was Monday, and he could always count on his godfather to assign some long essay (which he had finished and in truth had enjoyed doing) so he might as well finish the homework he needed to hand in on Tuesday. Arithmancy. Draco’s eyes scanned the topic of the essay, and he immediately resolved to just look up the answer in a book instead of doing the extra work to figure it out. That was the problem with Arithmancy. During his first years taking it, he’d actually done the work of figuring out the answer to the essays himself, then he’d realized they were all in the book, just not in the chapter the class was currently studying.

Now where was that book? Let’s see. The last time he’d used it, he was doing those analogy things (stupid teacher was in love with analogies, he was certain). He’d been pretty ticked by the time he’d finished the last one (out of one hundred), so he probably put the book someplace out of the way with the help of the magical currents that drifted through Hogwarts. This, of course, meant that he had no clue where it was now. For all he knew, he had banished it to the fourth floor corridor and Merlin knew who might have found it. But as he cast his eyes around the room he saw that this was not the case. It was just balanced on the top of his bookshelves…which were about twice as tall as Draco himself was.

Oh, wouldn’t this be fun. Draco looked at the book as he sensed around for any currents that might be nearby. That was the thing when one was down near the dungeon inside a building like Hogwarts, one couldn’t rely on the nature currents, whereas outside they were everywhere and anywhere. No, inside, one had to rely on the currents that came from those who were using magic at the moment in time or from older spells that were entombed in the rock walls of the castle. And, as the Hogwarts stairs proved, these were rather temperamental. So, of course, there were no magical currents for Draco to find and call to his aid when he wanted them.

So Draco did what any self-respecting teenager would do. He glared at the bookshelves and the Arithmancy book as if it was all their fault.

“So Harry,” Ron asked as they finished breakfast. “Have you finished your essay yet?”

“Haven’t even started,” Harry answered easily.

“Same here.”