I Don't Know Why

I Don't Know Why

Chapter three: The Watching

"I don't know why!" Dream-Harry screams at Dream-Ron and the entire dream fades to black.

I roll over and I'm mystified when my body seems to hit the floor. I open my eyes a little and after a moment recognize that the strange structure in front of me is the common room table.

I groan when I realize that I must have fallen asleep on the couch. Pieces of parchment are hanging over the edge of the table and I assume they're part of my Transfiguration homework that is as yet unfinished.

I sit up and immediately regret it. The world goes an odd shade of white and my head spins crazily for a moment.

When it clears, I try and remember what I had been dreaming about. But my Transfiguration homework seems to be magnetically attracting me.

God, I'm turning into Hermione.

And speaking of which, she comes dashing down the stairs, stopping short when she sees me.

"Harry!" she says. "What are you doing up so early?"

I fling myself into the couch I'd fallen asleep on, muttering something vague about homework.

"You didn't fall asleep down here again, did you, Harry?" She sounds faintly exasperated, and more than a little worried. She moves from the staircase to stand in front of me.

"You look like you haven't slept in weeks!" Her hands are on her hips now. Here we go.

"Harry, I'm really worried-"

"Don't be," I interrupt.

"But you haven't slept properly for days!" she cries.

"And how exactly do you know that?" I fling at her.

"Ron told me!" she shoots back.

"Look, it doesn't matter," I say tiredly. "Let's just say I'm a troubled teenager and leave it at that so I can finish my homework."

Homework, the golden word, has been said. Hermione sighs and sits next to me.

"Want help?" she asks.

Game, set, match, Harry Potter.

~*~

An hour and a half later, my homework is finished and I'm sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. My breakfast - scrambled eggs - doesn't seem to hold the same appeal as it usually does. I notice Hermione frowning at me and reluctantly shove some of it into my mouth, chewing mechanically.

Not for the first time this morning, the hair on the back of my neck prickles and I have the odd sensation that I'm being watched. I glance around the room but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.

I turn back to my scrambled eggs, but the feeling is still there.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asks.

"Nothing," I reply. It's probably her watching me anyway.

But I can't resist looking around the room again and it's then that I notice him.

He's watching me.

Startled, I look away, but from then on I can't help looking at him over and over again.

And every time I look, he's still watching me.

~*~

It's amazing how much you can unsettle someone just by watching them.

It'd been a week since what I have come to refer to as The Polyjuice Incident. Surprisingly, Potter hadn't reacted too badly. He had limited himself to giving me odd looks and the occasional glare.

But that was before I started stage one of The Plan - the watching. Or maybe the Polyjuice incident was stage one. So it was really stage one of The New and Revised Edition of The Plan.

Once Potter noticed me watching him, he couldn't stop noticing. He couldn't stop looking at me, couldn't stop checking if I was still watching. He couldn't concentrate on anything. Once, to my absolute delight, he tried to rest his head on his hand in an attempt to make his glances less obvious.

He missed. And put his elbow in the butter dish.

If I hadn't been so busy gloating about how clever and evil I was, I would have been unsettled myself. I never thought I'd find it disconcerting to have someone keep looking at me. Maybe it was because I knew he wasn't admiring my unearthly beauty.

Breakfast was over soon - too soon - and before I knew it we were on our way to Care of Magical Creatures. I've always been taught that Malfoys are never afraid, but there's something quite terrifying about Hagrid. It might have something to do with his peculiar soft spot for dangerous creatures.

And, of course, the fact that he's eight feet tall doesn't help much.

But today, Care of Magical Creatures would be a bit more interesting than usual. My Evil Plan to seduce Potter made any lesson I shared with him more fun. You see, watching people is a highly underrated Evil Plan. It's actually a very efficient way of scaring them.

We proceeded across the grass to the spot outside Hagrid's cabin where class usually took place, only to find it occupied by several very strange looking animals. To me, they looked like chickens with upside-down Butterbeer bottles for legs, but Blaise told me they were birds bred specifically to run very fast. Apparently, some wizards in China raced them and what I thought looked like inverted bottles were actually heavily developed, overly large thigh muscles.

"Chickens on steroids," I said.

Blaise gave me a dirty look. "Wizards don't do steroids."

"But that doesn't mean their chickens can't," I pointed out.

She didn't bother to reply.

At that point, Hagrid came out of his cabin carrying a strange metal stick. It looked familiar, a bit like those noise-sticks in Muggle cowboy movies that made people die.

I took a few steps backwards.

"Righ' then," he began in that horrible accent that just sent shivers up and down my spine. It was so uncivilized. "What I got 'ere are what's known as racing birds. Anyone know why?"

Granger's hand shot up so fast it's amazing she didn't dislocate her shoulder. Beside me, Blaise's hand rose lazily into the air but, predictably, Hagrid pointed to Granger.

" 'Ermione?" he said.

"Racing birds are aptly-named creatures that are both bred and trained to have extremely strong leg muscles, allowing them to run unusually fast. Some Chinese wizards race them in a manner similar to that of Muggle horse racing."

Has anyone lost their textbook? Check Granger's stomach.

"Righ' you are, 'Ermione," said Hagrid, beaming. "Ten points to Gryffindor."

As one, the other Slytherins and I directed our trademark Dark Glare at her.

Hagrid was talking again, saying something about us racing and something called a shotgun. It was boring. I decided that it would be more worthwhile to concentrate on my Evil Plan than to listen, so I began watching Potter again.

It didn't take him as long to realize this time. Within minutes he had recommenced glancing at me every thirty seconds or so to see if I was still watching. It was obvious that his friends were becoming more and more annoyed with him.

"Harry!" Granger snapped after a while. "What's wrong with you?"

"What?" he blurted, startled.

She huffed and the Weasel directed a shake of the head at Potter, complete with his trademark Weasley Confused Expression.

And so the lesson continued. I highly doubt Potter contributed much to the races. And as for me? I enjoyed it immensely.

~*~

Throughout the rest of the week, I stared at Potter. In classes, at mealtimes and even in the hallways - whenever I saw him, I would stare at him.

People noticed, of course. There were rumours flying between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw dormitories, and the Gryffindors rallied around Potter and directed Withering Looks at me whenever they saw me staring.

The Slytherins asked me quite early on what I was doing, but I just told them I was doing what Father told me to. It shut them up quite effectively, since I'm usually doing what Father's told me to..

The Golden Boy himself was not dealing with it all that well. He was completely paranoid; keeping to the walls when walking down corridors, frantically looking around him all the time...

I loved it.

~*~

"All right, Harry?" Ron asks around a mouthful of porridge.

"What?" I say, frowning. "Oh. Right. Yeah, I'm fine."

Which, of course, is a total lie. Ron's not fooled, but he changes the subject anyway, asking Seamus if he's finished his Potions essay yet.

My head drops onto my hand and I slump in my seat, lost in thought. What kind of school has breakfast this early anyway? It's 8am! Who even wants to be awake at this hour?

Never mind that breakfast has always been at 8am.

"You look tired, Harry," Hermione says.

"I haven't been sleeping well," I reply.

Immediately her eyebrows draw together in a concerned frown.

"Dreams?" she asks, urgency creeping into her tone.

Blacknight coldcold outside Ron Hermione me walking trees talking Potions homework and watching someone watching look around no one there keep walking talking Hermione library just Ron me walking talking Quidditch coldcold wind darksky scary someone watching watching always watching then silvereyes behind trees in sky everywhere scared then Ron angry yelling screaming don't know why eyes still there and hair now white hair no blond it's him Ron more angry now help help me he comes to me touches arm then gone Ron yells why I DON'T KNOW WHY...

"No," I mutter.

I look over at the Slytherin table and there he is - watching, always watching. It's unnerving.

"Just ignore it, Harry," Hermione says. "He's just trying to get a rise out of you."

"He watches me all the time, Hermione," I snap. "It's starting to get a tiny little bit annoying!"

"He's trying to annoy you," she explains patiently.

"I know," I say, starting to get angry. "I'm not stupid! Stop treating me like I am!"

"Well you're being completely childish about this whole thing!" she says, rolling her eyes.

"I am not being childish!" I say, but it comes out like a whine and I cringe.

Hermione rolls her eyes again and gets up.

''Class starts in five minutes," she warns, and makes a beeline for the door.

"Library?" Ron asks, having missed most of our argument.

"No," I say, getting up. "Potions. Come on."

~*~

Potter was nearing breaking point.

Devil Draco cackled with glee until Angel Draco beat him over the head and told him to keep the noise down, it wasn't that exciting.

Potions class was all the more fun now, since not only was I passing easily and making all the other students awfully jealous, but I was annoying the hell out of Wonder Boy too. I didn't watch him constantly - that would have interfered with my work - but I watched him most of the time. Enough to make him very uncomfortable.

He was almost feverish in the way he chopped his ingredients - they were horribly unevenly sliced, and even as I watched, his knife slipped and sliced along his finger. He swore under his breath and glanced up at me.

I smirked innocently - it is possible, despite what most think - and turned back to my own potion. I heard the Mudblood's voice rising in concern and Potter's assuring her that he was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and a small cut did not warrant a trip to Pomfrey.

I grinned. This was so much fun.

Now that he had injured himself, Potter was even more unsettled. He was watching me almost as much as I had been watching him, and several times the other two members of his little trio had to hit him to get his attention back.

Snape began stalking up and down the aisles, glaring at Gryffindors and smirking at Slytherins. Potter, however, was entirely focused on what I was doing, and so was standing with his hand frozen next to the rim of his cauldron, seemingly unaware that the jug he was holding was leaking essence of lavender onto his table. Snape stopped in front of him.

"Potter," he said silkily.

Potter jumped about a foot in the air and in the process somehow managed to not only drop his now empty jug to the floor, where it shattered, but also to knock over his cauldron. It hit the floor with a bang and the entire contents spilt all over the floor.

"Lucky it's a cleaning potion," Finnegan murmured to another Gryffindor boy - Thomas, I think it was.

"Evanesco," Snape said lazily, then whirled around to glare at Potter. "Are you quite finished ogling my students, Potter?"

Potter blushed violently, but didn't appear capable of speech.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for your incompetence. Be thankful that I chose today to have you make cleaning potions, Potter," he spat the name out. "Otherwise you would be serving yet another detention."

He whirled again, glared at the rest of us and told us to get back to work.

I looked around at Potter again. He shot me a death glare and I smirked back at him. Granger shook his arm.

"Harry!" she cried. "He's not worth it!"

"You're right," he said loudly, his voice shaking with anger. "He's not."

And with that horribly insulting insult, he turned away.

I smirked again.

Victory shall surely be mine, I thought to myself.

~*~

I think I might be going insane.

It's bad enough that Malfoy watches me whenever he's anywhere near me. That alone would be enough to drive anyone to madness.

But not only that; he's invaded my brain as well.

I can't stop worrying about it, wondering what his motives are, wondering why he's doing this. Hermione keeps telling me that I'm always off in another world these days. I keep telling her it's not my fault, and although I never say that it's Malfoy's, I think she knows anyway.

Of course, it's Malfoy's fault that it's 3 o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep, so I'm freezing my arse off sitting on the roof of Gryffindor Tower.

It's also Malfoy's fault that I've spent the last hour thinking about him, and before that spent two hours dreaming about him, and before that spent another two hours thinking about him.

I look up at the sky, shivering, and wonder if I'll ever be the same again.

~*~