It was one of those days, those rare normal days at Hogwarts. Same old boring History classes, uneventful Potions classes with Snape (except for those usual explosions with Neville that never seem to cease), Fred and George keeping only to one prank on the Slytherin's Quidditch team (okay, that one's quite unusual) and chatting with Lee Jordan and their other housemates, and also Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall having a not-so-stressed mood (though not so light either). The weather was fair, a few clouds here and there tainting the clear, blue sky. The breezes were cool, and the sun wasn't burning on everyone's skins.
But the matter was different for one certain Malfoy and one certain Potter.
Harry was used to Draco's taunting, his glares, Crabbe and Goyle's follow-the-leader attitude, Hermione and Ron's attempts on comebacks... but since this morning, Malfoy was unusually silent. I'm probably just imagining it, he thought. But what kept him in doubt was the Slytherin's glares turning into softer stares, his sly smirks turning into more... err... silent smirks? Sure, Draco had still greeted him with his usual: "Hey Potter, I see you're with the Mudblood and Weasel again," but it sounded kind of... off, maybe? Harry didn't exactly know how to describe it.
"—arry? Are you alright?" Hermione's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Yeah mate, you seem to be in deep thought." Ron agreed from Harry's left side.
"Oh, um... I'm sorry." The black-haired Gryffindor replied distractedly. "It's just that..." Harry trailed off when he saw Malfoy and some others approaching the direction opposite the one he and his friends were taking. As the Slytherins neared, someone whispered, "Look, it's Potter with Granger and Weasley." All of them turned their eyes on the three and started snickering—except for Draco, king of the "The Potter Hate Club". Not there was an official one, but anyway, the blonde was looking him straight in the eye.
Harry started becoming uncomfortable under his gaze. He tried looking at the other students passing by without a care, focusing on the chatter in the perfect day's air—anything, just not Malfoy. But his sight caught the said Slytherin's eyes again—and, thinking things couldn't possibly get any weirder, Draco smiled.
Smiled.
Draco.
At him. Potter.
What?
Harry tore his eyes off him and started running for the Gryffindor common room. Some students turned their attention to the commotion but returned to their chit-chat not a minute longer. "Harry, wait up!" he heard his friends shout after him. But he made no decrease in his speed until he turned another corner. Harry stopped to catch his breath, and tried to calm himself down.
He waited.
And waited.
But his heartbeat wouldn't slow down.
Draco carefully turned his head towards the direction Potter and his companions ran. He made sure none of his housemates saw him do so with a worried face; letting his friends—or maybe "friends"—know what feeling started to grow in him for Harry was something he didn't intend to do. Ever.
See, he was even calling Potter, Harry. What explanation could he possibly give his Gryffindor-despising housemates?
"Draco." No response.
"Draco." Louder, but still, no response from Malfoy.
"DRACO!" His friends shouted all together at his face. "What, what?" The blonde said irritatingly, broken out of his reverie. When he turned his head to look at them, he was met with raised eyebrows and sly smirks. "Daydreaming about Potter, now, are we?" Blaise chuckled, followed by the rest.
Draco's whole body turned as rigid as stone. His eyes were wide and he couldn't remember how to operate his mouth to protest. Not like he could say anything against them, anyway.
"Oh dear, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin?" Pansy teased, surprisingly un-clingy and not wailing his name. "Isn't that sweet? Kind of like a Romeo and Juliet thing."
"Yeah, and Draco's the Juliet." The group burst again into laughs and snickers. By that time, the petrified Malfoy was still not responding in any way. Not a clench of fist, nor a twitch of an eye. "Oh no," Blaise said, quite mockingly, "His Highness is petrified. Let's carry him upstairs at once." They positioned themselves all around Draco. "At the count of three. One... two... three!" And then they trod for the Slytherin common room.
"Afterwards, let's take advantage of his state and tie him into a chair. Let's make him spill all about Potter." Pansy suggested. There was a roaring laughter of affirmation.
The trio walked silently, stair after stair. Nobody had said a single word since Harry ran from Draco and his other Slytherin acquaintances. All Ron could do was send Hermione questioning looks from around Harry's back, only to be answered by an "I-don't-know" shrug.
"Password?" The Fat Lady trilled, breaking the quiet. Harry's head went up. "Pig Snout." They said together and entered the common room.
Before Harry can even move an inch more to escape to his bed, he was cornered by the two. "Okay mate, why are you acting weird?" Ron was the first to ask.
"Yeah, you know those Slytherins are up to no good, as usual. How come you acted differently a while ago?" Hermione's forehead was scrunched up in concern for their raven-haired friend. Harry was debating with himself, whether he should tell them or not. He sighed. "No, no. It's not that. It's..." He trailed off, directing his eyes somewhere else. Ron grabbed his shoulders and violently shook him. "WHAT?! TELL US HARRY!"
"Ro-own. St-ah-stop. C-can't. BREATHE!" Harry was struggling to put up a coherent warning to his friend that he was going to shake the life out of him any minute now.
"Ron, STOP! You're suffocating him, for crying out loud!" Hermione exclaimed at Ron.
"Oh." He released his tight grip on the boy's shoulders and awkwardly patted Harry's hair in place. "Sorry about that mate."
Harry shook his head and started to walk away. "Never mind, it's nothing. It's just, you know... Malfoy." Before Ron was about to burst again, Hermione stopped him just in time. "What about Malfoy, Harry?" She said more calmly than the Weasley ever could.
"Mione, I'm kind of really worn out today, so do you mind talking about this another time?" He half slurred, half-moaned his words. Hermione nodded in understanding. "Okay then. Sleep well."
As Harry dragged himself up the stairs and closed the door to the boys' dormitory behind him, Ron immediately turned to Hermione. "Hermie, what do you think abou—"
"Hermie?" She questioned him, one eyebrow up.
"What? He called you Mione, what's wrong with me calling you Hermie?"
A loud thwack! resounded in the empty room. "OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" Ron wailed. Hermione looked him straight in the eye. "Don't. Call. Me. Hermie." Ron started rubbing the side of his head where she hit him with a rolled up Daily Prophet (Merlin knows where she got it from). She groaned. "It sounds like a name for a pet crab."
Ron's face had this stupid (no other way to describe it, really) look on his face. "What's a crab? Are you talking about the Slytherin's Crabbe?"
thwack!
Harry was lying in bed, rolling from side to side, squeezing his eyes shut. With a groan he sat up, brought his knees up to him and placed his chin in between them. The room was dark, and there wasn't anyone occupying the beds except for him (weird). He couldn't get himself to rest, no matter how hard he tried.
Feeling frustrated, he drew the curtains of his bed and sat by the end, facing the windows where the moonlight entered. All the while, Draco's smiling face popped up in his thoughts. Draco? Harry thought in disbelief, I'm calling him Draco now? But he couldn't help think back to the past few minutes' meeting with the Slytherins in the hallway. How the white-blonde boy's strikingly gray eyes bore right into his own dull pair, that gentle smile...
After a little confusion and thinking, he sighed. Maybe Malfoy can be more than an enemy after all..?
Harry couldn't help smiling now, either.
Back at the Slytherin common room, Draco Malfoy had his arms pinned down to his sides, torso tied to a chair. Not to mention, trying to flail his arms and thrashing about—very un-Malfoy like. "I demand you to release me at once!"
"Quit your whining Draco." Pansy said nonchalantly, rolling her eyes. Then, her mood changed all of a sudden to excitement, bouncing up and down like a 5-year-old. "So tell us Drakey. What's up with Potter? Oh, pardon me, do you call him Harry now?"
Nobody expected the almighty Malfoy to blush, going all speechless. The angry, denying face he had on made it even unbearably adorable. "I... don't... ugh."
Everyone perked up from the previous air of suspense and cheered, laughed, shouted.
"WE knew IT!"
"Ah, this is just sweet!"
"Malfoy and Potter, sitting on a tree..."
"Drarry, Drarry, Drarry!"
Draco couldn't hold it all in now: anger, embarrassment, irritation, embarrassment, confusion... "Wait," he asked them silently, face still flushed. Everyone shushed down. "You guys aren't even mad?"
"Why of course we are... but not really. I don't know, neutral? It's entertaining, actually." Blaise answered and everyone in the common room who witnessed the "Reveal of Homo-Draco's Crush" nodded with their teeth flashing grins towards the stunned Malfoy. "Besides, not all Gryffindors are that bad..." Another round of hoots and whistles came, chants of "Weasley, Weasley, Weasley!" going all around. But Zabini wasn't the least embarrassed. Or probably just a little. He was grinning and rubbing his neck sheepishly.
"A Weasley?" A partially recovered Draco turned his head to the right. "Pansy, is he referring to the She-Weasel?" The girl chuckled while shaking her head. "As a matter of fact, he's not. It's your little Harrykin's friend." Draco's eyes widened both at the Harrykins bit and knowing that Blaise was not really straight. "How come everyone seems to know about it while I don't?" His voiced sounded kind of whiny. Pansy replied with a shrug.
Loosening up, the blonde Malfoy started laughing too. A few seconds later, Draco noticed that the room sounded quieter. When he opened his eyes, he found several eyes looking at him. Again. "What now? It's not the first time you heard me laugh, right?"
Pansy rolled her eyes again. "No silly. It's not that."
"Then what?" Draco asked suspiciously.
Suddenly, devilish smirks appeared on everyone's features.
"We're going to brew up a plan to get you and Potter together~"
"How about this?"
"No, no. Mine's much better."
"What? There's no doubt my plan is better than all yours put together."
"Shut up. Mine is obviously the best option here, people."
An hour had already passed since they started gathering around the common room, huddled in a circle, to plan the ultimate "Mission: Drarry Romance Activation". And so far, there has been absolutely no progress whatsoever. Only bickering, boasts, teasing—chaos, to sum it all up.
"OKAY, OKAY. QUIET DOWN NOW!" Pansy's voice rose above the others, successfully shutting them up. "Okay, I've got it: let's make Draco compose a sappy poem, complete with roses, chocolates—" Everyone cut her off with a chorus of groans. "Pansy, sappy works 10% of the time. And I personally don't think sappy can woo a Gryffindor much like Harry Potter." Blaise said, earning a couple of nods from the Slytherins. "But your idea actually made me hatch one. What about a song?" Another round of vibrations and murmurs from the crowd erupted.
"But what song exactly?" Someone shouted from the back.
"That's going to be a problem..." Draco muttered, soothing his arms after being released from his binds.
A girl with long hair raised her hand, catching everyone's attention. "Well actually, there was this one time that my—" she scrunched her nose "—muggle relatives brought some sort of device they called an iPod. It stores music and weird pictures that don't move—but there were those that did, they were called Videos—and you can hear your choice of song with these little earphone thingys."
"Yes, yes. And then?" Pansy urged her on, quite irritated.
"Well, I kind of copied the songs in it with some sort of spell—check it out." She pulled out her wand and raised it in front of her. With a simple swish, the tip glowed and after a pause, there played an unfamiliar song. "I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me I'll never tell..."
"HEY I JUST MET YOU, AND THIS IS CRAZY! BUT HERE'S MY NUMBER, SO CALL ME MAYBE!"
A few minutes after, everyone was already singing along at the top their lungs. "AND ALL THE OTHER BOYS, TRY TO CHASE ME! BUT HERE'S MY NUMBER, SO CALL ME MAYBE!" The song ended for the third time, and everybody was laughing.
"That song is just pure awesomeness!" A boy with hair that now messily stuck out from the back shouted. "Yeah!" Everyone replied. Even Draco was part of the singing and laughing charade.
"Oi, people—" Pansy laughed a little bit more, "Okay, okay... serious now. We just have to know now what Draco's going to sing to serenade Harrykins~"
"Well," Blaise started, "we have to ask Draco first what he wants to say to Potter." All eyes gazed intently on the said Slytherin at once.
Draco looked back at them with an incredulous look. "You guys are serious with this?!" They responded with comically wide eyes and nodding simultaneously. He stared at them for a few more seconds. Then he sighed, running a hand down his face. He closed his eyes for a while and then looked up at the ceiling, muttering to himself. "My father will hear about this. And then they'll disown me for sure. Not only that, my father will literally kick my arse out of the house."
He turned his attention back to them and grimaced. There's a reason why Slytherins don't make puppy faces, Draco thought as he looked back at the expectant faces before him. "Okay, okay. Fine, you prats."
Everyone cheered. Draco's irritation suddenly faded as he looked away and returned to his quiet tone, a pinkish tint on his cheeks. "Well, I want to tell him how I feel—of course. But I don't exactly know how to describe it..." His face became thoughtful for a moment. "Honestly, I-I-I... It's um... It's a bit funny, you know, this feeling inside—"
"Wait!" The girl from before interrupted. "Wait, I think I have a perfect song. Just give me a moment." The girl started muttering to herself. "It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside~ What's the title again? Hmm... oh, wait. Aha!" She gave her wand one... two... three... four more swishes and held it out for everyone to hear. "It's titled Your Song."
A second later, there was a piano interlude that started the song off. Then, a man's voice. "It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside. I'm not one of those who can easily hide..."
After a good four minutes, everyone, including Draco, was clapping. "It's perfect. Thanks." Draco said while grinning. "Though I'll have to learn it still... and maybe put a few adjustments to the lyrics."
"Okay then!" Pansy and Blaise cheered. "Operation: Drarry Romance Activation is on the go!"
"I'm serious Hermione. Something weird is going on with the Slytherins. Especially that blasted Malfoy." Ron and Hermione were walking down the corridor on their way to the common room the next day. Ron was rendering his suspicions to their curly-haired bestfriend whose ear was throbbing from all of the Weasley's complaints. "And about Malfoy, Harry's right—I have been noticing something strange... but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Yeah," Hermione replied, now interested. "I think he is acting kind of different... at least towards Harry."
"GUYS! WAIT UP!" Harry called to them from behind as he ran towards the two. "S-sorry. S-S-Snape made me stay for..." He paused to catch his breath. "For my test results."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course... I've always insisted on extended tutoring sessions with you, but you wouldn't agree." She pouted. Harry waved it away. They continued walking until they saw the oh-so-familiar face of Draco Malfoy. Hermione and Ron narrowed their eyes instinctively, but Harry was just staring at Malfoy who halted to a stop in front of them.
"Back off Malfoy." Ron sneered. "Where are your bodyguards, huh?" Draco, though, wasn't paying attention to him. "Hey Harry." He said coolly.
The Gryffindor trio immediately froze. Their eyes that narrowed into slits just a while ago turned wide, with their mouths gaping open and their eyebrows arching towards the ceiling. After a minute or two, Hermione gained enough feeling back in her senses to say: "Did you just call him... Harry?"
Draco turned to her. "Why yes, Granger. I just did." Just when Hermione started thinking that things couldn't possibly get any weirder (much like the still frozen Harry), said Slytherin smiled at him. Hermione went back to her Petrificus Totalus impression. Ron, on the other hand, was already on to Draco. "What are you up to Malfoy?" he said through clenched teeth. Draco smirked, "Oh, nothing that concerns you much, Weasley. In fact, I only require Potter here." He then pulled out his wand.
Ron, thinking that he was going to cast a spell on helpless Harry who hasn't gathered himself yet, pulled out his own. But Draco just raised his hands up in the air, as if to assure that he didn't mean harm. "Whoa there Weasley. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt your precious Potter. Or at least my precious Potter, actually."
Cut!
I guess I'll leave this to the imagination. Or write a Chapter 2. I don't know. But I would like to write a continuation! So, if you're interested with Mission: DRA, please do follow the story. I can't guarantee that you'll be notified with anything, but you know, just in case.
In addition, I'm sorry for any confusion at the Call Me Maybe bit; this was written in a time when that song was very popular (yes, it was hidden in the dark nooks and crannies of my folders). Also, the song that Draco will be serenading with is entitled "Your Song" by Elton John. I know, it's a bit old-ish, but I'm rather fond of the song. It's a really nice song with lovely lyrics, so go check it out!
Thank you for reading!
