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They'll Never Know
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Even at Hogwarts the fight was legendary. The two boys had stood ten feet apart in a corridor on the third floor surrounded by a myriad of their classmates who had been drawn by the yelling. The suits of armor had scattered when the spells had started being passed between them. First the leg-lock curse, then a jelly-legs jinx, then an expelliarmus, then an imperius. The potraits lining the halls hadn't suffered much better. Two of the frames were in dire need of repair now, their residents having fled to neighboring portraits the minute the wood started smoldering and others being crowded by people from other pictures all over the castle who had heard of the fight and had come running to see what the commotion was about.
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were very clearly pissed at each other. Their robes were disheveled ,(they had resorted to using their fists at some point in the fight) their hair hanging lose around their faces and their eyes promised murder to each other. It was almost a relief when a contigent of teachers (with professor's Snape and McGonagall in the lead) came hurtling around the corner, intent on salvaging the situation before the boys managed to permanantly hurt each other, and even then it had been a very close thing.
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Harry's Point of Veiw
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Harry Potter sat in the Gryffindor common room. The clock chiming the time. Midnight. A new day, and seven hours since he had met Draco Malfoy in that corridor. He had been sentenced to four weeks detention with Snape and one hundred points had been taken from Gryffindor. He and Malfoy had both been severly reprimanded in the Headmasters office, but when asked neither student had fessed up to what the fight had been about. They had both shrugged and just left it at that.
Harry had to smile. Professor McGonagall's lips had gone the thinnest he had seen them in a long time, and the look on Snape's face was priceless. He had the feeling that Dumbledore knew what was going on (after all, when didn't he know something?) but if the headmaster wasn't going to say anything, Harry wasn't either. And so he had been escorted back up to the common room, told to stay there for the night if he didn't want to be expelled on the spot and was literally shoved through the Fat Lady's portrait hole into the ravenous clutches of his waiting classmates.
Rubbing his arm where it had been squeezed a little too hard (neither he nor Malfoy had been allowed to go to the hospital wing and he did have some injuries ) he looked up apologetically at the rest of his house, but again when asked what had set him off he was suspiciously silent. He would never tell what had happened. He would keep the secret to his dying day. And so here he was looking into the fireplace, wallowing in his silent misery. How had things gone this bad in only one day?
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Draco's Point of Veiw
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Draco Malfoy trooped after his head of house down to the dungeons. It was unequvicollay not fair. One hundred points from Slytherin and four weeks detention with professor McGonagall. Draco shook out his hair. His clothes wer ripped, his hair was a mess and he was in trouble with his godfather big time. And it was all Potter's fault.
His head of house had been lecturing him persistently since the minute they had gotten out of earshot of any living soul, but he wasn't listening. All he could think about was how the Headmaster had looked at him and Potter when they both refused to tell the professor's the reason why they had been fighting. Did he know? Could he guess what had been going on? Impossible. It was impossible. They had been careful and meticulous and...But he could know and that was what was scaring him. That possibility. And if he knew? What would happen then? What would he do?
And a more pressing matter. His housemates. They were going to give him hell for losing those hundred points. And he didn't have his prefect status to back him up anymore either, since the headmaster had seen fit to relieve him of it tonight. It was only fair he supposed. He had promised not to get into any squabbles with Potter when he had been given that badge. In fact, thinking back on it, he wasn't even supposed to be in the same wing of the castle as him except for meals and classes. Oh this was terrific. And it was all Potter's fault!! He would have burst out laughing right there if he hadn't had his godfather walking right in front him, it wouln't do to show his emotions; he was about to be fed to the snakes known more commonly as Slytherin house students.
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The Day After
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The whole school watched Harry and Draco carefully the next day at breakfast for any indication at all about what had transpired between the two famous rivals, but a tight, regal acknowledging nod from the former-prefect Draco Malfoy, and a quick. reluctant acknowledging nod from a bruised and slightly battered Harry Potter was the only reaction that the school got that two of their fellow peers had been trying to kill each other less than twenty-fours hours previously.
And the world would never know what had set them off. Would never know what remark or gesure had been great enough to give Hufflepuff the lead in the running for the house cup, had been worth getting a month's detention with their least favorite teachers, had been worth being stripped of their prefect and Quidditch captain titles. No, the world would never know why these two rivals had chosen to unite and stand together in this one thing. This one very dear thing to both of them.