'But I didn't-'
'Come on!'
Half-dragging Harry, Draco backed out of the classroom as Lupin and the rest of the class stared at them in astonishment. Once out in the hallway, he kicked the classroom door shut and let go of Harry, who sat down hard on the floor and looked up at him with a dazed expression.
'What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?' yelled Draco, fuming. He was covered in ink and bits of glass, and was fairly sure that his shirt was permanently ruined. 'Get a grip on yourself!'
'I'm not doing anything!' Harry yelled back furiously.
CRASH!
One of the stained-glass windows set high in the wall above their heads shattered, raining down bright bits of glass.
'Stop it!' shouted Draco, covering his head. 'D'you want to bring the whole school down around our ears, you stupid prat?'
Now Harry was starting to look worried. 'But I don't mean to be-'
He broke off as a large, ominous crack appeared in another window.
Draco was now seriously alarmed. Given Harry's already-proven abilities to conjure up hailstorms of owls and blue snow, he was afraid it might at any moment start raining toads. Or bricks. Or sharp, pointy objects.
'Potter,' he said, 'I want you to know something. Ultimately, this is for your own good.'
'What is?' said Harry, looking at him in bewilderment.
'This,' said Draco, and kicked Harry, hard, in the ribs.
'Uck!' said Harry, or something very like, doubling up and gasping.
When he got his breath back, he looked up at Draco in fury. 'You asshole, Malfoy,' he said, got to his feet, and punched Draco in the eye.
It was not in Draco's nature to take a pummeling without fighting back. He swung at Harry and hit him in the jaw. It was ultimately, however, a losing proposition; Draco was taller and had the greater reach, but Harry had the strength born from blind fury-not just at Draco, but at life in general. By the time Lupin and the rest of the class had poured out of the room to see what was going on, Harry was sitting on top of Draco and hitting him with both fists.
''Arry!' squealed Fleur, who didn't like to see boys fighting unless it was over her. 'You will not 'it Draco! You will ruin 'is face!'
'HARRY!' bellowed Lupin, his voice dripping icicles. 'DRACO. YOU
WILL EXPLAIN YOURSELVES.'
Harry stopped hitting Draco and stared from him to Lupin, looking dazed.
'IN MY OFFICE NOW!' said Lupin.
Harry got up, and so did Draco. Both of them were bleeding, although Draco looked a deal worse than Harry. They reluctantly followed Lupin down the hall to his office, aware of the curious stares of the other students at their backs. Lupin yanked the door of his office open, ushered them inside, hissed 'SIT DOWN AND DON'T
MOVE UNTIL I GET BACK,' and slammed the door.
It was suddenly very quiet, except for the gentle ticking of the clock on the office wall. Draco looked at Harry out of the corner of his eye. Harry looked at Draco out of the corner of his eye. And saw that he was grinning.
'What's funny, Malfoy?' he said with a mixture of curiosity and indignation.
'Kept you from burying us all in a mountain of shrapnel, didn't I?'
said Draco, who could only grin out of one side of his mouth, which gave him a lopsided and vaguely psychotic air. 'Distracted you at the crucial moment. Feel better now?'
Harry, who did indeed feel better, looked down at his bleeding knuckles, then back up at Draco, and felt also suddenly guilty.
'Malfoy,' he said haltingly, 'I'm really, really sorry that I-'
'Forget it!' said Draco cheerfully. 'The look on your face when I kicked you in the ribs, that was so worth it!'
Harry's feeling of guilt vanished. 'There's just no point apologizing to you, is there?'
Draco waved a dismissive hand. 'I don't ever apologize, why should you?'
'You don't apologize? Like you don't faint?'
'Right,' said Draco.
'What else don't you do?'
'I don't cry,' said Draco. 'And I don't dance. Hate dancing.' He shuddered. 'And I don't think Hermione's in love with Viktor Krum, either.'
Harry winced. 'Can we not talk about that?'
'Come on, Potter!' said Draco, who had wandered over to Lupin's desk and was casually examining the objects that lay on it. 'Think about it. It makes no sense-' He broke off. 'Hey, Potter, look at this.'
Harry came over to see what Draco was looking at, and glanced over his shoulder. A large and rather musty-looking book sat open on Lupin's desk. Harry touched it gingerly; it had a thick leathery cover and the pages were old, yellowed and powdery. The book was open to a page which showed woodcut illustrations of various objects —
something that looked like a gauntlet, then a rather nasty-looking skull, and underneath both those things, a drawing of a sword. It wasn't detailed, but the jewels in the hilt were very definitely green.
