Everything Silver | Harry Potter (2)

Chapter One: if pigs could fly, the world would be a better place

Harry was screwed. Fucked. Up shit-creek without a paddle in sight, just him and his paper boat steadily approaching their impending doom.

"Utterly ridiculous," Draco sneered at the bustling crowd. "I can't believe you roped me into this."

"If I'm going down, you're going down with me," hissed Harry, swallowing back nausea caused by the number of people pressing in. "Besides, this is entirely your fault, if you'd have just found–"

"My fault?!" eyes wide in outrage, Draco emitted homicidal rage like a foul stench. "Oh, I ought to–!"

Two hands emerged from the menacing abyss crowd, landing solidly on Harry's shoulder.

"There you are!" exclaimed Arthur Weasley cheerily, "Thought I lost you permanently for a second there- could you imagine? That would've been just awful!"

He says, as if Harry and Draco hadn't bolted as far away from the ever-growing queue of people, desperate to leave the store immediately upon entry. Alas, said queue now extended outside the store, and leaving would put them in direct sights of their enemy; a risk neither was willing to take.

"Yeah, just awful," Harry agreed half-heartedly. Draco sneered.

He was quite good at that.

Leaving Draco behind, Mr. Weasley nudged Harry forward, somehow forging a path around the adoring crowd until they joined with the rest of the Weasleys and Mr. and Mrs. Granger.

"Oh, there you are, good," said Mrs. Weasley breathlessly. She kept patting her hair. "We'll be able to see him in a minute. . . ."

Desperate to be anywhere else, Harry searched the crowd for Draco.

He couldn't find him.

The other boy had escaped.

Fuck.

Betrayed, Harry looked up to the rafters in despair as Gilderoy Lockhart emerged from the back rooms, seating himself at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd.

"Out of the way, there," a short, irritable man with a camera snarled at Ron, moving back to get a better shot. "This is for the Daily Prophet —"

Harry closed his eyes and begged the magic that brought him back in time to reverse the process. Let him battle Voldemort again. Please, just, anything but this —

"It can't be Harry Potter?" Gilderoy positively shouted.

Draco, having hidden taken post at the back of the store, could only watch on as Harry endured his torture.

Over the years, Draco realised he would do just about anything if Harry asked it of him. He'd fight battles, he'd wage wars, he'd even a be shoulder to cry on. But this. . .

Draco averted his eyes as Lockhart threw an arm around Harry's shoulders and clamped him tightly to his side.

. . . this was something Draco couldn't help him with. Harry would have to shoulder this section of the plan alone.

What a poor bastard.

#

Already exhausted by the day and staggering under the weight of Lockhart's entire collection of works, Harry managed to make his way out of the limelight to the edge of the room, where Ginny was standing next to her new cauldron.

"You have these," Harry grunted at her, tipping the books into the cauldron. "I'll buy my own."

Ginny stared at him with wide eyes. He fought back a wince.