"You have done everything I could have hoped, and we will stop these lessons for now, until you have the memory we need from Professor Slughorn. Thank you, Harry."
Flabbergasted and feeling abandoned, Harry steeled his resolve not to let Dumbledore down. It was only when he arrived at a blank wall and walked past it three times did he realise how the Room of Requirement was becoming something of a refuge, and his feet had brought him there without a second thought.
When he opened the door, he found all three of them there.
"Isn't it a bit late?" Harry asked, watching as Ron tried to balance blueberries on a plate heavy with pancakes and whipped cream.
"We were waiting up for you, actually. You're early. How'd it go?" Hermione asked with a frown, though Harry couldn't see it as she was obstructed by a pile of books, some which looked like they could slip off the table at any moment.
"Badly," Harry huffed, throwing himself on a beanbag near Draco, who was lounging with an open book in his hand. "Dumbledore says he's through with our lessons until I can do the thing that he wants me to do." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Draco making a quizzical look before going back to his reading.
"What could you possibly do that the professor cannot?" Draco drawled.
"That's your problem, Malfoy. You always expect adults to handle everything–"
"Not everyone's a hero like you are."
Harry's eyes clouded over as he thought about Dumbledore's latest instruction. There was a nagging feeling that it was all too familiar to how he had acted in the previous year. If Dumbledore never withdrew from him, Sirius needn't have died. It was a poisonous thought and he squashed it as best he could, but he couldn't help redirecting that hate towards Draco.
"I have told you everything you need to know, Malfoy."
Hearing the use of his family name signalled to the blonde figure what he had been expecting, a dismissal. He left the room feeling strangely empty. Stung, he gave himself a moment before starting the long trek to the dungeons.
Back in the room, Harry filled Ron and Hermione in on what he and Dumbledore had discovered about Voldemort's childhood, specifically how he was conceived under the influence of a love potion.
"That's horrible!" Hermione exclaimed with a hand over her mouth.
"Yeah, imagine waking up from a spell and realising you were married to an ugly, creepy bat!" Ron laughed and it was all Hermione could do not to call him out on his superficial tendencies.
"Or, worse, finding you're married to someone as foul as Malfoy," he added as sort of an afterthought.
Hermione didn't miss the way that Harry's eyes flickered to her accusingly but neither said anything, even though Hermione desperately wanted to confront him and explain that there was nothing going on between Draco and her. She also knew that defending herself would only make her seem guiltier. They'd seen how she was always together with Draco in the room, and it was up to them to draw their own conclusions, whether they were real or not.
Unease has filled Draco ever since the disappearance of Professor Selgentar and even after learning what Harry had to say about his lessons with Dumbledore, he grew more and more restless until he could take it no longer. Furthermore, since he was so unceremoniously ejected from their meeting, he was filled with a frenetic energy to do something.
"I need to see the headmaster," He said to the gargoyle guarding the stairs to Dumbledore's office for the umpteenth time but it remained unmoved to his plight.
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The Lost Timeline | Dramione | ✔
Fanfiction"Do not make the mistake of thinking I care what you think of me." She looked down and saw her book in his other hand. The unexpected kindness in the midst of poison was more than she could bear and she took it from him quickly before breaking into...
