31"Not that Malfoy's a great Seeker now."
Harry had encouraged the conversation about Quidditch at breakfast that morning, had let it get louder and louder, and now it had reached the point where him saying that didn't even sound unnatural. He made sure to toss a sneer at the Slytherin table for good measure.
Malfoy didn't look up, of course. The infusion of emotion he had received from the locket might have lasted through the night, but Harry hadn't seen him then, so he didn't know for certain. Malfoy just sat with his head bowed and his hair trailing around him.
But the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team was puffing up like toads. "What did you say?" growled Goyle.
"I said that Malfoy's not a great Seeker now," Harry said, shrugging at them. "You have to have passion for the game, you know, and Malfoy doesn't have any." Then he grabbed a piece of bread and drizzled honey on it and ate away without a care in the world.
Goyle stared stupidly at him, but a younger Slytherin, someone Burke, shook his head. "Of course Malfoy cares about being the Seeker!" he said, and nudged Malfoy in the ribs. "Come on, Malfoy, show them!"
"What are you talking about?"
Malfoy's voice was faint and uncaring. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and then at Harry, as if to say that she knew what he was doing. Harry widened his eyes innocently back. She was free to think what she wanted. It still wasn't Harry's fault that Malfoy had done this to himself and other people were starting to notice.
"You want to beat Gryffindor!"
"Yeah, tell them, Malfoy!"
"You're a great Seeker!"
"I am?" Malfoy spoke the words and then sat there with his mouth hanging a little open. Harry managed to keep from rolling his eyes. If nothing else happened, Malfoy was probably going to end up in St. Mungo's. People would assume he'd gone mental.
"Yes, of course you are!" Even Goyle looked a little disturbed. "Malfoy, we're talking about Quidditch!"
"We are?"
Burke turned around and scowled at Harry. "What did you do to our Seeker, Potter?"
"Nothing." Harry swallowed his bread and reached for the next slice. "He's been like this for weeks, haven't you noticed? That's why I'm saying that he isn't going to be any competition on the pitch."
"Malfoy, wake up."
"Maybe he needs some food," Goyle grunted, and started piling the plate in front of Malfoy with so many random things Harry shuddered at the thought of what they would taste like together.
Harry turned away, satisfied that at least some other people had noticed the problem. He encountered Ron's confusion and Hermione's focused gaze when he did.
"Don't think that we didn't notice that, Harry," Hermione told him primly. "We did. But you can't make other people care about Malfoy. Whatever Malfoy did, he should be left to work it out for himself."
"You can look at him and think he can help himself? You think he's dealing with it now?"
"Well…" Hermione paused. "Maybe not. But we don't need to concern ourselves about him, Harry. He isn't trying to help Voldemort. This isn't sixth year."
"And why would you try to make him a better Seeker anyway, mate?" Ron interjected. "We want Slytherin to lose, remember?"
"Maybe I don't want anyone to lose themselves," Harry said softly, and did glance back in time to see Goyle and Burke haul Malfoy to his feet and towards the hospital wing. "Maybe I want real competition."
"You know what's wrong with him, don't you? Fix him."
Harry blinked and turned around. Gregory Goyle had come up behind him in the corridor that led to the Charms classroom and was standing with his arms folded, glaring.
"I don't know exactly what's wrong with him," Harry tried to hedge, because Goyle looked as intimidating as hell. "I mean, I know what he did to himself, but I've tried to get him to put it back, and he won't."
"So tell me what he did."
Harry considered Goyle carefully. He might be using simple words, but he was at least acting smarter than he had all of their Hogwarts years. So Harry tried. "He made a wish to exile all of his pain and store it in a heart-shaped locket. He has to take it back into himself if he's to gain his passion again, but that would mean accepting the pain. He's told me that he doesn't want it, that he's happy the way he is."
Goyle subjected Harry to a searching stare, and then the walls, and then the floor. He was frowning and tapping his fingers together. "Where's the locket?"
Harry unhooked the chain of the locket from his neck, where he'd taken to keeping it, down inside his robes. Goyle gave him a funny look as he reached out to take it. "You're wearing it over your heart, Potter?"
Harry hadn't known that his face could still get so red. Since the war, he mostly didn't blush anymore. Then again, Malfoy had disrupted everything and made everything different. "Shut up," he muttered.
Goyle only gave him a half-hearted smirk as he turned away. "I have better things to tell Slytherin's Seeker, Potter."
Harry told himself that his bereft feeling as he watched Goyle walk away with the locket was a stupid one. It was better that Malfoy's friends tried something to fix him. Of course it was. That he had even thought otherwise was a sign of his stupidity.
It's not my problem anymore, Harry thought, and tried to imitate Hermione's approving tone to himself as he turned and walked away.
It didn't help that he thought he heard a plaintive clink from the locket as Goyle carried it off.
"He won't take it."
Harry wanted to bury his head in his hands. Finding himself in the Charms corridor with members of the Slytherin Quidditch team seemed to be becoming a common occurrence. He turned around. "Well, of course he won't. I told you that he wished all his pain away. He doesn't want it back."
"Yes, but we thought you were making that up," Burke said firmly. "It sounds daft."
"Malfoy is the daft one here, not me!" Harry threw his hands up. "Him and the Headmistress. I told her that Malfoy was lacking in—everything, and she told me it didn't matter and to keep my nose out of it! And my friends thought the same thing!"
"But you were always right when Draco was up to something," Goyle said, giving him a funny look.
"Thank you," Harry said fervently.
"So how do we fix this?" Burke demanded.
Harry thought about it, glancing back and forth from the locket that dangled in Goyle's fingers to Burke's face. He finally made a decision. "Can you tell him that I want to challenge him to a Seeker's match on the pitch?"
"We can tell him." Burke folded his arms. "But I don't think he's going to pay any more attention to that than he did to Madam Pomfrey's scan trying to find out what's wrong with him."
"Then you take care of getting him to the pitch. I'll take care of the rest." Harry held his hand out, and thought he could hear a clonk of relief from the locket as it passed from Goyle's fingers to Harry. He might just be making that up, though.
"What are you going to do, Potter?" Burke was peering at him suspiciously, but it was Goyle who asked the question. He had a look of simple faith on his face.
"Play a Seeker's game with him, of course." Harry smiled and tucked the locket around his neck to hang over his heart again.
"Harry, you are. Being ridiculous." Ron panted out the words as he came running after him. Harry was striding towards the pitch with the replacement Firebolt he'd bought after the war over his shoulder.
"Maybe I am," Harry said, with a small shrug. He could see the stir of green-accented robes ahead that meant the Slytherin Quidditch team was here to watch him cure Malfoy. "But you don't have to be here. You don't have to be involved, if you don't want to."
"I just wish you would leave Malfoy alone. It's none of your business!"
"I hope that, if I was drowning, someone would come rescue me, even if my best friends weren't around, and not turn away under the pretense that it's none of their business." Harry finally saw blond hair, and nodded. Burke and Goyle had probably had to drag Malfoy, but they'd got him here, and that was all Harry was really concerned about at the moment.
"Malfoy's not bloody drowning."
"No, but he's as good as." Harry turned around and gave Ron a steady look when he opened his mouth again. "Look, it's not any of your business if I want to do this, either, so why not give it a rest?"
"When my best mate's making a fool of himself, I have to be there."
Harry grinned, clapped Ron's shoulder, and kept walking without looking behind him to listen to any more complaints. Ron could stand by him and had made it clear that he wanted to, but Harry was going to do this his own way.
"Potter." Burke had his hands shoved in his pockets, but he was standing against Malfoy so that he couldn't run away. "How are we going to do this?"
"You're not going to do anything," Harry said. He kept his eyes on Malfoy as he slid the Firebolt off his shoulder. Then he unhooked the locket from over the top of his heart.
"What are you doing, Potter?" demanded the current Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, a hulking brute whose name Harry frankly couldn't be bothered to remember.
"Things," Harry said shortly. He began to rotate the locket around his head. It hummed encouragingly. When he got to the point where he would probably hit himself in the head if he tried to stop, he opened his fingers and let it fly, and watched with some satisfaction as it hurt Malfoy in the chest, right over his heart.
Malfoy gasped and staggered, his hand rising. It closed on the chain of the locket, and Harry knew he didn't imagine the golden glow that broke through Malfoy's gripping fingers this time. His head sagged back and he took a long, deep breath.
Then he snapped his head forwards and roared, "Potter!"
Harry grinned. He knew that pink flush that seemed to have made its way down Malfoy's face to his chest. He knew that hopping in rage. He knew that tone of voice that suggested the worst thing anyone could do in the universe was hurt or inconvenience Draco Malfoy.
"You could have broken my bloody ribs!" Malfoy gestured while not actually releasing the locket or his grip on his chest. "What were you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that I'll have no trouble beating you in Quidditch this year because of how apathetic you are."
Malfoy froze, staring at him.
"But that's not really the point, since I've always beaten you before," Harry said idly. "Really, the point is that Ravenclaw is going to beat you." He paused, as if about to admit a terrible secret, and added, "And Hufflepuff."
"I am not going to be beaten by Hufflepuff," Malfoy said, but there was uncertainty flickering in his face, and he hadn't let go of the locket yet.
"Why not? You've been walking around not eating and gaping at the wall." Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, I suppose I should thank you for a gift of no challenges in this Quidditch season, but it's a little disappointing. I always thought Slytherin was worth more than that, you know?"
"I am worth more than that!" Malfoy stalked a step forwards.
"Not without your passion, without your heart." Harry curled his lip and shook his head, then threw his Firebolt underhanded to Malfoy. Malfoy caught it without releasing the locket. "Look, I'll prove it. You can use my Firebolt for this game—" no way was he going to say something like "you can have it," when Malfoy would try to presume on that when he got back to normal "—and I'll use a Cleansweep Six. I'll still beat you."
"You won't!" Malfoy slung a leg over the Firebolt, moving awkwardly.
Ron, bless him, had already run and got a Cleansweep Six from the Quidditch supplies shed. Harry draped his leg over it, rolled his eyes so that Malfoy could see him, and then took off into the sky.
Malfoy followed with a bellow.
But he also dropped the locket.
Harry hung upside-down from the broom, one arm and one leg over it, and cast a Summoning Charm at the locket. It sped after him and wrapped around his fingers. Harry swung back up, in time to see a stupid look descend on Malfoy's face and his jaw widen as he looked around.
"What am I doing up here?"
Harry zoomed up behind him—a lot slower than the Firebolt could go, but on the other hand, Malfoy wasn't trying to use that speed right now—and hit him in the back of the head with the chain of the locket. Malfoy turned around, glaring at him. Then his Firebolt launched itself towards Harry.
And overshot. Harry turned on a dime, forcing the Cleansweep into a maneuver that made its bristles creak, and smiled tauntingly as Malfoy spun to glare at him.
"On a better broom, my broom, and you still can't beat me." Harry shook his head sadly. "Come on, Malfoy, admit it. Just admit that I'm a better Seeker, and all of this pain will go away."
With a roar, Malfoy soared towards him again. Harry just dodged a little bit out of the way. Malfoy was a good flier, but he wasn't used to the Firebolt's speed, which meant that he couldn't halt the momentum when he wanted to. Once again, he was past Harry, and aiming towards the wall of the school. He pulled up before that and turned a dazed look on Harry.
"What a git," Harry said, and didn't really care who heard him. The effects of touching the locket kept getting less and less. He aimed straight at Malfoy and saw his eyes widen, sluggishly, a second before their brooms locked.
Harry struggled, grunting, with Malfoy in midair, and barely managed to slip the chain over Malfoy's head when he felt hands pushing him off the Cleansweep. He let go with his arms and went with the tumble, then pulled up, holding onto the broom with both legs.
Malfoy was shrieking at him, and clawing at the locket with one hand that kept hovering off into the air again. Harry grinned. Malfoy was acting like the locket was too hot to touch, but Harry would bet his vault that that wasn't it. Malfoy couldn't deal with the emotions that were flooding him now.
"I got rid of you! I don't want you!"
Harry had been waiting for this. He took the Snitch that Dumbledore had left to him from his pocket and tossed it casually in the air. He'd been working on the enchantments, and now the wings whirred, weakly.
"Then you don't want this victory, either, I reckon," he drawled, and threw the Snitch as hard as he could.
Malfoy turned around to gape after it, and then seemed to realize he was gaping. He narrowed his eyes furiously at Harry, and the Firebolt shot off.
Harry came behind him, not as fast, but he didn't need to be as fast. He was watching the locket chain where it curled around Malfoy's throat, and how it shimmered and twisted, and, this was the important part, grew less substantial even as he watched.
As Malfoy grunted with effort and leaned over to catch the Snitch, the locket shivered one last time and disappeared completely.
And Malfoy screamed with all his heart. He forgot about the Snitch and hunched over the Firebolt, swearing and starting to vomit.
Harry narrowed his eyes and urged the Cleansweep on with all his speed. In seconds, he was underneath Malfoy, and he surged upwards. He was coming the right direction, he judged, and—
Yeah. He was on the right angle of approach.
His arms closed around Malfoy.
Malfoy gave a single sob and turned towards him, his face ravaged. There were tears in his eyes and his mouth, and he yelled directly into Harry's face, "That's why I got rid of it! Because it was so awful! Guilt and hatred and fear all twisted up into each other!"
"You can't get rid of it without dying," Harry said, and held him, and refused to let go. "Or burning through it. Come on, Malfoy. I'll help you."
"But you have no reason to!"
"Being without your heart for so long made you rely on the power of logic, huh?" Harry held Malfoy steadily and refused to pay attention to the weak pushes against his chest. The arm that Malfoy had wrapped around his shoulders in response to Harry's hold spoke much more loudly. "I had plenty of reason. I saw you drowning. Someone who sees someone else drowning should rescue them."
"So it wasn't—because it's me. I'm just a Potter charity case."
Even those words were spikier than the ones Malfoy would have used just a while ago. Harry smiled and held on. "Oh, partially because it's you," he admitted. "I'd miss your prissy little voice."
Malfoy laughed, or did something that might have been a laugh if it hadn't turned into a choked sob halfway through. He clung to Harry with furious arms and shook him. Harry kept them both flying, using his knees to steer the Cleansweep and the way he leaned on Malfoy to steer the Firebolt.
"I felt so much better without the pain, though," Malfoy whispered an endless time later. They were both too high to listen to the voices shouting from below. Plenty of time for that when Malfoy was recovered, Harry thought. "Peaceful."
"Be honest, Malfoy. Were you really feeling anything?"
"No, but—but I made the choice. You had no right to force the locket back on me." Malfoy's voice was getting stronger, and he gave Harry a vicious shake. "Why did you interfere?"
"Call me strange, Malfoy, but I do prefer to interfere when someone's going to commit suicide."
"I wasn't dying."
"Uh-huh. You just sat through meals because you've learned how to eat air!"
They were practically yelling in each other's faces now. Harry felt a burst of happiness crash through him. This was the way it should be, and what Malfoy would have given up if he had been allowed to persist in his slow suicide.
"You shouldn't have done this!"
Harry would have liked to cross his arms across his chest and glare, but there were too many considerations that would follow if he did that, like how he was going to get untangled from Malfoy and who would be steering the brooms if he did. He settled for the glare instead. "You shouldn't have made such a stupid wish!"
"Uh, Malfoy?"
Both of them turned around to stare. Burke was hovering below on a Cleansweep that, like Harry's, must have come from the school shed. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Um, are you going to come back to the ground?"
Malfoy surged back from Harry and nodded regally, his hair falling around his ears. He would have looked more regal if not for how pink his face was. "Of course, Burke. The instant I catch the Snitch."
And off he flew, while Burke whooped and gave Harry a triumphant look, and Harry gave a rueful smile.
Of course, Malfoy's display was probably needed to reassure his teammates, which was why Harry wasn't going to tell them that he had his hand curled around the Snitch.
"Thanks for the loan of your Firebolt, Potter. Not that I needed your help, but I want to acknowledge gratitude where it's due."
Harry caught the broom Malfoy threw to him and nodded regally back, with what he knew was a more impressive effect than Malfoy had managed. "Sorry you couldn't catch the Snitch even with that."
Malfoy's face turned pink again, but he said, "There's always the next time."
"Now there's going to be a next time."
There was a long pause, and then Malfoy inclined his head. "Yes. Thanks, Potter."
For a fleeting second, there was an expression on his face that Harry wanted to see again. Something not so proud or prickly or stupid, and he leaned forwards, and he wanted to say something…
Malfoy flushed more deeply, almost red this time, and turned away. Harry sighed and turned back to Ron. "Thanks, mate."
"I'm just glad that apparently you're going to stop obsessing over Malfoy now that you've helped the git," Ron said fervently. "Come on, let's get back up near the common room fire where it's warm."
Harry turned to follow Ron, but kept looking over his shoulder for a moment. Malfoy's eyes were waiting for his.
The look in them…
Well, I may have to disappoint Ron.
The End
