分卷阅读6（1 / 2）

“I can’t help but think, had things gone differently,” Harry rambled, his words trailing off. He stood up straighter, pushing himself off the wall. “You would have made a bloody good potions master, Malfoy. I think I would have rather liked that. It doesn’t feel right, being back here without you telling me what a twat I am.” Potter’s voice quavered as he finished.

Draco let himself slump against the wall. He clasped a hand over his mouth to keep any noise from escaping. He was dreaming, he had to be, because if what he was watching was the truth, he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear to know Harry Potter, the man at the center of almost every thought that orbited his mind, missed him. Missed him enough to talk to a locked door in a seemingly empty hallway, and he couldn’t do anything to help him.

Just when Draco thought he couldn’t take much more of it, Potter covered his eyes with his hand.

“Fuck,” Potter said, turning so his back was against the doorway, sliding down until he was sat on the ground. Draco could see even in the dim light the other man had tears running down his cheeks. “I don’t know how to get past you. I didn’t even know you were someone to get past.”

Potter fell silent, apart from his irregular breathing and occasional sniffles. He sat there for what felt like an eternity but must have only been five minutes, then he began to collect himself, lifting his glasses to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. He stood quietly, looking at the entryway once more, shaking his head and began walking towards Draco.

There was nothing that way that anyone used anymore, unless he wanted a really round about way of getting to the kitchen, or the stairs next to the kitchen, or—that was it. Snape’s office. McGonagall had given him Snape’s office.

Draco stood still, barely breathing, until he couldn’t see or hear Potter walking away any more, and then waited a beat after that just to be sure. He hurried to the door, whispering the password as quickly as he could and stepping inside, willing the door to close up behind him more quickly.

He collapsed against the door. Something about the whole ordeal made him want to laugh. Potter had been back for less than a day and, already, things were back to the way they were. Potter was up to something and Draco was taking detailed mental notes on him. In school, he never would have owned up to it, but with no one to fool, he would admit now that he spent most of his time watching Potter when the other boy thought he wasn’t being watched. He used tell himself it was because information on Harry got him a long way with his father, but he hadn’t even convinced himself with that one. Mostly because he spent more time fabricating information for his father and secreting away the real things he saw because he liked them better when they belonged just to him. Deep down in at the core of his being, there had always been a longing to be closer to Harry, to understand him further than they ways his family had taught him to.

Now he was watching Potter, simply because it was what he had always done. Draco had missed it. His voice had changed a bit, deeper than he remembered it, but still Harry. Draco chuckled to himself, leaning his head back against the stone. All of Potter had changed a bit. His hair was still a mess, messier, if possible, and still just as maddening as it had been in school. He still wore those ridiculous circular wire rimmed glasses that Draco doubted had ever really been in fashion, but they were a bit more expensive-looking now. His clothes fit better than they ever had in school, a fact Draco couldn’t categorize as better or worse because he could see just how fit Potter was, which was very. He was still short, or at least shorter than Draco. The last time he had seen Harry, he had only had about half an inch on him, but he had grown nearly three inches the year he “died,” matching his father’s six foot stature. He knew that would have bothered Harry, if he could have seen.

He wanted Harry to see. See that Draco was taller than him, see that he had changed, see that he was sorry. That he missed him, too. More than anything. He shook his head, feeling a sudden sink in his gut. What was McGonagall thinking, putting Potter so close to him? He was going to have to be better about hiding with Potter in the castle because, as McGonagall had expected, his penchant for snooping had not diminished with age. What she hadn’t factored in, and what he hadn’t expected, was how hard it would be for him to hide, because it seem his snooping would be Malfoy-centric. He didn’t know how many times he could find Harry in a state outside his door before he revealed himself. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be much longer.

Chapter 4

It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. Harry tore through the door of Snape’s—his —study and hurried to the back suite, which housed his bathroom and bedroom, yanking off his glasses haphazardly as he did so.

He hadn’t. He hadn’t.

But he had. He ran his hand over his face and into his hair. He had felt something, someone.

No, you hope you felt something. You wanted so badly to feel something that you did, he thought to himself in a voice that sounded oddly like Hermione’s.

Hogwarts’ hauntings were so flamboyant that the inkling he felt could hardly have been one. That had always surprised him about every ghost he had encountered; they seemed so much like real people, only…less. None of that invisible entities nonsense Muggles seemed so keen on. But this had felt like something of that nature. He felt eyes on him, he felt a sick, prickly feeling, almost like electricity in the air, the way he felt when someone so badly wanted to ask you something, to get your attention, but was waiting for you to make the first move. He felt it, but he had seen nothing. He supposed it was entirely plausible that ghosts could make themselves as visible or invisible as they wished, but he hardly thought Malfoy would opt for the latter. He would want to gloat about how his skin would never wrinkle and he would have a great head of hair for all eternity while all his peers became aged and ugly.

No, he could not imagine Malfoy as a subtle ghost, although he had toned down a bit during his later years.

“Drop it, Harry,” he muttered to himself, walking over to the bathroom. His bathroom things had been unpacked, by the house elves, he assumed. He snatched his flannel from the rim of the sink, wetting it with cold water and wiping his face. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked ruddy, his cheeks pink from rubbing at them. He had promised Hagrid he would have dinner with him, so pink and ruddy would have to do. He only hoped Hagrid wouldn’t ask what had happened.

““s bin lonely without yeh, Harry,” Hagrid said for about the hundredth time since he had cleared the table.