The First Year

Chapter Seven

Sneaking Blindness

The Great Hall was different. There was only one table at the middle of the room where a few professors and one student were sitting at the moment of his entrance.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy!" Dumbledore's voice called out. "Please join us quickly before Hagrid eats all the pudding."

"I am not!" a booming voice exclaimed.

Draco neared the table, hearing a chair scrapping the floor.

"Here," said a gentle voice, which he now knew well, said, guiding him to his seat.

"Thank you, Harry." Draco still remembered that he had the privilege to call Mr. Potter by his first name. He wondered how many others called him Harry. Dozens perhaps? Well, he had heard only the Gryffindors who did that, no one else, so he felt honoured to be the only Slytherin, to his knowledge, able to do so.

***

"Slytherin Christmas."

Draco snorted. "That is the password?"

"Yeah, I didn't choose it, but I have to admit it is easy to remember," Harry replied, smiling slightly. "Come on. Watch your step!"

Harry helped him to climb through the portrait hole and then , leading him to their dorms. "You'll be sleeping here, on the bed to the right side of mine."

Draco nodded and Harry didn't say anything for a few minutes. Draco was about to open his mouth when Harry beat him to it.

"By the way, I'm sorry about how Ron acted the other day," Harry said, sounding honestly sincere.

"It's all right. I understand if he doesn't like me considering the strained relations between our families."

"Yeah, he seems to hate you more than anything," Harry responded, sounding slightly dejected.

An uncomfortable silence followed Harry's statement.

***

They were sitting in the common room, doing their homework. They didn't have much to do, but it was a nice distraction since neither of them had any idea as to what to talk about.

Draco dictated everything he wanted to write, and the quill wrote his dictations it on the parchment. He had closed himself off, so that Harry couldn't hear what he said and be disturbed by it.

"Draco?" Harry's voice interrupted his work. "Can I ask you something?"

Draco took the silencing charm off, nodding.

“Please don’t be offended but…You are a Servant, and I’m just curious…so what do you do, exactly?"

Draco smiled at Harry's curiosity. "Firstly, I must obey my Master, and do whatever he says - but there are some limits on what he can tell me to do. For example, he can't order me to do something that will directly hurt me." Draco paused for a minute before continuing, "Secondly, I must automatically clean our room - the house elves don't touch Servants' rooms. I must clean my Master's clothes, pack his schoolbag, change the sheets, et cetera, et cetera."

Listening carefully, Harry nodded every once in a while. "What is your Master like?"

Draco sighed. "He's nice, I suppose. He doesn't pamper me because of my blindness. I don't know what to tell you about him. He's my friend, I guess," he ended quietly.

"You don't sound sure," Harry stated, raising his brows.

"Well, you can never be sure what people think when you can't see the look in their eyes." Draco played with the cuff of his right sleeve.

"Have you always been blind?" Harry asked quietly.

Draco raised his head up, surprised at Harry's weak tone. He smiled encouragingly at him. "Yes, but it doesn't matter, I'm used to living with my blindness." His smile almost faded, but he remembered his mother's advice to look brave in front of others even if there was something wrong, so he brought the smile back to his face.

“Don't you ever wish you were able to see?” Harry thought, tilting his head in wonderment. He couldn't understand how something like that didn't matter.

Draco fumbled with his cuff again, wondering if he could go back to his homework yet. He always felt uneasy when someone started to pry about his blindness. He wanted to keep it private, since he had never told anyone how he had lost his eyesight. His mother had forced him to tell everyone that he had been blind since he had been born, so the easiest way to keep it secret was to not talk about it at all.

***

Draco lay in his bed, listening to Harry's soft breathing to be sure the other boy was asleep. He sat up and sneaked to his trunk, opening it quietly.

Tomorrow would be Christmas Eve. His father had sent him an owl earlier when they had been doing their homework, telling him that they would visit him then to bring his present.

He loved his parents, but he wasn't sure he wanted Harry to meet them. His father was sure to say something mean and embarrassing to the Boy-Who-Lived, since he hadn't told them that he was making friends with Harry.

Harry Potter had been one of the topics they had discussed with his father before he left to go to Hogwarts. Lucius had emphasized that he should try to stay on the right side, but he hadn't understood what his father had been talking about. Lucius had shaken him, desperately trying to make him see what he was supposed to see all along.

But before his father had gone any further, Narcissa had came to his aid. She calmed Lucius down and tucked her husband into bed, giving him his medication and kissing his forehead, wishing him good night.

That had been the only time his mother had allowed him to hear that. Never had he realised how bad Lucius' condition was, but at that moment, six months ago, he had been forced to witness it.

Finding what he was looking for, he shut the trunk and exited the dorm.