Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Greetings

The three appeared quite shaken, even Ron who seemed to be eating a lot less than he normally did, Draco able to tell from the severe lack of sauce surrounding his face.

He wondered what possibly could have happened over the break to have the three in such odd moods, but he wasn't able to dwell on it for long once Blaise managed to suck him into a conversation about his mother's new husband.

Although, through all of the chatter with his friend, one thought rang through his mind.

What the hell had happened?

~*"*~

Draco was pouring the nettle leaves into his potion carefully when he felt someone slip something into his pocket.

There was a pretty noticeable presence beside him for a moment as—you guessed it—Green eyes walked by, brushing his shoulder against Draco's arm to hide the fact that he had just snuck a piece of paper into his enlarged robe pocket.

Draco didn't even blink at him before pouring the rest into the simmering concoction without lifting his eyes and waiting impatiently for class to end, his fingers resting over his pocket occasionally to make sure the small slip of parchment was still there as if it would disappear if he turned away from it for even a moment.

Once class had ended and after Draco managed to slide away from his friends, he ducked behind the wall of a corridor, took out the note from his pocket—ignoring the tinkling sound of potion bottle against potion bottle—and tenderly opened the paper.

There were only a few words sprawled hastily over the small slice of parchment and he read it in a swift manner before Theo noticed he was gone and got suspicious, and shoved it back into his pocket.

He let the image of the words play in his head, swirling in and out like a snake.

Meet me in the room of requirement at midnight tonight.

—Harry

He let a small smile gleam through the sides of his teeth for the tenth of a second before schooling his face into something impartial and slipped back into his group of friends as if nothing had ever happened.

~*"*~

Draco eventually made it to the room of requirement. He was about twenty minutes early—courtesy of being restless and too excited to see Harry again to properly sleep—so once he got there to see Green Eyes already waiting outside of the room with something other than that weird traumatised look he had been sporting for the last few days, Draco shock turned easily into a blinding grin.

"Hello," he said.

Harry glanced up at him and he too seemed to struggle to stop his lips from stretching upwards.

"H–hi," he answered as eloquently as always.

Draco's heart fluttered mercilessly.

"I can't believe it's only been like two and a half weeks since we last met," Draco stated, veering away from the pounding of his chest. "It felt like a lot longer."

"Ya," Green Eyes chuckled, although there was little humour in it. "It felt like forever."

Draco smiled at him—a true one, not a thing that was fabricated to look bigger or brighter than it was, but a small smile that showed the true glimpse of the kind of person he kept behind occlumency shields and pureblood etiquette that Draco casually slipped into without noticing.

"Shall we enter the room?" He asked.

"Oh, uh ya. Right."

Harry stepped towards the empty wall beside the tapestry where he had been first told to meet at and began pacing to and fro across the floor, his sneakers making a garbled noise against the cobbled floor.