分卷阅读5（2 / 2）

“Seeing as the castle is mostly empty this time of year, apart from Hagrid and myself, you’ll have to go to the kitchens to get your meals, but you’ll be so close, I doubt that will be a problem,” she carried on.

Harry sighed with relief. He knew the castle would be mostly empty for the beginning of his stay, but still, the idea of having to eat in the Great Hall, the idea of being in public, where people who thought they knew him could speculate, made him feel sick to his stomach.

“You’ll have until next term to get everything all ready for the students. You will, of course, have full use of the library and any leftover materials in the Defense room.”

Harry nodded.

“I expect you will want a day or two to settle in, but I would appreciate it if you began preparing for the next term by the end of the week,” McGonagall said firmly, eyeing him suspiciously. “I hope you will be a better professor than you were a student.”

“I hope so, too,” Harry chuckled darkly.

“Well, luckily for you, you don’t have to write any papers. Just read them,” McGonagall quipped. She glanced at the clock on the wall and back to him. “Your rooms should be ready in half an hour. I trust you can busy yourself until then? Visit Hagrid, perhaps, before he comes after you with a scent dog?”

Harry walked back out into the hall, wandering through the castle for about ten minutes before finding himself walking out into the yard towards a familiar shack.

Like he suspected, being on the castle grounds didn’t feel quite as much like coming home as he would have hoped.

He was back.

Draco had seen him, had almost run into him, in the hall in front of the Slytherin dungeons. He stayed back, less than twenty feet away, in the shadows, though disillusioned, and watched the other man.

Potter ran his hand over the stone that made up the doorway for the dungeons, examining it. He took his wand and tapped the wall, but to no avail.

He paused, looking up and down the hall, before murmuring “Pure-blood.”

Draco winced.

“No, of course they’ve changed the password since then,” Harry said to himself quietly. He sighed, pressing his right hand flat against the stone. He clenched the hand to a fist, leaning his forehead against the wall. “Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he repeated, and Draco felt his chest tighten.

He wanted to step closer, the feeling only intensified by the knowledge that he couldn’t. What are you looking for, Potter? The question sat on his tongue, at the very tip of it, beating against the back of his teeth, but he didn’t let it escape. It would be so easy. It would be so easy to ask it, Potter would jump and turn to look at him and then…And then he would run, to tell McGonagall, and it would be over. He would be found out. So instead, he watched.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Potter began, his voice still hushed just enough to be hard to hear, his forehead still pressed against the stone, “But I think I miss you. I think I miss you more than just about anyone. And I am almost glad you aren’t here to gloat about it. Almost.”

Draco froze. The feeling was back, or rather, it was leaving his hands at a rather rapid speed, forcing him to tuck his wand away in his coat pocket, lest he risk dropping it and making a noise. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Potter was addressing him. Who else would he miss that could have been behind that door? No one. He couldn’t think of a single soul, yet it still felt presumptuous to think it was himself.