Quarantined • DRARRY •

•Chapter Four• Hogsmade•

HARRY

            Harry awoke with a start, fighting off the grip of nightmares. It was still dark; nearly 2am, and dawn was a long way from arriving over the horizon.

            He was only conscious of a sudden stillness, an uncomfortable notion that something was out of place.

            When he sat up to look over at Malfoy's bed, he realized why.      

            Malfoy was gone.

            He swung his feet over his bed with a curse, hunting around for his shoes and socks. If Malfoy was gone, Harry knew exactly where he was.

            "Since when have you ever cared about the rules?"

            Harry hadn't visited the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore since the Battle of Hogwarts. He hadn't even bothered to reopen the passageway. In fact, he would have felt better if no one had ever disturbed her at all. 

            He couldn't look at her picture without feeling a rollercoaster of emotions: hatred and longing, love and frustration. He couldn't look at her without thinking of her brother, who had pulled the strings of Harry's life since he was born, who was always standing behind the curtain, whose desire to destroy death had caused the demise of his sister...

            Even now, Harry approached her with a certain wariness. He didn't know what she would say to him, if her portrait truly interacted with others the way other magical paintings did. After all, Ariana had been sickly, damaged by the assault she'd undergone as a child. Perhaps the only person she spoke to was Aberforth...

            "He felt bad about it, you know." Ariana spoke, startling Harry out of his reverie. She still had that quizzical half-smile on her face, and her wide, pale eyes contained a certain depth to them, the feeling that a very old person looked out of that child's face. "Talked to me for quite some time about it, how he needed to go but hated that he was proving you right. How it was probably what he deserved, to be locked in here with you."

            "Is this supposed to make me feel sorry for him?"

            "Don't you?"

            "No." Harry lied. "I've never felt sorry for Draco Malfoy.

            Ariana looked at him for a moment. "Aberforth talked to me about you, too, you know. After you left."

            "I really don't want to—"

            "You have 'an unerring capacity to do the right thing,' that's what he said to me. You'd walk through fire to save someone else."

            "I did." Harry muttered. "For Malfoy."

            "Why?"

            "Because I didn't want him to die." Harry said caustically. "It would have been too quick an end."

            Ariana sighed. "Sometimes we can't accept the things that are most obvious to us. Albus certainly knew that."

            "What are you talking about?" Harry's eyes pricked. What did she mean? Did she mean he felt something for Malfoy?

            That was ridiculous; they were mortal enemies, antagonists. And Harry was in love with Ginny Weasley, had been since he'd seen her kissing Dean, and his affection for her roared to life inside of him...

            Ariana was watching him as though she detected the turmoil going on inside. "Don't make the mistakes my brother did, Harry. Don't push someone you love into darkness."