The Muggle Who Lived ☆ h.p au

eleven

The Great Hall. February 17, 1997

Harry Potter has had enough with these last few weeks. Ever since he stayed back during one of Slughorn's classes and asked him about Horcruxes, the professor has been avoiding him and trying to have little to no interaction with Harry. Harry sighed, remembering the feeling he is feeling at that moment when Dumbeldoe was avoiding him last year.

In the Great Hall chatting could be heard all over the place, besides his two best friends Hermione and Ronald who, much to Harry's irritation, have not rekindled their friendship yet. It was frustrating enough that Harry has to speak to both of them separate, more so that whenever Harry even mentioned the name Ron, Hermione would snap and leave Harry mid-conversation, not before insulting "Won-Won".

Apparation lessons have also not been going well for Harry. He just couldn't focus on it as hard as he had hoped to, but Harry knew it was because he had so much on his mind already that Apparation wouldn't have worked no matter how hard he tried.

And with his newfound evidence of Draco being a Death eater, Harry has been monitoring his movement through the map, but at certain points and times of the week he would just disappear off the map, and Harry just couldn't figure out why.

Strangely his eyes would wander off to the headmaster's office, where Zoë Dumbledore's name would always be, floating around in one area of the office. Sometimes he would see her pacing around the office, sometimes alone and sometimes with Dumbledore. If Harry were to view the map late into the night, there were times where Zoë's name would also disappear. Harry's explanation was that the map was faulty at times, although he couldn't convince himself to believe that.

Angerly, Harry placed himself, quite harsh, in front of Ron during breakfast. Ron, who was half asleep, jolted up at the hard thump, dropping the fork he hand in his hand.

"Bloody hell Harry what's the matter with you?" Harry only groaned in response, rubbing his temples to try to calm his nerves. He also didn't know what to answer. He had a library of problems he was dealing with at the moment. 

Harry only took a few pieces of toast and bacon, sitting in silence, even when Ron was dragged away for a "quick" snogging session by Lavender Brown. Harry caught sight of Hermione, who stared blankly at the sight of Ron and Lavender. Harry didn't even bother staying in the Great Hall after that. He chugged down his pumpkin juice and stood up, figuring that being early to his first-class was better than being in the Great Hall.

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That night, Draco once again snuck out of the Slytherin Common Room, quickly making his way to the Room of Requirements. The end of the year was fast approaching and Draco was nowhere near done. Stress began to build up in Draco, with him thinking the worst if he didn't succeed with his mission on time. His other mission also weighed him down, to the point where just thinking about what he would have to do in a few months would make him crash.

Draco walked into the room, seeing it completely empty. Draco sighed. He hadn't seen her in weeks. Time seemed to have slowed down while Draco worked on the cabinet. When he looked at the closet clock in the room after what felt like hours of work, the clock only read 12:45 am. Only 30 minutes had passed. Draco turned back to his work. Five minutes later, Draco heard the door open. He quickly stood up, placing everything in its place and closing the cabinet, running to the front of the room, smiling brightly as he saw Zoë staring back at him.

Draco went to hug her, but she stepped back, causing Draco to stumble a bit.

"What did you do that for?" Draco exclaimed. Zoë giggled, backing up a bit more.

"I won't let you hug me with that all over you." Zoë pointed at Draco's robes. When he looked down, he saw in disgust the potion that had exploded on him from his Potion's class. Draco, with the stress of the Vanishing Cabinet, didn't even bother changing into clean clothes. Draco quickly took off his robes, leaving on his white button-up shirt, which was luckily clean. 

Zoë smiled, shaking her head as she hugged Draco, letting him squeeze her tight. "Looks like you missed me." Zoë said as they both sat down on the floor. Draco smiled. "A bit."

Draco leaned to the side, retrieving a small box he had hidden. He placed it in front of Zoë, who looked at it confused.

"It's your Christmas present. We haven't seen each other in a while so I wasn't able to give it to you. I hope you like it." A radiate smile formed on Zoë's lips, seeming to light up the room. She took the box and opened it, revealing a pair of white gloves with small red, green, yellow, and blue dots all over it. Zoë put them on, admiring the lovely colors. Zoë turned to Draco, who was already looking at her with adoring eyes. 

Zoë hugged Draco, placing a small kiss on his cheek. 

"Thank you thank you thank you. You really didn't have to."  Draco nodded, a small tint of red present on his pale face. 

"I didn't know what house you were in, so I made sure all the house colors were on them." Zoë's smile faltered a bit at the Hogwarts related topic. But she quickly recovered.

"I'm a Hufflepuff." Zoë said, not wanting to make Draco suspicious if she hadn't said what her house was. Draco smiled. "Hufflepuff ay? I can totally see that." The pair laughed, filling the otherwise silent room with sound. 

"Well, at least you're not in Gryffindor. I wouldn't want a nice girl like you to be in the same house as Potter." This time Zoë's smile completely dropped, Draco taking notice of it.

"What? Do you not like Potter?" Zoë shifted uncomfortably, lightly tugging on the sleeve of her blouse on her left arm. 

"I guess who can say that." Draco grinned, letting his back rest on a pile behind him.

"You and me both." Draco laughed. Zoë fumbled a bit, touching her scar. She didn't know exactly how she felt about the boy who shared the same scar with her. It wasn't hate, but Zoë never had a nice feeling towards the boy with the raven hair. 

Maybe she'll figure out soon enough how she felt about Harry Potter.

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***I made the map in OOTP section of the book able to have the Room of Requirements in it. I realized that I shouldn't have made it that way as Harry uses it to try and find Draco in HBP, but when Draco is in the room Harry can't find him. I now fixed it so from this point forward the map is unable to locate the Room of Requirements (as it always should have been).***