Everything Goes

Everything Goes

Chapter Five

Jade woke two days after her mishap with the visions to find Draco and I hovering over her, Draco looking much like a mother hen with facial hair. In retrospect, I probably didn't look much different. She promptly burst into hysterical laughter.

"Jade, you're okay!" Draco grabbed her in a bone-crushing hug (I didn't even bother smothering my laughter), "If you ever do something like that to me again, you will not be waking up the next morning."

"Ah, Dray? I love you dearly, but if you don't let me go, I will end up with several broken ribs," she managed to gasp out after a fierce struggle.

"Oh, sorry," he let go promptly, looking briefly embarrassed by his reaction.

Jade, though pale and looking a bit unwell, smiled whimsically, "You two are so pathetic. How long have you been standing there?"

"Since breakfast," I said in a long, suffering voice, "He dragged me away from my food before I was finished, insisting that we needed to sit with you, as there are no classes today." It was four-thirty.

"You looked pretty worried to me, Harry," her eyes glittered mischievously as she spoke, "I think you're just being contrary."

"I was pulled away from my breakfast, from food! I don't love you that much," I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes.

"Well you can be certain that I won't be attending your funeral. How long have I been out, anyway?"

"Two days," Draco said.

"Oh gods, I can't believe I was out that long. I mean it was only a moment ago..." her voice faded as the realization of how serious her situation had been hit home.

"A moment for you, two days of worry for us," I said softly.

"I don't know how..." she trailed off again.

Suddenly Madam Pomfrey, in an accurate demonstration of the epitome of bad timing, burst in, Draco started slightly, but recovered before the nurse noticed.

"Ah, Miss Latimer, you're awake," she rushed over to check Jade's pulse. Jade grimaced.

Shuddering with suppressed laughter, I made faces at Jade behind Pomfrey's back. She struggled to keep a straight face. The minute Pomfrey wasn't looking, she shot a death glare at me, and Draco smiled. It wasn't much, but I knew that he was over his worry. He hadn't smiled since she'd collapsed.

"You two! Out! Miss Latimer needs her rest!" the witch rounded on us as though we'd done something wrong.

"Uh, hello? I've been unconscious for two days!" Jade glared daggers at the nurse and me simultaneously. I was vaguely impressed.

"How did you know that?" Pomfrey's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Look behind you and tell me what you see," Jade's voice was mockingly patient.

"Oh, them," she didn't bother to look.

"Yeah, them," Jade made a big show of rolling her eyes.

Pomfrey turned back to us, "I said, out! Now! You're disturbing the unwell!"

We walked out, Jade called after us, "We ourselves foresee a slight problem in your futures! Shave! That is advice!"

Her laughter, slightly giddy, followed us out of the hospital wing.

"She's right, you know," I said conversationally, "You do need to shave, unless you were planning on growing a beard, which I hope to all gods everywhere that you are not."

"Note that she said 'futures', not 'future'. You don't look much better. And a beard? How utterly pedestrian."

"Well, you've certainly cheered up since this morning,"

"Jade's no longer lying in a semi-comatose state. I have a lot to celebrate," he made a little dancing step to emphasize his point.

"That does not change the fact that you need to shave, the facial hair is very unbecoming."

"Oh, are you sure?" his eyes widened innocently, "Don't you think it adds a sort of rugged charm?"

"No."

He laughed, "Well, then, that settles that argument. After all, one can't simply disregard the wishes of The-Boy-Who-Lived."

"Damn right," I said calmly. My time with Draco and Jade had given me a sense of confidence. I knew that I could say things like that and not worry about it being taken seriously.

"All hail the almighty ruler of the universe," Draco said sarcastically.

"Shut up, would you?"

"Another command!"

"That was a request."

"It was a command, I know a command when I hear one."

"As you know so very much about commanding people," I snorted.

"I do, and that was a command!"

"No, it really wasn't."

"Yes it was."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes, I'm afraid it was."

"No, it really wasn't."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Fine, have it your way, it was a command. Happy now?"

"No one commands a Malfoy. Why'd you give up so quickly? I've never known you to be a good loser."

"As Jade is still in the hospital wing, I realized that one of us had to stop or it would go on for hours. Days. No, weeks. Perhaps even months!"

"Cut the melodrama."

"Shut up,"

"So we're back to this, are we?"

"Draco, stop talking and go shave."

He smirked victoriously and walked off in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons. I shook my head and went to my rooms.

* * *

Jade waltzed back into our active lives a few days later, in the middle of Potions class. And when I say waltzed, I truly do mean waltz. She sashayed in, causing as much of a disturbance as Jade-ly possible (quite a bit of disturbance, come to think of it- far more than what is just humanly possible). Snape looked unhappy about the interruption, but said nothing. After all, Jade was one of his students and she had been sick.

Jade, for her part, looked thrilled to be out of the hospital wing. When we'd gone to see her the night before, she'd informed us that she was going to go completely mad if they didn't let her out. I think her arguments were rather convincing, or Lucius Malfoy's influence really held the merit it was rumoured to, as she was out the next day with a clean bill of health.

"All right, Miss Latimer, I'm sure we are all thrilled that you're not dying, however, I have a class to teach. Sit down."

"Oh, sure," she sat down in her usual place to Draco's right, sending me a 'little' wink (more of a huge theatrical wink that everyone in the room saw clearly).

"Now, returning to our topic for today..."

Potions passed uneventfully from there.

* * *

That afternoon, after the day's classes had ended, I met Draco and Jade in the entrance hall.

"Hi, Harry," Jade said casually, she was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Hello," I spoke to both of them. We stood like that for a very long moment.

Draco said, "Well, now, aren't we a cheery bunch? Jade, you finally get out of Pomfrey's clutches and all we can do is stand around staring into space."

I sighed, "I don't know, Draco, something today doesn't feel right."

"I know, I feel it, too," Jade's voice was pensive.

"Hmmm," was Draco's response.

We stood like that in silence for a long moment. The silence was almost tense; there was a feeling akin to static in the air.

Professor McGonagall came up to us then, "Oh, there you are! There's a meeting about the games out on the Quidditch Pitch. They don't want to start without you."

"Bet they do," Jade muttered. McGonagall acted as though she had not heard.

"Come on, then."

When we got out to the pitch, the rest of the participants were already waiting.

"Hello," Jade said airily, "We're fashionably late."

"Of course," Draco put in.

"We couldn't suffer the dreaded fate of being on time," I said dryly.

"Find somewhere and sit," Snape said, though I could have sworn I saw a ghost of a smile flit across his lips for a fraction of a second. For Severus Snape, that was saying something.

Once we had arranged ourselves on the ground, Draco with some distaste, Snape continued.

"The second game will be in two weeks. The task is far more difficult than the last one. The whole team will work together on it and it will take considerably more time," he paused. Most people waited politely.

"Well?" Jade, who had no such compunction to be polite, raised her eyebrows.

"The concept is simple: the teams will go into a large maze with the task of finding an object. The teams will then have to find clues in the form of riddles in order to recover this object. The first team to find their object wins thirty-five points."

"Oh yes, just give us as little information as possible," someone near us muttered. I almost smiled, whoever it was sounded like Draco. Well, Draco on a really bad day, at least.

The three of us were smiling openly by this point. Some of the other teams looked much less at ease.

"That's all, you may do what you can to prepare for this. Oh, by the way, this is a good event because it's a true test of moral character. This is the time to see who is truly intent upon winning this competition," he glanced at us; everyone always did that when they spoke of cheating.

Why do they always look at us? We haven't done anything...yet.

We got up to leave, Jade grinned wickedly and said, "This is going to be fun. I love riddles."

"With clues contained," I added, disregarding the maze thing.

"And winning," Draco finished, smiling with a modicum of enthusiasm. I grinned back.

We then nodded cordially to each other and continued on our merry way back into the building to search for something to do.

We never did come up with anything. Draco and I ended up playing a game of chess in my rooms with Jade sitting behind me whispering suggestions in my ear. Jade was good at chess. She said that she'd played with her mother a lot when she was younger. I won the game. It was hard, but Jade's suggestions did help. Of course, Draco knew that I'd been cheating and immediately said that cheating meant that I had to forfeit. It's never good to compete with Slytherins, they always find someway to make you lose, even when you do win fairly. Which I hadn't, but that is completely beside the point.

* * *

The next day, we were again in a weird mood. This was becoming fairly normal. It was also becoming fairly tedious. Or maybe more than 'fairly,'; okay, I am willing to admit it; it was becoming immensely tedious.

"This is ridiculous," Draco muttered.

"No, really?" Jade's voice was laden with heavy sarcasm.

"Don't be a nuisance, Jade," I said wearily, "I'm not in the mood."

"I know what you mean," Draco said, "Again, things feel strange."

"Are we never to escape these monotonous feelings of oddness?" Jade moaned melodramatically.

"'Feelings of oddness?' That was bottom of the barrel, Jade, dear," Draco shook his head.

"I couldn't come up with anything better on short notice," she snapped defensively.

My friends, I thought, constantly at each other's throats. And what am I? The witness, the one to give testimony, the one who remembers everything as an observer. The one, who, when it comes time to tell what truly happened, will know what to say. What not to mention, what to leave unspoken. After all this is said and done, I'm sure that there will be many things that I will leave unspoken. But, who would ever ask?

"Do we have anything planned for today? Or are we just doing this for hours?" I asked, "Or are we just whiling away the hours in this satisfying manner?"

"Since you're the one complaining, why don't you think of something?" Draco said, regarding me calmly.

I shrugged, "I have no idea, that's why I was asking you."

Then, Jade spoke, "Come on, we need to talk, let's go to your rooms, Harry."

"Okay," I shrugged.

She was acting strange, stranger than usual, even. Curiously, I followed her up the stairs. Draco seemed as clueless as I was.

"Shadows," she snapped authoritatively at the door, when it swung open, she strode in as though the place belonged to her.

"Jade, you're being weird, what in the hell are you doing?" Draco asked.

"Sit down, both of you."

We sat, I in a chair, Draco on the couch, Draco frowned like a petulant toddler and crossed his arms.

"Okay, you two are driving me insane. Are you not realizing that you're flirting like mad or are you just too afraid to admit that you like each other?" she glared at us, as though daring us to dispute her claims.

Draco's face was pink and my ears were burning. We glanced at each other then looked away quickly. Jade nodded.

"I knew it! You two are so flipping easy to read."

"What?" Draco's eyes widened, "You have got to be joking! No one else noticed, did they?" he sounded panicked at the very thought.

"I doubt it, I know you two very well. I could see it. I don't think anyone else could. Unless the Gryffindors know Harry way better than I thought they did."

"No, they would have said something by now."

"Well, then," she paused, "What are you going to do about it?"

"Do about it?" I asked.

"Yeah, you can't just let this go now that you've admitted that you like each other."

"If you're trying to play matchmaker," I said, "You're doing so quite badly."

"Who said anything about playing matchmaker?" she said innocently, "I'm just trying to set my two closest friends in the world up because they're meant for each other. What's wrong with that?"

Draco and I rolled our eyes in tandem.

"See, you really are made for each other!"

Draco and I looked at each other for a moment. Neither of us willing to say anything just yet. Jade smiled triumphantly.

"I'll just leave you two alone then, you know, make it easier to work things out."

"Gods, Jade, can you be any more obvious?" Draco sighed in annoyance.

"Sure, how about I start throwing handcuffs or something equally kinky at you?" she asked, trying to be innocent but, considering what she'd just said, failing miserably.

"Aren't you leaving?" I asked pointedly, ignoring the fact that my face was probably as red as Ron's hair.

"Going, see you two later,"

She left the room, her face freakishly straight, closing the door firmly behind her.

An uncomfortable silence reigned.

"Well," Draco broke off.

Damn you, Jade! I thought furiously, You just had to meddle, didn't you?

"Well," I repeated.

"I hate Jade," Draco muttered.

"Me, too," I nodded my agreement even though I knew he hadn't been talking to me.

"She always sticks her long bony nose where it's not wanted," That was almost funny, as Jade did have a long thin nose, the only thing about her facial features that wasn't small and delicate, although 'bony' was a bit harsh.

"Does she do things like this often?" I hoped to any gods I could think of that she didn't, most people would need several rounds of good quality therapy after Jade's blunt attempts at matchmaking. It was definite overkill, to give you the basic idea: laser beam, meet butter. Butter, meet laser beam. Perhaps that aids understanding.

"Not like this, necessarily, but she likes to interfere."

"Ah,"

"Yeah,"

Again, silence fell.

"So..." Draco broke off. I made no attempt to respond for a few minutes.

"Draco, this isn't going to work. Look at us; we can't even hold a conversation that isn't at least half argument. It's impossible."

He didn't say anything; I looked down at my hands, trying to think of something else to say. Minutes passed in a silence that seemed to almost eat at our souls.

The conversation just wasn't happening. I was preparing myself to just get up and leave when all of a sudden I heard a sniff. Glancing over in surprise, I saw that Draco looked near tears. What happened next was almost instinctive.

I quickly got up and went over to sit next to him on the couch. Up close, I could see that there were tears in his eyes. He looked like someone who had just had an enormous letdown. And, in that moment, I honestly think that that was what had happened. I put my arms around him and pulled him close.

"Shhh, Draco, don't cry," I whispered, rubbing his back in comforting circles, a comfort I had never given nor received before.

He didn't respond with words, but he did snuggle closer, his arms snaking around my waist, which was response enough.

"Don't cry," I pleaded.

No other words were spoken that day; none were necessary. After a while we fell asleep on that couch, perfectly content to just be. Jade must have come back at some point, because when we awoke, several hours later, someone had put a blanket over us and lit the candle on the mantel. Only one thing was completely certain, the feeling of static tension was gone.