Worthwhile

"Mew."

"Potter. There is a tiny kitten stuck up that tree," said Draco, pointing casually up at the tree, where indeed, a small, black and white kitten clung to a high branch.

"Oh." Harry scratched his head, leaning on one of his crutches, which had become a necessary travelling tool after having sustained several Quidditch-related injuries. Draco having been the one to, according to him, "intentionally" injured Harry, was punished with having to escort him to and fro on his journeys from each classroom. The thick cast on Harry's foot was covered in colourful doodles of flying pigs and basilisks, and Draco's signature written a million times over everybody else's sloppily. ("Practice for signing autographs, Potter; you'd know all about that, right?") They were just walking back from Care of Magical Creatures, along the path to the castle.

"That, er, that sucks," Harry finished somewhat lamely, hobbling away in the opposite direction of the tree obtaining the kitten. He tried to find a place to stick his crutches on the dirt path that wasn't too muddy, busily avoiding puddles. It was hardly the answer that Draco was looking for.

Silence.

"Mew."

The cat was starting to sound insistent. It was irritating to Draco's ears. "Isn't this somewhat up your alley? I mean, rescuing kittens, saving puppies from being boiled alive, you being an all-around do-gooder, and me being a lackadaisical ne'er-do-well?"

"It's not the first time in history a cat's ever gotten stuck up a tree," the gimpy (and impatient, Draco thought haughtily) boy said flatly. "I'm sure it can find a way down. We're going to be late."

Draco looked at him with a gobsmacked expression. Well, no. Not gobsmacked. Supremely dismayed expression. It just happened to be when he was supremely dismayed, his mouth hung open wide enough to catch tennis balls, or collect rain.

"Besides, it's how I release heat. Like lizards do in the desert."

"What in the world are you talking about?" Harry asked wearily behind him, turning his neck, since it was probably a bit of an effort to turn his whole body.

"Mew."

"Nothing. Look. Shut up. Go save that adorable kitten. Now," he said, sniffing and folding his arms, back straight and stiff as a board. He very rarely had people who weren't his father disobey him; house-elves technically weren't the most rebellious bunch. It would take slightly more effort to get the Gryffindor boy to listen to him; besides, with Draco looking that cool and aristocratic, there was no way Harry could possibly deny him.

"No."

Apparently he was wrong. Draco narrowed his eyes. "Why not? I thought you were saviour of the wizarding world! The light in the darkness! Fighting evil with a sword wrought by most consummate love, harboured by a shield made of undying valiance!"

The latter boy was looking particularly annoyed. "Saviour of the wizarding world," he said, in a tone that sounded like he was holding back from saying anything more on the subject. "It didn't say anything about felines. Besides I--" Harry faltered, the fingers clenching his crutches going slack. "It's not like I can rescue everyone, is it?" He looked doubtfully over at his enemy.

"Mew."

"Well you are supposed to, right? I mean, overall, you are going to be saving everyone, so I don't see why you simply can't start now, with a little one-on-one action," reasoned Draco, frowning and glancing feelingly up at the kitten. Because if you don't, I will kick your crutches out from under you and watch you fall, said the baleful look his eyes cut over at Harry.

He pushed his glasses up over his nose. There was a severity to Harry's voice that made Draco wince just a little bit. "But I can't do that! What about people caught in snowstorms miles away, or people whose houses are burning down this very minute, or sinking ships in the middle of the ocean? I can't save everyone. I can't take on everyone's problems. If I did I wouldn't have time to think or feel or--" he inhaled deeply, leaning his pit into a crutch as he ran his fingers through his hair. "Or breathe."

To be honest, he didn't really care whether or not Harry could breathe. No matter how great of a dramatic speech he was going to make. "Well then who is going to save the bleeding kitten?!" spat Draco indignantly, fuming. Honestly, he wasn't just about to leave it up there. He'd rather die. Someone had to come and save it.

"Mew."

"Well, let's see," said Harry, sounding like a kindergarten teacher, false kindness and logic in his voice. "Who here has full use of both legs?"

Draco blinked. Hmm? Admittedly, that was a rather good idea; finding someone who didn't need to be lowered down onto the toilet every morning. He peered around under his hand, scanning the area at 360 degrees. The students had all already gone on to their classes; and who knows what could happen to Socks (as he had begun affectionately referring to the kitten in his mind) in the time it would take to find one.

He pursed his lips, thinking hard. "There is me, of course, bu--"

Harry suddenly held out his hand in a universal "stop" gesture. "Hold that thought."

"Me?!"

"Yes you. Climb up there and coax it down or whatever. And hurry. I've already been late to Charms three times because of you. Professor Flitwick threatened to remove my hair if it happened again."

It would only be an improvement, he thought broodingly. Draco worked up a brilliant argument as to why he should not have to deliver the kitten from the tree. It made perfect sense of course, but then again he'd always worked under a completely different course of rationality than the human population. He opened his mouth to speak; "--"

"MEAR...ROWRL!!"

Both boys looked up at the tree branch where the sound had emitted. A tiny, black and white object had just projected itself from the branch of the tree and was cutting through ten meters of air, flopping over heavily in mid-air to land on its feet.

Now, it is widely known that while cats always land on their feet, that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't grievously painful for them and that it is healthy for any animal, be they orangutans, stick insects, or beluga whales, to fall from a height of thirty feet. Harry was the first to go after the cat, limping towards the spot where it was bound to hit, Draco following quickly after, having hesitated a moment before running to catch it.

Draco held out his arms as he sprinted, already ahead of Harry, watching the kitten appear to get larger and larger as he got closer and closer to the spot where it nearly landed. Something incredibly soft touched his arms--soft for a moment, until he felt the force and weight and a pair of needle-sized claws digging into the flesh on his wrists. His limbs instantly enclosed around it, which was hard to do with so slight a creature, causing him to get an armful of kitten-ribcage. Draco, oddly shocked that he would even do such a thing, suddenly chose that moment to slip on a patch of mud and fall backwards into Harry, who had just caught up with him.

Both boys toppled backwards, kitten with them. It let out a seething hiss as it narrowly avoided being smashed between their torsos, scratching at Harry's shirt before wriggling away and stalking into the forest.

Harry hissed as well. Draco got up shakily from on top of him, worried he'd really hurt Harry's leg this time, and this time, the credit would be where as due. It was just as he started moving around to get off Harry that he noticed the pain of the scratches in his arm.

"Ungrateful bastard motherfucker Socks cats," Draco said nonsensically, holding his arm to stop the bleeding. "Oh gods. Are you alright?"

"Not any worse than before," mumbled Harry, his glasses askew over his nose, rubbing the back of his head gingerly, having just smacked it off the semi-hard grass and dirt below them. One of his arms was caught inside of his crutches awkwardly.

Draco sank down on his knees, for once not caring about getting dirty. "Sit up," he ordered, pulling Harry into a sitting position. The back of his shirt was wet and smeared brown. "I can't believe that horrible, filthy, disgusting animal scratched me. I'll get a disease! Who knows where it's been?! Doesn't it know we were saving its life?"

"People aren't always the most thankful when you help them," said Harry, smiling a little sadly, and in a way that pierced Draco's heart.

He averted his eyes. "I suppose not," he mumbled, still on the wet, marshy floor. "You know what else I can't believe? That I actually helped that thing. I don't know why. I could have just left it up to you, and blamed you when it got squished on the ground 'cause you're a slow, lame cripple."

A scowl started to form on Harry's face; but then his visage softened. "Do you know what that means though?"

"What?" asked Draco, blankly.

The dark-haired boy smiled somewhat crookedly. He hadn't known Harry could smile like that. "It means nobody can ever say that you never did anything worthwhile in your whole life."

Draco fought an urge to hit him, and wipe that stupid smirk off his face. It didn't belong there anyway. "Oh, yes, thank you ever so much, Potter, now I have 'Kitten-Saver' on my existential scorecard. I'll put it on my resume right next to my time in Umbridge's Inquisitional Squad and my internship as a young, wannabe Death-Eater."

On the ground next to him, Harry yawned. "Shut up, Malfoy," he said, removing a crutch out from under him.

"Make me," Draco said unthinkingly, for lack of a better comeback.

So Harry grinned roguishly and fisted his hands roughly in the collar of Draco's shirt, and, pulling his face so close that their noses bumped, did just that.