Hairline crack repair in iPad Pro 11

Hello

I should have done this last year but due to the pandemic things were too stressful for me with work and moving houses. I had my iPad for about 1 month purchased mid last year, I had bought all the covers and had been so careful with it as it was treated as my main computer and then noticed one day there was a hairline crack running from my volume buttons to other side of iPad. I was pretty devastated and got a quote from a local business to repair it and they said it would cost another $500 to repair the screen. I was devastated and couldn’t afford this so have just left it. I would like to repair it and it hasn’t done any more damage to the screen, I still draw and work on procreate app. I was wondering if anyone else had this problem as it hadn’t been dropped or had impact with anything? I didn’t purchase apple care at the time which was silly. Would Apple fix this crack for the same price if I took it into store? I read on another thread it could be manufacturing defect ?