Harry put his Herbology homework safely back into his trunk after a quick spell to dry the ink and he pulled out his Ancient Runes translations. He had done the essay for Ancient Runes but he had actually asked for additional homework because he was so far behind everyone else. Professor Babbling had been surprised, but incredibly pleased with his request for additional homework and had quickly knocked together an extra assignment for him.
"Just the essay and questions for Defence Against the Dark Arts and I still have the Astronomy homework to do, obviously, and then it's just my extra homework for Ancient Runes and the extra calculations for Arithmancy."
"That's all you have left?" Blaise asked in shock. Harry nodded smugly. "I did all of my essays between last night and this morning and I did all of the harder pieces first, so all I've got left to do are all easy pieces that won't take me more than a few hours each to complete. Of course, I left Defence for last as it's my favourite subject and it's very unlikely that I'll get stuck or lost writing that particular essay and it probably won't take me more than an hour or two to finish. I'm going to have the entire holiday to myself and all the homework I'll have left to do is just observing the planets at night, twice a week for an hour."
"How, in the name of Merlin, did you write nine essays in one night and one morning, did you not sleep at all?" Pansy demanded.
"No, not much. I went to bed well after three in the morning and I was back up at just gone seven this morning, I had less than three hours sleep. I got eight essays done last night, that is the reason why I disappeared just after I'd finished dinner. I went straight to my rooms and I started on the hardest piece of homework that I had, which of course was the Arithmancy essay for Vector and then the essay for Transfiguration. I had a good, uninterrupted nine, ten hours to do eight essays and I finished off the ninth essay this morning at breakfast and then I started on all of the question sheets. I was determined that I was going to finish as much as I could before I got home, even if I am completely exhausted right now because of how late I stayed up and how early I forced myself awake, it doesn't matter, because I no longer have any homework to distract me from spending time with my betrothed."
"I can't believe you have the entire holidays to do nothing." Draco groused as he watched Harry do more of his homework.
"It took me a day, Draco. True, it has taken about seventeen hours and I'm still not done, but if you started now, as we still have six hours left of this train journey, in a few days you'd be all finished too." Harry told him.
Draco groaned like a drama queen, but he still went into his trunk and got out a few pieces of homework. He didn't have the drive that Harry had had though. Harry had wanted to finish as much as he could so he could spend as much time as possible with Rabastan, so he had pushed himself to finish as much as he could and now, because of that drive, he was almost finished.
The eleven-hour train ride passed very quickly for Harry. He had finished all of his homework, eaten a snack of pumpkin pasties and cauldron cakes washed down with pumpkin juice before he had taken the time to check through every single one of his essays, had Draco check through his Ancient Rune translations, and made sure all of his answers on the question sheets were correct. "Why are you still doing homework?" Blaise asked him as he played yet another game of exploding snap with Draco.
"I'm just making sure that it's all correct and that it makes sense. It's fine to do it all, but I'd rather not have to re-write it all if I've done something wrong or answered a question wrong. I'd rather do it, check it through now while I've got the rest of the train ride to go, and then relax."
"You look fucking exhausted." Blaise told him bluntly. "I would have taken a nap by now if I'd only had three hours last night."
"I'm going to get an early night, sleep a good nine hours and then the rest of my holidays will be relaxing and spent with Rabastan. I'm all set." Harry said as he snapped his parchment against the small table of the compartment, which he had claimed as his the minute they'd set foot in the empty compartment, and he smiled as he tucked them all away. He took out his Ancient Runes book, sat back in his seat and opened it to his bookmark so he could carry on where he had left it off.
"Why, in the name of Merlin, are you reading now instead of just sitting back and relaxing or just taking the last half an hour to sleep?"
"If I slept now for a mere half an hour it would kill me for the rest of the night and I don't want to meet my betrothed again, for the first time in four months I might add, looking half-dead with bleary eyes."
"Good point." Blaise conceded. "At least it's almost eight in the night. You don't have long to wait if you're planning on going to bed at ten."
"And that is what's keeping me awake at the moment." Harry said with a grin. "That and a mix of excitement, adrenaline and nerves."
"Dinner will be served shortly after we arrive home." Draco told him. "We'll have time to wash up a bit beforehand and to greet our guests, but you won't have long to wait before you go to bed."
"I hope it doesn't come across as too rude that I leave so soon after getting home. I didn't think of that when I came up with my plan. Will the Lestranges take it the wrong way?" He asked worriedly as he realised that he hadn't thought of everything after all and that he might actually offend their guests just after he'd arrived home by leaving them so soon to go to bed. It could give them the false impression that he didn't want to spend time with Rabastan and that wasn't true at all. In fact, he wanted just the opposite.
Draco chuckled. "It's our home and we've just had an eleven-hour train journey. They can't say anything about either of us going to bed early. Besides, you stayed awake for most of the night, you only had three hours of sleep and finished off every scrap of homework that you had been assigned in one day. Even the extra homework that you asked for, for Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, just so that you would have more time to spend with Rabastan once you got home. They really can't complain about you going to bed early, Harry."
Harry smiled and he breathed a little easier thanks to Draco reassuring him a little. He was just overthinking everything, he was sure. It was probably just a side effect of only having three hours of sleep. If there were any misunderstandings because he went up to bed early, then he would work to dispel them over the next two weeks where he wouldn't be leaving Rabastan alone for a single moment. He had just two weeks with his betrothed before he was back in school for three more long months before he would be back home for another two weeks for the Easter holidays and then it was the last two and a half months before the end of the year and he'd be home for ten long weeks. Ten long, glorious weeks that he could spend happily and entirely with Rabastan.
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