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Once again Harry Potter was tucked into an almost forgotten corner of the library. A small round table pressed into a tiny alcove with bench seating, it was hidden from everyone unless they were standing right in front of it. The lack of windows or torches made it that much harder to see him. In the two weeks since yet another catastrophic Halloween saw his name spat out of the Goblet of Fire and the whole school turning on him, the alcove had become his refuge.
He had even managed to sleep there the last two nights and would keep doing it as long as he could. Madam Pince had missed him in her nightly rounds chasing mostly Ravenclaws but a few Slytherin and Hufflepuffs and Hermione out of the Library. The rest of the time he stayed as long as he absolutely could before slipping back into the dorm under the invisibility cloak.
He had learnt quickly that he wasn’t welcome when any of the other boys were still awake. The first night, Ron had yelled at him, accusing him of cheating and attention seeking and all sorts of other ridiculous things. That hadn’t been too bad, but the second night Dean and Seamus had joined in, sneering cruel things and purposefully slamming into him when he tried to pass them, or they tried to pass him, in the small space. Three times now he had come back to the dorms to find all of his bedsheets vanished and his mattress soaked with freezing water.
That had all been in the first week, and he had done his best to be elsewhere as often as possible since.
With a dejected sign, Harry pulled his battered charms book closer. They had gotten into his books after they hadn’t been able to torment him directly for a few days. All of them were still usable, but barely. He knew he would have to try and replace all of them on the next Hogsmeade weekend.
A slight tugging at the hem of his robe distracted the boy from his maudlin thoughts and ineffectual attempt to study. At first it was hard to see in the dim light, but the tugging progressed from his hem up his leg and by the time the small creature was climbing onto his knee, he could tell it was a pure white weasel or stoat. The creature perched on its back legs and stared at him with pale blue eyes.
Carefully, Harry held the tip of a finger out for the tiny animal to sniff. It obliged with its whole snout. The whiskers twitching with interest. The animal must be a stoat Harry decided as a weasel would be far to common and reminded him of the insult Malfoy often slung at Ron. A reminder of his ex-friend that he didn’t want or need.
After a second of sniffing him, the stoat nudged Harry’s finger with the top of its head, obviously asking to be scratched. “You are beautiful.” Harry whispered. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He never wanted to draw attention to himself.
At the praise and continued scratches, the stoat crept into Harry’s lap and curled up against his stomach. With the creature apparently settled for at least the next little while, Harry returned to his studies. One hand stayed stroking softly through its fur and in a quiet voice he began reading to the creature from his charms book.
They stayed there for hours. Harry reading and patting the stoat. Madam Pince shooing a pair of Ravenclaw seventh years out of the library interrupted the small well of peace they had been able to make.
“You should go find your person.” Harry said once the other students had packed up and disappeared between the shelves. Harry was thankful to the unknowing student who had lent him their pet for the evening. The company had been desperately needed.
The stoat chirped at him before jumping off Harry’s knees and disappearing into the shadows. Harry was alone. Again. Always. He slipped off the seat and twisted until he was curled under the table. His bag became his pillow and his thick winter cloak a decent blanket. It wasn’t as comfortable as the bed waiting for him in Gryffendor. However, it was more than he had had for almost the whole time he had been at the Dursley’s and much safer than the dorms. After a moment of wriggling he found a comfortable enough position and fell into uneasy sleep.
= + =
It became a pattern. Not every night, but every second or third the svelt white stoat would appear out of the shadows, climb Harry’s pant leg and settle in to be petted. On the third visit, Harry began reading his book to the little animal. He was slogging his way through his ruined potions book. The water has made the ink run, staining the pages and stealing three years worth of his own notes in the margins.
A lifetime of having to do worse than Dudley had made it impossible for him to hand in work that he knew would get him a good grade. That didn’t mean he didn’t take his education seriously. Regardless of what Ron or Hermione thought.
When he couldn’t stand reading his books anymore, but didn’t want to give up the comfort of the animal’s soft fur, he moved on to other topics. The stoat learnt more about the Dursley’s and the pristine primary school Harry attended in Little Whinging than anyone else. He whispered the secret of sometimes missing the cupboard under the stairs. Of knowing where the threat was coming from.
Except he wasn’t in the library whispering secrets. And it wasn’t evening. It was the middle of a perfect early winter day. The Hogwarts weekend visit was halfway past and Harry wasn’t in the village replacing his books. He was in the Infermary as Madam Pomfrey prepared to vanish the broken bones in his wrist and feed him skele-grow to replace them. A tripping jinx from an unseen student had sent him down a flight of stairs.
Harry didn’t think it was a coincidence. He knew it either had to be Ron, or someone he put up to it all to keep him from going to the village and being able to replace the books he had ruined. Even more unfortunately a Hufflepuff prefect had seen him take the tumble and forced him to the Infermary. If no one had seen, he would have just ignored the pain and made the trip down to the village. He refused to let this nonsense ruin his chance at a future away from the Dursleys.
It was well after dark when he was finally released. The next Hogsmeade weekend wasn’t until the weekend before the Christmas break started in a month's time.
After pretending to head to the dorms, he ducked into a side hallway and headed for the library. Slipping through shadows and hidden corridors it only took him five minutes to get from the seventh floor back down to the first. Except it must have been later than he realised as the large library doors were closed tight and locked even tighter. Past experience told him there were spells or wards on the doors that would alert Madam Pince and Filch the moment a student tried to interfer with them.
There would be no safe night’s sleep in his little nook.
The castle held plenty of empty classrooms, but they were all too open to feel safe. The locked doors that were hampering him now had been his staunch protectors previously. With a silent sigh, Harry turned away. There had to be a long forgotten broom cupboard or office that he could use.
He wandered the drafty Scottish castle. Letting his feet and the constantly moving stairs take him where they willed. He came back to himself when he unknowingly walked into a small office that was covered in a thick layer of dust. Drop sheets hiding the furniture. It must have been an internal room as there were no windows out into the cold night. There were two other doors into the office aside from the one he had come in through. For the first time in a long time curiosity sparked in his gut. One door led into a dark classroom. The desks and chairs were stacked neatly against the far wall. The blackboard was covered in chalk and there was more white marks on the perfectly smooth stone floors. In the dark night he couldn’t see what any of the writing was, but it still sent a warm flush of welcome through him.
Unnerved he retreated back into the office and tried the second door. It led into an even smaller bedroom. This room was also covered in dust and dropsheets.
Back at the Dursley’s this would have taken him a full day of work to clean to his Aunt’s satisfaction. With a grin to himself he pulled his wand. At Hogwarts, it only took a bit of energy and a few flicks of his wand. Once he was finished all of the dust and the dropsheets were gone. The bed had clean and warm looking quilts layered a foot thick. A final incantation turned one of the chairs from the classroom into even lengths of wood that were easy to stack in the fireplace and quickly there was a fire crackling happily, lighting up the room.
He might have only needed a few weak charms to get the room habitable, but after the earlier healing and weeks of aniety and stress, Harry found it almost impossible to keep his eyes open. Kicking off his shoes, he crawled under the blankets and was asleep almost instantly.
= + =
The next morning Harry could have returned to the Library. Instead he chose to explore his newly claimed bedroom instead. A door he hadn’t noticed the night before led from the bedroom into an opulent bathroom. It even had a floor to ceiling window that looked directly out onto the Quidditch pitch. From the deep bath he spent a good hour soaking and watching faceless students using the stunning Sunday morning to play a casual game of Quidditch.
The rest of the day was spent poking through the bedroom, office and classroom. He found a whole wall of books in both the classroom and the office. The former was tens of battered copies of the same few books, obviously well used textbooks. They were all for warding and ritual craft. The office had the same subjects covered by many more books. Some were in English while most of them were in a combination of Welsh or Latin. He selected one of the English textbooks from the classroom after trying to figure out which was the introductory text and took it back to his bedroom to read.
The sun was setting before he looked up. It was fascinating, but the rumble of his stomach was finally hard enough that he couldn’t ignore it any more. He used a slip of parchment to mark his place. Slipping out of the room he kept to the shadows until he could sneak into the ever bustling kitchens.
After dinner was well and truly over, he braved the castle hallways again. He wanted to go back to his bedroom and finish the warding book, however the desire to see the white stoat again was stronger. The little animal was already waiting in his nook. It was curled up on a pile of books. Books that were the exact ones he had needed to pick up in Hogsmeade the day before.
The stoat noticed him approaching and raised it head to watch him slide into his seat. Once he was sitting the animal bounded up from its spot and disappeared below the desk. It had been lying on a folded piece of parchment. Before he had a chance to reach for it, a body was standing in front of him.
Draco Malfoy was lacking his usual arrogance. The boy looked downright nervous. Harry almost didn’t recognise it on the git’s face.
“Potter. I apologise.” Malfoy said, eyes locked on the stack of books.
“You… apologise?” Harry asked carefully. He couldn’t figure out what the Slytherin’s play was. “For what exactly?”
“I didn’t mean… Or I guess I did… but not… not to gain anything. Or…um… make fun of you.” Draco stumbled over his words.
“If I promise not to get angry about whatever it is you are trying to tell me, and you promise that you weren’t trying to hurt me, or use whatever it is to hurt me, will you spit it out?” Harry interrupted.
Instead of trying to force out any further words, Draco moved without moving. His body shifted until he was gone and the little white stoat was sitting on the table again. A second later the stoat was gone and Draco was standing before him.
“I’m sorry.”
There wasn’t a single thought in Harry’s head. All he could do was stare between the empty table and the shifting boy in front of him.
“Oh.” Harry blinked and a word came to him. “Why?” More words followed. “Not why did you stay, but why were you here in the first place?”
“Weasley is harassing you and Granger is ignoring you.” Draco tried to explain something he didn’t even understand himself. “You had no one. I… um… You need to survive this.” His voice grew fierce as he figured out what he wanted to say. “You need to survive this and everything else that might be coming.”
“Malfoy- Draco. What are you talking about?” Harry stood up and laid a gentle hand on the other boy’s arm and pushed him around and down into the seat opposite him.
Draco took a deep breath and tried again. “Dad’s been meeting his friends. I can’t do anything. But we need you. I don’t want to be like him.” His grey eyes were plaintive.
Harry stared at the other boy as he fell into an uncomfortable silence. “You don’t want to join Voldemort.” He ignored the obvious flinch from Draco. “Or at least whatever your father is cooking up.”
“Yes.”
Harry didn’t really need the confirmation but it was appreciated. “Okay.”
Draco waited for Harry to say something else. Eventually it was obvious that he wasn’t going to continue.
“Okay? That’s it? I’ve been a right prat to you and your mates for three years and all you have to say is okay?” Draco was quickly working himself into a state.
“Not so loud.” Harry hissed. He lent out of the nook and glanced around the library. Luckily it was late on a Sunday evening and even the most studious Ravenclaws had retreated to their common room. Fighting with himself for a moment he eventually stood up. “Come on.” He started walking before he could second guess himself.
Behind him Draco grabbed up the books and hurried to follow him.
In silence Harry led Draco to the office attached to the bedroom he had slept in the night before.
“What is this?” Draco asked only after Harry had closed the door behind them.
“I don’t know. I found it yesterday.”
“Why aren’t you going back to the dorms?” Draco placed the books carefully on the desk before wandering around to poke around the room.
“Ron.” Harry said simply.
Draco sneered.
“Why did you keep coming back?” Harry figured a question for a question was fair.
“You were lonely. And your hands were gentle.”
The two boys smiled at each other. A tentative friendship forged in the dark of a library was strengthened in a dusty, forgotten office.
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Inspired by this image:
I think it is by XXotter.