Invisible

Notes: Thank you to my betas: hecticity, likehottness and hint_of_mayhem. Written for the 100quills challenge.

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"Mobilicorpus," he murmured, draping the invisibility cloak over Malfoy's stupefied form. Anyone passing Harry in the hall would see no more than the Boy Who Lived making the long trek back to his dorm rooms from the dungeons, his wand out in paranoia.

When he got back to the room that he shared with Dean, Seamus, Neville and Ron, Harry placed Malfoy gently on his bed, drawing the curtains around it closed. He cast a ward on them so that his roommates wouldn't be able to get past them and lit a tiny candle on the nightstand. He made a grab at the empty air. The invisibility cloak fell away from Draco Malfoy's unconscious body. The Slytherin's eyes were closed, and in the candlelight the silver-blond eyelashes--a shade darker than the hair on his head--seemed to extend, brushing his pale cheeks. He looked younger in the candlelight, not the almost-seventeen that he actually was. He looked innocent and precious. He isn't innocent, Harry thought. And he damn well isn't precious, either! Harry shook his head as if to dispel the disturbing thoughts. Just the near-darkness playing tricks on my perceptions.

"Ennervate," Harry whispered, and watched a shock of white surge from his wand to envelop Malfoy. The boy stirred. His body stiffened when he felt his bonds. He cast a quick glance around and his eyes narrowed when he realized where he was. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Po--" he began heatedly.

Harry whirled, hastily throwing a silencing ward on the curtains surrounding them before Malfoy could say anything else. Then he jumped onto Malfoy, making the bed creak ever so slightly from the added weight. "You almost gave yourself away!" he spat, seizing Malfoy's collar angry grip, just as he'd done back in Snape's office.

If Malfoy hadn't been bound, he probably would have wrenched Harry's hands away from him. As it was, he simply glared. "Potter," he snarled. His eyelashes didn't seem so long and pretty with his eyes open; the hardness of the gray overwhelmed any other softness in his features. "I didn't know your cowardice had gotten to the point where you'd actually tie your adversaries up and knock them out before fighting them."

Now it was Harry's turn to narrow his eyes. "Don't talk to me about cowardice, Malfoy," he hissed. "I was there in the tower with you and Dumbledore--I know what happened. You're not fit to be my adversary." Malfoy's face had frozen when he'd said the name Dumbledore, and now the other boy was staring blankly at him, his lips in a tight, thin line. Harry immediately regretted his words. Malfoy wasn't showing cowardice when he couldn't kill Dumbledore--he was being brave. And Harry had just made him think it was something to be mocked. Fuck.

Before Harry could take back his words, Malfoy had composed himself, schooling his face into its usual sneer. Harry wondered in the back of his mind if Malfoy practiced that sneer in front of a mirror, because he got it right every time. "What do you want from me, Potter?" he asked, his tone dark. Harry stopped himself from making a biting retort. He didn't know what it was about Malfoy that made him burn with such irrational anger. You've already fucked him up, he told himself. That's enough; let it go.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully, consciously keeping his tone even.

"You don't know?"

He shrugged. "I haven't told anyone about what I heard in the tower. They assumed that you left with the Death Eaters. They'll curse first and ask questions later if they see you."

Malfoy glared some more. "They're not much different from you, then, are they, Potter?"

"Just shut up, Malfoy!" Harry yelled, his calm suddenly gone. "Dumbledore is dead, your father's in Azkaban, and Voldemort is still alive. Do you even know where your mother is?" Malfoy continued to glare, but there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "I thought not. You're defenseless. No one knows you're here, but if you're seen, they'll take you away from here, and lock you up somewhere, probably in Azkaban. You'll be discovered, and then they'll find you and kill you."

"I thought you were going to do that. And I thought you wanted them to find me. So I would lead you to them. That's my purpose, you said."

Harry sighed, the anger abruptly going out of him again. What was it about this boy that made him hot one minute and cold the next like that? "I was just...angry. Bluffing. I--I didn't mean it." He put his hands on Malfoy's shoulders, not sure why he was doing it, but knowing that it reassured him. The Slytherin gave him a look that told him he was clearly a disturbed individual, but he kept his hands where they were. "I'm sorry. I...I'm not completely sane right now. First Sirius died, now Dumbledore... and I just--"

"Never mind," Malfoy said gruffly. "Quit your crying," he continued, "and untie me, if you'd be so kind, Potter?"

"I was not crying!" Harry argued, indignant.

"Whatever. Just untie me."

"No."