分卷阅读8（1 / 2）

Potter stood outside the castle for a long time, longer than Draco liked to stay in the forest, but he had little choice.

Thankfully, a torrent of summer rain forced him back inside, giving Draco cover to sneak back into the castle. He hurried back to his quarters, moving painfully slowly once he got to the door, hoping that if he was quiet enough, he might be able to hear if anyone was there. He didn’t know if Potter still had the Invisibility Cloak, but he would be surprised if he didn’t.

“Sepultura,” he whispered, barely a breath.

The elves had left some food on Draco’s table, a Shepherd’s pie that Harriet had clearly nibbled, and a small piece of cake. His stomach rumbled at the sight of it, and he meant to eat, he really had but his mind was otherwise occupied. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Harry had reached out to touch him and then pulled away quickly, as if he were hurt. How all he had to do was touch him to see through his disguise. He knew he should have stayed back, should have acted more like a wild fucking animal, but the pull he felt in his chest just to be a little bit closer was too strong. How it felt to have someone’s eyes on him and have them really see him instead of see through him, and how if felt for those eyes to be Harry’s. He of course planned on telling McGonagall that the interaction was inevitable, that he was cornered, that he had just sat there and let Harry talk to him. That was, he planned on telling her that eventually.

He had a feeling once she knew they had made contact, Harry would have to go. Either that, or he would.

Harry had commenced his studies in the library. Or he was trying to. His mind wandered back to the animagus on the grounds relatively often. He had been out every night since trying to spot them again, but to no avail. Either they had left, or they were making sure that he didn’t know they were there. He was almost sure they weren’t malicious, but most of the people that felt they needed disguises at Hogwarts were not people he would want to meet again. Still, he could not bring himself to report it to the headmistress, not until he at least tried to figure out who it was on his own. He supposed he had never been too good at turning down a challenge.

When he wasn’t thinking about the animagus, he was trying to think up ways to get into the Slytherin dungeons. They consumed him, and not just in waking. In his dreams, he would find himself in the common room, a green tinge light filtering in from the windows that looked out into the lake. The rest of the room was too dark to make out, but he could tell it was not the same as the last time he had seen it. He wandered blindly, bumping into things until he came to the door of the dormitories. It was only a wooden door, not so difficult to penetrate, but he could never get it to open. He would press his ear to the door and swear he could hear something on the other side, breathing, the rustling of bed linens, faint whisperings, even the quiet mew of a cat, but never anything that meant anything to him.

He had fire called Ron and Hermione once since his relocation. It had gone as he expected.

“I’m so glad you’ve finally found something to occupy your time, Harry! Although, out of the three of us, I would never have pinned you as the one to end up a professor,” Hermione had laughed, and he had to agree.

“How do you like it back there, mate?” Ron had asked, seeming as equally chuffed with the news as Hermione.

“I like it fine. Not the same without everyone here, obviously, but better than Grimmauld Place.”

He had paused for a moment before adding, “I think something odd is going on here, though.”

“Merlin, Harry, it’s Hogwarts. Something odd is always going on there,” Hermione said rolled her eyes.

He had left it at that, realizing that they probably would just think he was being paranoid, or worse, worry about him if he elaborated.

They had ended the call by telling Harry he was going to be a wonderful professor, which he prayed would be true. He supposed that he would be a better professor than he was a student if it wasn’t for that damned locked door. His downfalls as a student had not been for lack of intelligence, or potential, but rather because he was distracted by some rather pressing issues. Of course, just what was wasting away in the defunct Slytherin dungeons was not as pressing of an issue as defeating the Dark Lord, but it was the only one he had. So maybe it was an excuse not to focus, but it didn’t feel like it.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been in the library, only that he had gone in early that morning and how the sunlight streaming through the windows signaled it was sometime afternoon. He had barely made a dent in the work he wanted to go over that week, only the first folder of old lesson plans being moved to the “done” pile. To be fair, it had only been three days of studying in his five days of being back at Hogwarts, but he knew that if he was working at his full capacity, he could easily be getting through a folder or two a day. He sighed, flipping the page he was staring at back to look at the page before, not at all surprised that he did not remember any of the information he had apparently already worked through. He chewed on his pencil—he had switched to pencils after leaving Hogwarts, quills being too much work for what they were worth—and began scratching down notes again, hoping maybe the third time through the folder would be a charm.

“Potter.”

Harry jumped, dropping his pencil with a clatter as he turned to the source of the voice.

“I am glad to see you have your studies underway,” McGonagall continued, walking around the table where he worked.