For The Will Of It

Chapter 1: Obsession

By pantheradraconis

The sun is slowly starting to rise while Harry sits on the edge of his bed still staring at the Marauders Map. The little dot marked Draco Malfoy hasn't moved from the Slytherin Common Room dorms since one am. Harry has watched Draco every night- and often in the daytime. It started as a quest of sorts to discover what Draco was up to, but Harry soon found himself obsessed with the Slytherin. He watched the boy day and night, searched for him in class, or tried to be near him in the hallways of the castle. The younger boy's fascination had been addressed by his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, during breakfast the day before.

"I'm just saying you've been paying a lot more attention to Draco than you really need to." Ron tried to sound reasonable, but failed because of his anger towards the blond. "You already know he's spending his time in the Room of Requirement; why do you constantly have to look at the map to see that?"

"I'm trying to figure out what he's doing in there. I've tried to get into the room using my dad's invisibility cloak, but I can't seem to get in while Draco's in there." Harry was getting upset with his friend's attitude towards him and his curiosity with Malfoy.

"What would you do if you could get into the room with Malfoy?" The word 'Malfoy' was said with a bit of a twitch in the brown-haired girl's voice. Hermione had been silent during most of the conversation, every once in a while hitting Ron's arm or giving him a hard look when he got too angry. It seemed to Harry they had practiced their conversation before approaching the wizard boy.

"What? Um, I don't know." Harry was searching the dining hall for an answer when the blond walked in laughing with his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. The brown haired boy pushed his hair back from his eyes and stared at the figured before him. Draco had grown taller than him, but they were around the same body shape: lean and muscular. 'The Quidditch practice this year has done him well', Harry thought.

"Ahem..." Hermione coughed, seeing Harry's obvious distraction.

"I... er... I have to go to the bathroom." With that, Harry walked quickly past the Gryffindor table towards the exit of the dining hall, fully intending to take a cold shower.

"Hey Potter!" Draco's voice had dropped an octave, but still gave a small squeak when he said Harry's name. The younger boy smiled at that, but quickly hid it when he turned towards the Slytherin table.

"What do you want Ferret?"

Draco growled towards the Gryffindor, but continued with what he had planned to say, "I've written a new verse for 'Weasley Is Our King'. Would you like to hear it?" The Slytherin didn't wait for an answer before the whole of the Slytherin table was directed to start the song.

"Weasley's uniform is made of muck

When a Quaffle comes at him, he ducks

'Cause he and Harry are gay as fuck!"

Weasley is our Queen!"

The Slytherin table burst out in laughter as Harry turned bright red with anger, but Ron was way ahead of him. The red headed boy had lunged himself at Draco and was punching any part of the Slytherin's body he could find. Crabbe and Goyle quickly picked up the Gryffindor and threw him into the aisle. The fight was just about to rise into a full-on frenzy when Professor Dumbledore walked into the dining hall and requested to know what had happened. Harry rushed out of the hall, up to the Gryffindor Common Room, and into his dorm. After lying on his bed and catching his breath, he walked to the Prefects' bathroom, stated the password as Ron had passed on to him, and took a long bath.

Harry thought back on the rest of the day's events. Ron told him that both he and Malfoy were given detention, but Malfoy's was much worse. Ron was assigned to clean all the trophies in the castle without using magic, but he had been given that detention so often before that he had become quite adept at it, and could finish in only 4-5 hours. While the ferret had to clean the Quidditch changing rooms before the Ravenclaw practice the next morning. Upon hearing that, the house team's captain bumped the practice up to 8am, so the blond would have to start cleaning at daybreak. It was because of the detention that Harry sat awake staring at the map so early in the morning. At exactly 5 am, Draco's dot moved from his dorm to the prefect bathroom, and quickly up to the main entrance of the castle.

Harry had made his decision during the night. He was going to talk to Draco, to try to find out what the boy was really up to. He had tried to find out by sneaking around, listening to Slytherin conversations, even over-hearing Snape speaking with Dumbledore, but no one else seemed to know what the blond was doing in the Room of Requirement. It was time to take action. Harry pulled on his invisibility cloak and left the castle after Draco.