The Gryffindor common room was a riot of warmth and noise, filled with the clatter of plates and the low hum of evening conversation. Most of the students were unwinding after the tension of the Quidditch pitch, though the remnants of the night's flight still seemed to linger in the way people moved. Draconia sat by the hearth, her legs tucked beneath her as she watched the embers pop and hiss. The heat from the fire was pleasant, but it did little to soothe the strange, lingering ache in her muscles from the broom ride. Her body felt heavy, a physical reminder of the way he had held her against him in the dark.
Across the room, the sixth-years occupied their usual corner, a space that was often loud and boisterous. Harry sat near the edge of the group, looking somewhat winded and uncharacteristically quiet. He was picking at a plate of biscuits, his eyes frequently darting toward the entrance as if he expected someone to appear. The atmosphere was jovial, yet there was a certain sharpness to the way the older students teased one another. Harry was there too, of course, though he was not a Gryffindor; he was merely a frequent guest of the peripheries, a shadow that loomed near the doorway whenever the evening progressed.
"You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, Harry," Seamus shouted over the din, laughing as he nudged a friend.
"He's just tired from all that flying," Ron added, his voice thick with a teasing lilt. "Not everyone can be as natural on a broom as you, is it?"
Draconia watched as Harry offered a small, tired smile, his gaze shifting momentarily toward the corner where the Slytherins usually congured. The tension in the room was palpable, a strange mix of camaraderie and the unspoken friction that always existed between the houses. Someone dropped a spoon, the metal clinking against the floor, and the sound seemed to echo in the small gap of silence that followed.
"He's not tired, he's just pensive," Hermione said, her tone dry as she looked up from a book. "He's thinking about the upcoming exams, no doubt."
"Or he's thinking about how much he'd rather be in bed," Ginny remarked, leaning back in her chair.
Draconia felt a sudden urge to intervene, though she was not entirely sure why. The conversation was veering into the territory of lighthearted mockery, the kind that could easily turn sharp if one wasn't careful. She saw the way Harry's jaw tightened slightly, a minute reaction that most would have missed, but she knew the rhythm of his moods too well. He was being defensive, his shoulders tensing as the jokes landed.
"Leave him be," Draconia said, her voice cutting through the chatter with a practiced, casual elegance. "He's had a long night, and not all of us are as relentlessly energetic as you lot."
"Oh, listen to her," Lavender squealed, nudging a friend. "She's being the diplomat today."
"It's not diplomacy, it's just observation," Draconia replied, her eyes flicking toward the doorway where she knew he was lurking.
The group laughed, the sound of it bright and jarring in the cozy room. Draconia felt the heat of the fire on her skin, but her mind was still back on the pitch, back in the dark where everything had been breathless and unrefined. She wanted to say something that would shut the teasing down, something that would establish a boundary without making a scene. She reached for a witty retort, a way to defend Harry's dignity, but her brain felt slightly unmoored.
"He doesn't need to prove his stamina to you lot every single night," she added, her voice dropping an octave. "He's perfectly capable of handling a bit of pressure without you all dissecting him."
The meaning of her words hung in the air, a bit more suggestive than she had intended. The sixth-year table went quiet for a heartbeat, a few of them exchanging looks of amused confusion. Draconia didn't realize the weight of what she had said until she saw the way Ron's eyebrows shot up. She had meant to defend his ability to fly, but the way she had phrased it sounded far more carnal.
"Is that a hint, Draconia?" Dean Thomas asked, a grin spreading across his face.
"It was a statement of fact," she snapped back, feeling a flush creep up her neck. "Don't read into it."
"A bit hard not to, given the phrasing," George Weasley called out from the back, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
The room erupted into a fresh wave of laughter, the kind that was meant to be inclusive but felt pointedly directed at the tension between her and the boy she was trying to protect. Draconia felt a pang of irritation. She hated when her words betrayed her, when the sharp edges of her wit turned into something clumsy and unrefined. She wanted to be the one in control, the one who spoke with precision and grace, but the memory of the pitch was making her sloppy.
"She's just being protective," Harry said, his voice a little too loud, a little too forced. He was looking at her, his eyes bright with a mix of amusement and a strange, desperate kind of gratitude.
"Protective?" Pansy Parkinson's voice drifted in from a nearby doorway, as she passed by to head toward the stairs. "She sounds like she's describing a very specific kind of endurance."
Draconia felt the sting of the comment, the way it landed with a dull thud in her chest. She had intended to be a shield, a way to lift the target off Harry's back, but she had only succeeded in making the conversation more vulgar. It was a familiar trap, the way her tongue would move faster than her filter, turning a moment of sincerity into a moment of scandal.
"It was meant to be a compliment to his skill," Draconia said, her voice regaining its composure even as she felt the heat in her cheeks. "Though clearly, some of you have very limited vocabularies."
"It's a very vivid vocabulary, though," Ginny murmured, her eyes dancing with a knowing light.
The laughter died down as the group began to disperse, the energy of the room shifting toward the end of the night. Draconia stayed in her chair, watching the fire die down to a dull glow. She felt a strange sense of displacement, as if she were standing on the edge of a conversation she had accidentally hijacked. She had meant to be kind, to stand up for him in a way that was dignified, but she had tripped over her own intent.
She looked up and saw him standing near the archway, his silhouette dark against the light of the corridor. He wasn't laughing like the others; he was just watching her, a crooked, tired smile on his face. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat.
Draconia realized then that she had failed her mission. She had tried to be the defender, but she had ended up being the provocateur, making a spectacle of a moment that should have been simple. She had intended to defend him, but it came out as an insult, out of habit.