Harry sighed, wishing things could be that simple for him.
Draco came in again late that afternoon, looking oddly unlike himself. His skin unnaturally pale, his blond hair plastered to his head. Well, he had been working over a cauldron for something like ten hours, which might account for his foul mood, Harry supposed.
He took one look at Harry and sneered, "What have you been doing all day, playing with your damned snake?"
Harry looked away, hiding Sals inside his hand. "I cleaned up the dishes you and Snape left on the table."
"Well, that must have taken ages," Draco drawled, so obviously contemptuous that Harry felt something inside himself wither. He didn't want Draco's good opinion, he told himself. Maybe the Slytherin boy's scorn bothered him so much because it was an echo of Snape's. They were both angry at him.
"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry returned, but without much spirit. "I don't want to fight."
"Well, isn't that a huge surprise," scathed the other boy. "And here you've spent the months since your operation trying just so hard to get your magic back so that you can go vanquish the Dark Lord. But that's right, you haven't! Most days you don't even try a single spell, and then when Severus arranges things so you'll want to use the Floo or such, you actually resent him for it!"
Harry's patience began to evaporate. "Well I did get burned, you know, so you tell me who was right about that firechat!"
"And Harry Potter is right about everything, isn't he!" cried Draco. "You're every bit as arrogant as Severus always said! Ha, you know what he told me? He warned you not to get that operation in the first place! Told you that wizards had no business letting Muggle doctors anywhere near them! But you insisted! You know what I think? You were hoping all along that the operation would destroy your magic! You wanted an excuse to wimp out of the war!"
Harry saw red. What had Snape been going on about trust for, when he had taken private conversations with Harry and shared them with Draco? Just as he'd done before with Remus, only now, he didn't have the excuse he'd had then, did he?
"Yeah, well you told me you understood that, remember?" Harry shouted. "You said if you were me, you'd have wanted let out of the fighting, too!"
"That just proves I'd make a lousy you!" Draco shouted back. "But we expect better of the Boy-Who-Lived! We need better!"
"Don't call me that!"
"I'll call you whatever I damned well please. Coward, how's that for starters? If you ask me, you practically worship that burned out core that's keeping you from doing magic!"
"Oh yeah? Well it's money you worship, isn't it?"
"Severus explained about the adoption," Draco retorted. "He didn't think I'd choose money over him, but he didn't see why I should have to lose what little I have left, either. Because either way, I'd still have him."
Harry turned his face to the wall and hugged Sals, just a bit.
Draco went and had his shower. That time, he sang. Just as though he hadn't a care in the world.
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The dinner hour came and went, but Harry stayed in his room. Snape wasn't out there anyway; he could tell that from the fact that the silence was only broken by the clink of fork against plate. Draco was evidently eating alone.
Harry still wasn't hungry, but he ate a couple of the chocolate covered raspberries Neville had sent him for Christmas, and drank water from the tap in the bathroom. Not exactly a balanced meal, but he just didn't have the stomach for more.
He read for a while, and found out that Arabic gum was a wish to purify evil, but even the mystery of the well-wish had lost its allure. He was just so tired. Nothing really mattered, not even Snape being so angry. All day long he'd waited for his father to come talk to him. All day... and not one word.
Harry might have thought that Snape was waiting for him to make the first move... except if he was, why lock Harry out of the lab? No, it seemed clear enough to Harry that Snape didn't want him around. And Harry had learned the hard way that when adults didn't want you around, your best course of action was to make yourself scarce. So of course he'd stayed in his room all day. But how much longer was it going to take for Snape to forgive him?
Slytherins weren't by nature the most forgiving of souls, were they? And Snape was supremely Slytherin. Sure, he'd finally forgiven Harry over the pensieve incident, but this was different. Snape had never trusted Harry before, so Harry's snooping hadn't really been a betrayal, it had simply been rude. But this time... Harry hung his head just thinking about it. Snape had said it himself: he had trusted Harry to keep quiet about the things that had been discussed with the casewitch.
This time, Harry had betrayed Snape's trust.
He had no idea how long it took a Slytherin to get over something like that. Knowing Snape, he might resent it for a long, long time.
Enough of such morose thoughts. Harry took a shower to try and clear his mind, but it didn't work. He ended up sitting on the floor of the granite stall, letting the water pour over him as he wondered what he could have done differently. The trouble was, the root of the problem was Snape's treatment of Ron, and Harry couldn't have approved of that, he just couldn't have. Not even to appease Snape could he approve of it now.
Harry toweled himself off, shivering in the cold air, wishing he could perform a warming charm or two. He often had such thoughts, but tonight, the thought itself actually chilled him. Because... if Snape really was never going to forgive him, he'd want rid of Harry, wouldn't he? But he couldn't make him go live elsewhere, not as long as Harry was without magic...
Which meant that he might gain his magic back only to lose his father.
Then again, hadn't he all but lost him already?
You don't deserve to be my son, Harry. Points only from Gryffindor, not Slytherin. Get out of my sight.
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When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he saw Draco was propped up in bed, reading one of Snape's Potions Journals. Of course. No wonder Severus liked him better.
"I do hope you've finished sulking," Draco smoothly said as he set the bound parchment book aside and spelled out the lights.
"I haven't been sulking," Harry tightly informed the Slytherin boy. He found his way across the room in the dark, and slid into his own rumpled bed.
"What do you call hiding in the room all day?"
"Snape said to get out of his sight, so I did."
"Oh, I get it," Draco drawled. "You're playing the martyr card. And there I thought you had some Gryffindor guts."
"Actually, you think I'm cowardly and stupid," Harry gibed. "Isn't that what you said?"
"What about what you said, Potter?"
"You started it!"
"No, you started it, siding with that damned Weasel!"
"Well, you won't have to worry about that any longer, will you?" Harry shot back. "Ron's probably expelled already!"
"See, there you go again! All this concern for Weasley!"
"You'd be concerned too," Harry scathed, "if a friend of yours was getting expelled. Oh, but that's right... you don't have any friends. Maybe that's why you don't seem to have a clue how I feel!"
"I don't care how you feel! I just want you to stop being such a little shite to Severus!"
"I'm being a shite?" Harry gasped. "What about him? He hasn't so much as said one word to me today!"