30 day elite writing challenge — day seven 8/28
- “i thought you were dead”
summary: draco angrily confronts harry about the appalling collection of dark eyelashes he finds in his bed.
“Potter. Since I know you never learned manners as a child, I thought I’d give you a little lesson.”
Harry righted himself with a jolt, turning towards the common room door. He’d dozed off in an armchair before the fire with a book in his lap — he hadn’t truly been reading it, only staring blankly at the same sentence, struggling to keep his eyes open. The previous night had been long; now he was so exhausted that he’d slept through lunch.
Normally he’d have come up with a smart remark to Malfoy’s rude greeting, but found that his wits weren’t quite enough about him. Harry only demanded, “What are you on about, Malfoy?”
“I’m talking about your poor behavior as a guest in someone else’s room,” Malfoy said pretentiously as he crossed the room and came to stand over Harry’s chair. Harry noticed with no small amount of envy that Draco looked quite well rested, carrying himself straight and tall without a hint of a bag beneath his eye.
“And what, exactly, have I done to your room?” Harry asked as he glared up at the other boy. “Have I eaten all your scones, or spilled a dab of wine on your fine tablecloth?”
Harry had slept the night in Draco’s dormitory the previous night, tucked up beside him in bed with the curtains drawn around them. Harry had gone down to return a rather expensive looking quill he’d seen Draco drop in the corridor earlier that day. As he made to return to his own dormitory, Draco had caught him by the arm and begged him to stay with a panicked look about him, then rather detachedly told Harry he’d been having nightmares and couldn’t sleep on his own. Harry had obliged, but laid awake while Draco slept.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter.” Malfoy snapped, lifting his chin so as to peer down his nose. He’d forgone cutting his hair for the past several months and his clothes had grown shabby and tattered, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble looking poised and assertive.
“What’ve I done, then? Do you plan to tell me, or shall I go back to my nap?”
Harry was growing quickly irritated. He’d spent the night awake so Malfoy could sleep soundly, and now his desperate attempts at catching a few short winks during the day were being thwarted as well.
Finally, Malfoy exclaimed, “You’ve gone and left your eyelashes in my bed!”
For a moment Harry stared blankly at the boy hovering above him. “My….eyelashes?”
Harry was sure he had gone entirely mad, because certainly one couldn’t leave their eyelashes behind for someone else to find. As he gazed in stupefied wonder at Draco, however, he thrust his hand into the pocket of his robes, drew out a small glass vial, and handed it agitatedly to Harry. Indeed, there were six or seven fine, dark eyelashes clinging together at the bottom of the glass.
“So…you’ve collected these from your sheets and brought them to me as evidence that my manners are horrid?” Harry asked slowly, now feeling slightly amused. Draco looked so formidably annoyed with him, standing as he was with his chest puffed out and his nose in the air over a few eyelashes, it was comical.
Draco had begun to pace before Harry now, staring angrily at the jar of eyelashes so that his own eyes crossed a bit. He was ranting, “Of course I have, Potter. What do you take me for? The sort of person who just finds another blokes eyelashes in his bed and just forgets about it?”
“I’d have to say I take most people for that sort,” Harry told him, and Draco shot him a look. “Fine. You had best know that the reason my eyelashes were left in your bed is presumably because I spent the night rubbing my eyes furiously to keep awake. You know, to make sure you stayed asleep.”
That arrested Draco in the path he’d been wearing back and forth in the carpet. He turned slowly to face Harry, a barely concealed look of surprise etched across his slim features.
“Well, fine then,” he spluttered, a hot blush creeping up his neck like a vine. “Just…take your eyelashes with you next time you go.”
Harry snorted, wearing a bemused grin, and folded one leg over the other. “Next time you need an excuse to speak to me, Malfoy, you might try a simple ‘hello’ as opposed to shouting at me about how I’ve misplaced my eyelashes.”
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