分卷阅读11（1 / 2）

The cat meowed again, heading towards the door.

“No, you can’t go out,” Draco chuckled. “You’ll just come back all wet and be grumpy with me.”

Harry’s heart clenched at how easily Draco laughed. He had never seen him this at ease. Draco pushed his hair back from his face again and sat at the table, which had remnants of some sort of tarte sat on it. Draco picked at it disinterestedly, picking up a book and looking through it. He didn’t seem to be reading it really so much as holding it. He set it down in his lap for long periods of time, during which he would sit and stare at the windows that looked into the lake, chewing at his thumb.

Harry was so busy watching the man in front of him that he almost forgot that man wasn’t supposed to be breathing, let alone sitting and daydreaming fifteen feet away from him. This is what McGonagall had been hiding. Draco had been here all along, locked in the dungeons for most of it, if his complexion was anything to go by.

The cat, now closer to the door, mewled again, startling both Draco and Harry out of their thoughts.

“Potter, you absolute menace,” Draco sighed.

Harry tensed at his name. Draco knew he was there, somehow, had sensed hi—

“I already told you you can’t go out tonight, Harriet,” Draco said, walking over to the entrance.

The cat hissed.

“Ok, you can go out, but if you get soaked, you’re sleeping in the hall tonight, Potter,” Draco warned. “I don’t need my room smelling like a wet cat.”

Draco tapped the door and let out the cat, returning to the table.

…Draco named his cat Potter.

Draco was alive, he had a cat named Potter, and, Harry realized now that reality had set in, he kept a book of all the articles he had ever been mentioned in. And he missed Harry.

But he said that he missed Harry, too, which implied he knew that Harry missed him. Which meant he probably heard Harry that night. Of course, he had heard him that night, he had been sobbing outside of his room. The entire lower half of the castle probably knew.

Draco was stirring again, standing up and refastening his cloak. Harry crawled carefully out from under the desk, trying to make as little noise as possible. He wasn’t letting Draco out of his sight. He followed Draco to the door, slipping out just seconds before it began to close. Draco looked up and down the hall, pulled his hood up, and muttered a disillusionment spell.

Harry could still hear the slight scuff of Malfoy’s shoes against the stone, following it as best he could. They exited the castle. The rain had let up some, but there was still a light drizzle. Within moments, a white wolf appeared on the grass twenty paces in front of Harry. He stretched his legs before beginning a light trot towards the woods, seemingly unaware of Harry.

Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, bunching it haphazardly and stuffing it into his pocket.

“Wait!” he called before he could stop himself.

The wolf’s gait faltered as it turned to look back at Harry.