After All TBGC

Updated:  July 11, 2005

Summer 2/Part D:

Draco stared down at his plate while he slowly chewed the jam-covered biscuit in his mouth and tried to ignore the crumbs falling onto Harry’s lap.  There were only three more days until he could go home and then he would only have the most minimal of time to pack his things and prepare for his first term at Hogwarts.

It was all very exciting and if he weren’t a Malfoy, raised with dignity and poise, he would have been jumping up and down.  Of course, some of the joy was brought down by the reminder that Harry would also be attending and that now Draco would have to put up with him for more than just two weeks, but at least he wouldn’t be alone and, if the gods shined down on him, they would not be in the same house.

Snape had joined them that morning, which had become a rare occurrence in the past week and, as was usual when he did, he kept glancing at Harry with both disdain and anxiety.  It was enough to make Draco put down his biscuit and pull his hair out.  Well, almost.  He was very fond of his hair, after all.

They were so unused to seeing Professor Snape at the table that they both nearly jumped out of their respective chairs when he spoke that morning.  “Draco, your father will be coming to take you to Diagon Alley to get your school supplies this afternoon.  Harry, you will be going with Hagrid.  He’ll be ‘round to collect you.”

Harry made a silent ‘oh’ with his mouth, but said nothing.  As if it were perfectly normal for the two of them to be going to the same place on the same day with different people.  Not that he was complaining, but…

“Severus, why isn’t Potter going with me and father?”

Harry shot him a scathing look and bit harder than necessary into a piece of bacon.  Snape scowled at the pieces of meat that fell on the white table clothe before turning to Draco.  “I suppose that now is as good a time as any.  No one is to know that you and Potter and have been spending time together over the summers.”

Harry mumbled something that distinctly sounded like “as if I’d want them to,” but then went very quiet when Snape glared at him.  Of course, Draco was thinking the same thing, he hardly wanted to be publicly associated with a half blood welfare case, but he couldn’t imagine why Harry wouldn’t want to be associated with him.

Snape finished intimidating Harry and went back to explaining the situation.  “Your father and Dumbledore feel that it would be in both your best interests if it were kept quiet.  You are not to speak of it to your friends and you are to pretend not to know each other when you meet in September.”  He turned to Harry.   “Do I make myself clear?”

Draco politely, said “yes, sir,” despite that fact that the question was most obviously pointed at the other boy, who nodded meekly and put down his half eat toast as if it had suddenly gone soggy.  Shortly after, Snape seemed to suffer from the same problem and dismissed them, saying that they may do as they like, but that they were to be back in no more than two hours.

The prospect of going to Diagon Alley with his father was enough to make even spending time with Harry seem interesting.  He’d only been there with his mother and she always dragged him into the most boring shops looking for clothes or shopping for decorations for the manor.  This time he would be with his father and if he behaved himself may even be permitted to go into Knockturn Alley.

Harry seemed more preoccupied with a crack in the wall than listening to what Draco had to say about Diagon Alley and all the interesting shops there were, but then Harry was peculiar on the best of days.  They were back in their room long before it was time to go, but Draco wanted to change into his best robes and wash up before his father got there.

“What house do you think you’ll be in?”

Harry blinked and looked up from his book, startled.  “I don’t know, really.  I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.”

Draco stopped combing his hair.  “Haven’t thought about it?”  When Harry shrugged, he went back to his hair, mystified that someone could be so entirely casual about his future.  “Well, I’ll be in Slytherin.”

Harry rolled his eyes, not bothering to look up this time.  “You can’t know that.”

“I can, too.  My family has been in Slytherin since Hogwarts was first built, with the exception of very few and very ostracized ancestors.  I will be in Slytherin.”

“Then I suppose I know where I won’t be.”

Draco narrowed his eyes suspiciously.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

“That I’m as different from you as anyone could possible get and besides,” he turned the page and looked up, purposefully making eye contact, “if it does put me in Slytherin, I’ll throw myself off the Astronomy Tower.”

Before Draco could properly express his outrage, Snape interrupted them by opening the door.  He looked between the two, Harry sitting on the bed with a book propped on his knees and a very satisfied expression on his face and Draco, sitting on the chair at the desk, a comb in his hand and staring at Potter as if he had grown three very offensive heads.

He couldn’t possibly imagine two boys more ill-suited to be friends.  Perhaps if they had managed to get along for more than five minutes at a time, but as it stood… “Draco, your father is waiting by the carriage at the entrance.”

There was a distinct sigh of relief from the Potter brat when Draco put down the comb and left without saying a word.  “You are to go to Hagrid’s hut and take no detours.  He’d expecting you in five minutes.”

Potter gave the customary “Yes, sir” that had become his only means of communicating with the Potion’s Master over the past week and slid into his shoes, rushing out the door with only the tinge of pink in his cheeks to betray his excitement.

There was something to be said for how little it took to excite Potter and how well he hid it.   The boy could spend hours looking at pictures or playing a one sided game and he seemed perfectly satisfied with it.  Of course, one would expect nothing less from a small-minded Potter, but at least it had meant that Snape didn’t have to do any entertaining.   He abhorred entertaining.

He glanced around the room again and noticed the book sitting on the bedside table, face down and open to the page Harry had stopped on.  He lifted it up, looking at the cover - ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.’ So, it was muggle, fictional literature.  What was Minerva thinking, filling the boy’s head with this nonsense?

He set the book down, closing it and leaving it on the nightstand, then browsed through the other titles shoved into two stacks on the boy’s desk.  The savior of the wizarding world was an eleven-year-old that read muggle literature and they were encouraging it.  Merlin help them all.

____________________

Draco was incredibly bored.  He’d thought going out with his father would be exciting and fun, but it turned out that it was no better than going out with his mother.  In fact, it was worse.  At least his mother tried to engage him in the decisions; his father seemed perfectly content to have Draco stand next to him and keep his mouth shut the entire time.  After nearly four hours, he was more than perfectly happy to go back to Hogwarts with an assortment of his new possessions and spend the next two days flicking his wand about.

Harry, however, had apparently had a wonderful time.  Enough so, that when he returned that evening, nearly an hour later than Draco, he was flushed, grinning, and not even Snape’s scowl could dampen his spirits.  He actually ate what they ate and with a modicum of decorum, he didn’t complain about having to play games with Draco, and he didn’t so much as scowl when Snape told them to go to bed.

As soon as they were alone, Draco couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer.  “Why are you so… chipper?”

Harry looked up from where he was lying on the bed, looking at his wand.  “Hm?”

“Ever since you got back this evening, you’ve been in a good mood.  Why?”

Harry shrugged and turned onto his stomach, still looking at the stick of wood in awe.  “I’m a wizard.”

Of all the explanations Harry could have given, that was hardly one that Draco had expected.  “You live in bloody Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Potter, of course you’re a wizard.”

Harry just smiled and crossed his ankles in the air.  “It’s different, is all; I have a wand and school books and an owl and she’s all white and lovely and it’s…” but he trailed off and didn’t finish and Draco was too put off by his cheeriness to ask him to continue.

Sliding his wand under the pillow, Harry took his book off the nightstand and frowned at it for a moment before flipping through it to find his page.  Stupid Potter.  Why did he have to be so cheerful and for no good reason?  It was absurd.

Draco pulled one of his texts out of the bag and sat at the desk, opening it to the first page and beginning to read.  It wasn’t very interesting, but he hadn’t thought it would be.  Whatever Potter had been reading, however, must have been more boring than History of Magic, because when Draco finally closed the book and looked up, the other boy was sound asleep.

Setting his book aside, the blond boy stared intently at Harry.  The clock said it was ‘well past bed time’ and he hadn’t been able to hear anything in from beyond their door for nearly an hour.  Slowly, he got up from the desk and went into the living room.   Snape’s door was closed and the lights were off.  He must have gone to bed.  Well, that settled it.  He wasn’t at all tired and there was nothing for him to do and no one for him to talk to.

Sitting on the sofa, he looked around the dark room.  It was eerie in here at night.  He scanned Snape’s desk and saw that his chair was pushed away from it, as if he’d left in a huff.   Perhaps something had frustrated him.  It was too dark to even see the titles of the books on the shelves, but there was one book, open on the mantle.

Looking at Snape’s door again, just to ensure that he hadn’t woken up, Draco went to the fireplace and picked it up, walking close enough to his and Harry’s room so that he could just read the pages.  For some odd reason, Snape was reading about potions that were used to control portions of the brain responsible for outbursts of emotion.  He hadn’t even know there were parts of the brain designated for that purpose.

He was setting the book back where he had found it, carefully making sure that it was in the exact same position, when something caught his eye.  It was the gargoyle that Snape had used to open his storeroom and its eyes were flashing in the half-light of the open door to Draco’s right.  Reaching out, he touched it lightly then experimentally wrapped his fingers around its head and twisted it.

To be honest, he hadn’t expected it to work.  His father had always put passwords on everything at the manor.  It was impossible to so much as go to the loo if you didn’t know what to say to the door.  Snape, it turned out, did not have the same suspicious nature.  Either that, or he’d become very comfortable living alone over the years and did not expect his summer guests to be sneaking into his private potions store.

As the bottom of the case grated against the stone, Draco cringed and considered running to hide in the bedroom, but Snape would know it was one of them and Harry was probably drooling all over his pillow by now.  Standing next to the now open bookcase, he waited to be told off for being out of bed after hours and for touching things he knew he shouldn’t be touching.

Five minute later, he was beginning to think Snape had slept through it.  Another few minutes and it wasn’t so much a thought as it was a theory and he crept up to Snape’s door, listening intently for the sounds of movement.  There was nothing, not even breathing.

Getting up what little courage he possessed, he cracked open the door and peaked inside.   It was empty.  He choked back a surprised noise and opened it wider, slipping inside to get a better look.  Snape wasn’t there and his bed hadn’t even been slept it.  Backing out, he closed the door quietly and shifted his eyes between the open storeroom and the open door to the bedroom.

Well, if Harry hadn’t woken up and Snape wasn’t there, he didn’t imagine a little peak would hurt anything.  He pushed the shelf back further, letting more light in and the stepped inside.  He’d never seen a room so thoroughly crammed full with jars of ingredients.  He’d never even imagined there were so many ingredients to cram into one room.

He ran his finger over one of the labels and pulled out his wand.  It took several tries, but eventually, he managed a weak ‘lumos.’   It was somewhat disappointing, as his father’s would have lit up the entire room with blinding light, but he had the rest of the summer to practice.

Hm… dried nettles, mandrake, puffer-fish eyes; all were fairly common, so Draco turned around and began to scan the other wall.  Jobberknoll feather, unicorn’s blood, dragon’s whiskers… he stopped.  A Dragon’s whisker had been one of the ingredients in Ignisefflo.

Taking down the jar, Draco opened it and looked inside.  Not very many there, perhaps twelve or so.  He tried to recall the other ingredients needed, ginger root sprang to mind and stewed horned slugs.  In fact, if he remembered correctly, the only thing he’d need that he didn’t have on hand at home was dragon’s whiskers.

Well, there were twelve and it wasn’t likely that one would be missed anytime soon, if at all.   Opening the jar, he pulled one out and screwed the lid back on.  After making sure that everything looks as it had earlier, he left the dark little room and turned the gargoyle’s head, watching the door slid noiselessly into place before heading to bed.

____________________

Despite Harry’s persistently good mood, his nightmares were worse that evening.  After Draco had put the whisker into a pocket in his trunk and laid down, he’d been forced to listen to the other boy pant and twist in his sleep, occasionally throwing out an arm or kicking a leg.  It had been all Draco could do to fall asleep, let alone stay that way.

By the time morning came, neither boy looked particularly well rested.  Snape seemed to be watching them carefully as they ate their breakfast lethargically, both wearing identical dark circles under each eye.  Draco scowled down at his runny eggs.  Usually, he liked runny eggs; today they made him feel slightly nauseous.

After twenty minutes of sitting at the table in eerie silence, he was surprised when Snape spoke up.  “You both look rather peaked.”

Harry scrunched his eyebrows together, obviously confused by the terminology, but didn’t ask what it meant.  Draco shrugged,   “Potter’s nightmares have been keep me up, sir.”

“Nightmares, Potter?”

Harry flushed,  “They’re not that bad.”

“Says you.  I’m the one who has to listen to you talk in your sleep and get beaten because you can’t seem to sit still.”

The flush became slightly paler and Harry opened his mouth to defend himself, but was cut off by Snape.  “Why did you not tell me?”

Harry looked at his plate.  “I’m asleep at the time, Professor, I hadn’t realized they’d gotten that bad.”

“Clearly they have.  You’ll be taking a sleeping drought tonight, before you make yourself ill.  And you will both stay here and rest today.”  Draco was about to complain, when it occurred to him that he didn’t particularly feel like going out anyway.  He’d do just as well to sit back and play a game as run about the castle aimlessly.

When they’d finished, Harry asked that he be excused to take a nap and Draco couldn’t have thought of a better thing to do with his time.  However, seeing as he didn’t fancy being woken up again, he went to the couch instead and laid back, staring at the ceiling and listening to the rustle of pages as Snape flipped through another manual.

It seemed absolutely ridiculous, the amount of research the man did.  It was as if he had nothing better to do with his time.  Flipping onto his stomach, he propped himself up on his elbows, watching the Potion’s Master leer over the book.

“What are you doing?”

Snape’s mouth twitched.  “Research.”

“On what?”

He half turned, looking at him out of one eye.  “Lycanthropy.”

“Why?”

He turned fully around this time.  “I am attempting to develop a cure, or something similar.”

Draco remembered the lecture his father had given him the previous year when he’d tried to sneak out of the Manor on a full moon.  “Haven’t they already tried to find a cure?  I thought it wasn’t possible.”

“Lycanthropy is merely a curse, and every curse has its counter-curse.  It’s simply a matter of finding it.”

“Not every curse.  Father says that Avada Kedavra doesn’t have one.”

Snape’s face quickly became a blank mask.  “You should not speak about that curse with anyone, especially when connected with your father.”

It seemed an odd thing to say, but Draco shrugged it off.  “I can’t imagine why you’d want to look for a cure for them anyway.   They’re just animals.  Father says they’d be better off put down.”

“Indeed.”

Snape looked down at the text once more before getting up and heading towards the fireplace.  For a moment, Draco’s blood froze, but he forced himself not to react.  Whatever Snape was doing it couldn’t have to do with dragon’s whiskers and it wasn’t as if, with all those ingredients, that he went through them every single day.

The shelf opened and Draco bit his lip, looking down at the sofa purposefully.  He’d just managed to convince himself that he’d gotten away with it when he heard Snape yell, “Potter!”

Or perhaps not.

Draco sat up in time to see Snape slam open the bedroom door and march inside, returning shortly with a half asleep Harry, dragging him by his ear.  “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“What?”

Snape let go of the ear and grabbed Harry’s arms, shaking him roughly.  “Did. you. think.  I would not.  notice?”

Harry’s eyes flitted to the open shelf hesitantly.  “Notice what?”

Snape’s hands tightened, his fingers digging painfully into Harry’s arms, but Harry didn’t look as if he were about to complain about that.  “Dragon’s whiskers are both rare and dangerous when not used correctly.  I’ve no idea what your addled brain thinks you could possible do with one, but if you do not return it this instant, so help me you are going in there and not coming out until term starts!”

Harry paled,  “I don’t understand, I…”

“Allow me to make it perfectly clear.  Yesterday afternoon, there were fourteen dragon’s whiskers in my storeroom, this morning there are thirteen.  And don’t bother trying to imply I cannot count; there is a book that keeps record of every ingredient taken and in what quantity, and last night someone went into my storeroom and took a dragon’s whisker.  Is that clear enough for you?”

Harry winched as the fingers tightened again and he turned his head to Draco.   If Snape could have seen him, the flinch would have been unmistakable.  “Sir, I didn’t take it, Malfoy…”

His teeth jarred together as Snape yanked him towards the storeroom.  “Is not an idiot, Potter.  I assure you that, unlike yourself, Draco is not fool headed enough to steal something so volatile.  You, however, seem to have the survival instincts of a lemming.”  He shoved Harry into the storeroom and glared at him.  “You had better come to your sense and tell me where it is before I find it.”

Draco sat where he was, petrified, as the shelf closed and Snape went back to his desk, seething.   There was a small part of him that felt guilty for having gotten Harry in so much trouble, but he was far more concerned about getting that whisker out of his trunk before Snape began to look.

Taking a steadying breath, he turned to Snape, trying to look at least moderately concerned.  “Are you all right, sir?”

Snape looked up, obviously still enraged, but in control of himself at the very least.   “Yes, Draco, however I don’t believe I’m in the best mood for company at the moment.  Why don’t go and you see what you can find to do in your room?”

It should have been insulting, really, but Draco was too caught up in the idea that he’d be able to move the evidence without suspicion.  Nodding to Snape, Draco went into the bedroom and closed the door lightly before opening his trunk and taking out the whisker.  He looked around and his eyes settled on Harry’s desk drawer.  Not the most inventive of hiding places, but Snape didn’t seem apt to give Harry much credit for anything, let alone stealth.

Wrapping it in a white handkerchief he’d found, he placed it in the very back of the drawer and closed it, then went to the bed and laid down, taking the book Harry had been reading for the past few days and opening it to a random page.  Perhaps he’d make it up to him later by giving him some of the candy that his mother had sent him.

For a moment, he flashed on Harry’s accusing face when he’d looked at him in the living room and he nestling further into the pillows, trying to ignore the fact that he somehow didn’t think candy was going to make everything all right with Harry.  Not that he really even understood why he cared in the first place.

____________________

Twelve hours.  Draco hadn’t thought anyone had it in them to purposefully lock someone in a dark, confined closet for twelve hours, but apparently, he’d been wrong.  And he couldn’t imagine that Snape had forgotten this time, because every so often he’d go to the shelf and, without opening it, ask Harry where the whisker was.

At first, Harry had insisted that he hadn’t done it, but after four hours, he’d started naming off random places, like in his pillowcase, or the pocket of his school robe, or under the lamp on his table. Eventually, Harry had either run out of places or become bored with it, because he’d stopped talking all together and shortly after that Snape had given up asking and searched the room, finding it in the third place he’d looked.

Since then, Harry had refused to talk to Draco, even when Snape had expressly told him to and Draco had become more sure than ever that sweets weren’t going to cut it.  He thought that perhaps he should apologize, but his father had always told him that Malfoys don’t expressly apologize.  They were allowed to imply it with actions, but never to say it because Malfoys were never actually wrong.

Standing next to Harry outside the entrance while they waited for his father’s carriage to pull up, Draco still had yet to come up with something he could do that would imply he was sorry.  He also hadn’t come up with how he was going to explain to his father why Harry wasn’t speaking to him, because the closer the carriage drew, the more Draco was reminded of his father’s warning about making friends with Harry.

Harry looked at Draco from the corner of his eye and thought he saw worry etched on the pale face as his father stepped out.  Mr. Malfoy looked at Draco, putting a hand on his shoulder before turning his attention to Snape.  “Good afternoon, Severus.”

Oh, not this again.  What was the point of dragging him out here if all they were going to do was discuss how they were doing?

“I’m fine, Lucius, yourself?”

“Surprisingly well, all things considered.  Did the boy’s behave themselves this summer?”

Harry saw the hand tighten on Draco’s shoulder and frowned.  He’d done that at the beginning of the summer, as well, when he was telling them to have fun.  Harry looked from the overly tense smile of Mr. Malfoy’s lips, to Draco’s half cringing face and he suddenly thought he knew what was going on.  Draco was supposed to be getting on with him, not being an annoying prat, or purposefully getting him into trouble and if he wanted to get even with him he could, because Lucius Malfoy did not look to him like the sort of person who’d appreciate disobedience.

All he had to say was the truth; that he thought Draco was a prat.  Snape probably punish him for it, but there wasn’t much he could do, as Professor McGonagall was due back that afternoon.

Snape scowled down at Harry.  “As always, Lucius, your son was impeccable.  The same, however, cannot be said for Mr. Potter.”

Mr. Malfoy’s grip tightened again, just slightly, not even enough to be painful, but enough to let Harry know that he suspected.  It would only take one sentence and it wouldn’t even be a lie.

As Mr. Malfoy looked down at him, however, and he saw the growing dread on Draco’s face, he realized that he couldn’t do it.  It didn’t matter that it was the truth.  It didn’t matter that Draco had earned whatever it was he got; Harry just couldn’t do it.  Damnit it all to hell, Professor McGonagall was probably right, he would it end up in Gryffindor.

“Boys will be boys, Severus.  Did you enjoy your summer, Harry?”

“Of course, Mr. Malfoy.  It was nice to have company.”  He could have bitten his own tongue off if he weren’t so busy smiling as sincerely as he could manage.

Draco stared at him in absolute shock, while Mr. Malfoy looked surprised, but pleased.  “Well, then, perhaps next summer we can arrange for him to stay longer.  Come along, Draco.”

Oh, just brilliant.

Harry continued to force the smile until the carriage was halfway down the path.  Dropping it, he turned around and began to walk back into the castle.   Snape put a hand on his arm and he stopped, closing to eyes to keep from shouting that he didn’t want the man touching him.

“Admirable, Potter.  Foolish, but admirable.”

Before Harry could look back to ask what he meant, Snape had already walked past him and into the castle.  Had he known that Harry was lying?  He had to have, it wasn’t as if they kept their animosity a secret from him, but to say that it was admirable of Harry not to tell on Draco?  Whatever punishment the other boy would face for failing must have been a rather severe one to make Snape say that.

He looked at the retreating imagine of the black carriage and sighed.  It was going to be a long school year.

-tbc-

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